Stop drainage pipes from draining protected wetlands
National Wildlife Refuge System; Request for Information on Implementation of Drain Tile Setbacks
Fish and Wildlife Service· National Wildlife Refuge SystemFederal Register 2026-14995 ↗
This rule determines how close farms can pipe water away from federally protected wetlands, threatening their survival.
What’s at risk
Wetlands on private land protected by federal easements could be drained and destroyed if setback distances are weakened. Agricultural drain tile placed too close pulls water out of wetland soils, collapsing the habitat.
If this goes through
If setbacks are loosened, protected wetlands could be permanently drained by adjacent farm infrastructure, ending their function as wildlife habitat and clean water filters.
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
3 holes in the agency’s own analysis
What the public could have raised, from the agency’s own document
- I oppose this action as proposed, and I ask the agency to weigh the specific harms below.
- The Fish and Wildlife Service should strengthen its setback calculation process to prevent drain tile from being placed so close to federally owned wetland easements that it disrupts wetland hydrology and destroys the function of protected areas.
- I urge the Service to establish clear, protective rules for how close agricultural drainage infrastructure can be placed near wetland easements, because the current process leaves these federally protected wetlands vulnerable to drainage impacts.
- The Service must ensure that any setback distances it calculates for drain tile placement near its wetland easements are sufficient to preserve the ecological integrity of those protected wetland areas.
- Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.
In the agency’s own words
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) requests information regarding the Service's process for calculating setbacks for the placement of drain tile by landowners on property where the Service owns wetland easements.
The reporting behind this
From More Than Just ParksIt’s referred to as Unit 346 in the Twin Mountain II Timber Sale. On the ground, it’s some of the most spectacular old growth we’ve ever witnessed, and it’s marked for clearcutting.
To document and do our part to save America’s greatest old growth forest
More actions that need you
Go deeper, free
See how your members of Congress vote on public lands
Every representative, graded on the votes that decide the fate of parks, forests, and refuges.
Open ↗The mapSee the places under active threat
A live map of the parks, monuments, and wild country in the crosshairs right now.
Open ↗A wrong fact, a dead link, a form that wouldn’t take your letter: one tap and it comes to the people who build PLAN, with this fight attached.
Know an open comment period we are missing, or spotted a wrong deadline? .