April 18 was the Springtime Annual Meeting for the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation and our Board members. The following is a response to questions raised at that event.........
Several of you asked for more background regarding the calculations of the worth of Restoring the River of Grass flow path, per the Governor's initiative to restore the missing link and revitalize the ROG, following the S&T Report and vigorous discussion on the $70 billion dollar benefit.
Per all the newspaper reporting, the present partial purchase of land to make this happen is reduced to $500,000 and change, and even this is in question, pending a Governing Board Vote.
Compare that to the benefit of $70 billion over the 40 year CERP life cycle, which likely is an underestimate.
This is a summary and you are welcome to stop reading here.
Attached below is a letter to the editor which never got printed (Randy?).
Owing to feedback or the lack of it, it is easy to conclude that society in general does not deal well with numbers on complicated subjects outside the S&T Community, however at the very least, ecosystem services benefits of $70 billion, relative to costs 1/10 of that, ought to be easily understandable, and acted upon.
This also reflects the lack of strategic thinking, which ought to lead to strategic calculations, in terms of the benefit:cost ratio long-term. This remains not yet visible, except here, and the other places the attached has been posted.
Getting the govt to go in this direction is a tough job, but somebody has to take it on. And it has to be somebody that likes number crunching, and is trained to do it.
Thanks for your support.
John Arthur Marshall, Chairman of the Board
Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & Florida Environmental Institute, Inc.
To see the Power Point presented as a poster paper at "A Conference on Ecosystem Services" - ACES - in Naples, Dec 8, 2008, and at the Everglades Coalition Conference, January 8, 2009 send your request to plantcypress@aol.com. Attention:Eric. -----------------------------------------------------------------
From: JamInfoTo: letters@PBPost.comSent: 3/19/2009 3:48:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight TimeSubj: Letter to Editor, Palm Beach Post
Governor’s River of Grass initiative: Big Costs, but much Bigger return to the South Florida Economy
Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) implementers working on the River of Grass project initiated by Governor Charlie Crist, owe Congress and the people of Florida another dollar estimate: How much is the project worth to the economy of south Florida, long-term, relative to cost?
Restoration opponents have suggested that ecological benefits gained by purchasing US Sugar land are too far off to justify delaying current restoration. They have not done the return on investment calculations, are not into long-term strategic thinking, and are short-sighted not to recognize we are in a different paradigm requiring a new vision.
The National Research Council and most federal agencies having CERP oversight (e.g., US Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Interior) advocate such an economic valuation approach and benefit to cost analysis per a study published in 2005: Valuing Ecosystem Services - Toward better environmental decision making.
The vision here is that applying the NRC, et al, approach to the River of Grass project is a great idea whose time has come.
Calculations traceable to references in the literature indicate that the worth of restoring the river of grass down a flow path previous proposed by the US Army Corps of Engineers is worth $69.159 billion. Cost is estimated as $7.6 billion, about half way between $5 billion and $9 billion appearing in the news. (Palm Beach post, 3/18)
This yields a Benefit:Cost ratio of 9.1 (benefit divided by cost). The Corps of engineers uses Benefit:Cost ratio = 1.5 as the threshold for go-no-go decisions. The River of Grass project is a go!
The above calculations are a first order estimate, based on a “back-of-the-envelope” approach. The results were given at a conference on ecosystem services, Naples, FL, Dec 8, 2008, attended by many of the CERP implementers.
A primary recommendation was that CERP implementers should move out on using this approach for decision support, as demonstrated. A primary conclusion was that no matter how calculations are formulated, benefits of restoring the river of grass will always be significantly greater than the cost; further the decision support calculations would eliminate much debate, law suits, unnecessary expense and delay. This is likely true for most other restoration projects as well.
The benefits are not that far off, if the body politic could just get past non-science arguments, and focus on the Three R’s of Restoration: Restore sheet-flow; Re-vegetate; and Restore peat, to revitalize the river of grass. Senior scientists are also pushing these three R’s, as a means to mitigate sea level rise and salt water intrusion into our drinking water. There is no time to lose here in protecting our life support system.
Many need to be connecting the dots here, if nothing else as an exercise of the precautionary principle. Running the project benefit numbers, relative to cost, and return on investment, would result in a call to action understandable by Congress and the public. Restoration results remain the primary objective.
Respectfully submitted,
John Arthur Marshall, Chairman of the Board; Co-Chair, Science Committee: JAMinfo@aol.com
Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & Florida Environmental Institute, Inc.; www.ArtMarshall.org2806 South Dixie Highway, WPB, FL 33405; 805-8733
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