WASHINGTON — On World Water Day, a new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report finds that the rate of wetlands loss has accelerated by 50 percent since 2009.

“While we are still digesting the details of this report, the takeaway is clear: The United States is failing to protect the wetlands that protect our drinking water, wildlife and way of life,” said Jim Murphy, the National Wildlife Federation’s senior director of legal advocacy. “Wetlands loss has increased dramatically over the past 15 years. Now that the Supreme Court has stripped Clean Water Act protections for nearly two-thirds of the nation’s wetlands, we can expect to lose even more wetlands, more quickly than we have seen in decades. This is the opposite of what communities need. With extreme droughts and floods increasingly threatening our drinking water supplies, we should be doing more, not less, to protect and restore our wetlands.”