Smelly, insect infested, and disease ridden are many words that people have used to describe the attributes of wetlands in our country. Until recently it was thought that wetlands served very little use as a part of our ecosystem. However, as the developers began to drain and destroy these wetlands in order to build housing developments and commercial buildings environmental scientists emerged from the woodwork. These environmental scientists found the value and absolute necessity for wetlands and brought it to the attention of politicians. The politicians are the only ones who could slow the destruction of wetlands with their policies.

Before the politicians could begin to construct policies to protect the wetlands they needed the scientists to give them a good working definition that they could use to classify wetlands. This is a very difficult process since many wetlands are transitional meaning that they may appear wet or dry according to the season. However in 1987 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published guidelines to classifying wetlands. The criterion included that wetlands must contain hydrophytic vegetation, hydric soils, and wetland hydrology. M. Dennison et. al. 1993 With this new information politicians were able to legally define wetlands with the Clean Water Act, which states:

"The term ‘wetlands’ means those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas."

Through the study, classification and legal defining of wetlands scientists have made some very interesting findings. There are some major contributions that wetlands make toward our ecosystem and many of them are crucial to the welfare of mankind. A major function of wetlands is that they naturally clean the table waters. With the use of microorganisms it is possible to naturally clean the water supply much better than many water purification plants. A benefit of purifying water with the use of wetlands is that not only does it save the taxpayers money but it also saves the environment from the pollution that a water purification plant would produce. Another function of wetlands is its storage ability. In the event of a large storm or heavy rain wetlands can store the floodwaters so that they do not over run the near by area. To reduce the effects of flooding wetlands are able to store "stormwater and gradually returning it to surface flow, reducing the effects of erosion by stabilizing soils, and dampening the effects of wave action". M. Dennison et.al. 1993. Wetlands also provide a feeding ground and habitat to many fish, waterfowl and other wildlife. Many endangered birds nest and breed on the shores of wetlands and these habitats are crucial for their survival. The destruction of wetlands has become a major problem, especially in California.

In the United States the destruction of wetlands had been enormous, however in the state of California it has been estimated that nearly ninety-three percent of the wetlands have been destroyed. With profit producing coastal real estate the hungry pockets of California developers will do whatever it takes to find more land to build on. It is unfortunate that much of this coastal property were once wetlands that have since been filled, drained and built upon just to support the real-estate market.

With the destruction of so many wetlands the necessity of wetland science became a necessity. Now there are wetland scientists working to develop ways to restore the wetlands that have been mistreated by abusive farming practices or near by developments. Wetland scientists also focus on how to create wetlands where there once was no wetland. These scientists are undertaking a huge project in constructing synthetic wetlands. This includes introducing wildlife and plant life, and molding together the entire mini-ecosystem as if it had occurred naturally there. There is one problem with producing synthetic wetlands. That is that in order to develop the techniques to be able produce a synthetic ecosystem the scientists must be able to observe what an ideal naturally occurring wetland looks like. With the mass desecration of California wetland it is near impossible to find an intact wetland. Most wetland scientists construct these synthetic wetlands be a theory of how things "should be" if they were not previously contaminated by influences (i.e. abusive farming, golf courses, housing developments, and recreational vehicles (i.e. Gas guzzling boat, waverunners, etc.)

In conclusion it is simple to see why the destroyed wetlands should be repaired. Not only would the function of the wetland resume, but all of the surrounding humans would benefit from cleaner water and a flood overflow container. However, it is slow process informing the public of why they should leave a swamp intact instead of building more bay front property.

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