EXHIBIT 19 Should We [From the Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine-March 4, 1973] Wetlands like this Little Ogeechee River swamp are drained by channelization. By John Pennington Photography by the Author ON the night before, at a public meeting at Savannah to discuss plans to "channelize" the Little Ogeechee River, a prominent spokesman from Bryan County rose to praise the completed Mill Creek project near Pembroke. The idea was to convince landowners in the Little Ogeechee watershed that channelization would help everybody. The Mill Creek project had had its detractors, the spokesman said, but now that it was completed and its benefits were evident, everybody was satisfied. Now a few miles east of Pembroke I stopped at an antique shop to ask directions to Mill Creek. It seemed a good idea to photograph this stream whose improved qualities had converted its opponents to support ers. "Could you direct me to the creek that, uh..." I paused, searching for a diplomatic way to put the question to the store's proprietor so it wouldn't offend him. He glared at me. "You mean the one they destroyed?" Surprised, I asked, "Are you opposed to that project?" "Opposed?" He loaded the word with sarcasm. "I'm not 100 percent against it. I'm 1,000 percent against it." He leaned across the counter, anguish in his face, anger in his voice. "They made a ditch out of Mill Creek. I used to fish in that creek when I was a boy. Now look at it." W. M. Arnold, owner of the Country Antique Shop, finally calmed down enough to give directions to Mill Creek which, in truth, fitted his description. These conflicting views on the Mill Creek project in Bryan and Bulloch Counties aptly reflect conflicting attitudes toward channelization, a program administered by the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some are for it, some are against it, and the dividing line between the two sides is sharp indeed. SCS calls its alteration of natural streams "channel improvement." Conservationists call it channel destruction. Authority for the controversial program comes from Public Law 566, passed by the Congress in 1954 and amended many times since. The law's aim is idealistic: "preserving and protecting the nation's land and water resources." But with that sentence the idealism ends and reality begins. What would happen in today's cultural environment if the Congress were considering a proposal to spend several billions of dollars in public funds to make farmlands and timber holdings more profitable for private owners-mostly by altering natural streams-and at the same time to pay the same owners several billions more in public funds not to use land already in cultivation? Environmentally conscious taxpayers would swarm to Washington to protest, and to form voter organizations to dislodge from public office those who supported such squandering of the nation's tax funds and natural resources. The idea in itself presents a classic conflict. For years the U.S. government has been paying farmers to let land lie idle; at the same time the government has been pumping many millions of dollars into channelization projects to drain swamps and wetlands-for private landowners- and make the land more useful for planting - or perhaps for lying idle or developing subdivisions. The law under which SCS administers channelization projects states, as a basis for its subsequent provisions, "that erosion, floodwater, and sediment damages in the watersheds of the rivers and streams of the United States, causing loss of life and damage to property, constitute a menace to the national welfare." Measure a Georgia channelization project recently begun, and not yet completed, against that national menace: Work is under way in Bacon County, which is essentially flat, on a project in the Ten Mile-Briar Creek watershed. A total of 27,425 acres is involved. Eighteen miles of channeling are to be dug, and other soil conservation treatment measures done, at a total cost of $698,286, of which $227,511 will be in federal funds. The remainder is in local government participation and owner treatment of lands. The principal problems in the project area are "floodwater damages and agricultural water management." FOR whom is this project being accom plished? There are 161 landowners in the total project, which would put the ultimate cost at more than $4,000 per farmer-if every farm were the same size. But every farm isn't the same size. Four owners control half of the total acreage in the project. They are: - Brunswick Pulp and Paper Co., about 6,000 acres. -Container Corporation of America, between 3,000 and 4,000 acres. -Valene Bennett, prominent local farmer and banker, 2,500 acres. -The Morris Johnson Estate, 1,200 acres. The remaining half of the acreage in the project belongs to the other 157 owners cited in SCS's description of the project. It would appear, from these figures, that more than $100,000 in federal funds is being expended primarily for the benefit of landowners who obviously don't qualify for wel. fare. James L. Baskin, district conservationist, who is proud of the project and another pending approval in Bacon County, says the two big paper companies are not prime beneficiaries because each had begun its own flood control measures prior to initiation of the Ten Mile-Briar Creek project. Still, the acreage is cited in the project description and the paper companies are counted along with the other landowners. The project is underway in a county whose farmers 94-075 (Pt. 6) O 73 - 3 received $383,815 in 1971 in payments from the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service-primarily for letting land lie idle. THE this expenditure, as listed by "A 10-inch rain in a 6-hour HHE first phase of the winter and spring of 1970 over channelization project involves three and a half miles of channel, at an estimated cost of $27,000. Valene