City of Homer Should Fill in the Gaps in Wetlands/Watershed Protection
By Hal Shepherd
As the Homer Planning Commission and City Council continue to shape regulations on housing, development, wetlands, and watersheds that affect public health, safety, and welfare, as well as fish and wildlife habitat, the conversation needs to focus on strengthening wetlands and watercourse jurisdiction. Wetlands and watersheds are essential to ecosystems and communities because they provide habitat for fish and wildlife, regulate and modulate surface water flows by retaining excess runoff, protect against erosion, purify water, and act as carbon sinks.
One issue with wetlands and watercourse protection in Homer is that proposed wetland development and fill requests are currently analyzed and permitted exclusively by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps’ ability, however, to protect these waters from development is expected to be severely limited by the Trump Administration’s proposal to weaken the Waters of the United States rule, which would essentially gut the application of the Clean Water Act (CWA).
The Proposed Rule would limit jurisdictional waters determinations to a two-part definition: First, that the adjacent water body is a water of the United States, i.e., one that abuts a traditional navigable water through a relatively permanent, standing, or continuous flowing waterbody, and second, that any wetland in question has a continuous surface connection with that water at least during the wet season, making it difficult to determine where the ‘water’ ends and the ‘wetland’ begins.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps):
Regulatory Impact Analysis indicates that, under the proposed WOTUS [Waters of the United States] definition, only 19% of wetlands mapped in the National Wetlands Inventory would fall within Clean Water Act jurisdiction …Waters that will no longer be considered jurisdictional (under the new WOTUS definition) include many types of wetlands (e.g., geographically isolated, permafrost-dominated, and mosaic wetlands) and streams (those with intermittent or ephemeral flows).[1]
According to a Report commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity, this “clearly puts the species that depend on streams and wetlands at risk and would fall short of the goal of the Clean Water Act - to maintain and restore the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.”[2]
The good news is that Alaska’s Home Rule framework allows the State’s local governments to adopt their own wetlands and watershed-related regulations (e.g., setbacks, land-use zoning, habitat buffers, conservation programs) that can be stricter than federal/state requirements, such as the CWA.
Homer’s Zoning Code, however, is largely devoid of regulations for development setbacks or areas where building is prohibited on or around wetlands or watercourses. Unlike Homer’s Code, other municipalities have a regulatory structure designed to protect wetlands, rivers, and streams. The goals of the Anchorage Wetlands Management Plan (AWMP) for example, are to: 1) Identify and provide protection for wetlands that support essential ecological and hydrological functions; 2) Ensure that development in wetlands minimizes water quality degradation and maintains wetland hydrologic functions; 3) Provides a balance between protection of higher value sites and the development of lower value areas; 4) Protect the basic natural functions served by coastal marshes, freshwater marshes and wetlands; and 5) Prevent public liabilities associated with the development of these areas.[3]
Under the AWMP, developers must therefore comply with both federal permitting requirements and local municipal rules, provided such rules do not directly conflict with federal and State law. Anchorage has also mapped its wetlands and classified them into 3 types: A and B require Corps permitting, while C is suitable for development without a Corps permit. Also, setbacks are required for water bodies, drainage ways, riparian edges, and wetlands. Such local policies can focus on protections to local ecological priorities (e.g., salmon habitat buffers, floodplain restrictions).[4]
According to Janette Keiser, former Head of the City of Homer Planning Department, the AWMP is a means for municipalities to fill gaps in current federal law by focusing “on freshwater wetlands not associated with navigable waters.”[5]
Keiser says the Plan could be applied in Homer to conduct wetlands mapping & assessment based on the fact that the “City of Homer has, or has access to, sufficient GIS mapping resources to identify the City’s wetlands… [and the] City has sufficient resources, mapping and staffing, to classify wetlands, using a system similar to the MOA [Memorandum of Agreement between the City of Anchorage and the Corps.]…”[6]
Similarly, Homer could require buffers and setbacks from watercourses or wetlands based on the flow characteristics of the watercourse or the wetland’s classification. Keizer says that “Applicants should be required to show these buffers and setbacks on proposed plats.”[7]
These standards could be implemented by having the City’s planning staff manage the administrative elements, such as mapping, conducting application intake and review, issuing permits, and providing public information about the value of wetlands and watersheds. To this end, Planning would consult with Public Works, which would provide technical advice on mapping, plat reviews, applicable Best Management Practices, ground truthing, and/or Inspections, and provide Public information about mitigation measures.
The proposed changes to the City of Homer’s zoning code present a real opportunity to fill in the gaps left by the federal government’s current backtracking on protection of watersheds and wetlands, which could have implications not only for protecting fish and wildlife habitat but also for the prevention of natural hazards such as flooding and landslides and property damage. It’s just a question of political will. The incorporation of such protection must occur during the scoping phase of the proposed changes, before environmental constraints are labeled as administrative burdens rather than critical planning measures. Such assertiveness would keep the conversation away from tilting toward “streamlining” that erodes protection.
[1] Siobhan Fennessy, Ph.D., PWS, Biodiversity and Species Implications of Changes in Federal Protection for Wetlands and Streams, with Emphasis on Alaska, p. 1 (December 30, 2025) (Changes in Federal Protections).
[2] Ibid.
[3] See Janette Keiser, PE Wetlands Management – Comparing Homer with Muni. of Anchorage, p. 1 (January 16, 2026).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid p. 6.
[7] Ibid.