{"id":269916,"date":"2026-05-13T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269916\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:38:10","slug":"new-proposed-rule-puts-over-80-of-floridas-wetlands-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269916\/","title":{"rendered":"New proposed rule puts over 80% of Florida’s wetlands at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"wetlands
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFlorida wetlands. By Bilanol via iStock for WMNF News.<\/p>\n

Over the last few decades Florida has lost a considerable amount of wetlands.\u00a01000 Friends of Florida held a webinar to address the consequences of wetland loss across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of wetland acres were lost in Florida. Because of this, landscapes have been transformed, water systems have been altered and wildlife and their ecosystems are continually threatened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Julianne Thomas, the senior environmental planner for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, said wetlands are a crucial part of Florida\u2019s environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWetlands are foundational to human health, water quality, drinking water, resources, floodwater protection, fish and wildlife habitats, and resilience against the effects of climate change,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cWetlands are also known as the kidneys that can absorb nutrients and pollution and prevent them from reaching downstream waters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christina Reichert, a public interest environmental attorney, says the Trump administration has proposed a rule that would significantly narrow the scope of wetland protections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow they would like for the Clean Water Act to only cover wetlands that hold surface water for the duration of a wet season and that connect to a water body that is flowing continuously through the wet season,\u201d said Reichert. \u201cIn practice, what this means is that more than 80% of wetlands would lose their protections under the Clean Water Act, and that\u2019s according to the government\u2019s own analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on Florida\u2019s wetlands and the effort to conserve them, visit 1000fof.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida wetlands. By Bilanol via iStock for WMNF News. Over the last few decades Florida has lost a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[115856,891,28,30,29,4945,56779],"class_list":["post-269916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-clean-water-act","tag-conservation","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-trump-administration","tag-wetlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}