INTRODUCTION 



John Clark 

 Conservation Foundation, Washington, D.C, 



Many years ago, the Conservation 

 Foundation discovered that estuaries 

 were a valuable resource; one that 

 was vulnerable because of the inevi- 

 table navigation, industrial, and 

 general residential development that 

 occurs along our shores. In a book 

 produced during the late fifties 

 by Lionel A. Walford-- Living Resourc - 

 es of the Sea --the Conservation Foun- 

 dation made its pitch for the estuary 

 as an endangered resource that vi- 

 tally needed protection. The Founda- 

 tion began an aggressive effort to 

 protect wetlands and waters of estu- 

 aries as intact resource units. One 

 mistake made was to think that estu- 

 arine conservation was largely a 

 coastal problem. It may have been a 

 coastal problem in the sixties when 

 dredging and filling were occurring 

 and wetland destruction was rapid. 

 But now, with most of the worst of 

 those destructive kinds of projects 

 under control, we find that estuarine 

 conservation is largely a water sup- 

 ply problem dealing with the quanti- 

 ty, the quality, the timing, and the 

 rate of flow. This is where the 

 scene has shifted and this is where 

 we are going to have to work if we 

 are going to protect estuaries. We 

 have to know how much water is need- 

 ed, what pollutants are tolerable, 

 and at what times these waters flow 

 into estuaries. As a result of this 

 shift from concerning ourselves with 



the coastal area, to the water basin 

 itself and the physical changes 

 there, just about everything we have 

 done in the conservation of estu- 

 aries since 1965, when Congress 

 started trying to get its estuarine 

 legislation together, is all out of 

 date. For instance, the Coastal Zone 

 Management program in this country, 

 which was fashioned to protect estu- 

 aries, is powerless to cope with is- 

 sues about water supply to estuaries. 

 I don't know how many of you know it, 

 but the first version of the Coastal 

 Zone Management Act in 1969 and early 

 seventies was known as the Estuarine 

 and Coastal Zone Management Act. It 

 was a resource protection initiative 

 fashioned in Congress. Somehow in 

 the next couple of years, before 

 1972, it got wrenched around strong- 

 ly to becoming a land use oriented 

 management act. Meanwhile, separate 

 Federal programs and permit programs 

 were devising some pretty good con- 

 trols over dredging, filling, and 

 wetland destruction. Because the 

 Coastal Zone Management Act is power- 

 less to do anything about water sup- 

 ply, quantity, quality, and timing a 

 new initiative is needed for estu- 

 arine conservation. This initiative 

 must have its roots in national water 

 resources policy, not in coastal 

 policy. This shadowy area is what 

 Gary Wills calls the sunless marsh- 

 lands of American politics. 



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