The more time one gets to look at the judge’s decision in local lawsuits challenging the state’s Freshwater Wetlands Act regulations, the more it is clear that the regulations are likely merely delayed, not dead.

Judge Richard Platkin’s ruling last week in state Supreme Court in Albany didn’t strike at the heart of issues the local challenges to the regulations raised. Platkin found that the Freshwater Wetlands Act changes and the Part 664 regulations don’t violate landowners’ due process rights, that the challenges didn’t prove that the 2022 amendments and Part 664 amendments are unconstitutionally vague and that there is no violation of home rule protections in the state constitution. A ruling in favor of the local residents on those grounds would have been a fatal flaw for the wetlands act amendments and the Part 664 regulations the DEC wrote.

Instead, Platkin was swayed by arguments raised by the Chautauqua Lake Partnership, Business Council of New York State and village of Kiryas Joel that the DEC didn’t properly follow the state Environmental Quality Review Act. That means the DEC will have the opportunity to correct its mistakes and implement new Part 664 regulations. As long as that work follows state law there is no reason that sometime within the next couple of years some sort of new Freshwater Wetlands Act regulations won’t be in place.

In our view that also means that local opposition to the regulations isn’t over. The existing regulations are annulled for now, not forever. New Part 664 regulations will be proposed, with another public comment period to be opened. That means those with concerns will need to go through the comment process again and, possibly, file another round of legal challenges depending on the process and what the DEC includes in the new regulations.

We aren’t sure the DEC is going to move quickly. The Part 664 regulations generated a lot of criticism. While Gov. Kathy Hochul doesn’t need to win many votes in the rural areas of the state where the Freshwater Wetlands Act and its regulations were the most unpopular, the governor is no fool either. There’s no reason for her to push the DEC to take action before the November election. Pushing a full SEQR process into 2027 likely means nothing will really change until 2028 at the earliest.

Platkin’s ruling essentially returns lake maintenance to the pre-2025 status quo. We hope that the reprieve provides an opportunity for the state to meet property owners in the middle as new regulations are written. Everyone has gotten a second chance to make a first impression.