In STRONG SUPPORT of Continued Regulation of Professional Wetland Delineators in Virginia

I am Rachel Maloney and I serve as an Environmental Scientist for VHB, an engineering, environmental services, and planning firm with four offices and more than 100 employees in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We provide wetland delineation services along the East Coast from Maine to Florida—in all states, this profession is regulated by the state. I work side by side with environmental scientists every day in designing infrastructure projects.

I am urging the Board to continue licensure for Certified Professional Wetland Delineator in Virginia for the following reasons:

Protection of Public Health, Safety, and Welfare

• CPWDs directly impact public health, safety, and welfare. Licensure is the most appropriate form of regulation to ensure that the public is adequately protected.
• Licensure of CPWDs ensures that professionals are qualified by virtue of their education, experience, and examination.
• Licensure of CPWDs ensures that qualified individuals are available to provide qualified professional practices that substantially (or significantly) impact public health, safety and welfare. Licensed CPWD’s fulfill educational training and examination requirements that prepare professionals to protect the public from both unethical conduct and monetary harm.
• CPWDs are called upon for complex services that require highly technical skills, making it difficult for prospective clients to evaluate the competency of professionals. Licensure as a measure of competence can assist consumers in identifying appropriate professionals for professional services.
• The scope of a CPWD’s practice includes expertise and knowledge in soil science, botany, hydrology, and ecology, as well as stormwater and erosion, Virginia specific wetland resources definitions and regulations that are found nowhere else in the nation, and all work that localities and federal agencies require to be evaluated by licensed professionals.
• Jeopardizing the public safety, health, and welfare of Virginians and visitors to Virginia as competency obtained through a licensing exam and continuing education would be eliminated
• Removing accountability and confidence in the profession that consumers, state agencies and local governments rely upon
• Transferring accountability and risk from soil scientists to consumers

Distinguishable from other Occupations and State Assurances of Competency

• Prior to requiring CWPD, delineations were being performed by unqualified individuals that were resulting in permitting issues and resulting in lawsuits against both the regulatory authorities and the consultants who performed the flawed work. Professional wetland delineators must possess skills and technical competencies in four separate wetland areas of technical expertise – botany, soil science, hydrology, and the Virginia tidal wetland definition. Additionally, knowledge of statewide and local regulations is a required and tested portion towards obtaining a CWPD.  No national certification exists that requires competencies in all of those areas. There is a false equivalency assumption that the “national” PWS certification is equivalent and provides state assurances that the Virginia CWPD certification provides.

Protection for the Public from Improper Practice of Wetland Delineations

• The work performed by a certified delineator ensures that the work is performed by a person with the proper qualifications, and that certified delineators are bound to perform the work under stringent ethical and professional standards.

Fair Competition and Economic Impact

Deregulation of soil scientists and the practice of soil science would likely result in the following impacts:

• Jeopardizing the livelihoods of licensed professionals, small business owners and employees during a current time of economic hardship due to COVID 
• Shifting the volume of work from soil scientists to engineers, architects, and surveyors that may not be minimally competent to practice some aspects of soil science.