New York's wild and scenic rivers law authorizes that state to make and enforce land use regulations to protect the river resources including water quality and fisheries. For example, Maine provides for mandatory shoreline zoning that limits activities within 250 feet of the highwater line of any great pond, river, saltwater, or wetland, and within 75 feet of a stream. 38 Maine Rev. Stat. N.H. Rev. Stat. 483-B, including limitations on excavations, buffers for the application of fertilizers, woodland buffers with tree retention standards, minimum setbacks for septic systems, and other provisions.
State wetlands programs can perform similar functions.
About half the states have enforceable authorities tied to specific water bodies. Yet in order to understand the role of enforcement in any particular state, understanding the reach and scope of these authorities is often quite important. But state enforcement authorities linked to operating requirements, as in forest practices laws, erosion control plan requirements, and some agricultural and nutrient management operating requirements, provide for enforceable prevention and response obligations in an integrated way. Either approach may work, but the former requires careful integration of the enforcement and voluntary programs if prevention is the goal. Federal decisionmakers can assist in the development of state enforceable authorities by undertaking studies of the effectiveness of these authorities in particular watersheds and with respect to particular impaired waters.