The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 104

Page40P Sunday, April 25, 2010 Metro Edition I Des Moines Sunday Register I negisier coiumnisis anu leauei uiwya I I t.A. i klnnr cu Iowa View Help America's landowners become better stewards PAUL W.JOHNSON served as the last chief of the Soil Conservation Service and the first cniei or ine Natural Resources Conservation Service from 1994-97. He lives near Decorah and is presently working on a book about private lands conservation. Contact: pauloneotaslopes.org. wrote that "it is the American farmer who must weave the greater part of the rug on which America stands." That is the legacy of Bennett, his agency, and the farmers and ranchers who weave the carpet.

We've made a good start. But there's much yet to do. Sediment from soil erosion on agriculture lands still represents our nation's No. 1 menace to surface water quality. Excess agriculture nutrients and pesticides leaching or carried with sediments into water are a close second.

Loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity need attention as well. In 1964, Congress passed the world's first wilderness act. That act did not start our nation's preservation of wilderness our first designated wilderness was established in 1924. sViv 3 -asm USDA NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE, BANGOR, MAINE5PECIAL TO THE REGISTER This August 1 951 photo depicts the first Soil Conservation Service chief Hugh Hammond Bennett, right, and Hudson Bearce from Aroostook County, Maine, examining a sawdust mulch on a raspberry patch. ventured, "Maybe it's dust." "I Although almost every county in our country has organized a Soil and Water Conservation District, The most important milestone in American conservation history occurred 75 years ago this month.

Yet I doubt that one in a thousand Americans involved in our nation's conservation and environmental efforts are aware of the anniversary. In the spring of 1935, Hugh Hammond Bennett, son of a North Carolina cotton farmer, stood in front of a congressional committee and explained to its members the need for a comprehensive national soil conservation program. Without it, said Bennett, our nation's natural resources, our agricultural productivity and our rural economies were in peril. Bennett had spent the previous 30 years criss-crossing our nation, surveying soils on thousands of farms and ranches. He became increasingly concerned about the widespread damage occurring to our soils.

In 1928, he put the issue on the public agenda, calling soil erosion "a national menace." Almost alone among America's soil scientists, he spoke out about what was happening and what needed to be done to heal our lands and waters. Then came the Dust Bowl days. We were hit broadside. We were at a loss for what to do except for Bennett. Fortunately, by 1933 Bennett had convinced Congress to allocate funds to start pilot watershed programs.

He took advantage of the newly formed Civilian Conservation Corps and But it did formally recognize the importance of wilderness in shaping our nation's character and assured us that wilderness would receive protection from the whims of states, cows, chain saws and presidents. It seems to me that after so many years of quiet work, private lands conservation needs similar attention. Unfortunately it is now treated as a stepchild in our periodic massive agribusiness and commodity-dominated farm bills. The Wilderness Act of 1964 gave status to wild lands. It's time we give similar recognition to America's working lands with a Private Lands Conservation Act.

Such an act should define private landowners' responsibilities to what Leopold called "the land community," and define reciprocal responsibilities of society to support private landowners in becoming better stewards. With a Private Lands Conservation Act, Hugh Hammond Bennett, his agency, and the farmers, ranchers and other private landowners who weave our nation's conservation carpet will finally be secret no more. by 1935 had organized dozens of small watershed projects across the country. He rapidly built the technical staff to work alongside the landowners and test his many new ideas. Bennett was not only one of the world's top soil scientists, by 1935 he was also a well-seasoned salesman and showman.

Legend has it (documented by Bennett's biographer Wellington Brink) that he had carefully choreographed his appearance before the congressional committee, knowing that Washington, D.C., would in several hours be overwhelmed by a dust storm rolling in from our nation's midsection. Brink goes on to say that during the afternoon one of the committee members remarked, "It's getting dark, perhaps a rainstorm is brewing." Another think you are correct," Bennett agreed, "it does look like dust." The group gathered at the window. The storm for which Bennett had been waiting moved in "like a vast steel town pall, thick and repulsive." The skies darkened with the soils of Texas and Oklahoma, and the committee and Congress went on to approve Bennett's request. On April 27, 1935, Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the world's first soil conservation act. The birth of the Soil Conservation Service, with Hugh Hammond Bennett as its chief, brought a basic commitment to soil conservation on our nation's farms and ranches.

Over the next couple decades, the effort enjoyed high national recognition and respect. and most farmers and ranchers have access to technical and financial assistance in caring for their working lands, few Americans are presently aware of this great ongoing conservation effort. In 1994, Congress changed the name of the Soil Conservation Service to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). We jokingly say that the original acronym SCS really stood for the "secret conservation service," and that the new NRCS will eventually be known as the "nationally recognized conservation service." By either name, the work goes on. The great American conservationist Aldo Leopold once 7" Titan over Wall Street EUGENE ROBINSON 'J writes for the Washington Post.

Contact: eugenerobinson washpost.com. ASSOCIATED PRESS President Barack Obama waves goodbye after delivering remarks April 22 in New York's Cooper Union College. The politics of financial regulatory reform are simple. After the meltdown and the bailout, many Americans perhaps most Americans are inclined to see Wall Street as predatory and all-devouring. Striding into the lion's den and calling the beast to heel, as President Obama did Thursday, was a move without a downside.

