From the D.C. office of the club. With all of the unfortunate flooding that has been going on in your states, we thought it would be a good idea get a good message out to the media by submitting a letter to the editor to your local papers, highlighting the importance of wetlands and the Wetland Reserve Program (which Bush has zeroed out in his proposed budget), and how wetlands can help to reduce the severity of floods. Please find below, a sample letter to the editor that you can feel free to use, if you feel that this is a good idea. For more information on the Wetlands Reserve Program and how wetlands help to contain flood water, please visit our wetlands pages at http://www.sierraclub.org/wetlands/, or go directly to http://www.sierraclub.org/wetlands/reports/wetland_restoration/. Thanks, and I hope that you find some of this information useful. -George ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ George Sorvalis Sierra Club's Environmental Quality Program 408 C Street NE Washington DC 20002 (202) 675-6693 [log in to unmask] www.sierraclub.org/eqst ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Editor, One of the contributing factors to flooding in the Upper Mississippi River Basin is the destruction of wetlands. Wetlands act like a natural sponge, soaking up floodwater, then releasing it slowly back into the environment. When we turn wetlands into roads and parking lots, water has nowhere to go but to flood our homes and neighborhoods. An acre of wetlands can store from one to five feet, or more than 1.6 million gallons of floodwater and studies show that wetland restoration could reduce 100-year floods by at least 10%. Restoring our wetlands to reduce flooding makes more sense than paying billions of dollars in flood damages, crop insurance payments, and building more levees that clearly do not work. One program that has been successful in helping to restore and protect wetlands is the Wetlands Reserve Program. The WRP was created in 1990 and has successfully preserved or restored more than 257,000 acres of wetlands in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The WRP helps farmers take out of production farmland that is otherwise unsuitable for agricultural use because it is highly prone to flooding. The land is preserved or restored to provide critical ecological functions such as storing floodwaters, filtering sediments that cause pollution, and providing habitat for wildlife. Today, there are approximately 150,000 acres of wetlands waiting to be enrolled in the WRP in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, and approximately 500,000 backlogged in the United States. But despite this fact, President Bush zeroed out funding in the 2001 budget for this popular program. This is the wrong thing to do. We should expand, not cut this program to protect us from floods and restore critical habitat. If we really want to help the environment and reduce flooding, we need to expand the WRP to help stop the destruction of our wetlands. (You may want to refer to the chart below and add in some facts from your state.) |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| |Wetlands | |WRP, EWRP, | |WRP and EWP|Total | |Avg. | |Amount that | |Restoration | |and EWP Acres| |Acres |potential| |cost for| |Could be Paid | |in Waiting in| |Enrolled* | |Backlogged*|flood | |easement| |to Farmers for | |the Upper | | | | |storage**| |per acre| |WRP | |Mississippi | | | | |(Acre-Ft)| | | | | |River as of | | | | | | | | | | |May, | | | | | | | | | | |2000State | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| |llinois | |36,586 | |20,833 |62,499 | |$1,000 | |$20.3 million | |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| |Iowa | |91,026 | |61,400 |184,200 | |1,500 | |92.1 | |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| |Minnesota | |25,869 | |25,134 |75,402 | |382 | |9.6 | |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| |Missouri | |79,606 | |32,014 |96,042 | |855 | |27.4 | |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| |Wisconsin | |24,377 | |10,000 |30,000 | |900 | |9 | |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| |Upper Miss | |257,464 acres| |149,381 |448,143 |$1,009***| |$150.4 | | |Total | |909,000 | |acres |a-f or |$1,000 | |million| | |National | | | |570,000****|148 | | |$559 | | |Total | | | | |billion | | |million| | | | | | | |gallons | | | | | |-------------+-+-------------+-+-----------+---------+---------+--------+-------+---------------| Much of this acreage lies in the Upper Mississippi River Basin ? Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]