We, as a Nation, recognize the importance and need to protect and preserve tropical rain forests of the world, for, to a large extend, they are the lungs of the planet. Yet for some unknown reasons, there are those in our own country who fail to recognize the importance of wetlands as they serve as the kidneys, if you will, for this earth and, in this instance, for our Nation.

Much of wetlands functions are for the physical, chemical, and biological cleansing of our Nation's water. Development returning the highest dollar to the detriment of the environment in the case of wetlands, is akin to the persistent alcohol abuser who fails to recognize the danger to his life and the impact on those around him.

Regarding wetlands, as with the human body, most often when we irreparably damage a vital organ, we also damage life. We at the local level need the assistance of Congress to help preserve the quantity and quality of our Nation's wetlands extant for all those myriad of functions they provide.

We ask this committee not to reduce the protection of this natural resource but rather to increase it. We ask that this committee and this Congress enact legislation that will provide future generations of Americans with an environmental heritage that says we care as much, or greater, for those who are to follow us as ourselves.

Thank you.

Mr. NOWAK. Thank you all very much.

You mentioned the values of wetlands. We somehow have not penetrated the public's view of the total value-and not just the recreational value-of some of these wetlands. And you all have also an estuary that seems to me to have much broader impacts, that are difficult to quantify.

How do we do that? How do we talk in terms of flood control, and how do we start to quantify the amount of chemicals or other elements that are being filtered, and how do we talk about the loss of the amount of the nutrients that aren't going to get in the water so that the fish, the minnows, aren't going to be able to pick them up and be eaten by your game fish that you catch to make a living at and feed many, many people. How can we meet the demands for fish that are rising in everybody's diets in the country?

They are all mentioned, but we don't have, I don't think, a viable way to start to quantify all these benefits. We talk about the administration's or the 1991 manual, and I assume that is the administration's proposal that you mentioned, Jean, when you talked about 47 percent of the Chesapeake Bay wetlands would be removed.

I suppose a question could be asked-by playing the devil's advocate-so what? You still have 53 percent. Does that produce

Ms. WATTS. First, you are only going to have 53 percent of the 42 percent that are left of what we originally had. So what I think is the thing that we have been talking about, and we do tend to talk about wetland values in very general terms of flood control and those kinds of things because the

Mr. Nowak. If some of those areas are going to be developed, there are some cost benefits that can be readily shown on the other side: employment, convenience, base.

How do you

Ms. WATTS. It is very difficult to assign economic value to wetlands' functions. One, because we tend to look at them in the very short-term. But how valuable a wetland function is varies over time.

For instance, if you take a wetland that had a moderate ability to clean water that runs through it, 100 years ago we may not consider that very valuable. Now, it may be a whole lot more valuable as it becomes scarcer in the landscape. That is something we do not take into account when a lot of these classifications systems are tossed around.

It also varies in space. Where that wetland occurs is going to be important even though it may be the same type of wetland that occurs some place else depending on the adjacent land use, how it functions could be very different.

I think also that assigning a dollar value is very tough. One of the things I am bringing up, that I am not making a direct correlary with, but we have spent $87 million in the Bay region over the last few years trying to put in place things that sort of function like wetlands, to try to get the nutrients out. And my answer would be they are at least worth $87 million, and they are probably worth a whole lot more because we are doing more to prevent the nutrients from entering the Bay.

But directing that economic quantification, I think, is tough.
Mr. Enos. If I may, I would like to add one item.

Mr. NOWAK. Let me follow up with a question.

You have invested those dollars and how do you relate a return to those, to that investment?

Ms. WATTS. We are finding out they are not nearly as effective as wetlands in nutrient filtering. They do a pretty good job of getting phosphorus out, because phosphorus attaches to sediment, and it is easier to catch sediment and you catch the phosphorus.

Nitrogen, in the agreement we are trying to get a 40 percent reduction by the year 2000. And it is obvious we are not going to be anywhere near it. That brings up a lot of our concern about when we talk about these wetlands and we talk about restoration and creation as trying to balance this out, is that most often people don't want to build in a swamp, they want to build in a forested wetland because they are at the drier end. But they offer in compensations, a duck pond, and those two kinds of wetlands are providing very different functions; and it is these forested wetlands that have the fluctuating hydrology, that are not wet all the time, that are able to take the nitrogen out of the system.

