Sure.
Wetlands act as little sponges. As spring rolls around, the snow starts to melt, and if there are enough wetlands on a piece of land, the water collects in the wetlands and is slowly metered out over the course of the advancement of spring. Thereby, rivers and streams are able to handle that kind of flow.
Again, this is not an anti-farmer thing. It's just a fact that if wetlands are gone, runoff is speeded up, and excess runoff goes into waterways that are not equipped to handle it. That's how we end up with flooding.
In order to deal with flooding, as I alluded to the last time, we need a mixture of both hard infrastructure and natural infrastructure. As one of the previous speakers alluded to, and I strongly agree with it, wetlands can be considered natural infrastructure. As I said in my previous testimony, when any infrastructure programs are designed by any government, I think there should be a category for natural infrastructure. That pertains to the wetlands, as you alluded to, Mr. Kram.