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Ms. Beattie. I would summarize it in just a couple of points, 

 Congressman. The first would be that the bill gives us an overall 

 comprehensive plan by which local groups can guide their efforts, 

 and that although we have had individual successes on the aquatic 

 ecosystem restoration around the country, they exist because of the 

 personal interest of a local person or the personal interest of a 

 Member of Congress, not according to any plan that has put those 

 efforts in priority. 



Second of all, H.R. 4481 would provide funding, and if you ask 

 what the essential components of any of those successes have been, 

 one of them has been funding. 



And, third, again, I think one of the important aspects of the bill 

 is the overall review and coordination of Federal aquatic restora- 

 tion programs and policies, which right now, to my mind, has not 

 happened. 



Those three elements of the bill, to my mind, make it essential. 



Mr. Hamburg. Would you also comment on why the service 

 should be the focus of this effort? 



Ms. Beattie. Yes, I will give you an unbiased opinion. 



We have, first of all, trust responsibilities for three sets of natu- 

 ral organisms that are perhaps the best indicators of an aquatic 

 ecosystem's health, and those are migratory birds, which obviously 

 include waterfowl and shore birds; threatened and endangered spe- 

 cies, which I think one of the witnesses talked about how all of the 

 adverse uses of rivers immediately or over time result in endan- 

 gered species, and this is the importance of endangered species, is 

 that they are indicators of problems in the health of an ecosystem; 

 and, third, anadromous fish is our other responsibility. So we have 

 trust responsibilities for perhaps the most important indicators, 

 short of the human health, of the ecosystem's health. 



We have technical experience and statutory responsibilities for a 

 wide variety of aquatic ecosystem issues, everything from nuisance 

 plants to, again, these trust species that I mentioned. We have a 

 variety of programs to protect and restore aquatic ecosystems, 

 which have given us a wealth of knowledge, and those include our 

 partners for wildlife program, our coastal ecosystems programs, our 

 North American waterfowl management plan, the Trinity-Klamath 

 habitat conservation plan, and work with private landowners. 



I might add, our partners for wildlife effort, which is a coopera- 

 tive nonregulatory program to reach out to private landowners for 

 restoration on their lands, has 11,000 participants, 28,000 projects, 

 and has restored almost a quarter million acres of land, largely 

 wetland up until now. 



Finally, we have a field staff across the Nation in many, many 

 small field offices, very familiar with local people, very well accept- 

 ed at the local level, and they are taking an ecosystem approach 

 now, officially, that is based on watersheds for those reasons. 



If I could add, I know I am over my time, but one thing to what 

 you were saying earlier, Congressman, which is the problem is very 

 big and there are intractable problems when you look at the scale 

 of some of the hydro development, for instance. But this Partners 

 for Wildlife Program and the Coastal Ecosystem Program has 

 shown us often that the solutions are very small. The effect of the 

 restoration of a stream channel, the effect of breaking a few drain 