Mr. Nowak. I know, but how do you convince anyone either not to build there or limit the amount of building that takes place and leave the vegetation and the soil in place so that it still can serve that purpose?

What do you argue on the other end of it?

Mr. ENOS. There is an education process that has to go along so people understand that value. This is a component in which we have to participate. But if you are looking for a particular number to drive home the point, New York City watershed is having to go in-and DEP is looking at extensive regulations because of the loss of wetlands, the filtering capacity they serve.

New York City's hard numbers they are considering, in order to meet EPA's guidelines, would be $4 billion to $5 billion for a filtration plant for something man-made and that operation costs in the vicinity of $300 million to $400 million per annum. That is a dollar value that you can ascribe to loss of wetlands overall in areas and the impacts that can happen to them.

Ms. WATTS. I would also like to say that some of it is somewhat a perspective. And as I say, there are differences in Louisiana and Alaska that have different problems.

But in looking at the States we are talking about, less than two percent of Pennsylvania is a wetland, less than five percent of Virginia, and I think Maryland may be around six or seven percent. But I think we should have the capacity to have a little bit better planning in our development; that we don't have to impact a small percent age of the State which is providing such valuable functions. Mr. Nowak. As you have heard, we are trying to develop something that brings in the local planners, local organizations, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, into the process so that you have an input. And I am concerned about the state of the art, so to speak.

We have gone to secondary treatment, and that took an enormous amount of time to bring everybody into the system. And I think the benefits are now showing, and it took a long time.

I am wondering if we are not back, in the wetlands situation, where the proof of what we are doing is not acknowledged-has not been brought to people's attention.

David mentioned education. I think it is a very important part of all this, because on one side you can see the direct benefit of development, on the other side, it is almost, I wouldn't say unknown, but very hard to quantify.

And then to quantify a dollar amount is just about guessing, to some degree, until we have the amount of research, the amount of dollars dedicated.

As a wetlands ecologist, where could we go, Jean, to get a better feeling for that "benefit?"

Ms. WATTS. I am not sure I followed all of that, but

Mr. NOWAK. You have to be a chemist and biologist and ecologist.

Ms. FILIPPONE. Hydrologist.

Ms. WATTS. I think that you are right. And one of the things that this speaks to is we are getting to a point in our development when we are realizing that you can't answer all the questions with one regulatory program. Wetlands regulation is not going to be the answer for our history of poor planning in this country. It is not going to solve a lot of those problems. And I think where we need to be going and start looking is in watershed planning, to try to address these things.

Mr. NOWAK. We are broadening the Clean Water Act, hopefully, to look at large sources of pollution. We have done it in the Chesapeake Bay, where you have the coalition; you have the Great Lakes now forming and looking at the larger inputs from everybody; and the Long Island Sound is going on and working with Connecticut.

If you do them in isolation you come up with different conclusions because nobody is bringing all of the inputs together. So hopefully we are moving in a more coordinated direction anyway. So what I am suggesting is, we move this wetlands program to do some of the same things. As that planning is going on for clean water, shouldn't this be another aspect of it that is brought into different areas? And I know it is going to be completely variable, because of what you have in Pennsylvania, and is difficult from Louisiana where you have got a lot more. So we have got to have that variable input there, but we have to start looking at those local benefits.

In one area, you may be feeding a fishery and the brackish water that you speak of. I would suppose that water changes with a good storm.

Mr. GLOCKNER. Yes, it does.

Mr. Nowak. As far as, however, inland you are going to go fishing?

Mr. GLOCKNER. Sir?

Mr. NOWAK. Even depending, however, inland you are going to find the fish they will move with the

Mr. GLOCKNER. Pontchartrain is basically a brackish lake. That is about as far as you are going into the State to salt water fish. Mr. NOWAK. Can you describe, Clifford, what is the breadth of the membership of the Lake Pontchartrain Foundation? Is that a local foundation or is that a wide

Mr. GLOCKNER. Mainly, Lake Pontchartrain, yes, sir, and the membership must be up in the 10,000, 15,000 members of it.

