Three of your LAND board members attended the Executive Briefing on Wetland Issues in Grand Forks on July 11. The event was sponsored by the ND Water Resource Districts Association and included most of the "Who's Who" in wetland regulation in the state. I would consider some of the presenters as friends to agriculture. Most, in my opinion, were adversarial.

Space will not allow a detailed report of the briefing, but I can give you a flavor of the day, which I considered most enlightening.

Mike McEnroe from the USFWS spoke on Acquisition and Easements and also on Refuges and Waterfowl Production Area in North Dakota. In response to a question from a farmer, which he never answered, he said, "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people who ask them." This must be a common attitude among the duck and blackbird regulators because Ronald Stromstad, formerly from Crosby and now Director of Operations, Western Region of Ducks Unlimited said about the same thing to me awhile ago. His exact words, which he repeated for emphasis, were, "The farmers of North Dakota are so stupid.” I think both of these “humble” servants should resign from their jobs.

Dave Dewald, state biologist for the NRCS, talked about Swampbuster Rules and Regulations and also Mitigation Requirements and Options. He basically stated once a wetland is altered to allow for the production of an agricultural commodity, a Swampbuster violation has occurred.

I would say a majority of the presenters at the briefing had the attitude, which seems to be prevalent in more and more circles that, "What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine and I'm right when we disagree." LAND exists to counteract that attitude.