The president drops in on some familiar territory: a marsh on the Maine coast.

WELLS (AP) – Taking advantage of Earth Day, President Bush tried to improve his environmental image and fend off attacks from Democrat John Kerry with a promise to restore or protect as much as 3 million acres of wetlands in the next five years.

Bush said after touring a Maine nature reserve with his mother that the nation’s wetlands are for the first time holding steady in the battle to stop their annual net loss.

“Instead of just limiting our losses, we will expand the wetlands of America,” Bush said after highlighting efforts to help wetlands at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. The 1,600 acres of salt marshes, beaches, forests and freshwater wetlands are located a few miles from the Bush family’s compound at Kennebunkport.

“For many years our nation has been working to prevent the net loss of wetlands and there is a reason why. America’s wetlands are the habitat for thousands of species of wildlife,” Bush said.

“Good conservation and good stewardship will happen when people say, We’re just not going to rely on the government to be the solution to the problem,”‘ he said.

Ed Hopkins, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, said that “this initiative pales in comparison with the damage the Bush administration is doing to wetlands” by not requiring more strenuous protections under the Clean Water Act.

In December, Bush abandoned a plan that could have further reduced wetlands protections by scaling back the law’s coverage of isolated ponds and streams, many of them dry for part of the year.

Kerry, commemorating Earth Day in Houston, said Bush was “once again … playing the smoke-and-mirrors game” by talking about wetlands conservation. “For the last 3 1/2 years this administration, this president, had a proposal that would have lost us 20 million acres of wetlands,” he said.

The Bush administration made it a goal to meet the “no-net-loss” goal of wetlands among each of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 38 U.S. districts – formed by watersheds and not state boundaries – rather than acre-for-acre, said Benjamin Grumbles, acting head of EPA’s Office of Water.

That shift is based on trying to emphasize the function and quality of wetlands, rather than simply their size. “On a district-by-district basis, they’re to achieve a no-net-loss goal,” Grumbles said. But, he added, “The goal here is an overall increase in quantity and quality.”

Before Bush spoke, he and his mother, Barbara, strode down a remote path covered in wood chips. Except for a train whistle, the only noises were the murmurs of water and his entourage.

He grabbed his mother’s hand to lead her onto a walkway, then chatted with some of the reserve’s staff. They dipped a net into a bucket and inspected fish as part of a water-quality test at the salt marsh, leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

About 100 people had lined a road leading to the reserve. Some held signs saying, “Welcome Mr. President.” Others had signs saying, “Fish yes, mercury no,” and “Our clean air has been bushwhacked.”

Maine is one of 17 swing states in which Bush and Kerry are fighting hardest for votes.

The government has estimated that there are more than 250 million acres of wetlands in the United States, more than half of those in Alaska. It has said that the annual net loss of wetlands has dropped to less than 58,000 acres, down from more than 100,000 acres lost yearly until recently.

Bush is calling for six federal agencies that oversee natural resources to restore and create at least 1 million acres of wetlands, improve 1 million acres and protect 1 million acres over the next five years. He says the goal can be met through his 2005 budget request of Congress for $4.4 billion in conservation programs, including $349 million for two wetlands programs.

—

On the Net:

Bush-Cheney campaign: http://www.georgewbush.com

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/environment

Wells Reserve: http://www.wellsreserve.org

AP-ES-04-22-04 1446EDT

Copy the Story Link