I am forwarding this from another listserve. I did not see this story on channel 13 but heard from others who thought it was not fairly presented. Did anyone on this listserve see it? Jane Clark I wanted address the news story on the Engeldinger Marsh bypass aired by channel 13, WHO in Des Moines, on Wednesday night (June 19th) during their 10:00 news broadcast. The story was clearly along the lines of sensationalism, and was, in my opinion, very biased and poorly done. They attempted to make the issue into a waste of tax payer money, while not clearly providing insight into the uniqueness of the marsh. At no time during the story did they discuss, or allow the point to be made, that Engeldinger posses unique geological and biological properties deserving of protection. It seemed to me that they clearly intended to make Engeldinger seem, to put it in the terms that I believe they were attempting to portray, like just another swamp. They then attempted to make a cost analysis of the bypass, suggesting that the bypass was costing tax payers an extra 4 million dollars. However, based on their presentation of this figure, it appeared that this number did not consider any inherent costs of the road. For example, it didn't seem that they even considered or subtracted what the cost of the road would have been had it gone straight through the marsh, etc. Unfortunately, I am not as familiar with the history of this conflict, nor even of the marsh itself, as I am sure many of the INP list serve members are. For this reason, I was hoping that this email could initiate information collection or volunteering by people well informed on this issue, with the intent of creating some form of a rebuttal, perhaps to the station itself or to Des Moines Register. Thanks, Matt Mathew E. Dornbush Iowa State University Dept. of Botany 353 Bessey Hall Ames, Iowa 50011-1020 Email: [log in to unmask] Office Phone: (515) 294-4033 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask]