Volume 20, Issue 3, 1995 November/December 1995

RAPSHEET

Watershed Restoration Adds Up To Economic Benefits

by Tom Muir and Ruth Edgett

Environmental restoration of Thunder Bay's waterfront can add jobs and money to the local economy, says a recent consultant's report commissioned by Environment Canada.

Cleanup activities could create as many as 590 jobs and $20 million in new tax revenue for the city. Economic spinoffs could bring 370 additional local jobs and another 591 provincewide. These would result from potential business investments of $14 million to begin with and $10 million annually in expenditures over a 20-year period.

The report is one of four commissioned by Environment Canada that demonstrate the potential economic benefits of restoring and enhancing environmentally degraded watersheds. The other three examine Nipigon Bay, Metro Toronto and Cornwall.

These four reports build upon a 1993 study of Hamilton Harbour and the Lower Don River Valley. The studies add weight to the notion that money put toward cleaning up the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Areas of Concern can be a sound investment.

The estimated economic impacts for Thunder Bay are based on restoration activities between 1989 and 1999 valued at $210.1 million. Projects include an initial private sector investment of approximately $7 million in secondary treatment at Avenor Inc., together with annual operating expenditures of about $6 million. Also included is an anticipated $20 million public and private investment to begin remediating the Northwood site (see photograph).

The potential benefits of watershed restoration in Thunder Bay need further investigation. Plans are being made to take the Thunder Bay study further by estimating the socioeconomic value that could be added by the proposed Northwood site rehabilitation. Also planned is a general review of possible waterfront land uses, including residential, commercial and light industrial.

The five consultants' reports base estimates of potential benefits on the idea that environmental restoration projects can add value to an area and spur further economic activity. For example, the restoration itself creates demand for new products and services. Once a restoration project is complete, further economic activity or redevelopment (of "brown fields" for example) may take place.

New recreation uses can also create opportunities for entrepreneurs. Further, residential intensification in previously unattractive urban areas can lead to cost savings in government services, and land values may increase. Return of native species of fish and wildlife makes the revitalized watershed still more attractive to humans.

The estimates in Tables 1 through 4 show some economic possibilities for each of the five study communities. Some of these potential benefits can occur as restoration work begins. Others take more time, and their extent depends largely on the scale of the original restoration activity. These studies based economic development estimates on a 20-year period. Some figures for Thunder Bay and Nipigon Bay were unavailable.

Table 1 illustrates sustainability benefits. These benefits, which enhance an area's ability to sustain all forms of life, are almost impossible to quantify. However, their value is virtually undisputed.

Table 1

Watershed Protection
Primary Productivity
Habitation
Biodiversity/Habitat
Recreation
Conservation
Air Quality
Water Quality
Psychological Value
Cultural Heritage

Table 2 shows economic benefits from increased human use of an environmentally improved area. Direct use benefits attempt to put a value on each day spent enjoying an activity made possible by a restoration project. Use expenditures refer to money spent on recreational activities.

Avoided costs refer to savings of expenses that would otherwise have been incurred. For example, the cost of providing community services to outlying areas could be avoided if residential development shifted back to the core of the urban area.

Table 2

*Estimates for Hamilton harbour in $1991

	Direct Use Benefits	Use Expenditures	Avoided Costs
			Capital	Annual
Thunder Bay	$7.3	$1.7	$0.25	n/a
Nipigon Bay	$2.3	$0.4	n/a	n/a
Hamilton Harbour*	$43	$6.0	$80.0	$2.0
Metropolitan Toronto	$133.2	$16.7	$1,094	$17.7
Cornwall (St. Lawrence)	$2.3	$0.4	n/a	n/a

Table 3

Table 4

Table 3 shows the estimated costs of initial investment in restoration activities in each of the study areas. This is also referred to as capital. Operating expenditures occur each year over the lives of the restoration projects.

While there is considerable private sector investment in the Thunder Bay restoration projects, the largest portion of money for watershed cleanup usually comes from governments.

These studies note that whether funding comes from federal, provincial or municipal budgets, it usually comes from a fixed pot. Money spent in one part of the province, or one part of a watershed, prevents it from being spent elsewhere. Thus, even though government investment in watershed restoration can have generous multiplier effects locally, corresponding activity on a provincewide basis may be negatively affected (see Table 3).

Restoration activities encourage public and private spending. This might include establishment of new businesses as use of restored areas increases. The impacts of these follow-on investments can also be felt locally and provincewide (See Table 4).

Unlike the initial restoration investments, follow-on economic development does not occur at the expense of other areas in the province. It is believed to add to local and provincewide economic activity (See Table 4).

