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| <p>Note to Angela Nugent</p> |
| <p>From: Ned Black, Ph.D., Regional CERCLA Ecologist/Microbiologist, US EPA Region 9 BTAG Coordinator</p> |
| <p>Subject: Bolsa Chica introductory message</p> |
| <p>As you requested, I'm providing a brief introduction to the Bolsa Chica site and my thoughts on why it might be of interest to the SAB C-VPRESS.</p> |
| <p>The Bolsa Chica is a lowland area north of Huntington Beach on the coast of southern California. Originally, the habitat was a mix of estuarine and coastal scrub uplands. For almost a century it has been an oil production field. However, the mix of habitats was preserved to a large extent, albeit with arguably reduced functionality (see Attachment 1: Figure 2-4 from the Ecological Risk Assessment). In the 1990s, a large fund of mitigation money from expansion projects at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach became available. A consortium of federal and State of California agencies, including the US EPA, brokered the purchase of the Bolsa Chica with the intent of eliminating oil production and creating a large, thriving wildlife refuge. In one sense, the valuation of the ecosystem was determined at the outset by fiat, i.e., the State of California had a set amount of money which could only be used for habitat preservation or creation, and this fund was entirely earmarked for the Bolsa Chica project.</p> |
| <p>As a result of the oil field activity, the Bolsa Chica had a widespread but patchy distribution of diverse contaminants. I was asked to bring my experience overseeing ecological risk assessments of Superfund sites to the governments' Bolsa Chica Technical Committee. We produced an ecological risk assessment according to the Superfund model, and then participated in negotiations with the responsible parties to set cleanup goals. Those negotiations are partially complete. Intrinsic in the planning and execution of the risk assessment and the subsequent negotiations were informal analyses of the value of different habitat blocks within the site. In the attached Figure 2-4, many of the upland features are revealed as dikes which separate the area into cells which are more or less hydrologically connected. To date, we have only completed negotiations for contaminant cleanup of one part of the site (see Section I & II of pdf document, July 9 04 SWQCBBbolsa cleanup plan).</p> |
| <p>This site fits my understanding of the SAB C-VRESS in light of the presentation the committee heard on 27 October 2003 from Deveraux Barnes of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at EPA headquarters (see Attachment 2: Barnes presentation). Dev told the C-VPRESS that OSWER acknowledges the potential benefits of ecosystem valuation in ecological risk assessment of hazardous waste sites, but does not have the tools to include ecosystem valuation in our work. Even though the Bolsa Chica restoration is not an OSWER project, the risk assessment and cleanup were and are being done using the OSWER model. And habitat valuation was included both explicitly and implicitly more than any other site I've seen. I hope the C-VPRESS can build upon the rudimentary habitat valuation as an example for further work at Bolsa Chica and other sites.</p> |
| <p>Finally, the C-VPRESS can find more background information about the project at the web site for the governments' Bolsa Chica Wetlands Steering Committee, http://swr.ucsd.edu/hcd/bolsa.htm.</p> |
| <p>I look forward to the C-VPRESS meeting.</p> |
| <p>NedAttachment 1: Figure 2-4 from the Ecological Risk Assessment</p> |
| <p>EMBED AcroExch.Document Attachment 2: Perspectives from Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response Dev Barnes, Director, Office of Program Management</p> |
| <p><strong>Presentation at Initial EPA Background Workshop for the US EPA Science Advisory Board</strong></p> |
| <p><strong>Committee on Valuing the Protection of Ecological Systems and Services </strong></p> |
| <p><strong>October 27, 2003</strong></p> |
| <p><strong>Perspectives from</strong> <strong>Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response </strong>Dev Barnes, Director, Office of Program Management</p> |
| <p><strong>Initial EPA Background Workshop for the US EPA Science Advisory Board</strong></p> |
| <p><strong>Committee on Valuing the Protection of Ecological Systems and Services </strong></p> |
| <p><strong>October 27, 2003</strong></p> |
| <p><strong>Mission of Program</strong></p> |
| <p>OSWER Mission:</p> |
| <p>Provide policy, guidance and direction for safely managing waste, preparing for, and preventing chemical and oil spills, accidents and emergencies, and cleaning up and reusing contaminated property </p> |
| <p>Provide technical assistance to all levels of government to establish programs that safeguard our air, water, and land from the uncontrolled spread of waste.</p> |
| <p>Types of Decisions Made:</p> |
| <p>Decisions regarding site clean-ups including remediation options</p> |
| <p>Regulatory decisions regarding the identification and management of hazardous waste and contaminated media</p> |
| <p>Decisions on responses to spills, accidents, or emergencies</p> |
| <p>Decisions on reuse of contaminated property</p> |
| <p>Offices Within OSWER</p> |
| <p>Office of Solid Waste</p> |
| <p>Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation</p> |
| <p>Office of Emergency Prevention and Preparedness and response</p> |
| <p>Office of Brownfields and Redevelopment</p> |
| <p>Office of Underground Storage Tanks</p> |
| <p>Office of Program Management</p> |
| <p>Federal Facilities, Restoration and Reuse</p> |
| <p>Innovation Partnership and Communication Office</p> |
| <p><strong>Use of Information About the Value of Ecological Systems and Services in Program Decision-Making and Policy Making</strong></p> |
| <p>Currently, OSWER qualitatively discusses the ecological systems and services affected by regulatory and remedial options.</p> |
| <p>The qualitative assessments are used to help describe to the decision-maker the benefits associated with a regulatory option and identify unique concerns related to ecological resources.</p> |
| <p>The Office has not tried to quantify the ecological benefits.</p> |
| <p><strong>Information, Tools and Approaches Used and their Validity/Usefulness for Decision-Making</strong></p> |
| <p>Typically, estimate ecological effects based on a Hazard Quotient approach using various screening criteria.</p> |
| <p>Do not monetarily quantify the social costs of the ecological benefits or impacts. </p> |
| <p>Estimated impacts contribute to the wealth of information related to a regulatory option in the decision-making phase.</p> |
| <p><strong>Additional Tools and Approaches Needed</strong></p> |
| <p>Presently, we do not have a suite of tools available for this type of benefits analysis.</p> |
| <p>Encourage the development of tools that assist in the development of ecological risk endpoints that can be quantified and tools for assessing non-monetary benefits.</p> |
| <p>Encourage the development of tools that assist in the valuation of items such as aesthetics, watershed values, and recreational values.</p> |
| <p><strong>Scientific Advice on Valuing the Protection of Ecological Systems and Services that Would be Useful to Your Program</strong></p> |
| <p>Ecological risk methodologies that link adverse impacts to economic valuation techniques</p> |
| <p>Approaches for scaling individual/community impacts to larger scales (e.g., habitat and watershed impacts)</p> |
| <p>Monetization methodologies</p> |
| <p>Appropriate discount rates</p> |
| <p>Published reference materials</p> |
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