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| Reed Canary Grass often appears at restored wetland sites where restoration designers did not plan ahead for post-restoration management |
I had lunch with a young biologist a few weeks ago. He was excited that his employer was restoring a large wetland on Maryland's eastern shore by filling ("plugging") the old ditches that were dug into the property to allow agriculture, then silviculture (pine plantation) to occur there successfully. The project is being funded by the NRCS Wetland Reserve Program (WRP), which in the vast majority of cases, requires that the final restored wetland be:
a) primarily forested, and
b) permanently protected from future impacts to the wetland
This all sounds great. However, when I asked for more details on the "forested wetland" part, this biologist told me the prescribed methodology for the site's restoration:
1. Plug ditches to restore the site's pre-settlement hydrology
2. Cut down pine trees (kind of unnecessary - they'd drown on their own)
3. Hope that high quality wetland trees magically reforest the site
The flooding of the site via ditch plugs will cause the die-off of most of the minimal-quality vegetation on the site. What will result is mud, dead plants, and "whatever grows first." In eastern Maryland wetlands, that's Phragmites. Meet Phragmites.
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| Provide Wet, Bare Farm Soil.....get Phragmites |
Phragmites is flood tolerant and drought tolerant. Phragmites grows in sand, silt, clay, mud, and in pure mineral gravel. Phragmites grows in polluted water and in some of the most polluted soils on earth. Phragmites colonies can establish by vegetative clone (from rhizome) or by seed, which can be dispersed by wind, water, or wildlife.
An 80 acre colony of Phragmites lives within one mile of the proposed "forested wetland" restoration site. Once the site is flooded, and denuded of its old upland vegetation, what do you think the chances are that the site will "magically" regrow wetland oaks, baldcypress, atlantic white cedar and other important, primordial wetland forest plants? If you answered "none," then you'd be correct. The site will be dominated by native and non-native pioneer plants that can survive the harsh site conditions (wet, no cover). Some of those pioneer species (Phragmites, Red Maple, Sweetgum) will carry on at the site for 40-60 years, before giving way to something else (hint: not an oak-cypress swamp).
What's the correct answer? The problem here is that the better the eventual habitat project, the more it will cost, and the the longer it'll have to be maintained. Some options:
1. Watch initial recruitment of plants for 2 years. If invasive or "less than optimal" plants colonize the site, treat with herbicides and replant the desired vegetation (wetland trees, in this case). Cost: $1000-2000/acre. Difficult to deliver plants and work across a site that is already flooded. Return annually to mow or spray undesirable, competitive plants and to protect planted trees from hungry critters like deer
2. Plant the site immediately. Withhold at least 20% of the planting budget for the inevitable death of 10-20% of the planted trees (50-90% if planted by volunteers). Return annually to mow or spray undesirable, competitive plants and to protect planted trees from hungry critters like deer. Cost: $500-1000/acre.
3. Do not plant, but aggressively manage for the relatively low number of desirable trees and shrubs that colonize the site by mowing/hogging/spraying undesirable plants. Cost: $250/acre, annually for 5-7 years.
But what's the cost of failure to do any of these? First, the direct cost is project failure. We have to think of who funds these projects, and why - government agencies, non-profit groups, corporations, and private foundations. All of those groups expect to receive a high-functioning habitat for their restoration dollars. In most cases, a contract is signed to assure it.
And that leads to a more insidious cost of passive conservation or "Walk-Away Restoration" - that of increased cynicism and decreased confidence in the work of restoration practitioners, from not only the organizations that fund the restoration work, but also the public at large, as well as elected officials. One such example was a project at the Jackson Lane Preserve in eastern Maryland, where inattentiveness by the restoration project partners caused a neighboring farm to be flooded during the growing season. The farmer filed litigation against the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who ultimately settled the case out of course. Those project partners likely spent $20,000 - $40,000 on the crop loss settlement, when they simply could have spent $3,000 on a proper topographic survey.
No one (yet) has been able to explain to me why restoration professionals who depend upon the confidence (and resulting dollars) of willing project funders are willing to shave 20% off of the cost of a project at the risk of total program failure. We're all professionals. We're all in this together, and (mostly) for the same reasons. Now let's take on these projects - and their associated larger habitat programs - like a bunch of grownups, not school children looking to hold onto one extra nickel just to say we "saved" it on the front end of a project that turns out to be a costly embarrassment 15 years later.
