Bill to remove protections for Tennessee wetlands stalls out

The Tennessee General Assembly has effectively quashed a bill that would have removed statewide protections for wetlands. 

Lawmakers had been considering legislation that would have put more than half of Tennessee’s fragile habitats at risk from development. Last week, the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee deferred the bill to summer study. 

More: Wetlands have some protections in Tennessee. The state legislature might remove them.

Developers were behind the bill, which experts say would have harmed the public.

Wetlands cover just 3 percent of Tennessee land and house a highly concentrated amount of plants and animals. These marshes, swamps and bogs are considered extra valuable for their role in biodiversity, reducing water pollution and weakening flooding. 

Tennessee has already lost an estimated 60% of its historically-known wetlands, mostly due to cleared land for agriculture, but state laws have protected some of these habitats for the past five decades from development.

Tennessee passed the Water Quality Control Act in 1971, a year before the federal government enacted the Clean Water Act. The U.S. Supreme Court knocked down some wetland protections last year in a decision backed by the agriculture, home builder and mining industries.