“Right now, the most important waterfowl habitat in the United States of America is at risk. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering repealing the rule that protects the integrity of the Duck Stamp easements that have been purchased for generations. Whether you’re a duck hunter or not, you understand the importance of conservation, the importance of waterfowl habitat, wildlife habitat, and clean water. Please take advantage of this opportunity to make your voice heard.” - Adam Putnam, CEO of Ducks Unlimited
On the northern Great Plains, the grasslands in states from Montana and the Dakotas to Minnesota and Iowa, as well as parts of Canada, are dotted with countless often-temporary wetlands. Some cover less than an acre. Many dry up and disappear during the year, only to return with snowmelt and spring rain.
Collectively, these glacial depressions form one of North America’s most productive wildlife landscapes—the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR).
Often called the continent’s “duck factory,” this is the breeding, nesting, and hatching habitat for over 60% of ducks in North America, as well as dozens of other species of migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, and songbirds.
This sprawling collection of millions of shallow wetlands is arguably America’s least known yet most important and threatened ecosystem.
Now, however, an obscure federal review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has placed the future of many thousands of those tiny wetland habitats in doubt.
This is an issue that’s generated tons of attention among waterfowl hunters, hunting publications, and hunting organizations in recent days, but is almost certainly flying under the radar of other wildlife enthusiasts.
That’s the reason I decided to cover this critically important issue today—raising awareness among the non-hunting readers of Our Public Lands & Waters. After all, this goes far beyond ducks and affects an entire ecosystem and other wildlife that’s already threatened by modern agricultural practices.
On July 24, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opened an unusually brief, 14-day public-comment period seeking information about how it manages agricultural drainage pipes—a type of perforated pipe called drain tile—installed near federally protected wetlands. Comments are due August 7.
At present, no regulation has changed yet. But the information request appears to be the opening move in a process that could weaken protections for more than 28,000 conservation easements covering over 1.5 million acres in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Most of those easements were purchased from willing landowners with money generated by Federal Duck Stamp sales—an investment made largely by generations of waterfowl hunters. Roughly 70 percent of the protected wetlands are smaller than one acre.
Under these perpetual easements, the land remains privately owned and can generally be farmed, grazed, or hayed when naturally dry. But owners agree not to drain, fill, level, or burn the protected wetlands.
Modern subsurface drainage complicates that agreement. Drain tile—networks of perforated underground pipes—can make saturated cropland more productive by moving water away from fields.
Yet a pipe doesn’t need to cross an easement boundary to damage a wetland. When installed nearby, it can intercept groundwater or divert runoff that would otherwise fill the basin and create a (temporary) wetland.
Simply put: drain tile installed too close to a prairie pothole would effectively drain that wetland and eliminate waterfowl and wildlife habitat.
A rule implemented by the USFWS in 2024 established a formal process through which landowners could request site-specific setback distances before installing tile. Those calculations account for soil, topography, pipe depth and diameter, and local hydrology.
That rule also created a significant protection for landowners: those who follow the agency’s plan cannot face legal action if the approved system nevertheless drains a protected wetland, provided the tile has not subsequently been modified or expanded.
“Wetland habitat in the prairie pothole region is critically important to waterfowl and other migratory bird populations – producing more than half of the primary species of ducks on the North American continent,” USFWS Director Martha Williams said at the time.
“These new regulations provide greater certainty and clarity for landowners and the Service and encourage communication and collaboration in the administration and protection of the important and unique features of this region.”
Now, however, the Trump administration’s USFWS is considering adjusting or even eliminating that 2024 rule, which would allow private land owners to install drain tile closer to prairie potholes. The agency is asking the public to tell it whether the rule has been successful or not.
Hunting organizations like Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl have been highly skeptical of the USFWS’s latest request for information and what their intention may be. So have popular hunting publications like MeatEater, Field & Stream, and Outdoor Life.
After all, a conservation easement that protects only the visible basin means little if nearby drainage removes the water that sustains the wetland in the first place.
