estimated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was then added to the per acre 

 expenditure values. The estimated annual returns from that earlier study were 

 $426 per acre for provision of habitat for fish that were caught by sport 

 fishermen; $418 per acre for provision of nonconsumptive outdoor recreation 

 sites; $42 per acre for waterfowl habitat provision for bagged waterfowl; $30 

 per acre for habitat provision for fur-bearing species; and $5 per acre for 

 provision of habitat for commercial fish species. The total value for all 

 functions is $651. 



The annual replacement cost calculations are not given in detail, but the 

 authors state that they incorporate a capital cost and adjustments for the rate 

 of inflation. Basically, the procedure involves simply adding together 

 amortized capital costs and annual operating costs and subtracting the net cost 

 of land ownership. Two replacement cost figures for most functions are listed, 

 one for purchased replacement and one for constructed replacement. The annual 

 purchased replacement value for fish production was $1,040 per acre; for 

 waterfowl habitat it was $720 per acre; and for water supply it was $16--the 

 purchased replacement cost and the constructed replacement cost were the same 

 for water supply. 



46. Leitch, J. A. 1981a. The wetlands and drainage controversy revisited. 

 Minnesota Agricultural Economist, No. 628, St. Paul. 5 pp. 



This is a condensed introduction to the economics of wetland drainage, the 

 wetlands classification system, and changing social attitudes toward amenity 

 values provided by wetlands. The paper focuses on the prairie pothole wetlands 

 in the northern central Great Plains region. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service's wetland classification system recognizes four inland freshwater wetland 

 types that commonly occur in the prairie plains. These include the type 1 

 (seasonally flooded basins or flats), 3 (inland shallow freshwater marshes), 4 

 (inland deep marshes), and 5 (inland open freshwater wetlands) wetlands types. 

 All Federal subsidies for the drainage of type 3, 4, and 5 wetlands were 

 discontinued in 1962. Other on-farm wetlands drainage was subsidized by ASCS 

 (the Agricultural Soil Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture) through 1977. 



In 1981, a number of programs offered incentives to farmers to preserve 

 wetlands, including the fee title and easement purchase programs of the U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, the ASCS Water Bank, the Minnesota Water Bank, the 

 Minnesota Wetlands Tax Credit Program, and State and Federal regulatory 

 restrictions on drainage. Many of the programs, including the Federal programs 

 listed above, are still viable. Under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's 

 easement program, the farmer is paid a single lump-sum payment to agree to not 

 fill, drain, burn, or level his on-farm wetlands. The landowner retains 

 ownership and pays the real estate taxes; the life of the contract is usually 

 99 years, though 30 year and 50 year contracts exist. Under the fee title 

 purchase program of the Service, the Federal Government makes an outright 

 purchase of the wetland acreage (and it usually purchases an adjacent parcel of 

 upland acreage that is at least as large as the wetland). Much of the fee title 

 lands purchased by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are classified as waterfowl 

 production areas. 



37 



