Wallace Taylor, a lawyer for the Sierra Club of Iowa, said he's worried the
department has stressed quantity over quality. ...


   Exchange Editorial Rdp
   By The Associated Press

   05/13/2002
   Associated Press Newswires
   Copyright 2002. The Associated Press.
   All Rights Reserved.


   Excerpts from recent editorials in Iowa
   newspapers:





   Wetland restoration:


   COUNCIL BLUFFS DAILY NONPAREIL:


   Viewed in some quarters as an enemy - by others as "the" enemy - of the
   environment, the Iowa Department of Transportation is working to
   reverse, even obliterate, that image. Over the past seven years, the
   agency has restored more than 1,200 acres of wetlands, usually built on
   farmland drained decades ago to raise crops.


   The restored areas replaced about 600 acres of wetlands that became
   parts of highway corridors.


   The 18-acre Hurstville Wetland Mitigation Area near Maquoketa in eastern
   Iowa is now home to blue-winged teal, Giant Canada geese, red-tail hawks
   and bald eagles. ...


   The Hurstville Wetland Mitigation Area is one of more than 50 wetlands
   throughout Iowa that have been restored by the agency since 1995.


   Kevin Griggs, an ecologist who heads the agency's wetland team, said the
   state's priority is to avoid the loss of wetlands when constructing
   roads. When that's unavoidable, wetlands are rebuilt elsewhere,
   typically within the same watershed.


   Apart from providing abundant wildlife habitat, wetlands are deemed
   valuable because they improve surface and groundwater quality, recharge
   groundwater supplies and reduce downstream flood damage.


   Despite the DOT efforts, environmentalists said they have concerns.


   Wallace Taylor, a lawyer for the Sierra Club of Iowa, said he's worried
   the department has stressed quantity over quality. ...


   Neal Johnson, a project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in
   Rock Island, Ill., said the federal government has sometimes allowed the
   Iowa DOT to replace one type of wetland with a different variety
   covering a larger number of acres.


   While that isn't ideal, federal clean water laws aim for no net loss of
   wetlands, Johnson said.


   The Iowa DOT also has had problems complying with standards that mandate
   restored wetlands must have certain soils and plants, and a hydrology in
   which the ground is saturated at least part of the growing season.


   It can cost from $1,000 an acre to nearly $100,000 an acre to restore a
   wetland. The costs vary depending upon the price of land and the
   difficulty of restoration work.


   The Iowa DOT develops wetland mitigation projects in cooperation with
   the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the Corps of Engineers,
   Federal Highway Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and
   Natural Resource and Conservation Service.


   Progress carries its costs, and the Iowa DOT is, in our view, working to
   minimize the environmental impact of the ongoing demand for better roads
   in the state. Those efforts are not perfect, but ours is not a perfect
   world.




Erin Jordahl
Director, Iowa Chapter Sierra Club
3839 Merle Hay Road, Suite 280
Des Moines, IA 50310
515-277-8868
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