Joe Cunningham: “too often we hear about the wetlands, not too often because wetlands have been denigrated. But a plant in the middle of…”

“too often we hear about the wetlands, not too often because wetlands have been denigrated. But a plant in the middle of the desert, because it flourishes for a few weeks, is not a wetland, or something that is frozen at the top of a 12,000 foot peak for the last thousand years in my opinion is not a wetland. But the opponents say that they oppose this bill, and yet it creates 50 miles of wetlands complete with marshes that purify and clean the environment, 50 new miles with marshes that create wetland. The wetland that is saved and enhanced is the size of the Beltway here in Washington, D.C. Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about a farm pond. We are talking about a sea so big that if we were in a boat, it is like being in an ocean. I have been there, and I think the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller) has, too. But we are actually creating good with the wetlands. The Miller substitute would study, and I agree there are other problems besides salinity with the Salton Sea. Agriculture is mostly to the south, though. Around the Salton Sea, if my colleagues have gone, it is all desert. The pollution comes in through the New River, and down, and filters, and that is what we are going to fix, but the farmlands are way to the south. They flow toward Mexico. They do not go in the Salton Sea. But yet I still think that pesticides and things like that are a problem for the birds that land in those farmlands, but not the Salton Sea.”