Saga of Sweeden’s Swamp

Sweeden’s Swamp is not a very pretty name, and it covers only 32 acres. Still, the boggy area near Attleboro, Mass., is an important part of the nation’s dwindling wetlands. Environmentalists estimate that commercial development, farm drainage, highway construction and the like are destroying 500,000 acres of wetlands a year. As those sloughs, swamps and bogs are paved over or otherwise disappear, so too does the habitat of wildlife and waterfowl.

It just happens that a Boston company wants to fill in Sweeden’s Swamp in order to build a shopping mall. To do so, the company needs to get the permission of the Army Corps of Engineers, acting under authority of the Clean Water Act. The corps’ regional office recommended against the filling of Sweeden’s Swamp, saying that the loss of the wetland was irretrievable. Besides, there was an alternative site for the mall nearby.

But Gen. John F. Wall, director of civil works for the corps, says that the mall should be built on Sweeden’s Swamp. Let the concrete flow. And now hear this: The general directed that the developer had to mitigate the loss of the swamp by creating an artificial wetland not far away. Fortunately, the general’s solution to the problem is not the last word. The Environmental Protection Agency shares authority with the corps over such issues, and EPA will hold hearings on the project.

With all its experience in designing projects like the Tennessee-Tombigbee fiasco and New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River, there is no doubt that the Corps of Engineers would bring decades of ingenuity to the construction of an artificial wetland. We’d stick with the real thing, though, even if Sweeden’s Swamp is a funny name.