Clean Water Sin

What's a wetland worth?  That seems to be the critical question on the minds of the Supremes yesterday.  They issued a ruling that has further muddied the waters of commerce but the essence of it is that wetlands are just another part of the natural system that man has a right to own and develop into shopping malls if he so desires.  The right to make money is the supreme right of the land, healthy ecosystems be damned!

As these would-be developers whine it out in the courts they are really missing the big picture and doing a disservice to the true entrepreneurs of the planet.  There are ways to generate money and protect wetlands while benefiting all life on the planet.  Let me give you two examples.

First, the California town of Arcata turned an expensive wastewater problem into a revenue generating attraction by using wetlands to help treat and cleanse the City’s wastewater.  Since the installation of the wetlands birds have flocked to the area and tourism has increased in this small community.

Secondly, as wetlands disappear they become even more valuable.  In fact, maintaining existing wetlands is so valuable that there is a financial market set-up to track the value of mitigation credits.  It has become the hallmark of a smart landowner to protect their valuable natural systems on their land and place them into a conservation or agriculture easement.  This maintains the ecosystem value and generates revenue for the landowner. 

Our death economy must be laid to rest to allow the restorative economy to prosper and thrive.  The very last thing we need is the Supremes giving CPR to the corpse of capitalism in the hope of making rich people even richer.