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Responses to Questions from Dan Hamburg for July 19, 1994 hearing 

 on H.R. 4481 -- The National Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Act of 

 1994 — by Beth Norcross, Legislative Director, American Rivers 



1 . In your testimony you commented on the appropriateness of 

 imposing fees on use or degradation of federally supported 

 activities to pay for restoration and indicated there is public 

 support for such fees. Could you comment further on this? 



A survey conducted by Mellman and Lazarus and Opinion Research 

 Corporation for American Rivers in January, 1993 (results 

 enclosed) indicated that the public supports the goals of river 

 restoration even if it means higher monthly utility rates to 

 them. Indeed 88% of Americans favor requiring power companies to 

 put 5% of their profits into protection and restoration of the 

 rivers on which their facilities are located. Almost 90% of 

 Americans favor requiring utilities to place fish ladders and 

 screens on dams and 84% favor shortening the duration of dam 

 licenses so that power companies will have to upgrade their dams 

 more frequently. Interesting 65% of the Americans polled 

 indicated that they would still favor requiring dam owners to 

 contribute a percentage of their gross revenues for environmental 

 projects even if it meant an increase in their utility rates. 



A more recent public opinion poll done by Stuart Elway, a private 

 pollster from Seattle, surveyed 450 Washington voters regarding 

 restoring endangered salmon runs. 73% of respondents said they 

 would be willing to pay $1 a month more on their electric bill to 

 make adjustments to salmon-threatening Northwest dams, with 39% 

 willing to pay as much as $5 a month. 48% said that they would 

 vote to raise taxes to restore salmon runs, and 54% said 

 government should spend more money to restore wild salmon runs. 



These data indicate that the American public is willing to put 

 its money where its mouth is. The public is very concerned about 

 river health in general as well as about region-specific issues, 

 like salmon decline in the Northwest, and Americans are willing 

 to make short-term sacrifices to restore these resources. 



2. In your testimony you pointed out that H.R. 4481 provides the 

 opportunity for identification of actions federal agencies can 

 take administratively towards establishment and implementation of 

 a national strategy. Do you have any specific ideas at this 

 point as to what some of these actions might be? 



Right now our aquatic ecosystems are managed by a hodgepodge of 

 federal, regional, state and local agencies, often having 

 competing missions and objectives. One of the first steps 



