October 1966 



COMMERCIAL FISHERIES REVIEW 



33 



Interior's River Basin Studies 

 Help Fish and Wildlife 



Under this Act, it has been the responsi- 

 bility of the River Basin Studies of the Bu- 

 reau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife of the 

 Department of the Interior to investigate 

 contemplated projects of the Army Corps of 

 Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and 

 the Federal Power Commission. The River 

 Basin Division advises the Federal agency 

 planning to do the work or to issue a permit 

 or license for such work as to whether there 

 would be adverse effects on fish and wildlife 

 resources and what should be done to avoid 

 or mitigate losses and in some cases how 

 biological resources might be enhanced. 

 These other agencies do not have to follow 

 the advice. They are merely required to con- 

 sider it. The record may be uneven, but the 

 situation is better than if the Coordination 

 Act did not exist. 



The record for the northeastern coast is 

 worth looking at. The Bureau of Sport Fish- 

 eries and Wildlife reports each year on about 

 75 projects of the Corps of Engineers that 

 are concerned with harbor improvement, 

 beach erosion control, channel dredging, an- 

 chorages, and so forth. In addition, and prob- 

 ably of equal importance, the Corps issues 

 permits for public and private work, such as 

 building jetties, installing bulkheads, dredg- 

 ing, and filling. The Bureau of Sport Fisher- 

 ies and Wildlife cooperates with the Bureau 

 of Commercial Fisheries, also in Interior, 

 when anadromous fish are concerned and 

 when works affect estuaries. The states may 

 also cooperate in reviewing proposals. 



Between 1962 and 1965, the Bureau of 

 Sport Fisheries and Wildlife reported on 24 

 dredge and fill projects in the New York 

 City-Long Island area which it thought 

 should be denied in the public interest. How- 

 ever, 16 of them were issued permits. The 

 Bureau recommended that 35 other projects 

 should receive permits only with restrictions 

 designed to prevent or reduce loss to fish and 

 wildlife. Twenty-one of these were issued 

 without any restrictions. 



Whereas in New York State only 37 per- 

 cent of the cases heeded the recorhmenda- 

 tiops, in New England the recommendations 

 to protect fish and wildlife were effective in 

 70 percent of the cases. 



The Northeast Region of the Bureau of 

 Sport Fisheries and Wildlife surveyed the 



tidal marshes from Delaware to Maine in 

 1954, 1959, and again in 1964. During the 

 first five-year period, 23,500 acres of tidal 

 marshes were lost to "progress," and during 

 the last five years the loss was 21,500 acres. 

 About one -third of the lost acreage is from 

 harbor and channel dredging, resulting prin- 

 cipally from the deposit of the spoil on valu- 

 able marshes. About one -fourth of the lost 

 acreage is from filling for housing. The 

 damage from the latter source is greater 

 than it seems because the fill material gen- 

 erally is obtained from the marshes, usually 

 doubling the acreage destroyed because of the 

 slow recovery of the dredge bottom. 



No Federal Authority Over Local Actions 



For those concerned about protecting the 

 estuarine natural resource complex, one of 

 the serious questions is the lack of Federal 

 authority over the actions of cities, counties, 

 and states. 



For a long time it has been clearly a pub- 

 lic necessity that the Federal Government 

 have control of navigable waters, and the 

 Army Corps of Engineers has had such au- 

 thority, but for navigation only. 



Many persons believe that there is public 

 need for controls that would protect other 

 uses of the resources of estuarine complexes. 

 The fact that the deposit of spoil from the 

 Corps' proper harbor and channel dredging 

 works often is destructive to fish and wildlife 

 habitat may not be so much a lack of concern 

 for these natural resources values as it is 

 the Corps' imperative to work as economical- 

 ly as possible. It follows, in the view of many 

 of us, that the benefit -cost calculations that 

 lead to spoil dumping in objectionable places 

 are too narrow. The economic considerations 

 should, I would say must, include all social 

 costs --the cost of those uses impaired and 

 the cost of potential benefits foregone. 



It is my view, and I admit a personal bias 

 based on my experiences and understanding, 

 that the Department of the Interior should 

 have equal authority with the Corps of Engi- 

 neers regarding construction and other works 

 that affect estuaries. The public interest in 

 navigation has long been protected by the Fed- 

 eral Government. We have been tardy in rec- 

 ognizing other estuarine values, including 

 commercial and sport fisheries, wildlife, and 

 natural beauty. 



