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The 1985 “Swampbuster” law — which has protected millions of acres of U.S. wetlands from being cleared and plowed — is being challenged in court.

The Yazoo Pumps project purports to reduce flooding while protecting farmers and minimizing environmental harm. But concerns over wetland degradation have stymied past, smaller versions of the project.

Communities across the state are testing the economic value of grant programs to build new wetlands that reduce flooding risk. In the upper Midwest, researchers found that wetlands save nearly $23 billion a year that would otherwise be spent combating floods.

While the science is clear – wetlands have lots of benefits and we know how to build more of them – the future is not. The growing Wax Lake Delta provided data for the now-stalled Mid-Barataria sediment diversion, which is designed to rebuild wetlands in nine parishes along the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

In the wake of federal rollbacks, states are now choosing whether to further degrade or expand wetlands protections. Some conservationists fear that a loss of protections will increase the price of mitigation credits while decreasing the demand.

Arkansas has no state laws specifically for wetland protection, leading conservationists to depend on funds raised by duck stamps. But waterfowl populations are under increasing threats leading to fewer ducks, and ultimately fewer hunters, and fewer dollars to protect the ducks and the wetlands they call home.

Nearly all of the wetlands in Minnesota’s prairie region have been destroyed. Many of the few that remain – an estimated 5% of the total before settlement – were saved by duck hunters.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 Sackett ruling, the Biden Administration estimated that up to 63% of the nation’s remaining wetland acres could lose federal protections.