U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service order aims to provide North Dakota landowners with clarity on wetland easements

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday issued guidance encouraging its personnel and landowners to work together to protect wetland easements from drainage without restricting landowner activities on the remainder of their properties. Last fall, Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer, both R-N.D., hosted Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in North Dakota to highlight the need for due process and regulatory relief for farmers and ranchers affected by FWS wetland easement regulations. The Department of Interior, which oversees the FWS, recently announced an effort to modernize mapping of older wetland easements on refuge lands. There are over 28,000 wetland easements in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Montana protecting over 1.5 million acres of important wetland areas, the Service said. Widely known as “North America’s duck factory,” the Prairie Pothole Region provides crucial breeding habitat for waterfowl and produces roughly half of the North American continental waterfowl production. Monday’s announcement finalizes an administrative process providing landowners with the opportunity to appeal questions about easement compliance and help avoid unnecessary legal action. Landowners who have wetland easements with the FWS often seek clarity and certainty before investing in expensive drain-tile systems. To help landowners understand where they can place drain tile without violating the terms of their easement, the FWS said it will use the best available science and won’t pursue legal action when landowners adhere to agency-provided setback recommendations. “Defending private property owners from an intrusive federal government is one of my highest priorities,” Cramer said in a statement. “North Dakota landowners deserve the right to appeal assertions of wrongdoing and be provided safe harbor while the administrative process proceeds. This new order also allows landowners to seek outside scientific expertise without fearing legal retribution.”...MORE

A previous article says:

According to the FWS, easement deeds that pre-date 1976 did not contain maps or sufficiently detailed descriptions to ensure accurate demarcation of wetland easement boundaries. “This lack of clarity led to confusion for landowners and hampered the Service’s ability to resolve easement boundary disputes in a commonsense way,” according to the FWS. “The Service is modernizing the way it demarcates wetland easements that were established before 1976 to clear up this confusion.”

The "confusion" had been going on for 44 years and they just now decided clear it up?
The land owners had no right to appeal decisions?
Landowners who sought outside scientific expertise suffered "legal retribution"?
Can't help but wonder what the new guidance would look like if Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders were President?