Save That Swamp

-- a conversation with Curt Richardson

(Ann Kellan)
They're wet, they're wild, they clean up pollution, reduce flooding and can actually lower mosquito populations - what are they?  If you guessed moors or swamps all considered wetlands...you're correct.  And the problem is, 50 percent of America's original wetlands have been drained for farming and other development."

(Curtis Richardson)
"What's interesting is the native fish and amphibians in a natural wetland can keep the mosquito populations quite low."

(Ann Kellan)
Dr. Curtis Richardson heads up the Wetland Center at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. His goal is not just to preserve wetlands, but to restore them before we literally drown in our own stupidity.

(Curtis Richardson)
"We had a great flood down the Mississippi in 1993 because states like Iowa had removed 89 percent of its wetlands and there were no wetlands to store the rainfall on the landscape. The levies on the Mississippi broke and the cost to the nation was billions of dollars."

(Ann Kellan)
The flooding and destruction from Hurricane Katrina along the gulf coast is another example of bad wetlands management in practice. Wetlands don't just prevent and reduce flooding; they also act as a washing machine for environmental pollution. Bacteria that live in those muddy waters turn pollutants like chemical fertilizers into non-polluting gas...

(Curtis Richardson)
"...and add them back into the atmosphere"

(Ann Kellan)
To understand how to bring these natural resources back alive, Richardson leads a team of researchers trying to restore 14 acres of wetlands near Duke University. It's an undertaking every bit as complicated as going to the moon.

(Curtis Richardson)
"It's difficult enough to study an ecosystem and understand all the parts when it's there. Think of it not being there and figuring out which pieces to put back and in what order."

(Ann Kellan)
Richardson hopes discoveries in this modest project will scale up to help solve restoration problems caused by massive wetlands destruction everywhere from the Louisiana and the Florida Everglades to the Iraqi marshes and the nutrients draining from rice fields in China. To learn more about Richardson's work and what it might mean for a health-giving swamp near you, put Earthfile.org in your web browser. I'm Ann Kellan and that's another one for the Earthfile.

return to radio spots >