Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

One of Rush’s central arguments is that human interventions have caused untold damage to the environment. The destruction of wetlands in the United States began with the Swamp Land Act of 1850, which gave states the right to sell federal wetlands to individuals. These funds were then set aside for levee building and drainage of these areas. The goal was to “help convert areas previously ‘unfit for cultivation’” into agricultural and residential areas (80). This bill reshaped tidal and fresh wetlands across the country in less than 200 years. The state of Florida gave developers over 22 million acres of marsh. Over 90% of New York City’s wetlands were backfilled and hardscaped. New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland have lost over 50% of their coastal wetlands. Cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, “were all once so wet that no one dreamed of living there” (117). Ninety percent of the wetlands in San Francisco Bay vanished. 

Wetlands serve numerous important functions, including slowing shoreline erosion, absorbing surging waves during storms, serving as shelter and nesting sites for fish and migratory birds, and absorbing excess nutrients that would lower oxygen levels in the ocean. These marshes are the most nimble and imperiled types of ecosystems on the planet.