Evans’ national conservation legacy still working

Tom Evans parlayed his friendship with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s into a major conservation victory that continues to pay dividends to the nation’s vast coastal resources.

A U.S. congressman for Delaware at the time, Evans joined forces with Rhode Island Sen. John Chaffee to author and shepherd passage of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act. That act removed 52 different federal subsidies related to flood insurance, road and wastewater infrastructure, street lights, jetties and more that enabled developers to build on vulnerable coastal land. “Without the subsidies, they couldn’t afford to build, and homeowners - who with the subsidies only had to pay 20 percent of their flood insurance costs - couldn’t afford the insurance. It was a common sense measure. If developers wanted to build, they would have to do it on their own nickel, not on the American taxpayers’ nickel,” said Evans.

The legislation, said Evans, stopped most coastal development in the nation and affected thousands of acres of marsh and high ground in Delaware, primarily along the Delaware Bay shoreline. “It saved dollars, it saved lives and saved land,” said Evans recently at his Rehoboth Beach home. “If I hadn’t been part of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, it might not have happened.

“I had developed a friendship with him long before his presidency, when I was head of economic development for Delaware. Then I served as chairman of the congressional steering committee for his campaign. After he was elected, I went to see him about this legislation, and he listened. He and Ed Meese. The president said: ‘Tom, I like it. We will support it.’ Then he picked up the phone and called James Watt, his secretary of the interior. ‘I want you to meet with Congressman Tom Evans of Delaware,’ said Reagan. And of course he did. Watt was no environmentalist,” said Evans, “but he worked hard to support the act.”

Despite opposition from the National Association of Homebuilders, the National Association of Realtors and oil companies, said Evans, the Coastal Barrier Resources Act passed the Senate. On Sept. 28, 1982, “after a rip-roaring debate and lots of compromising,” said Evans, the legislation passed the House of Representatives. “That was back when Democrats and Republicans worked together and could get things done,” said Evans. “It probably couldn’t happen now.”

Evans said when Reagan signed the bill into law on Oct. 18, 1982, he called it a triumph for natural resources conservation and fiscal responsibility. “He was sold on the idea of not asking American taxpayers to pay the bill for development in storm-prone areas,” said Evans. “And those weren’t shacks that were being built. It basically amounted to welfare for the wealthy.” Evans said several million acres of land around the nation’s coast have been saved from development by the act.

As a congressman, Evans also helped author the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which set aside tens of millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness for preservation. Closer to home, he sponsored and saw passage of legislation which stopped New York City from dumping its sewage - much of it raw - into Atlantic Ocean waters. “They were dumping just 13 miles off our coast. That was too close.”

The far-reaching impact of those efforts three decades ago hasn’t gone unnoticed. In June this year, the National Wildlife Federation presented Evans with its annual National Conservation Leadership Award. “Thomas Evans’ conservation legacy spans the country from Alaska to Florida,” said Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. O’Mara is also a former secretary of Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

Evans grew up in a home along the Nanticoke River near Seaford where his father worked for the DuPont company.

His parents also owned a home in Rehoboth Beach near the ocean where he and his wife, artist Mary Page Evans, continue to live several months each year. Both homes gave him a lifelong appreciation for the environment.

Something else added to this lifelong Republican and so many of his Delaware compatriots developing a deep conservation streak leading to preservation of so many important coastal and other natural resources in the state.

“President Teddy Roosevelt,” said Evans. “He left us a great, great legacy of conservation.”

 
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