an effort to identify key fish and wildlife problems. (The resource priori- 

 ties notion originally came from the FWS Region I headquarters in Portland, 

 Oregon.) A draft of this effort, which I expect to have available in late 

 summer 1979, will indicate what I consider to be the "top 100" resource 

 problems in the country. This document will be particularly helpful to people 

 involved in oil and hazardous substance spill response. There are more spills 

 than we can handle. Therefore, we need to guide our efforts toward those 

 areas that are most important and for which the Federal response is particu- 

 larly significant. 



INFLUENCE OF DEVELOPMENTS ON FISH AND WILDLIFE RESOURCES 



Resource developments of all types have always threatened fish and wild- 

 life habitats, and they always will. But as these habitats become more 

 scarce, the remainder becomes more valuable. The loss of each additional 

 piece of marsh, bottomland hardwoods, and potholes, whether from physical 

 or chemical destruction, represents a greater damage to us all. 



Energy development needed to maintain our standard of living will create 

 tremendous pressures in the upcoming years. The questions are: how and 

 where? The need for coal alone will result in strip mining on thousands of 

 acres of land in the Great Plains, the arid Southwest, and Appalachia. The 

 use of geothermal resources will expand. The extraction of oil from shale in 

 Colorado and Utah may soon become a full-scale operation. The high cost of 

 oil makes this energy source economically feasible. The new electric gen- 

 erating plants, transmission lines, transportation facilities, and population 

 increases that often accompany such development projects will result in 

 additional ecological stresses. 



Oil and natural gas are primary feed stocks for the chemical industry, 

 which is one of the largest industries in the United States, amounting to 6 

 percent of the Gross National Product. Chemicals are essential and have be- 

 come influential in protecting human health and property. Millions of acres 

 of agricultural crops are protected by the controlled use of pesticides and 

 herbicides. The United States is one of the few nations that abounds with 

 food and fiber. 



Regardless of the type of development that is happening, it is almost 

 always associated with the transportation and use of oil and hazardous sub- 

 stances. While some actions may cause physical damage, almost all actions 

 result in the potential for chemical and oil spills. 



As the number of marine vessels and inland barges that transport oil and 

 hazardous substances in U.S. waters increases, so do the accidental discharges 

 of these substances. Marine accidents, being unpredictable, can and often do 

 occur within extremely sensitive and delicately balanced ecosystems such as 

 estuaries. However, many inland accidents go unnoticed for days in sensitive 

 wildlife areas because they are remote from major populations. 



