By John A. Arway, Executive Director, Fish & Boat Commission
The phrase “Draining the Swamp” was coined many years ago to address the malaria problem, which caused the alarming deaths of millions of people around the world.
Malaria is a disease caused by a parasitic protozoan, in the genus Plasmodium, that is spread to humans and other warm-blooded animals by a species of mosquitos in the genus Anopheles.
The most common methods for controlling mosquito populations include spraying insecticides and draining swamps. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was one of the first chemicals used to kill mosquitos during the second half of World War II.
Fortunately, thanks to Pennsylvania’s own Rachel Carson and her 1962 book “Silent Spring,” we recognized the need to better evaluate the fate and effects of persistent cancer-causing chemicals and banned the agricultural use of DDT in 1972.
We continue to use pesticides and biocides to treat standing and flowing waters to combat waterborne diseases and nuisance species. For example, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) spends millions of dollars treating water bodies throughout our Commonwealth for mosquito control with insecticides to combat West Nile Virus and with the biocide Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (BTI) to control nuisance black fly populations.
If you have ever spent time fishing one of Pennsylvania’s large rivers, you, like me, have been sprayed with BTI that is aerially applied by helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft.
Fortunately, BTI is a United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)-approved chemical, and according to the manufacturer, Arbico Organics, “is harmless to beneficial insects, wildlife, humans, pets or livestock.”
The other method to deal with mosquitos living in swamps (a.k.a. wetlands) was to subsidize farmers to drain swamps, which not only took care of the mosquito problem but also provided more land to farm.
We eventually realized that draining swamps was a bad idea since swamps provided many public benefits to society.
Early in my career, my staff and I assisted the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) with an assessment of wetlands in Pennsylvania, which contributed to a national wetlands inventory (Tiner 1984).
Tiner defined wetlands to include the variety of marshes, swamps and bogs that produce many benefits for society including flood control, water quality maintenance, erosion control, timber and other natural products for man’s use, and recreation besides providing homes for many fish and wildlife species.
Tiner reported that approximately 215 million acres of wetlands existed in the conterminous United States at the time of the nation’s settlement.
In the mid-1970s, only 99 million acres remained, just 46 percent of our country’s original wetlands acreage. In 1984, wetlands covered about 5 percent of the land surface of the lower 48 states.
Between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s, about 11 million acres of wetlands were lost, while 2 million acres of new wetlands were created. A net loss of 9 million acres of wetlands occurred over that 20-year period.
Annual wetlands losses averaged 458,000 acres. Agricultural development was responsible for 87 percent of the national wetlands losses. Urban development and other development caused only 8 percent and 5 percent of the losses respectively.
President George H. W. Bush (1989-1993) vowed that America would lose no “wetlands” under his watch and a government wetlands manual was created that provided regulatory agencies like US EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers guidance to protect the nation’s wetlands, just as intended by the Clean Water Act.
“Draining the Swamp” has also been commonly used by politicians from all parties as a promise to change the bureaucracy at either the state or national level. Most recently, it was a campaign slogan for President Donald Trump that described his plan to fix problems in Washington, D.C.
However, a part of that campaign promise may literally change the rules that protect our nation’s swamps and headwater streams.
Current US EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt along with Mr. Douglas W. Lamont, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works), signed a proposed rule, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2017-0203 which was published in the Federal Register on July 27, 2017, that would revise the definition of ‘‘Waters of the United States’’ (WOTUS).
This proposal is considered by the current administration to be consistent with the Executive Order signed on February 28, 2017, ‘‘Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ Rule.” The public comment period closed on September 27, 2017.
I recently joined Pennsylvania Secretary Patrick McDonnell (Department of Environmental Protection), Secretary Russell C. Redding (Agriculture) and Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn (Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) in signing a letter in response to the proposed WOTUS rule, which explains the Commonwealth’s position on draining our swamps and reducing protections to our headwater streams.
We ask that Pennsylvania anglers and boaters join Rachel Carson, President George H. W. Bush, our Commonwealth agencies, many of our nation’s conservation groups and over 20,000 scientists who have already spoken out about how draining America’s swamps and allowing impacts to our headwater streams puts aquatic resources at risk not only in Pennsylvania but across the entire nation.
Remember fish can’t talk, so only we can speak out in defense of our aquatic resources.
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