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LANSING — A Senate committee could vote today on controversial legislation that would remove protections and clear the way for development on more than half of weltands in most Michigan counties and more than one-third of the state's lakes.

Supported by some business groups and developers, the proposal is drawing outrage from environmentalists and companies involved in wetland restoration. It is also raising questions about whether Michigan could lose its status as one of only two states with special authority to regulate wetlands.

Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, who chairs the Senate Natural Resources Committee is proposing the the legislation, Senate Bill 1211.

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Among other provisions, the proposal would lift permitting requirements for property owners wanting to fill, dredge or build upon wetlands and lakes covering five to 10 acres.

“This is for the average citizen that is getting mowed right over — that has 3 acres that does nothing and isn’t contiguous to anything, and they have been treated rudely,” Casperson said during testimony last week.

The bill would remove protections to at least 70,000 wetlands across 500,000 acres and 3,771 of Michigan’s 11,000 lakes, according to an analysis by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality obtained by Bridge Magazine.

But those numbers are just the minimum, according to the DEQ analysis, which details a wider impact than has been publicly discussed.

The bill would also allow development without special permits on:

Wetlands connected to ponds and some other water bodies;

Small wetlands home to endangered species;

Artificially flooded wetlands;

Man-made lakes, ponds and streams — and the wetlands connected to them.

The deregulation of impounded lakes — those with dams or other water control structures — under the bill would encompass “the majority of developed lakes in Southern Michigan,” said Todd Losee, a former DEQ wetlands specialist who is president of the Michigan Wetlands Association.

“I don’t think people are catching on to that.”

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The DEQ has not taken an official position on the bill, though its officials have expressed reservations — including that it conflicts with parts of the federal Clean Water Act.

The agency and outside experts consider wetlands critical to many of the state’s natural resources. Wetlands serve as wildlife habitats and fish nursery grounds, and they control flooding and filter pollutants from water.

Before his 16-year career in politics, Caperson spent more than two decades in a log trucking business his family owns — an experience that helped shape his pro-industry, pro-private property rights belief that Michiganders would be better off if regulators did less regulating.