176
parcel of low-lying marshy land that was not itself navigable, directly adjacent to navigable water, or even hydrologically connected to navigable water, but which was part of a larger area, characterized by poor drainage, that ultimately abutted a navigable creek. United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 U. S. 121 (1985).2 Our broad finding in Riverside Bayview that the 1977 Congress had acquiesced in the Corps' understanding of its jurisdiction applies equally to the 410-acre parcel at issue here. Moreover, once Congress crossed the legal watershed that separates navigable streams of commerce from marshes and inland lakes, there is no principled reason for limiting the statute's protection to those waters or wetlands that happen to lie near a navigable stream.
In its decision today, the Court draws a new jurisdictional line, one that invalidates the 1986 migratory bird regulation as well as the Corps' assertion of jurisdiction over all waters
2 See also App. to Pet. for Cert. 25a, and Brief for United States 8, n. 7, in Riverside Bayview, O. T. 1984, No. 84-701. The District Court in Riverside Bayview found that there was no direct "hydrological" connection between the parcel at issue and any nearby navigable waters. App. to Pet. for Cert. in Riverside Bayview 25a. The wetlands characteristics of the parcel were due, not to a surface or groundwater connection to any actually navigable water, but to "poor drainage" resulting from "the Lamson soil that underlay the property." Brief for Respondent in Riverside Bayview 7. Nevertheless, this Court found occasional surface runoff from the property into nearby waters to constitute a meaningful connection. Riverside Bayview, 474 U. S., at 134; Brief for United States in Riverside Bayview 8, n. 7. Of course, the ecological connection between the wet-lands and the nearby waters also played a central role in this Court's decision. Riverside Bayview, 474 U. S., at 134-135. Both types of connection are also present in many, and possibly most, "isolated" waters. Brief for Dr. Gene Likens et al. as Amici Curiae 6-22. Indeed, although the majority and petitioner both refer to the waters on petitioner's site as "isolated," ante, at 172; Brief for Petitioner 11, their role as habitat for migratory birds, birds that serve important functions in the ecosystems of other waters throughout North America, suggests that—ecologically speaking—the waters at issue in this case are anything but isolated.
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