Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 31, 1992 TAG: 9203310402
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN J. BERGER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
These rivers, lakes, streams, estuaries and wetlands have been dredged, channelized, diked, dammed, massively diverted, silted in and contaminated. Left in shocking condition, they are losing native plant and animal species as well as their capacity to perform such life-sustaining ecological functions as absorbing wastes, purifying water and producing oxygen. Currently, the nation is destroying 290,000 acres of its wetlands every year, not to mention other resource losses.
Confronted by increasing population pressures and relentlessly growing demands on water resources, our aquatic ecosystems urgently need restoration.
An expert committee of the National Research Council concluded recently that it is indeed possible to repair damaged aquatic ecosystems to a close approximation of the condition they were in before they were disturbed. The committee recommended a coordinated national program of aquatic-ecosystem restoration to rehabilitate 10 million acres of wetlands, 2 million acres of lakes and 400,000 miles of rivers and streams.
The newly emerging science of restoration ecology makes such an ambitious goal increasingly realistic by providing tools to improve the condition of drained bottomland hardwood wetlands, channelized rivers, fishless streams and dying lakes. Specific resources that might benefit from restoration include the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and Midwest "prairie potholes."
Restoring these areas would not only help the environment but would provide much-needed jobs for those involved in the effort, as well as providing potable water, fishing, swimming, other recreation and tourism. Other benefits include improved flood control, water quality and ground-water supplies, and increased numbers of fish and waterfowl.
When people manage natural resources and plan their restoration they need to consider the long-term, large-scale interactions among rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands and ground water, and the impacts of land-use practices on water systems.
Current restoration efforts, although worthwhile, have tended to be narrow in scope and uncoordinated on a regional basis. Many government agencies have limited jurisdiction and are only able to manage water quality or water quantity. Restoring an entire ecosystem, however, requires a much broader geographic perspective and a long-term approach that takes full account of the relationship between interconnected water resources and their surrounding lands.
With myriad social needs tragically unmet, can we afford to pay for a national environmental restoration program? The question really should be: Can we afford not to? Environmental damage that is not repaired promptly often becomes tremendously expensive or impossible to repair later.
It is unconscionable to pass on these costs to future generations or to foreclose future options for them. Once environmental degradation gets to a certain point, nature may be unable to repair the damage on a meaningful time-scale. Endangered species cannot wait for help in the long-term future. If we do not act to restore their habitats now, they will be gone from the Earth forever.
Public and private spending on the environment for all purposes is a mere 1.6 percent of the gross national product, and a tiny fraction of that amount is being spent today on ecological restoration of aquatic ecosystems. Additional money for restoration must be found - perhaps as part of the nation's economic-recovery effort.
But we must be wary of quick economic fixes that ignore vital environmental-restoration needs. Narrowing the legal definition of "wetland" without careful scientific planning, for example, could cause unintended harm. We should be moving instead to restore degraded resources so we achieve a net gain rather than just the "no net loss" that President Bush has proposed.
In addition to domestic dividends, a bold national environmental-restoration program could confirm the United States as a world environmental leader. It also could give us a head start on what ultimately will be a vast enterprise in the next century: global environmental restoration.
Desirable as it is, environmental protection is not enough. We also must fix the environmental harm we have done.
John J. Berger, professor of environmental policy at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, was a special consultant to the National Research Council's Committee in Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems.
by CNB