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Section 2. Examples of Use Damage 



Where there is conflict, the scene is set for trade-off, that is, a willing 

 substitution of one activity for another. The scene is equally set for 

 uncompensated damage where one user group precludes the activities 

 of a second unrelated user group but does not reimburse them for dam- 

 age. Several examples will demonstrate the types of damages and the 

 difficulties in quantifying them. Essentially, the damage is the value 

 of the use which is precluded or foregone, and the same type of use 

 valuation problems as discussed earlier are applicable. 



Actual documented examples of use damages are difficult to find. One 

 major reason is the basic fact that has permeated much of the discus- 

 sion of economic and social values: Many estuarine values are not 

 quantifiable. While damages to a commercial enterprise, such as com- 

 mercial fishing, can be quantified in terms of the economic loss, the 

 essentially intangible values of recreation and estuarine habitat are 

 difficult to measure. 



Recreational loss would have to be measured in terms of how many 

 people don't swim or go boating in the Potomac River because it is 

 polluted. It is far easier to find out how many people do go there even 

 if it is polluted; even these values are hard to find. 



The value of estuarine habitat is just as difficult to establish. There 

 are now about 5.5 million acres of important estuarine marsh and wet- 

 land habitat remaining in the estuarine zone of the United States. 

 Perhaps each acre is not valuable by itself, but the total habitat is 

 irreplaceable. The problem of measuring the value can be illustrated 

 by this example: 



A poor worker had been given a loaf of bread for his supper. On his 

 way home he met along the road several friends who each asked for a 

 slice of bread. Being generous, and since a single slice of bread is a 

 small thing, he gave each of them a slice. When he arrived home he had 

 only the wrapping left. Since his family couldn't eat that, they went 

 supperless to bed. 



How valuable is a slice of bread? 



How valuable is an acre of estuary? 



DAMAGE TO MARSH HABITAT 



Delaioare Bay 



The following example shows how, in the Delaware Bay system, 

 there has been steady attrition of estuarine marsh area for industrial 

 development in recent years. The example is taken from testimony 

 presented by Mr. Allston Jenkins, representing Philadelphia Con- 

 servationists, Inc., before a congressional subcommittee in March 

 1967. 



(1) In 1955 the Tidewater Oil Go. started acquiring some of the finest estua- 

 rine marshes in the State of Delaware for the purpose of constructing a large 

 refinery in the vicinity of Delaware City about 30 miles north of the Bombay 

 Hook National Wildlife Refuge. State conversation officials and citizen groups 

 endeavored to persuade the company to locate its refinery on land other than 

 the estuarine marshland. It was of no avail. Some 1,000 acres of productive 

 estuarine marshes were purchased, filled-in, and lost as a natural resource. 



(2) In 1961 the Shell Oil Co. started a similar acquisition of estuarine marshes 

 in Delaware upon which to construct a large refinery in the vicinity of Smyrna 