Mr. Davis. I can answer that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NOWAK. Why don't you come to the panel. Just identify yourself for the reporter.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Mark Davis and I am with the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation. It is a two and a half year old grassroots organization that was formed to help spearhead the efforts to clear up and restore the Lake Pontchartrain Basin.

It currently has, I believe, 1,200 dues-paying members and supporters in other forms, which would take it up to probably several thousands more. It is a fairly young organization, but it was formed expressly for the purpose of focusing attention on these issues. And I think there are a total of 14 parishes in the Pontchartrain Basin. So it is not merely

Mr. NOWAK. Are all the parishes represented in the foundation? Mr. DAVIS. I could check with our membership people, but I believe so, yes. I mean, there are a lot of parishes in Louisiana.

Mr. NOWAK. There was testimony about what protections we can give the total area and how much land is washing in from the ocean, or what the ocean is taking out, I guess would be a better way to phrase it. That loss isn't done by anybody developing. Accordingly to your testimony, you cut another channel in there that is going to push some freshwater in that is going to change the whole ecology of what you are going to be able to fish for; is that correct?

Mr. GLOCKNER. That is right. If you channel any freshwater into Lake Pontchartrain, it is going to change something, which, in

turn, Lake Pontchartrain is going to change Lake Borgne and Lake Borgne will change the Louisiana marsh.

I will give you an example. The ship channel was cut into New Orleans. Totally moved the salt water line up. It changed from brackish to salt, which pushed the freshwater like further in. Freshwater is vital to us. Too much can kill you, though.

But we have another problem. It might be unique to our area, I don't know. When these people go into these low-high areas and develop it, contractors and stuff, they very seldom tell these people, look, these are flood basins. When these heavy rains come, you are going to be four foot under the water here. They don't tell them that. They let them go on and develop it there, and when they get flooded out, the people run to their legislatures, their mayors or whoever, and they want levies put in, they want canals dug, all that at taxpayers' expense.

If they would have backed away a quarter of a mile, they wouldn't have had these problems. But they want to encroach. Wherever they see water, they want to build on it. And always it is not good. I am on the water. I know. A storm can come this year and take everything I got, but I will take my licking and keep on ticking. I will be out there in the marsh scratching boards and stuff and I will build it back, because I have no flood insurance. Too expensive where I am at.

But these people aren't going to do that. They are not like that. They are not used to this kind of life. They want protection. In reality, they aren't going to get it. They have been building levies for years, gentlemen, in our area. They come down that issue and it looks like a Class III hurricane is going to wipe you out anyway. Millions and millions of dollars, thousands of acres of wetlands destroyed on account of these levies, and they tell the people after they moved that invested all their money, a Class III hurricane, a little bet, it is going to wipe you out, not a Camille, but a Bestsy is going to wipe you out. I don't think that is fair to the people.

Mr. NOWAK. Let me go back to that broader question that you were trying to address, the statement made by Dr. Filippone that the 1991 manual-the figure of 60, I think, 70 percent of the Passaic River basin is wetland. Again, what could you associate with that kind of a loss?

Ms. FILIPPONE. The Passaic River basin is a remanent of a glacial lake. So much of the wetlands that are there are now red maple swamps. So that between 60 and 70 percent of them by definition in the proposed revision would no longer be considered wetlands. Mr. NOWAK. Dr. Filippone, you could build on them.

MS. FILIPPONE. You could build on them and we have seen areas where during dry time certain lands of this type have been built on. Houses that 10 years ago were selling for $250,000 and now, when it is wet of course, these people get flooded, the cellars get flooded. They get up to the first floor and as you know we have a big flood control project before Congress at the point in time and the cost estimates for that project are currently $2 billion; $1.2 billion last spring. It is now $2 billion in today's cost, so that we could see the loss of wetlands which are critical to control the flooding issues escalating the cost the government is going to have to pay