Concerns about proposed wetlands regulations that take effect Jan. 1 have been focused on Chautauqua Lake.

The count’s Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board is adding farmland to that list of concerns as the time to potentially postpone the new watershed regulations dwindle. The county Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board sent letters last week to Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sean Mahar, interim state DEC commissioner, asking the state to hold off on the wetlands regulations because they could be burdensome to agricultural producers and landowners.

The proposed changes in wetland designations will result in additional acreage being regulated by the state DEC,” wrote Daniel Steward, county Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board chairman. “This will potentially limit the landowners’ ability to use their land as they see fit.”

Specific agricultural practices are excluded from the regulated activities in the current wetland regulations and similar language exists in the proposed changes with the clause that once agricultural activities cease all activities on the lands that meet the definition of a freshwater wetland will fall under the new regulations. Not mapping wetlands as has been done in the past and instead relying on new statutory language to define wetlands, Steward wrote, creates vagueness for landowners whether or not their land may be regulated under the new regulations.

Agricultural producers may be forced to keep land in production regardless of weather and seasonal conditions for fear of losing the ability to crop it in future years if it is now determined to be in a regulated wetland, Steward wrote. State law did not increase funding to the DEC to oversee more land when the regulations take effect in January, and Steward said it’s possible the DEC will get a large number of requests for jurisdictional determinations on agricultural parcels.

“Agricultural producers in Chautauqua County already have a lengthy process of getting wetlands delineated through the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service and the proposed changes have the potential to add additional delays to the federal process,” Steward wrote. “Additional ramifications and unanticipated impacts will likely occur for all landowners due to the proposed changes. The new proposed NYS DEC wetlands regulations add an additional layer of uncertainty which should be addressed prior to implementation.”

County Executive PJ Wendel is among those who have called on the state to delay implementation of the new regulations while county lawmakers and several town and village governments have passed resolutions stating their opposition to the new regulations. State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, and Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, have introduced legislation in the state Legislature that would change the regulations, but those bills focus on Chautauqua Lake and other freshwater lakes.