A plan to alter the Clean Water Act’s definition of wetlands could render vast areas of the state essentially unprotected ...

At stake are seasonal streams, pools and ponds ... California’s hydrology — especially its wet winters and dry summers — makes the legal definition of a wetland particularly pertinent, and difficult ...

They emerge in the late fall to migrate to small, isolated seasonal wetlands, where they lay their eggs in the dry wetland basin. Once winter rains fill the wetlands, the eggs hatch. In 1999 the U.S.