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DNREC signs agreement with Department of Agriculture to cooperate on wetland preservation

Delaware Public Media

DNREC and Delaware’s Department of Agriculture formalize a partnership this week to map, collect data on and collaborate to preserve wetlands across the state.

The two agencies have worked together on wetland conservation and restoration efforts for well over a decade, but DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin says he and his counterparts at the Department of Agriculture are putting this partnership in writing to ensure it continues through future administrations.

DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin says the partnerships goals include identifying wetlands missed by state and federal conservation efforts and producing more comprehensive maps and data — information he hopes can be shared with local governments to shape land use decisions.

"That will be a tool to help inform those who make land use decisions, as well as the federal and state government," he said, "when we’re looking to regulate people away from developing and harming those areas."

But Garvin underscores this partnership will not involve DNREC and the Department of Agriculture directly in local land use regulations.

"I’m not looking for the state or DNREC to take on the complicated rule of specific land use decisions," he said, "but we clearly have a part in those conversations."

While agricultural waste runoff into Delaware’s wetlands and waterways is relatively well-known, Garvin points out the expansion of exurban residential neighborhoods into former farmland and forests places additional strain on the 18,000 acres of wetlands remaining in the state. He says Delaware’s farmers will be key partners in future conservation efforts.

Garvin says he hopes to establish a similar data-sharing and conservation agreement with the Department of Transportation.

Paul Kiefer comes to Delaware from Seattle, where he covered policing, prisons and public safety for the local news site PubliCola.