Wetlands, wastelands: how our views of wet, "weedy" areas have changed over time!

Clare Howard tells of the ambitious, productive, profit-motivated pioneers who came to the Plains, tiled and drained the swamps, and planted acres of corn and soybeans in place of the native plants. "When industrious developers and farmers virtually exterminated wetlands with dikes, drainage, pumps, and chemicals, few advocates protested because there was no understanding anything of value was being destroyed," Howard writes.

Land covered with native grasses still look "messy" and "unproductive" to uninformed eyes, compared to weed-free fields of row crops, but this book is a step toward informing that uninformed eye.

Changing how we think and do things begins with books like this one. The prevailing view of our elected officials continues to be that government policies reward productivity instead of protecting water quality. "Rather than slowing water down and filtering out chemical pollutants through wetlands," Howard writes, "farmers continue to instill tiling systems with underground pipes." And this:

"Convincing people the system needs to change is a Herculean task."

It starts with people like Mike Miller, quoted in Chapter 10 for promoting wetland restoration "for everyone. His goal is to build an environmental army with a visceral connection to the earth." Every property owner can create a bioswale or rain garden and plant deep-rooted perennials. In the same chapter, Jim Kleinwachter urges home owners to go native: "A hosta just sits in the garden inert. roses and lilacs are not native," he said. "I'm not telling people to tear out all their turf and lilacs but to mix the decorative plants with functional plants. Prairie dropseed absorbs tons of water. we want more native species and diversity."

Howard tells how John Deere's invention of the steel plow enabled farmers to slice into the deep taproots of the prairie and replace native forbs and grasses with row crops. I grew up hearing what a great thing this was. We celebrated these heroic farmers who "really made something' of the land. They made a mess of it, with contaminated water supplies, flooded towns and cities downstream, and cancer-causing chemicals. Yes, they also fed the world and did a lot of good things, but we are paying for the "mistakes" with epidemic cancer, diminishing diversity, declining numbers of pollinators, frogs, birds, bats, and other species, and historic, 100-year floods are happening every five years all over the Midwest.

Bulldozing and paving over wetlands is not progress; it's a recipe for disaster. Without the wetlands acting as a natural sponge to soak up huge quantities of water, the flooding "results in billions of dollars of damage paid for by governments, private insurance companies, and individuals." The issue of flooding hit close to home for me in 1993, with a ten-inch-deep river of raw sewage in the basement of our first house, and thousands of dollars in repairs.. I've seen that wall of water rolling down the hill from paved streets and asphalt rooftops. I've seen housing "developments" spring up in wetlands. I've seen the sandbags that didn't stem the tide, the mountains of ruined furniture and carpets piled up for the trash collector outside new homes. Urban sewers and storm systems are overloaded with more new houses than the infrastructure can handle.

For all I know, combatting wildfires is just as much of a drain on taxpayer dollars, but as a Midwesterner, I've seen firsthand the billion-dollar floods that drain taxpayer dollars in emergency relief, so I'm not disputing this: "The cost of dealing with flooding is now the largest environmental expense depleting our national resources--more than Medicaid, Social Security, or public education." The visionaries Howard interviews in this book show us a smarter, better solution to flood control. Wetlands trap the overlow of raging rivers and keep floodwaters out of towns and cities. They may even remediate the effects of climate change.

This book shows us how the pioneers of today are not just solving problems but are restoring the beauty of the wild wetlands. Five stars for passages like this:

"Even after being drained, diked and doused with agricultural chemicals, a wetland will reemerge under the transformative power of restoration. Seeds dormant for a century will germinate, and a breeze over the surface of a wetland will choreograph a ballet of grasses."

In chapter 4, I appreciate the "living walls of willows, wild gray dogwood, and chattering cottonwoods. All are sentries, guarding against incursions by the outside world of human civilization raucous with the sounds of cars, trucks, radios, and conversation."

Three stars for the number of times the same phrases and ideas get repeated: e.g., the concept of "eutierria," a sort of meditative state where we become one with the environment, or a "sensation of blending with the surrounding landscape and becoming one with nature," is defined more than once.

A round of judicious editing, and little more information for the homeowner on how to go about creating or restoring their own wetland or rain garden, would make this a solid 5-star book.

In the Spirit of Wetlands tells, briefly, the story of several areas of reclaimed wetlands and marshes in Illinois, carefully rewilded for conservation and natural flood protection. It introduces each area along with its pioneer redeveloper, explaining how and why they came to be interested in “unproductive” land and its uses.

This is, overall, an interesting read. Some chapters discuss the aesthetic and artistic aspects of the wetlands, others the potential areas for profit. Many of the chapters seem to go over similar scenarios and points of interest, however, with some sentences repeated mere paragraphs apart. The tales also seem to skim the surface of events and histories, in a style more reminiscent of a short newspaper feature than a book. I understand their reasoning for keeping the subject more high-brow and focused on the people, but think it would have been interesting if a little more time was spent with each area and each subject. Perhaps some discussion of what was unique about each area, or focusing on the unique aspects of each story would have made some of the text less repetitive.