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KEY POINTS
This week, the U.S. EPA proposed amendments to the Clean Water Act that would leave a majority of the country's wetlands without federal protections.
Counties in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have the most to lose.
Without these crucial ecosystems, local threats including flooding, wildfire, and pollution would worsen.
On Monday, the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers proposed a set of new rules that would leave millions of acres of wetlands, small waterbodies, and ephemeral streams across the country unprotected — threatening the drinking water of millions of Americans and leaving crucial habitat and floodplains susceptible to filling.
These proposed changes were anticipated by many. Their groundwork was laid in 2022, when the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision that the Clean Water Act’s protections only applied to bodies of water that maintained a continuous surface connection to traditional, navigable waters — a rigid order that is incompatible with the naturally fluctuating connectivity of many crucial watersheds.
Under the Trump Administration’s push for a new era of energy dominance, it was only a matter of time before the Supreme Court’s precedent was adopted into federal code.
“When finalized, the rule will cut red tape and provide predictability, consistency, and clarity for American industry, energy producers, the technology sector, farmers, ranchers, developers, businesses, and landowners for permitting under the Clean Water Act,” a statement from the EPA reads.
In March, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) analyzed the potential impacts of this very scenario.
The non-profit estimated that between 38 million and 70 million acres of wetlands across the country — up to 90 percent of its total wetlands — would become exposed to filling, dredging, and pollution under federal actions similar to those proposed on Monday.
No states stand to potentially lose more than Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Even in the least damaging of the three regulatory scenarios NRDC modeled — categorized as “Damaging,” “More Damaging,” and “Most Damaging” — they were the only states to lose protections for more than 1 million acres of wetlands.
By one token, the vulnerability of wetlands in these three states is a simple function of existence — the more habitat they have, the more they stand to lose.
In Context: The Next Deluge May Go Differently
Compared to the rest of the Great Lakes basin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have retained the greatest share of their historic wetlands: roughly 50 percent each. By contrast, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana have each already lost between 85 percent and 90 percent of these ecosystems since pre-colonization.
Regionally, these risks are concentrated to three specific areas: shoreline along Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, woodland bogs in northern Minnesota, and the agricultural communities of the Wisconsin River watershed.
In each, the potential erosion of wetlands — often called “nature’s kidneys” for their ability to filter pollutants and absorb excess water — means the impacts of existing and looming climate changes are likely to worsen.
Wetter Winters In Delta County, Michigan
According to NRDC data, between 31 percent (Damaging) and 95 percent (Most Damaging) of Michigan’s 3.8 million acres of wetlands are vulnerable to lost protections.
The largest share of these at-risk wetlands, nearly 210,000 acres, is in Delta County, which hugs the northern shore of Lake Michigan in the state’s Upper Peninsula. One-fifth of the county’s properties are at risk of flooding over the next 30 years, a figure that will likely increase if floodplains — nature’s best buffer against extreme storm and river surges — are lost.
The area is home to parts of the Hiawatha National Forest and Escanaba River State Forest.
According to Delta County’s 2023 Hazard Mitigation Plan, the county’s 211 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline are most vulnerable to flooding as a result of fluctuating water levels, snowmelt, and seiches. By the latter half of the century, winter and spring rains are expected to intensify by at least 20 percent.
“The Escanaba and Gladstone municipal harbors are at lower elevations than nearby residential structures; future lakeshore flooding damage may also be localized in these areas,” the report reads.
Exacerbating the loss of protections is how much the area has to gain from dedicated conservation. Maps created by the Michigan Department of Environment, Energy, and Great Lakes forecast that much of Delta County’s shoreline, especially along the Bays De Noc, have the potential to reap the highest measurable benefits from wetland restoration.
Wildfire Risks In Koochiching and St. Louis Counties, Minnesota
No state in the Lower-48 has more regulatory wetlands than Minnesota, with nearly 11 million acres. Between 59 percent and 83 percent of these would be left unprotected by the Clean Water Act, according to NRDC data.
The largest swaths lay just west of Lake Superior’s shores, in Koochiching and St. Louis counties, where under the “Most Damaging” NRDC scenario more than 2 million acres of wetlands, primarily forest bogs, would be left exposed.
These vulnerabilities coincide with the region — home to several state forests, Superior National Forest, and Voyageurs National Park — experiencing more intense wildfire seasons. This May, the Brimson Complex wildfires burned more than 29,000 acres in and around St. Louis County as moderate drought conditions set in across the northern half of the state.
“We are trending toward hotter, drier weather, and that is going to change the fire situation,” Sarah Strommen, head of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, told the New York Times this summer. “It is hard to compare what has been historically the normal fire season pattern in the state of Minnesota and what we’re seeing now and going forward.”
For up to five years after wildfire, the risk of flooding is significantly higher. Vegetation loss, charred ground, and dry soils allow for rainwater to flow rapidly across the landscape — surges that wetlands, which naturally absorb excess water, do well to mitigate.
Warming temperatures also mean that the number of days in northeastern Minnesota with snow cover is expected to fall by between 14 and 19 days, resulting in a wildfire season that will begin earlier and stretch later.
By 2040, according to state data, at least one-third of the region’s population is expected to be 65 years-old or older, leaving communities especially vulnerable to the impacts of flooding, wildfire, and heat and precipitation changes.
Agricultural Pollution In Marathon County, Wisconsin
Home to the Wisconsin River watershed in the state’s interior, agricultural Marathon County faces acute threats to its groundwater quality — a challenge now doubly threatened by the county’s potential to lose protections for up to 167,365 acres of its wetlands, making it Wisconsin’s most vulnerable region.
Home to more than 2,000 farms, the county’s water quality is in dire straits. A draft of its 2026 Comprehensive Plan identifies nonpoint runoff pollution as one of its most pressing concerns, and its Farmland Preservation Plan plainly states that “the area’s biggest challenge is surface water quality issues.”
Multiple waterways across the county — spanning the Rib River, Big Eau Pleine River, and Little Eau Pleine River watersheds — remain listed as phosphorus-impaired by the state’s Department of Natural Resources. The county’s wells were also hotspots for nitrate contamination, as analyzed by an Alliance for the Great Lakes report published this September.
In Wausau, the county’s most populated city, PFAS contamination also remains an ongoing concern. Between 2019 and 2022, all water samples measured from the city’s six wells contained levels of forever chemicals that exceeded local health service standards.
In recent studies, constructed wetlands and fungi have shown promise as nature-based solutions to filtering PFAS from running waterways.
Across Wisconsin, between 43 percent and 90 percent of the state’s 3.7 million acres of wetlands are at risk of losing protections.