Here's an article about American Wetlands Month from the Mountain Mail. They write, "May is American Wetlands Month, a few weeks in late spring when Americans celebrate ways wetlands enrich our environment. Colorado's wetlands are among the most valuable of our natural resources. They are transition zones where land, water, nutrients and the energy of the sun interact to produce highly productive ecosystems. Wetlands are diverse - they may be classic cattail areas with a few feet of standing water, temporary habitats and depressions that only occasionally have standing water, or areas beside streams that are subject to periodic flooding. Here in the arid West, wetlands play a vital role in supporting mountain, plains and urban ecosystems. Although wetlands comprise just a precious 2 percent of the Colorado landscape, they provide benefits to more than 75 percent of our living organisms, including many species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, crustaceans, spiders and insects...
"One of the most obvious is the contribution wetlands make to our state's recreational economy by supporting the fishing, hunting and wildlife-watching opportunities millions enjoy each year. Many of the benefits wetlands provide are overlooked. Perhaps the most basic of these are the physical roles wetlands play in managing water. Wetlands are nature's sponges - places that capture, store and slowly release water. These sponges make water available to support ecosystems and provide stable surface water flow and recharge areas for groundwater. Wetlands act as filters removing excess sediments and pollutants, cleaning our streams and lakes and reducing the cost of treating our drinking water. In Colorado, where snowmelt and downpours can violently swell rivers and streams, wetlands provide a vital role in flood control, acting as buffers to slow and absorb water and reduce damage...
"Unfortunately, these benefits have historically not been fully appreciated. As a consequence, wetland acreage in Colorado has been reduced by about one-half during the past two centuries. Most have been lost because of conversion to crop land, dewatering for irrigation purposes, overgrazing by livestock, residential and commercial development, stream channelization, dewatering for municipal and industrial use, contamination from sewage and industrial waste and other activities. The good news is, the tide is turning. Today, wetlands are much better understood and as Americans have become more aware, the rate of wetland loss has declined dramatically."
Here's the link to the EPA's Wetlands website.
Category: Colorado Water
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