A few days old - sorry!

Peggi

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>September 17, 1997 Ken Burton 202-208-5634
>
>WETLANDS LOSS SLOWS, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE STUDY SHOWS
>
>The United States is continuing to lose wetlands but the loss has slowed
>to a rate 60 percent below that experienced in the 1970s and 1980s,
>according to a new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report released today.
>
>While wetlands restoration and creation activities have contributed to
>the national wetlands base, the study showed a net loss of 117,000 acres
>per year between 1985 and 1995, much of which occurred in highly
>productive freshwater forested wetlands. For the first time in the
>Nation's history, there are fewer than 50 million acres of freshwater
>forested wetlands in the conterminous United States.
>
>"Wetlands are crucial to the health of our environment," said Jamie
>Rappaport Clark, Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. "This study
>shows that our Nation's efforts to restore and protect wetlands are
>making a difference."
>
>Factors contributing to the marked decline in the loss rate include
>implementation of the Section 404 wetlands permitting program of the
>Clean Water Act; state and local wetland regulatory programs; increased
>public awareness and support for conservation; expansion of Federal,
>state, local, and private- sector restoration programs that have
>contributed 78,000 acres a year to the national wetlands base; enactment
>of Swampbuster measures in the Farm Bills since 1985; and a decline in
>the profitability of converting wetlands due to the tax reform of 1986.
>
>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory measures
>wetland loss, which occurs when a wetland ceases to be a wetland. A
>wetland gain occurs only when a non-wetland becomes a wetland. Those
>changes are measured and reported in terms of acres. Between the 1780s
>and 1980s, what eventually became the 48 contiguous United States lost 54
>percent of the estimated original 221 million acres of wetlands--a loss
>amounting to about 60 acres an hour for 200 years. Between the 1950s and
>1970s, the Lower 48 States lost an estimated 458,000 acres of wetlands
>each year; from the 1970s to the 1980s, the annual loss amounted to about
>290,000 acres.
>
>The report, "Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous United
>States," is required by Congress at 10-year intervals. Because wetlands
>losses influence other ecological interests, the Service provides
>scientific data needed for research, management, and policy decisions
>regarding the remaining wetland base. The report also helps resource
>managers gauge the success of efforts to protect and restore wetlands.
>
>Wetlands are lands where the water table usually is at or near the
>surface or where the land is covered by shallow water. Most wetlands in
>the United States are located in the Southeast coastal plain, Lower
>Mississippi Valley, the Prairie Potholes Region, Great Lakes States, and
>in upper New England. Such lands have been called "the cradle of life"
>for waterfowl, fisheries, endangered species, countless small birds,
>mammals, and a wide variety of plant life. Wetlands catch and hold
>floodwaters and snow melt, recharge groundwater, and act as natural
>filters to cleanse water of impurities.
>
>Service scientists liken wetland restoration to healing because
>restoration actions are usually performed on degraded acreage that
>continue to display some wetland characteristics. Restoring wetland
>functions to sites retaining some wetland characteristics is more
>feasible, less expensive, and more likely to succeed than at sites
>lacking wetland characteristics.
>
>While wetlands comprise only about 5 percent of the land area in the
>conterminous United States, they vary widely in location, size, and
>type. Because a complete inventory would be prohibitively costly, the
>status and trends report employed a sampling approach, using 3,726 plots,
>each 4 square miles in area. The Service obtained high-quality, color
>infrared photographs through the National High Altitude Program for
>2,682, or 72 percent, of the sample plots, and compared the photographs
>with those of the previous decade. For plots where aerial photography
>was unavailable, the Service used mathematical projections to complete
>the study.
>
>For the purposes of the Service study, different types of wetlands were
>grouped into the following three categories:
>
>Saltwater Habitats: Salt marshes, open water, mangroves or other shrubs,
>beaches, and some river deltas are included in this category. These
>areas are formally known as Marine Intertidal, Estuarine Subtidal, and
>Intertidal systems. Marine Intertidal includes areas in which the land
>is exposed and flooded by tides. Estuarine Subtidal is land continuously
>submerged, and Riverine includes wetlands and deepwater habitats
>contained within a channel. About 5.1 million acres, or 5 percent, of
>remaining wetlands are saltwater.
>
>Freshwater Habitats: Forested swamps, shrub wetlands, inland marshes and
>wet meadows, shore beaches, open water ponds, floating or submerged
>vegetation and lakes and reservoirs. These areas include six Palustrine
>categories, which are all nontidal wetlands not included in any other
>system, and the Lacustrine system, which consists of open water and
>associated wetlands. Some 95.8 million acres, or 95 percent, of remaining
>wetlands are freshwater.
>
>Upland Land Use: Crop agriculture and pasture, cities and incorporated
>developments, and rural uplands not in agriculture or pasture and all
>other areas not considered wetlands or deepwater habitat.
>
>Agricultural activity, while showing a significant improvement over
>wetlands loss rates in the past, still showed a decline of 924,000 acres,
>or 79 percent of the 1985-1995 total. Urban and other development
>accounted for the remaining 21 percent of the total loss recorded for the
>same period.
>
>Unvegetated intertidal wetlands, freshwater shrub wetlands, and
>freshwater ponds all experienced acreage gains between 1985 and 1995.
>Unvegetated intertidal wetlands gained acreage due to coastal storms,
>shoaling of sand, beach renourishment, and dredging. Freshwater shrub
>areas gained because forested wetlands were cut, and subsequently
>converted to shrub wetlands.
>
>Ponds experienced gains as more were created for water retention for
>farms, for ornamentation in some developments, as water traps on golf
>courses, and small residential lakes, all less than 20 acres in size.
>There are now 5.2 million acres of ponds in the U.S. Urban development
>accounted for the loss of 6 percent of the total, but developers also
>created some of the 15,000 acres of freshwater ponds.
>
>
>-FWS-
>
>
>Americans can help wetlands when they purchase a $15 Federal Duck Stamp
>at their neighborhood Post Office or by calling either of these 24-hour
>toll-free numbers: 800-STAMP24 or 888-534-0400. The money is used by
>the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add wetlands and other wildlife
>habitat to the National Wildlife Refuge System.
>
>
>
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>.-
>
>
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz 122 W, 37 N)
USA
woodduck at cruzio.com
http://www2.cruzio.com/~woodduck/


"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"