LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: PROTECT FLOOD VICTIMS, LAND

To the Editor:

Imagine the federal government permanently evacuating both coasts of Florida and the center of California. In some cases the government pays people what their property is worth; for many families they do not. Instead, they use the government power of eminent domain to clear families from their homes and land. The government's reason for the mass evacuations is that Florida and California have been hit by natural disasters.

Sound familiar? This is the logic that some environmental extremists are using to try to get the federal government to create new wetlands along the rivers in the Midwest. Their main contention is that because Missourians suffered from a 500-year flood, we should move them from land that is dry the other 499 years.

I believe the federal government has an obligation to repair the levee system on which Midwesterners have relied for protection as they built their lives. People who suffered from the flooding, not the federal government, should determine whether or not they return to their homes or create new wetlands on their land.

One viable option for Missourians who want to leave their land is the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP). The program is voluntary and provides compensation for permanent or 30-year easements on farmed or converted wetlands which are good candidates for wetland restoration. I helped to establish this new program and worked with several Missouri environmental and agricultural organizations to have our state selected as one of nine pilot states. I will also actively support changes that will allow flood victims to enroll even more quickly and easily into the program.

In February 1992, Missouri was selected for the program. The first sign-up for landowners to enroll their lands for wetlands restoration was held last year. Amid overwhelming interest from landowners, 166 bids, covering 14,521 acres, were submitted. Clearly, this program can work on a limited, voluntary basis.

However, it is too costly to be undertaken on the massive scale that some environmentalists advocate. Last year, for example, the average price for lands enrolled in the WRP cost $742 an acre. Since Missouri alone lost more then a million acres of corn, wheat, grain sorghum, and soybeans to flood waters, converting these lands to the WRP would cost the federal government $742 million. That's simply out of the question. We must have a balanced approach of wetlands restoration and a sound plan to rebuild the levees.

Flood protection was in place when tens of thousands of Missouri families built their homes, businesses and farms. It would be unfair and unconscionable to say that because of a freak of nature their flood protection is gone and they cannot replace it. There may be landowners who are interested in creating wetlands, but it must not be forced upon them by the federal government. Missourians should have the voluntary option to rebuild levees or enroll their land in the Wetlands Reserve Program.

CHRISTOPHER "KIT" BOND

U.S. Senator

Washington, D.C.