Question : Generally, what do you 

 want out of that river? 



Answer : I'll tell you what I want. 

 I want to leave this system alone. 

 I want it to work like it has always 

 worked. I'll tell you why. It's one 

 of the last functional systems we've 

 got. Most of the other systems I've 

 gone over have either been dammed or 

 there's agriculture or pollutants or 

 something else in the river. We 

 can't find any pollutants here, and 

 the river's still flooding. We've 

 still got tremendous productivity. 

 I'd like to see it all stay the same 

 and study it and find out how it 

 goes, and, then, I can help out, 

 perhaps, in the Chesapeake where they 

 don't have such base-line data. It 

 is critical to have base-line data to 

 see how the system functions because 

 when you put man in these systems you 

 change the system. The orchestra's 

 not playing the same tune and it 

 isn't predictable. Or, maybe it's 

 too predictable. This is a national 

 estuarine sanctuary. This is the 

 largest, most ambitious estuarine 

 sanctuary in the country. Eight 

 percent of the people in this 

 system would like to keep the system 

 the way it is. That's another point. 

 We've done a lot of work with educat- 

 ing these people on how this works by 

 going into schools, by going on radio 

 and TV, and presenting the scienti- 

 fic data to the public. 



Question : That's 2,000 square miles 

 of your watershed. What about the 

 other people up in Georgia and 

 Alabama? 



Answer : I'll be quite honest with 

 you. There's some people up there 

 who have said this is going to be 

 the next Ruhr valley of the south. 

 They want to dam it and make this a 

 major channel for industrialization. 

 I don't think that should go on. I 



think it should still be a multiuse 

 system. They can use it, but they 

 don't destroy it for other people. 



Question : If there's a mechanism to 

 get scientific data, can you get it 

 in the hands of the right people to 

 use it? I think that should be a 

 question answered at this conference. 



Answer : Don't you think that's due 

 partly to the fact that working on 

 estuaries falls between the responsi- 

 bilities of all the agencies? 



Question : It's doesn't escape all 

 the agencies. I think it is a very 

 valid question to ask. It's quite 

 simply, yes, for us today. You talk 

 about flows to the estuary deter- 

 mined by places like Atlanta and the 

 institutional interface is through 

 agencies such as HUD, which provides 

 grants for permissions to construct 

 new housing developments and this 

 type of thing. We have very weak 

 methodology to input into that 

 process. I'm from Galveston, Texas, 

 now, and we're trying to deal with 

 that question in the Houston area. 

 So far it's a very slow battle. 

 Furthermore, we don't even really 

 know what we're trying to accomplish 

 there . 



Answer : I think Bob Herbst touched 

 on that, and I'd like to emphasize 

 that the worst enemy we've had as far 

 as constructing a system has been the 

 Federal Government. Not just the 

 Federal Government, but the Congress 

 of the United States with the various 

 edicts they have made over the years. 

 Keeping that a deep channel has shown 

 over one-half billion dollars for 

 navigation alone. The flood plain 

 insurance program actually encourages 

 people to settle all through some of 

 these sensitive flood plain areas 

 and along our barrier islands which 

 is another rather sensitive area. 



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