4. Determination of whether restoration, rehabiHtation, enhancement, or main- 

 taining a steady state condition at the present level is most desirable. 



5. Determination of desired qualities of the ecosystem (which is a social-political 

 decision, not a scientific one). 



6. Determination of the cost and time necessary to reach a series of alternative 

 quality conditions. This would include an estimation of whether or not return 

 to an original condition is ecologically feasible and, if so, whether it could be 

 accomplished within an acceptable time framework. 



7. Implementation of the management plan to restore the system to the desired 

 conditions. 



8. Simultaneous placement of a biological monitoring program to track the 

 direction and rate of change toward the desired quality conditions. 



9. Once the desired quality conditions are attained, a biological monitoring 

 system should be maintained as part of an overall quality control program. 

 This should include provision for making hazard evaluations of all activities 

 that could result in displacement of the system from its desired condition. 



Until these questions are resolved in a justifiable, scientific manner, ecosystems 

 will quite likely be damaged and consequently require restoration. Equally impor- 

 tant in these troubled financial times are industrial concerns about spending money 

 for waste treatment that will have no demonstrable biological benefits. Until a closer 

 correlation exists between the degree of waste treatment required and the biological 

 benefits thereby derived, strong industrial and municipal resistance to implementing 

 federal and state standards will persist. 



PREVENTION OF ECOLOGICAL DISPLACEMENT 



Enhancement, rehabilitation, and recovery are all expensive, time-consuming, 

 and sometimes rather chancy operations. '^''^•"*''''-'''-'-^-'" Therefore, preventative 

 measures that will reduce the need for such activities are absolutely essential. This will 

 enable those charged with environmental protection and restoration to focus scarce 

 resources on fewer cases. Even then, the areas requiring rehabilitation at a minimum 

 will be so numerous that priorities will have to be set. The main burden of the 

 restoration in most cases will fall on local agencies. 



Species lost from a damaged system must be replaced either naturally or by 

 management practices. The more healthy areas one has as a source for natural 

 invasion, the more likely the recovery process will occur naturally rather than 

 through management. Thus the more ecosystems which can be protected and kept in 

 their present condition, the less costly will be the restoration of those already 

 damaged. 



A means of protecting ecosystems from damage due to industrial chemicals would 

 be useful since their production and distribution is controlled. The Toxic Substance 

 Control Act (TSCA) requires that evidence be provided concerning the hazard these 

 chemicals pose to human health and the environment during their extraction, 

 transportation, manufacture, use, and disposal.-'* Unfortunately, practically all of 

 the evidence available upon which to make decisions on hazards of toxic chemicals 

 consists of single species laboratory tests. ^ 



Ecosystems are presumed to be protected if the following conditions are fulfilled: 

 (1) an array of species representing different trophic levels are tested, (2) the response 

 of the most sensitive species determines the critical concentration, and (3) the critical 



'Paragraph 1 1 of the Settlement Agreement in Natural Resources Defense Council, et al. v. Train, 8 ERC 

 2120 (D.D.C. 1976) required EPA to publish water quality criteria for 65 specified pollutants by June 30, 

 1978. A revised Settlement Agreement required publication (for public comment) of 29 criteria documents by 

 March 1, 1979. and the remaining 36 documents by July I, 1979. The proposed criteria were published in the 

 Federal Res^isier on March 15, July 25, and October I, 1979. Almost all of the information on toxicity for all 

 65 chemicals was based on single species tests 



227 



