WETLANDS: ECOLOGICAL NEEDS VERSUS PROPERTY RIGHTS; SAVING ALL OF OUR REMAINING WETLANDS - FROM MUCKY FIELD CORNERS TO FORBIDDING SWAMPS - SOLVES MANY PROBLEMS

Swamps, bayous, marshes, bogs, sloughs or bottomlands we have a lot of names for what are now popularly termed "wetlands." Most of those names have negative connotations. They conjure up vague visions of mosquitoes, oozy mud, and poisonous snakes. Of course, wetlands are valuable for wildlife. For example, when the Illinois River floodplains shrunk between 1930 and 1980 due to construction of levees, use by migratory waterfowl decreased by 50 to 60 percent. The small life forms that inhabit wetlands nourish ducks, nurture young fish and feed graceful migrant shorebirds. But other than being great for animals and nature people, wetlands sound dangerous, uncomfortable and useless. Why all the fuss about saving such places?

Surprisingly, the reasons for preserving wetlands are varied enough and important enough that they affect every one of us. For one thing, wetlands are natural filters for the water that ends up in our rivers and aquifers. Wetlands areas are often tied in with underground water systems, in which the wetlands act as funnels that collect water in rainy seasons and gradually release it into groundwater systems. But whether your water is drawn from a well or from the Mississippi, it is much more likely to be free of pesticides, fertilizers and chemical waste from factories if it has passed through a functional wetland system. All of the decay and growth that seem to make swamps so unpleasant for human visitors actually absorb wastes, incorporate them into plant tissues or convert them to gases. Waterborne chemicals and metals are thus removed or adhere to sediment particles and are trapped in the wetland, where they can do no damage as long as the wetland is intact.

Just how good are wetlands at cleaning water? Most wetlands have not been tested for purification function, which is likely to vary among the various types of wetlands and by location. But several which have been monitored have shown an amazing ability to clean water. According to the Nature Conservancy, three miles of wooded swamp along the Alcovy River in Georgia is estimated to be worth $1 million a year, just for its ability to remove wastes from the water. A 1,700 acre peat bog researched by University of Michigan staff treated 100,000 gallons of wastewater per day. In the process, it removed approximately 70 percent of ammonia nitrogen, 99 percent of nitrite and nitrate nitrogen, and 95 percent of dissolved phosphorus and did most of that in less than twenty-four hours.

In fact, wetlands are so good at filtering out pollutants that several cities in the U.S. already have or are in the process of constructing artificial wetlands as part of their water purification systems.

Second, wetlands go a long way toward control of flooding. Since 1930, due to dredging, plowing and levee construction, severe flooding along the Missouri River has reached all-time highs. Had Cape Girardeau's funders been as knowledgeable then as we are now about wetlands, they would no doubt have set aside the areas alongside Cape LaCroix Creek as seasonal wetlands. That simple act would have saved their descendants a great deal of trouble from flooding, as well as tax dollars for the current flood control project. In razing wetlands for business, early developers chose short-term economic gains. The resultant flooding and remediation were left to our generation to endure and to pay for using tax dollars. The many remaining wet areas in and around Cape County and in the Bootheel, as well as worldwide, still have the potential to function as natural flood control, if we will only allow them to continue to exist. If we permit current interests to develop them, all of us will pay later for the mistake.

The value of wetlands in flood control is not a new idea. In a model project begun in 1974, the Army Corps of Engineers recognized that preserving natural wetlands along the Charles River near Boston would control flooding better than any massive man-made flood control project they could devise. The 8000-acre wetlands they put together are estimated to save Boston and surrounding communities $2 to $17 million annually, depending on natural flood levels. Maintenance costs run about $617,000. Businessmen and public officials who know a bargain can benefit a great deal from a well-cared-for wetland.

As if flood control and water purification were not enough, wetlands are also valuable in erosion control. Before the Mississippi River wetlands were diked in its delta region, the regular flooding of the river replenished southern soil with almost 200 million tons of sediment a year, according to Scientific American. Since the man-made levees have been in place, the river carries the valuable topsoil out beyond the continental shelf. Even the land level along the river is subsiding in these areas, sometimes as much as two centimeters per year.

Similar effects can be seen wherever flooding occurs. If an intact wetland exists, soil scoured from plowed fields and gullied hills has a chance to settle before it leaves the area. Otherwise, it washes away downstream. Farming states such as those along the Mississippi cannot afford to ignore or destroy any system that effectively preserves the soil, for it is the very core upon which agribusiness thrives.

Other benefits of wetlands are too numerous to detail, but each one is important. Approximately one-third of all federally-listed endangered species require wetlands for survival. A Congressional study done in 1986 found that wetlands contribute to a commercial marine harvest worth over $10 billion, support a fur and hide harvest valued at over $300 million, and contribute $10 billion to the economy by inspiring nature study, fishing, hunting, and other outdoor recreation. Wetlands, by nature super-producers of a wide variety of natural life forms, hold a large share of the DNA life patterns world-wide. Like penicillin found in an ugly mold, it is likely that mosquito and snake-ridden wetlands now harbour genetic material that our advancing technology can use to fight disease, help us adapt to changing climate, or increase our food supplies.

Despite the clear economic and social benefits of wetlands, various water, farming and other projects continue to destroy the remnants. Most of the people involved probably have little idea of what they are destroying. The task before us, then, is to educate ourselves as to the value of wetlands and what needs to be done to preserve them intact.

In order to succeed in benefiting ourselves by saving wetlands, we must also recognize that wetlands are not isolated bits of soggy ground but are instead systems. If those systems are fragmented, saving isolated wet spots will subvert our purposes. As Leigh Frederickson of the University of Missouri's Gaylord Laboratory in Puxico phrases it, "Both regulatory and management agencies must recognize all flooded zones within the wetland system as parts of a functional unit, regardless of whether the zone is flooded regularly or only occasionally." What we know as swamps, marshes, bottomland forests, wet meadows, lakes, and streams are all part of the system. The system itself may have features that are permanent, but the very nature of the interaction between soil and water dictates that the system's parts are dynamic and ever-changing.

Our collective problems in 1992 include filtering pollutants from our water, slowing erosion, preserving threatened forms of life, keeping groundwater levels adequate, pushing duck populations back up, controlling floods, keeping the economy operating well in its fishing farming and recreation sectors, and finding new ways to face today's and tomorrow's diseases. If we are as smart as we like to think we are, we'll save all of our remaining wetlands from mucky field corners to forbidding swamps as a major part of the solution.

Ida Domazlicky is publicity chair and Colleen Kimmell president of the Four Seasons Audubon Society of Southeast Missouri.