It appears that you have the forestry industry  (which is much different that the tree huggers) and the earthworm believers. You no longer see articles in the fam press about seeding earthworms to extend their range or on how to determine earthworm populations in your fields.

But talk about controversy. Worse than a discussion on the depopulation of North America in the 1500's by introduced diseases. There are no native worms in Canada or the northern half of the US. They were all wiped out by the Laurentide Ice Sheet which reached  St Louis. They survived in the southwestern part of North America which was generally warm and wet during this period and at least one species in southern Florida survived. ~ 1/3^rd of the 180 earthworm species in North America are “exotic” having been introduced from Europe or the Far East. Worms migrate very slowly so all of the worms you see in the northern half of the US were intentionally introduced, primarily from Europe. Worms in forests can be devastating. There are several sites in the US and Canada which are attempting to map the distribution of earthworms in northern forests.

The forestry and preferential flow in tiled ag land issues are real and significant.