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Page 6 of 7
State of the Pond Address
My fellow water consumers, the state of our ponds is not what it once was, but if we hang together they can and will be better.
The U.S. Department of the Interior conducted a study into American wetlands, including ponds across the country, and the difference in their status between 1780 and 1980. This 200-year study found that in the land that has now become the 50 states, there were in 1780, 392 million acres of wetlands. By 1980 that number was down by 53%. Less than half remained. Hawaii and Alaska were less ravaged, but the lower 48 lost 60 acres an hour1
If that were not enough, a state and federal survey evaluated 43% of America’s lakes, ponds, and reservoirs—nearly half of those representative bodies of water were impaired for drinking, fishing, or recreating. Those numbers still do not reflect the full problem, as they did not necessarily include lakes or ponds with mercury, PCB, or other chemical contaminant advisories against eating fish pulled from those waters.2
Our ponds are not healthy. Neither are there nearly so many as Mother Nature had, in her long-proven wisdom, designed. Yet we are not so young and foolish in the world as once we were, and our careless disregard of wetlands resources is a juvenile habit we are ready to leave behind. We, the stewards of the waters, can change. We can save the ponds.
Sources:
1Dahl, T.E . "WETLANDS LOSSES IN THE UNITED STATES 1780'S TO 1980 ” U.S . Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C . 1990.
2Various. "2000 National Water Quality Report ” EPA. Washington, D.C. 2000. of wetland, every hour for the past 200 years.
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