Perhaps Obama could have scored more popularity points if he had ordered a few financiers to be led out of the Cooper Union auditorium in handcuffs. Then again, in terms of candidates for a perp walk, there were pretty slim pickings: Many of Wall Street's leading luminaries stayed away. "Unless your business model depends on bilking people, there's little to fear from these new rules," Obama said. Yet there is so much fear abroad in the land, or at least up and down Wall Street, that the big financial institutions are shelling out millions to try to torpedo the reforms. Obama's tone was not that of tives trading than the president or Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would like.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and other absent Wall Street titans should have done Obama the courtesy of attending his address. The president's moderation may be all that stands between them and the righteous anger of a most ungrateful nation. Obama didn't really need to make a hard sell. It's already apparent that despite the usual party-of-no bluster from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republicans realize that opposing tougher regulation of the finance industry is an untenable position. Sen.

Charles Grassley has already defected, and there is no enthusiasm among the GOP rank and file for taking the side of Wall Street against, basically, the rest of the country. In terms of demagoguery, the best the Republicans have been able to come up with is a weak complaint that the Democrats' proposals will not eliminate, for a sword-wielding avenger he doesn't do fire and brimstone but of a stern parent explaining to party-hearty teenagers why their driving privileges are being curtailed. The president obviously doesn't want to take the keys away for good, however. While he correctly described the gigantic, largely opaque derivatives market as "highly leveraged, loosely monitored gambling," he went out of his way to say that he believes derivatives are useful instruments and that what he wants is to make the market transparent and accountable not shut it down. An effort in the Senate, spearheaded by Blanche Lincoln, would put a much tighter straitjacket on deriva all eternity, the possibility of new bailouts of failing firms.

"That makes for a good sound bite, but it's not factually accurate. It is not true," Obama said. "A vote for reform is a vote to put a stop to taxpayer-funded bailouts." The truth is that the Republicans' no-bailouts pledge is absurd and that Obama's no-bailouts pledge is less absurd but hardly ironclad. No one should believe anyone who says the U.S. government will never, ever, spend a dollar of the taxpayers' money to rescue another financial institution from its own greed and stupidity.

After regulatory reform passes, Wall Street is still going to be a gambling den more closely monitored, but still essentially a betting house. Anyone expecting truly fundamental change is going to be disappointed. What has definitely changed, though, is the political atmosphere. The president is on the offensive now; his opponents are scrambling to decide how to react. Obama should thank the misbehaving lords of Wall Street, because they have given him a way to get his mojo back.

includes cities in neigh- Region has grown, and is still growing 1 boring states. Martha tj Willits, president and CEO of the Greater Des Mninps A. i ai uici aiiif a icgiuucu business and economic-development group said the group has been chal Willits DES MOINES FROM PAGE 1 OP jobs in West Des Moines as West Des Moines sends to Des Moines. Regional retail centers pull business across boundaries and generate new economic activity that has a ripple effect across borders. Individual communities are strong and vibrant, but that is due in part to the combined power of this Economic City to which they belong.

So, if you think about the region as a whole being more than the sum of the parts, it should be obvious that all cities of the region can get more done by working together. Greater Des Moines has worked cooperatively in the past on such things as the Iowa Events Center, which is bigger than any single community could have achieved. More of that will be needed in the future. Regional thinking should go further to encompass a "mega region" that When horsepower was the primary means of transportation, Des Moines by necessity was limited to a compact city measured in distances of blocks. Today, with thousands of miles of paved streets, highways and freeways, the Des Moines metropolitan area reaches far into neighboring counties in all four directions.

The U.S. Census Bureau officially defines the Des Moines Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as five counties Polk, Warren, Madison, Dallas and Guthrie estimated to include more than 570,000 people. But the metro area pulls in workers, shoppers and visitors from an even wider area. For example, the van-pool program operated by DART (the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority) has more than 800 commuters from 15 central and southern Iowa counties, reaching from Story County to the Missouri border. The census area is projected to grow by 160,000 people, to more than 730,000, by 2035, according to the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which does transportation planning for the region.

Growth in the Des Moines MSA would by itself account for a third of the total projected growth for the entire state. The region also will add more than 80,000 jobs in the next 25 years, the MPO projects. Much of the metro area's population and job growth is expected to be in the northern and western suburbs, the downtown business district, along the 1-35 corridor in Ankeny and near the Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino. If history is any measure, the geographic boundaries of greater Des Moines will likely grow along with the population. It could be faster, assuming the region keeps pace with road construction and improved public transportation.

Which, of course, means that the original concept of the "city of Des Moines" from the horse-and-buggy era will one day be a mere neighborhood in a sprawling metropolitan region. lenged to think beyond the metro area to larger and larger regions, ultimately reaching from Denver to Chicago, to create a "mega region" of 20 million people, which some experts believe is probably the minimum size to be competitive globally. In the past, this sort of brainstorming would have been done by a few powerful leaders in corporate board rooms and government council chambers. Today, ideas for change are more likely to rise from the bottom. Still, plans must be executed and paid for, so government and business leaders need to hear what the people of greater Des Moines want in their city.

The time to begin is now. 1.