You will be fighting that water forever. A student of flooded basements and cracked foundations, Perry knows what he's talking about. The lesson, says Perry, is that home builders who tamper with even small wetlands can have big problems. The trouble Perry uncovers should never take place.
Wetlands are superb at purifying polluted water, replenishing aquifers and harboring wildlife.
But they are almost always terrible places to build houses. Only about 5 percent of the land area in the continental United States is composed of wetlands. Wetlands act like natural sponges on the landscape, absorbing and then gradually releasing storm waters and lessening flood damage. Instead, much of that water poured over levees and into people's homes. When wetlands are filled, the water that made them wet has to go somewhere.