State ready to loosen wetlands regulations

Department of Environmental Protection officials are rewriting the state's wetland rules -- a move critics say could mean the destruction of even more fragile ecosystems than have already been lost over the last decade.

Public comment on the stack of technical regulations ends Monday and new rules could be in place as soon as the fall. The department, suffering from deep budget cuts, says the changes will allow staff members to stop spending their time on relatively minor cases and instead focus on landowners who are illegally filling in large chunks of wetlands.

''I honestly believe this will result in an increase in environmental protection," said Robert Golledge Jr., commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Environmental advocates, not surprisingly, disagree.

''My fear is there is a real rollback in state wetlands protection that will jeopardize public health, water quality, and wildlife habitat," said Heidi Ricci, senior policy specialist for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, who sat on the advisory committee for the new rules.

The proposed rules would do away with a wetland review for most projects 50 to 100 feet from a wetland, make it harder to appeal some wetland decisions, and allow homeowners to build home additions and pools in flood plains more easily. Wetlands act as natural pollution filters and flood valves, and 120 of the state's most threatened species depend on them for their livelihood.

Once, Massachusetts was considered best in the nation at protecting wetlands, measuring them in square feet instead of square acres. But poor record-keeping, lack of enforcement, and a heavy dependence on local volunteer conservation commissions over the last 10 years has resulted in the loss of at least 800 wetland acres -- much of it filled in illegally, according to recent aerial surveys by the state and Globe research.

To catch egregious violators, state DEP employees need more time to find and document them, Golledge said. First, however, employees need to be freed from the ever-increasing workload of small projects that cause far less, if any, harm to adjacent wetlands, he said.

Written comments on the new rules must be received by 5 p.m. on Monday at the Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Budgetary and Legislative Affairs, Second Floor, 1 Winter St., Boston, 02108.