total of 135,669 acres delineated. Of this total, ^ 



30,363 acres or 22* are wetlands. Twenty-six counties 



in the state have delineations for waterfowl production 



areas. Madison County has 15,000 acres delineated for 



refuge development and Beaverhead County has 8,000 



acres delineated for refuge development. One area 



northeast of Three Forks in Gallatin County has 



approximately 3,000 acres previously delineated for 



refuge development. 



Delineated area ratings ranged from a high of 2100 to 

 a low of 7. From these 252 delineation ratings I have 

 ranked the 26 counties according to various factors of 

 the rating criteria. Exhibit 2 is a sample delineation 

 sheet demonstrating how delineation values are derived. 



1. Final Rank of All Counties (Table 3) 



Column A 



r 



This column determines rank by multiplying the 

 final value of the four rating criteria for 

 each delineation by the number of acres in that 

 delineation. This value was surmied for all 

 delineations in the respective county. The rank ^ 

 of counties in Column A is believed to give the T 

 best estimate of a county's rank in its importance 

 to the wetlands pragram in Montana in that it 

 takes into account the quantity of delineated 

 wetlands as well as their quality. 



The total points for each county give an idea 

 of the magnitude counties could be separated 

 by. In referring back to Exhibit 2 (Delineation 

 Sample) it is easy to see that one delineation 

 (when not divided by cost) could account for 

 1,000,000+ points. Therefore, point spreads 

 of approximately 500,000 could represent the 

 difference of one medium value delineation of 

 1,000 acres or a highly vulnerable complex of 

 wetlands of medium value 500 acres in size. 



Column B 



This column is the final ranking of counties 



throughout the state. Column A determined the 



county ranking from the criteria used in the 



rating formula; however, the formula did not 



include all of the information that must be 



considered in ranking counties for their value - 



in the wetlands program. These externalities \ 



are discussed below with the effect they had 



on the outcome of the final county ranking, 



as shown in Column B. 



17 



