New Directions in Water Resources Planning for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1999) / Chapter Skim
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5 The Corps' Environmental Protection and Restoration Programs
5 The Corps' Environmental Protection and Restoration Programs
Pages 65-78
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From page 65... ...
Section 206 authorizes the Corps to engage in aquatic ecosystem restoration projects that wiD improve environmental quality when they are in the public interest and are cost-effective. Unlike legislation that restricts work to existing Corps projects, this stipulates that the Corps can fix environmental damage created by others.
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From page 66... ...
Idle Corps' involvement An watershed-scale, environmentally oriented water resources management processes is generally motivated by a blend of federal interests, such as tAhAe need to maintain navigation or reduce flood damages while conserving endangered species or restoring fishery resources. These projects often cross agency jurisdictions and require interagency participation.
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From page 67... ...
The benefits from traditional Corps projects can typically be expressed in monetary terms, such as the dollar value of flood darn ayes avoided or additional commerce transported. By contrast, outputs of ecological restoration projects tend to include intangible values such as endangered species protection, The Corps' Environmental Protection and Restoration Programs 67
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From page 68... ...
Outdoor recreation provides environmental amenities traditionally valued in monetary terms. The Corps' restoration projects typically aim to enhance or restore ecosystem services such as biodiversity, ecosystem resilience, food web support, and nab carbon storage.
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From page 69... ...
This orientation is not surprising given the endangered species mandate of the Fish and Wildlife Service, along with its traditional orientation toward hunting and fishing. However, the typical Corps project is aimed at general ecosystem restoration, and it is obvious that single-species models are often inadequate, even if the models are based on indicator species.
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From page 70... ...
This perspective is the logical implication of the "shared vision" concept put forth in the Galloway report and advocated In many recent IWR reports. Under this concept, local sponsors determine whether particular project alternatives are worth the costs to them.
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From page 71... ...
show that the benefits and costs of alternative actions expressed in monetary terms influence agency decisionmaking even when legislation explicitly rules out making such comparisons. The Corps ' Environmental Protection and Restoration Programs 71
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From page 72... ...
There are clearly problems when land purchased to provide nonstrucb~ flood damage reduction is counted as a cost while the benefits of open space and ecosystem restoration are ignored. Given the desirability of reducing the time and cost of doing assessments, there is a clear need for easy-to-apply criteria to enable planners to stop a detailed benefit-cost analysis of a project alternative if it is clear that it has negative net benefits or is clearly inferior to another alternative.
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From page 73... ...
Third, Were is much greater recognition of the conceptual and practical difficulties of developing nonmonetary environmental quality (EQ) measures comparable across project alternatives and projects.
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From page 74... ...
These recommendations have considerable Implications for the economic analysis of a wide range of Corps projects because they are very expensive to ~mplement.s Acknowledging the difficulties in monetizing the benefits and costs of environmental Improvements, the committee ultimately concluded that the failure to do so actuary does more harm to the environment. The arguments in support of this position are simple: harm done to ecosystem services does not reduce the NED estimate, and improvements do not increase the NED estimate.
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From page 75... ...
The third aspect implies that the costs of doing a rigorous analysis for the purpose of selecting a project alternative are increasing. Each of these aspects of Corps projects suggests the need to develop a formal set of procedures for evaluating small ~roiects - - ~C7 .
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From page 76... ...
A fib approach, which effectively draws from the other four approaches, is known as the benefit transfer method. This method takes monetary estimates from other studies, which have valued similar ecosystem services, makes appropriate adjustments to account for differences in circumstances, and applies that estimate to the project alternative being evaluated.
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From page 77... ...
, defines these habitat units as important alternative metrics for assessing restoration project benefits. Indeed, it would appear that the purpose of environmental restoration projects is solely to produce HEP units in the most cost-eff~cient manner.
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From page 78... ...
78 New Directions in Water Resources Planning
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