President Donald Trump’s administration is moving to slash federal protections for the nation’s wetlands and streams, potentially leaving millions of acres of habitat in Illinois and the Midwest vulnerable to being dug up, filled in or paved over.

At the heart of the proposal announced earlier this week is a new, stricter definition to the long-debated legal term, “Waters of the United States,” the federal guidance that determines which bodies of water are protected under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The proposal codifies a 2023 Supreme Court decision that limited federal protection to wetlands indistinguishable from larger, relatively permanent bodies of water like streams, rivers and lakes. Effectively, the new definition excludes seasonal streams and wetlands, which remain dry for much o

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