Ruth Edgett is proprietor of WordBroker Communication Services in Ancaster, Ontario. More information about the benefit studies and copies of the consultants' reports are available from Tom Muir, Senior Economist, Citizenship, Assessment and Economics Division, Environment Canada-Ontario Region, 867 Lakeshore Road, Burlington, Ontario L7R 4A6. Email: tom.muir@cciw.ca; telephone (905)336-4951; fax (905)336-8901.

Sommaire

La remise en état de l'environnement du secteur riverain de Thunder Bay peut créer de l'emploi et stimuler l'économie locale, dit un récent rapport d'un consultant.

La dépollution pourrait créer jusqu'à 590 emplois et apporter des rentrées fiscales de vingt millions de dollars additionnels à la municipalité. Les retombées économiques pourraient conduire à la création de 370 emplois additionnels à l'échelle locale et de 591 emplois à l'échelle de la province. Ce sont des investissements commerciaux possibles de quatorze millions de dollars dans un premier temps et de dix millions de plus en dépenses chaque année pendant 20 ans qui seraient à l'origine de cette activité.

Urban Renewal, Wetland Style

by Jan Bush

Now I know what Black River wetland and city middle school kids have in common. Two things: each is constantly changing and vigorous, and each is considered irrelevant to the "good life."

Black River wetlands, both in headwater corridors and mainstem floodplain, are endangered by land use changes. Middle schoolers at Whittier Middle School in south Lorain, Ohio are endangered by boredom and complacency.

How do I know these secrets from the marsh? I spent two weeks studying wetlands in an educational collaborative between El Centro de Servicios Sociales, Inc. and Whittier Middle School.

And it all was started because Mike Ferrer, director of El Centro's Youth Center, thought it wasn't enough for his kids to clean up Packard Ditch in South Lorain. "Can't we use the ditch to study math and science?" he asked.

Ferrer had two teachers and a grant for $3,000 from the National Science Foundation. And because he sits on the Black River Remedial Action Plan (RAP) public education subcommittee, he knew about RAP resources. He approached Whittier's principal, Henry Harsar, who also had resources. Harsar invited two teachers and 24 eighth graders, many of whom are participants in El Centro's after-school Project Success, to take a whole week of class time to get muddy.

And they did. They used two nearby water features, Packard Ditch and the oxbow wetland at Black River Reservation that receives the ditch's flow. They measured water flow and quality; they recorded plant and animal life. They handled dissolved oxygen ampules and field glasses. They made a garbage-bag watershed and a roasting-pan wetland. They planned a "TV program about wetlands" to summarize their study.

For the RAP, an outstanding outcome from the wetland collaborative was that it used and strengthened ties with three partners to remedial action: Lorain County Metroparks, US/KOBE Steel Company, and Lorain Soil and Water Conservation District. For kids and teachers, it was a rare chance to glimpse snapping turtles mating and renewing life in an urban wetland.

For more information contact Jan Bush, Project Director, Seventh Generation, 25 Lake Avenue, Elyria, Ohio 44035. (216)322-4187; fax (216)322-1785.

Sommaire

J'ai trouvé les deux choses qu'ont en commun les milieux humides de la rivière Black et les élèves du premier cycle du secondaire de la ville : les deux sont énergiques et en perpétuelle mouvance et aucun des deux ne nous fait évoquer la notion «de se la couler douce ».

Que ce soit au niveau du cours supérieur ou dans la plaine d'inondation du bras principal, les milieux humides de la rivière Black sont menacés par les changements sur le plan de l'aménagement du territoire. Quant aux élèves du premier cycle du secondaire de l'école Whittier de South Lorain, ils sont guettés par l'ennui et le laisser-faire.

Et comment le marais m'a-t-il appris ses secrets? J'ai passé deux semaines à étudier les milieux humides dans le cadre d'un projet éducatif et de collaboration entre El Centro de Servicios Sociales Inc. et cette école secondaire.

À l'origine de ce projet, Mike Ferrer, directeur de la maison des jeunes El Centro, trouvait que de nettoyer le ruisseau Packard dans South Lorain n'était pas une activité assez complète. Il s'est demandé si on ne pouvait pas utiliser le ruisseau pour enseigner les maths et les sciences.

C'est ce que les élèves ont fait. Ils ont utilisé deux plans d'eau voisins, le ruisseau Packard et le milieu humide Oxbow situé dans la réserve de la rivière Black où est acheminée l'eau du ruisseau. Ils ont mesuré le débit et la qualité de l'eau et fait un relevé de la faune et de la flore. Ils ont découvert ce qu'est l'oxygène dissous et manipulé des jumelles. Ils ont fabriqué un bassin hydrographique au moyen de sacs à ordures et un milieu humide à partir d'une lèchefrite. Ils ont planifié la réalisation d'une émission de télévision pour présenter le résumé de leur étude.

Revised: March 14,1997
Maintained by Kevin McGunagle, mcgunaglek@ijc.wincom.net