A bogged-down battle

R.B. Welty is tired, confused and broken down.

For nearly a decade, the Cape Girardeau man, a 60-year-old Vietnam War veteran plagued by severe arthritis, has been fighting the federal government, fighting to restore the 27 acres of wetlands adjacent to the Whitewater River that have been in his family for decades.

Welty claims those wetlands, between Whitewater and Gordonville, were ruined in 1998 when his neighbor, farmer Terry Givens, modified adjoining lands to drain them for agricultural purposes.

During that decade Welty says he's tried every public route possible to find compensation for his grievances. The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Missouri Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Agency have all snubbed him, he says.

"Everywhere I turn, denied, denied, denied," Welty said.

R.B. Welty plans to continue trying to save his Gordonville-area wetlands.

His most recent effort for relief was a lawsuit filed against the U.S. government in Missouri's Eastern District federal court in 2004. Welty represented himself.

"I can't find a lawyer to take the case," he said, at least not for the money he can pay. He lost the case, and his appeal was denied in October after a judge ruled Welty did not file documents in the correct time frame.

Welty's now filing a complaint against the judge in the case, E. Richard Webber.

As he walked around his 108-acre farm, Welty pointed out a metal chair on the edge of his wetland property. Many days he's out here before dawn, before the farmers around him go to work, sitting and thinking, he said.

"This is where I sit and plan my next move."

In winter, some water stands in the slough, thanks to the beavers that dam up the ditch his neighbor dug -- the ditch that's responsible for his wetland drainage.

But the water will be gone when summer comes, when Givens digs out the ditch again, Welty said. An avid conservationist, Welty has signs all over the farm property and at his Cape Girardeau home that proudly proclaim the presence of the "Welty Farm Wildlife Refuge." He wears a button-up shirt with the message "Preserve Missouri Wetlands" stitched over the right pocket.

Welty said it has pained him to see his wetlands dry up and the waterfowl that used to populate them disappear. Geese used to converge on his fields "like a tornado" and trumpeter swans used to call the land home, he says. No more.

But what may pain him even more is no one will help him.

"I've just been taking severe mental beating all the way through," Welty said.

His problems began when Givens constructed a ditch across his property adjacent to the Welty land. Givens' ditch drained the wetlands, said Welty, while a dam Givens built along the Whitewater River causes severe flooding and erosion on his arable farmland.

Givens declined to comment on the situation, but the loss of the wetlands has been documented.

Nicole Dalrymple, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in St. Louis, said the corps visited the Welty property on three occasions. While she said Welty's grievance is valid, the agency has no jurisdiction over the matter because Givens did not directly alter wetlands on his own property.

The answers from other agencies are the same -- "outside our jurisdiction."

"I've just burned up the phone calling people. ... They just put you off, and then they actually just want you to go away," Welty said.

The situation has come to the point of causing Welty severe mental distress, according to a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs. In March 2004, psychologist Donna L. Parkinson wrote an open letter on Welty's behalf: "He is clearly distressed by the lack of action taken to restore his land to its previous condition. Any help that you can give him in resolving this problem would be greatly appreciated and would be beneficial to his emotional well-being."

But the help hasn't come.

Now Welty looks at his troubles as a conspiracy, one which he says has turned former allies against him.

One of them is Ken Midkiff of Columbia, Mo., campaign director of the Sierra Club's Clean Water Campaign. Welty, a former Sierra Club member, contacted Midkiff for help in 2000. Midkiff was the program director of the club's Ozark Chapter.

Midkiff will no longer talk to him, he says.

But Midkiff paints a different picture, saying he tried all he could to help Welty. In 2000 he wrote a letter to local and national officials with several government agencies demanding action to relieve Welty's situation. He consulted with lawyers for the Sierra Club and in private practice, all of whom said Welty had no real case.

Sierra Club lawyers said they don't bring lawsuits on behalf of individual members and "attorneys I contacted said it's real easy to put a value on lands that are flooded with water, but not easy at all to put a value on lands that have been drained of water," Midkiff said. "They were a bit stymied by what relief they could ask for."

Midkiff said Welty contends he's been bought off. Midkiff called that "nonsensical."

"R.B. has persisted, and I had persisted, until about two years ago, when I decided there was not much that could be done. I tried every channel and found a stone wall," Midkiff said.

When Welty speaks of his battle, one of the names he focuses on most is David Owen, who worked for the USDA's National Resource Conservation Service in Cape Girardeau County when the alterations were made to Givens' land. Welty says Owen gave Givens the go-ahead to pursue the alterations and didn't properly document the wetlands on his own property.

Owen, who now works in Richmond, Mo., said he didn't want to comment on the case because he didn't remember the details clearly.

James Hunt, a district conservationist with the NRCS office in Cape Girardeau County, said nothing has changed in the case. Hunt wasn't working here at the time, but he said the files indicate NRCS had no authority to help Welty then and still doesn't today.

Welty now has few avenues to seek help. Michael Gans, court clerk with the 8th District Court of Appeals, which handled Welty's appeal, said it's unlikely he'll be able to bring an appeal in the case before the court again.

But Welty said he won't give up. His complaint against the federal judge Webber and his recent correspondence to U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson are his latest attempts to resolve his problems, but he wonders what else he can do.

"They know they screwed me over, and they just keep shoving me down," Welty said.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182