Giving Compass' Take:

• Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a major rollback of federal water protections which would undo one of the most significant environmental regulations that protects America's wetlands and other areas with prominent water ecosystems. 

• How can donors help drive awareness on preserving America's wetlands? How can they help back people in the government who strive to protect our environment? 

• Here's an article on the benefits of prioritizing healthy rivers and wetlands. 

When Hurricane Harvey struck Harris County, not one of the 94 houses then occupied in the Elyson development, located in Houston's northwest suburbs, flooded—despite the fact that the area is crossed by three floodplains. The homes were spared from destruction by an engineering trick increasingly popular in the area: The developer, Newland Communities, decided to fill in the construction plots with enough dirt to raise them just above the anticipated flood level.

We need these wetlands to allow nature-based solutions to work and to be able to protect our communities.

But all of that water had to go somewhere. And it did: According to Jordan Macha, executive director of Bayou City Waterkeeper, it went right downstream and straight into some of Houston's most vulnerable communities. "All of this development in the hinterlands has put people in harms' way," she says.

Read the full article about protecting America's wetlands by Sophie Kasakove at Pacific Standard