As part of a volunteer team that cleared a walking trail in my neighborhood, I helped to shovel a straight path through a small berm. Seeking to solve another problem at the same time, a member of the party started to use the dirt he removed to fill in a nearby puddle on the trail. After the first shovel-full, someone said, “You’re spoiling a wetland,” to which the shoveler replied, “Not so: the soil’s Munsell chroma is greater than 2.0, so we’re safe from the law.”

This kind of distinction is serious business in the building industry, which is increasingly finding a shortage of land and opposition from people who want to protect the vanishing wetlands and their wildlife species. In fact, the United States (Section 404 of the Clean Water Act) forbids the filling in of wetlands, especially new construction on them. Various states have implemented wetland regulations of their own.

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