Soil Losses means loss of jobs

by Geoffrey Grant
(Munster, Indiana, USA)

As human beings, our job is to preserve our topsoil. The loss of topsoil, however it happens, causes problematic changes in human and animal habitation.

Rule 5 of the Clean Water Act in the USA brings this very fact down to earth, so that everyone has a stake in the solution. The "bad" part of the solution to soil loss is that Rule 5 is only preventing soil loss and is not stopping it permanently. Soil loss on one particular spot may be soil gain on another but what's even worse: the same soil may become water- or airborne and disappear forever.

What I have experienced in my implementation and enforcement of Rule 5, is that the developer and his team of contractors perceive this Rule to be a game, where getting away with cheating is the goal. In the end, when such an individual cheats, that person just cheats themselves and all of us from having topsoil on our land or deposited topsoil to be properly integrated with the raw subsoil, which would help protect our land from erosive forces.

For those whom join environmental and/or engineering firms to comply with Rule 5, take on this mission as though your very life is co-dependent on saving topsoil. Once topsoil is gone it takes time, often much too long, to recreate it.

The same idea applies to wetlands. Those two elements in our ecosystem allow us to live away from city lights without polluting the very air that we breath and the very water than we drink.

If we save the topsoil and the wetlands to preserve The Earth, we also save its ability to provide food for humanity and all animals. This job will become your obsession and your recreation. Learn all that you can to preserve farmland from over-farming and irresponsible practices and again, to save the topsoil. That is a lifelong goal.