Pretty cool NY Times article about army veteran restoring wetlands in LA

quote:

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Matt Conn restores his wetland.

On any given Saturday, Mr. Conn, 38, might be taking a chain saw and poison to the invasive Chinese tallow trees that crowd his property and steal light from the thousands of native bald cypress, bitter pecan and green ash he has planted. Or he could be digging ponds or mowing down brush with “the beast,” the 62-year-old Ford tractor that he bought used for $1,800. “This thing is pretty much unstoppable,” he said with pride, and might as well have been talking about himself.

“I tossed and turned all night,” Mr. Conn recalled. He bought the about 65 acres in January 2010 for not much more than he would pay for his tractor, knowing that the restoration project would become his. Soon after the sale was completed, he shipped out for the second of his two deployments to Iraq, staying nearly a year to set up and maintain communications equipment for military and civilian infrastructure.

After returning, he got to work: He cut a notch in a levee that separated the property from a nearby canal, flooding the lowland. Tide and rains now bring in water that covers much of the property with a few inches to a foot or more.

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