Replacing site-specific calculations with shorter, standardized setbacks could effectively drain small potholes—and destroy waterfowl habitat—without even putting a pipe through them.
“That’s why this request is concerning,” Scott Stephens, Senior Director of Conservation Strategy for Ducks Unlimited, told Outdoor Life.
“We had counted those [wetlands] as forever going to be there, because of the easement attached to them. They’re part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, bought and paid for by duck hunters. These are really critical. It’s the most important geography on the continent for breeding ducks.”
The consequences would extend beyond ducks, too. Prairie potholes store floodwater, trap sediment, filter pollutants, and provide habitat for other birds, amphibians, and pollinators. Each prairie pothole is essentially its own mini-ecosystem within the greater ecosystem of the northern Great Plains.
Tellingly, even the USFWS’s own Federal Register notice admits that “[w]aterfowl fledged in the PPR are a significant natural resource that supports waterfowl hunting and an associated industry that creates an estimated 30,000 jobs and nearly $1 billion in economic benefit.”
Clearly, allowing private land owners to drain more of those small wetlands would have a negative affect on those jobs and the local economy.
“Without it, hunters could see a 20 to 50 percent reduction in the overall duck-breeding capacity of the region, according to some estimates,” writes Travis Hall in Field & Stream.
The region supports more than half of North America’s waterfowl, including mallards, pintails, canvasbacks, and blue-winged teals. Yet much of its historic wetland habitat has already disappeared. Iowa has lost an estimated 90 to 97 percent.
So, what sounds like an obscure dispute over underground pipes is therefore a test of whether a permanent conservation easement is truly permanent.
Hunters paid to protect these wetlands through their Duck Stamps, which is one of the most successful conservation programs in world history. Farmers, on the other hand, were compensated to leave them undrained, while still being allowed to use them for certain farming practices.
If the government now permits drainage systems close enough to starve them of water, the easements may survive on paper while the wetlands themselves quietly vanish—and much of America’s migratory ducks, geese, and other water birds along with them.
It’s telling that an organization like Ducks Unlimited, which typically refrains from making statements on political issues like this, is now speaking out so strongly.
In an Instagram video posted on Thursday, July 30—the caption of which started with “DU does not raise alarms until the situation demands it”—Adam Putnam, the CEO of Ducks Unlimited, didn’t mince his words.
“Right now, the most important waterfowl habitat in North America, and certainly the most important waterfowl habitat in the United States of America, is at risk,” Putnam said. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering repealing the rule that protects the integrity of the Duck Stamp easements that have been purchased for generations.”
“Whether you’re a duck hunter or not, you understand the importance of conservation, the importance of waterfowl habitat, wildlife habitat, and clean water. Please take advantage of this opportunity to make your voice heard.”
“Sign the petition. Provide comments to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Make sure they know you and your friends and your neighbors are passionate about conserving this important wetland habitat across the prairie potholes.”
You can sign the petition here on the Ducks Unlimited website and/or tell the USFWS to keep the “Drain Tile Setback Rule” intact by submitting a personalized comment here on the federal government’s Regulation.gov website.
Comment are due by August 7 at 11:59 PM EDT.
You can learn more about the remarkable Prairie Pothole Region and its enormous importance on the website of the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture.
Thanks for helping to protect our public lands and waters!
See you out there,
Bram
Image 1: Prairie potholes, credit: Krista Lundgren / USFWS
Image 2: Prairie Pothole Region, credit: Prairie Pothole Joint Venture
Image 3: Goose migration, credit: Sandra Uecker / USFWS
Image 4: Blue-winged teal, credit: Sandra Uecker / USFWS
Image 5: Pelicans and other waterfowl, credit: Ryan Moehring / USFWS
Thanks for keeping us updated on the destruction of our land. It breaks my heart and angers me to read the information you post. Thank you for providing how to fight back as well.
We need our wetlands!