NY Times

Henry Ingram, Esq. Article Appears in the Pennsylvania Landowner - January 1995

It’s A Good Thing Not Everyone Reads the New York Times on Tuesdays!

Many landowners have felt the sting of wetlands preservation enforcement on their property and PLA members are familiar with the legal nightmares experienced by Bob Brace and Ed McDanniels in Pennsylvania and by Bill Ellen, Ocie Mills and Ted and Nancy Cline in other states. We have learned that approximately 80% of the wetlands in Pennsylvania are located on privately owned lands. Now, by virtue of extreme, preservationist regulations imposed by unelected, largely unaccountable bureaucrats and enforced by aggressive, often dictatorial enviro-police, this private property has been dedicated, in effect, to public use. As a practical matter, these bureaucrats are telling you that you can’t use your property as you wish or even as your family always has. Most ordinary citizens have had real trouble believing what they’re hearing. It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Many of us can remember the days when draining a swamp to make land productive or to eliminate mosquitoes was thought to be a good thing. Indeed, our same government which todays committed to preserving all wetlands (remember President Clinton supports NO NET LOSS and wants to create even more wetlands!), had a much different approach in the past. In the 1920’s, ’30’s, ’40’s and 50’s, the Federal Government promoted and subsidized the conversion of millions of acres of “wet” lands for agricultural uses. Today converting wetland to productive land can be a crime.

This is not my point, although perhaps it should be, but the recent election results should graphically remind us that we have the constitutionally guaranteed right to change something the Government does to us that we don’t like. There is nothing about the current governmental preference for swamps, bogs and marshes and the seemingly ridiculous but currently accepted notion that wetlands don’t have to be wet - that can’t be reversed. You have often heard that the word “wetlands” was not even mentioned in the federal Clean Water Act when all this preservation frenzy started. It wasn’t in the Pennsylvania Clean streams law either. No, we’re not talking about “elected legislator made law” - this is “unelected bureaucrat made law.” Nor are wetlands protected or made sacrosanct by the Constitution. They’re not like speech or liberty or even property. Wetlands on private property now have to be preserved because regulations made it that way but remember, regulations and government policy can be changed. Remember the elections. Suffice it to say here that, at least in theory, wetlands preservation regulations could be rolled back. Indeed, this is precisely what Tom Ridge and Jimmy Hayes were trying to do with HR 1330. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next Congress. Let’s hope that the new majority has the guts to do something about the problem.

Did you ever stop and think about how we got to where we are on wetlands preservation? How did we get to the point where NO NET LOSS became a national battle cry and creating new farmland or eliminating mosquito breeding grounds became an environmental crime? At least part of the answer is that pubic opinion shifted. Somehow the dark, negative image of swamps and bogs changed and now they are considered by many to be, ecologically speaking, the greatest thing since sliced bread. And now does public opinion shift? One of the ways it shifts is that “opinion makers” begin to shift it. Now I’m getting to the New York Times.

Recently the Times’ Tuesday “Environment” Section has been “reporting” on the threatening impacts of “habitat fragmentation” on a variety of wild plants and animals. It makes interesting, if scary, reading if you can cut through some of the jargon and newspeak. For example, on September 27, Times environmental writer William K. Stevens reported:

The best adapted and most dominant species of wild plants and animals may be, paradoxically, the most vulnerable to long-term extinction as a result of habitat loss, say ecologists in the United States and Britain.
But since the species to not actually go extinct for 50 to 500 years after the fragmentation of their habitat dooms them, the researchers report, natural areas may now look healthier than they really are.

The good news, the scientists say, is that the long interval between habitat fragmentation and the ultimate death of species allows time to rescue many or most of them through habitat restoration.

Habitat loss and fragmentation brought about by human activity are advancing apace around the world. Because extinctions occur generations after fragmentation takes place, the scientists reported in the British journal Nature this month, they constitute an ecological “debt” that will come due in the future unless it is repaid through restoration.

To really understand the story, you have to know that “habitat fragmentation” means normal “use or development of the land.” To the Ivory Tower ecologist, changing land use for development or, in the ecological context, downgrading it from its natural state to “settlement” which means “residential or agricultural use.” The thrust of the entire story is that mankind owes a debt to Nature to restore these habitats.

On October 18, Times writer Carol Yoon followed up with a story on the vanishing species on Staten Island, one of New York City’s five boroughs. This story reports on the findings of researchers concerning the Staten Island “ecology.”

What they found was that even on Staten Island, were there is still much that is green and were 10 percent of the land is protected, no type of plant is safe, with everything from trees to shrubs and vines, delicate flowering orchids, even roadside weeds getting hit. “We really couldn’t piece out any group of invulnerable species,” said Dr. Robinson.

Dr. Handel explained that they also found no invulnerable habitat, with everything from marshes to dry, upland woods and meadows losing comparable numbers of species.

“That was a frightening finding,” said Dr. Handel. “What hit me was that we have had an enormous emphasis on preserving certain habitat types like the wetlands, and this study has shown me that we’ve reached a stage of habitat degradation were attention has to be leveled against all habitat types and we can’t be naïve to that.”

When you think about it, these stories, without expression or even any suggestion that there are positive or beneficial aspects of land use and development or “fragmentation” as the restoration ecologists call it, advocate the notion that all “habitats” should be protected and all developed land should be restored to its natural state, not just wetlands! The preservationists shoved their noses under the tent with wetlands and now they’re looking to take over whole oasis!

I don’t have to tell you that the Times is considered to be the most influential paper in the country. Many of our inside-the-Beltway friends read it every day including Tuesdays. These people are being influenced and opinions are being formed. “Everything should be preserved and previously ‘settled habitats’ [read that previously developed land] should be restored.”
If you think I’m kidding about a trend toward preservation oriented public opinion, just remember the Erie County Natural Heritage Inventory in its original form. Or think about the recommendations of the Forestry Work Group of the Non-Point Source Subcommittee of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (the name of this organization ranks right up there with the Noxious Weed Control Committee and have to confess that I couldn’t resist mentioning it!). Simply stated, the Forestry Group doesn’t want anyone cutting down any trees along stream banks in the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed which encompasses about a third of Pennsylvania. They dress it up a little but that’s what they’re talking about. They did find the oasis, didn’t they?

Landowners are well advised to keep an eye on their own “settlements.” There are serious people out who truly believe that we owe a debt to restore everything and opinion makers and changers like the Times pass it along with even a mention of the other side of the story.

Pennsylvania Landowners’ Association, Inc.

P.O. Box 391

Waterford, PA 16441

Phone: 1.814.796.4023