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been there since 1981 as a researcher and teacher in the areas of 

 natural resource economics and pohcy, government finance, and re- 

 search philosophy. I have served on the OTA's wetland advisory 

 panel, as president of the Society of Wetlands Scientists, as sci- 

 entific advisor to the Assistant Secretary of the Army, and as a 

 senior economist in Interior's Office of Policy Analysis. I have sub- 

 mitted a written statement and a copy of "Wetland Policy Issues" 

 and request they be inserted into the record. 



[The publication "Wetland Policy Issues" is held in the sub- 

 committee files.] 



Mr. Leitch. I represent the Council for Agricultural Science and 

 Technology — CAST — a coalition of 30 scientific societies devoted to 

 advancing the understanding and use of food and agricultural 

 sciences and technology in the public interest. I have been asked 

 to address wetlands and nonpoint pollution. 



I intend to make two general points this morning regarding is- 

 sues that are covered in far more detail in the CAST "Wetland Pol- 

 icy Issues" report. The first issue regards wetland definition and 

 the second wetland value, both highly relevant to using wetlands 

 to reduce or control nonpoint pollution. 



With regard to the first point. Wetland is not well enough de- 

 fined to be included in such legislation. After years of struggling 

 among Federal agencies, the National Academy of Sciences is cur- 

 rently attempting to define wetland. The reason for the struggle is 

 that wetland is a concept, like maturity or pornography, and can- 

 not be described by scientists until society determines some ground 

 rules. In other words, wetlands are not out there waiting to be dis- 

 covered, they exist only in how society chooses to describe them. 

 And we haven't been able to describe them well enough yet to in- 

 clude reference to wetland in such legislation. 



Referring to wetland in nonpoint pollution legislation before it is 

 well defined gives subsequent definers of wetland tremendous in- 

 fluence on the impact of that policy. The impacts of a definition on 

 rural communities and agriculture can be extremely wide ranging, 

 depending on just how "wet" wetland is subsequently defined to be. 



In addition, social concepts differ among regions of the country 

 and over time. Thus, including a poorly defined concept, such as 

 wetland, in such legislation may mean that the impact will not be 

 consistent geographically and it may change as society's perception 

 of wetland changes. 



My second point. Generalities and platitudes about the values of 

 wetlands are not sufTicient evidence that all wetlands are valuable 

 for pollution control, nor that any wetland is more valuable than 

 an alternative mechanism. There are three parts to this issue. 

 First, when looked at individually, some wetlands do not provide 

 many of the often cited long list of social benefits, or if they do, 

 they do so only at a low or a modest level. I am a resource econo- 

 mist and I do understand the concepts of cumulative impact and 

 marginal change. We attempt to account for both of those in our 

 analysis of wetland value. 



Second, while wetland may function in such a way as to recharge 

 ground water, for example, if there is no demand for ground water 

 in that area, there is no value for that function. Many parts of the 

 upper Midwest, for example, having naturally alkaline ground 