Bennett and the Morris Johnson Estate own virtually all of the land in that phase of construction. Four other owners border on the watershed in a much smaller way. The Morris Johnson Estate was paid $5,237.31 in 1971 in the federal feed grain program. The amount was based on idle land. Valene Bennett was paid $1,537.20 in the same program, based on idle land in Bacon and an adjoining county. The channel already dug in Bacon County is not an alteration of a natural stream; it is the creation of a stream channel through swampy forest to drain adjacent lands. The question naturally arises: who benefits most from federally financed programs of this type? Opponents of the channelization idea have long insisted that such projects are carried out for the benefit of the wealthy, primarily big farmers and timber companies. The Mill Creek project mentioned earlier, in Bryan and Bulloch Counties, covers 39,652 acres. Of this, 33,039 acres are in woodland; 929 acres are in urban and miscellaneous use; the remaining 6,684 acres are in crops and pasture. This "treatment," consisting of 66 miles of "channel improvement" through mostly woodland, cost an estimated total of $821,653 -$572,742 of it in federal funds. Here is what the local owners-178 of them-got for 70 inches of rain fell in the WITH very little damage, it might have been added, at projects involve only 27 watersheds.) "Sponsors have submitted applications for planning assistance ... on 153 projects. Federal assistance has been authorized on 60 of these projects." SCS justifies channelization projects with a benefit-to-cost ratio that some critics consider absurd. The benefits accrue, for the most part, to private land-owners. The costs are mostly in public funds, which are counted, and in the loss of natural resources, which are not counted. lion dollars, to privately held JACK Crockford, director woodlands. Public Law 566 does not affect Georgia only; it is nationwide, and applicable additionally to Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Expenditures mount to billions, and programs and costs mushroom. In Georgia more than 700 earlier law at a federal cost An SCS map showing com- "Georgia ranks today as one of the leading states in watershed activities. There are 369 feasible Public Law 566 watersheds in the state. (How far there is yet to go may be understood when it is considered that completed of Georgia's Game and Fish Division, who says he is "not very friendly to the perpetrators of channelization," says "the benefit-cost ratio is probably the weak link. "Eugene Odom (University of Georgia ecologist) and others have pointed out that there are values other than those we have been using. The true costs and benefits are not being considered. How do you evaluate a view, for instance? Rock Howard says you must put a value on pure water. A swamp is involved in water purification. There are a helluva lot of values that we don't understand well enough to calculate. "They call it channel improvement. Channel excavation is what you're talking about. We evaluate a project from the standpoint of fish and wildlife. There's no way that channel excavation is good for either." Channelization specialists of the SCS disagree. At a public orientation meeting at Savannah last September to promote a $5,287,900 project of channelization, impoundments and other soil treatment measures in the Little Ogeechee River watershed, spokesmen insisted that the project would return a benefit of 1.9 times the cost; that it would provide better fishing and wildlife areas, drain wetlands for better agriculture, reduce sedimentation-and at one point an SCS spokesman astounded his listeners with the suggestion that part of 908,000 feet of multi-purpose channels to be dug would make "a beautiful canoe trail." Most of the SCS arguments at that meeting were accepted with no more alacrity than the suggestion that a manmade canal would make a nice canoe trail. Many of those who came to listen were skeptical. "Let's face it," one said. "The only thing you're doing is helping people who are growing pine trees for pulpwood." One man rose to propose an alternative course of financing. "Those who will benefit should form a cooperative, float a bank loan for the project and then pay it back," he said. He was applauded. SCS spokesmen at the meeting indicated that the project had been studied and approved by state agencies, including the Game and Fish Division. A month later, the directors of the Office of Planning and Research and the Game and Fish Division, both in the State Department of Natural Resources, sent letters opposing channelization in the Little Ogeechee Watershed. James L. Baskin, district conservationist, stands beside newly cut drainage channel in Bacon County. ties for using floodplains as they are... The 614 acres of hardwood which will be cleared by channel right-ofway will be a great loss to Georgia. "The swamp, with its large and productive vegetative cover, makes a positive contribution to air quality, an important benefit to the area. Micro-organisms in swamps actively break down pollu tants, thus purifying water. This action is lost when water is flushed down a hot, open channel ... "The Little Ogeechee enriches our marshes... "The rivers and hardwood floodplains of our state have value for all our citizens, and affect many people in addition to individual landowners. Therefore, we must oppose the Little Ogeechee Watershed Project... because it alters an existent, mature floodplain and damages its potential for recreation, education, water quality, air quality, and wildlife for all our citizens." Game and Fish Director Jack Crockford challenged numerous statements in the project's environmental statement as inaccurate and recommended a series of alternatives to channelization. Some critics of the SCS programs have complained that project proposals are not |