Nearly 95% of North Carolinas original 7.8 million acres of wetlands are in the Coastal Plain and by 1991 half of those wetlands had either been filled or drained so that they no longer performed their functions. Natures intended purpose of these dense thickets is to absorb rainwater like a giant sponge, slowly releasing it to our aquifers and rivers, helping to maintain a consistent water table in time of drought and preserve the estuary salinity levels so critical for fish and shellfish. The North Carolina timber industry, basking in their ownership of the nations greatest producing pine plantation has chosen to ignore the laws of nature. Many thousand acres of wetlands have been intentionally ditched and drained to provide a rich, dry environment for genetically engineered pine trees.

Silvicultural laws in North Carolina have permitted this activity with little or no regulation as foresters consider themselves to be farmers. Their disregard for the environment is highlighted by the absence of erosion and siltation control measures. According to N.C. law, these measures are necessary to maintain the appropriate turbidity and water quality standards. The adverse effects of sedimentation are many since nutrients, herbicides,
and other toxicants adhere to sediment and can remain latent for many years.

Sources of sediment from forestry activities include: roads and ditches, mechanized land clearing, slope failures, debris flow and the diversion of streams at road crossings. Yearly maintenance of ditches is more aptly described as enhancement - as they become deeper and wider with each scoop of the bucket, often becoming quite larger than the natural body of water intended to
carry their flow.

Uncontrolled ditching has made yearly flash floods the norm in the Town Creek area of Brunswick County, NC, the flood of 1999 submerging downstream residents under 23 feet of cold, black, rushing water.

Updates


August 30, 2000

One tiny win for the environment as International Paper Company announced to the North Carolina Pesticide Board that they plan to temporarily suspend all herbicide spraying in southeastern North Carolina. At the request of the NC department of Environment and Natural Resources the pesticide Board had scheduled an investigation into wrongdoing by forestry in their practice of intensively spraying herbicides over wetland pine plantations.

NEWS FLASH !!

Brunswick County, NC - (July, 2000) - International Paper Co. recently installed 40 feet of silt fence and several bales of straw on their 300,000 acre pine plantation to prevent erosion along the main tour route through the Green Swamp. This “first noticable attempt" at erosion control will no doubt be enshrined with placards just as last years pathetic wildlife food plots were.

Winnabow, North Carolina - (September, 2000) During the peak of hurricane season CCSENC members discover a drainage canal less that 30 days old, measuring 55 feet wide and over 10 feet deep. This, after residents pleaded with forestry management to close off some canals to lessen downstream flooding.

Town Creek, North Carolina - (October, 2000) The Army Corps of Engineers at the request of downstream residents, the Brunswick County Commissioners, and N.C. Congressman Mike McIntyre have initiated a hydrological study into the flooding caused by stormwater runoff flowing from the Green Swamp.

Town Creek, North Carolina - (November, 2000) Conspicuously absent from the Green Swamp game lands this fall are the wildlife food plots so publicized last year as "PATHETIC".

December 12, 2000

Apparently forgetful of the hydrologic cycle, the North Carolina Pesticide Board unanimously approved guidelines permitting herbicide spraying in wetlands. Surface waters may be sprayed if less than 12 inches deep and less than thirty days old.