[RWG] Ecosystem Restoration Performance Standards Re: Cost analysis for weed management/restoration performancestandards

[Wayne Tyson]

All:

I'm not current on costs, but even back in the last century when I was 
active, these costs would have been ridiculously expensive. I think 
restoration practitioners in the consulting business are shooting their 
credibility in the foot when they so radically milk every project for the 
maximum they can get out of it. Restoration ecologists should stay the hell 
out of the applied business and stick to the science--honestly evaluating 
the effectiveness of practitioners' work.

Circumstance do alter cases, so no two projects are going to cost the same, 
but the projects should be designed to work over time, not to some 
"standard" for any given shot at evaluation. "Cover" has no place in 
ecosystem standards, period. What matters is that the project continue to 
get better and better with time, not to shoot for "cover" consisting of a 
few fast-spreading pioneer species. Performance/design standards should be 
determined for each project by the consultant developing the program. 
Comparisons of what's happening in the field with what the consultant's 
objectives were can be started right away--this should be the job of the 
restoration ecologist (scientist or peer-reviewer). That should be based on 
species diversity, NOT percent survival or cover--BOTH of those "measures" 
are bogus and irrelevant to what an ecosystem is actually doing. What 
separates a real ecosystem from an assemblage of native plants is the degree 
to which the project resembles the potential of the site and what was there 
before, adjusted for changes beyond the project's scope. The artificial 
colonization should employ seeds rather than plants, and normal survivorship 
curves and community composition numbers, with reasonable envelopes around 
them, should be what's looked at, not their size, density, growth rate, or 
spread. The emerging organisms should be there, and there will be 
"losses"--that's the way ecosystems work.

I have seen so much illogical stuff in the 12 years I've been retired--stuff 
that should have been learned long ago. Stuff I had to learn in the 1950's 
and '60's, and kept learning ever since. No one should be expected to know 
it all, and no one can get anywhere without mistakes. But we all should be 
able to learn from our mistakes. Apparently pride and profit come ahead of 
professionalism. I would like to know how else to explain it. It's 
depressing.

WT

"The worst kinda ignerance ain't so much not knowin', as 'tis knowin' so 
much that ain't so." --paraphrased from "Josh Billings"

"Healthy ecosystems resist invasions." --paraphrased from Jack Ewel (that 
means that expensive "weed treatments" are likely not necessary or even 
desirable. Except to line the pockets of the weed-bashers? I'm growing 
increasingly suspicious that such might be the case.)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company" <Craig at astreet.com>
To: <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>; <rwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 8:56 AM
Subject: [RWG] Cost analysis for weed management/restoration 
performancestandards


> Dear All,
>
> To prepare for my March 20 talk in Redwood City, CA. about how to get
> 99.5% native cover when doing weeding projects or doing ecological
> restoration, I am asking everyone who is weeding or restoring native
> grasslands on public lands in our County.
>
> The results can be boiled down to = What is the cost per acre, to increase
> the percentage of native plant cover by one percent?
>
> For example, I just got the data from two projects funded by the Federal
> government, the USFWS in Endangered species habitat in the hills of
> Redwood City.  The two different treatments produced different results,
> one was able to increase the native cover by 7% and the second raised the
> native cover by 15%.
>
> The 7% increase was a single treatment that cost $500 per acre per
> percentage native cover increase or $4,500 per acre.  But repeated
> treatments using that method with the goal of getting 99.5% native cover,
> then the total cost to get 99.5% cover could be $45,000 per acre.
>
> The 15% native cover increase site, was done to help control weeds around
> an already existing Endangered plant species, and also increase the number
> of plants.  That work required the growing out of plants, and careful hand
> weeding so as not to disturb the existing Endangered plants.
>
> The costs to increase each percentage of native cover, was $15,000 per
> acre, or a total of $225,000 per acre, which is identical with the costs
> of the Caltrans weed management/restoration project at
> http://www.ecoseeds.com/road.test.html.  And to continue the treatments
> and plantings in this Endangered plant area, to get to 99.5% native cover,
> would be about $1.5 million per acre.
>
> That is why it is so important that we take a look annually at the actual
> costs per acre to get a single percentage native plant cover for our
> project.
>
> Looking  at the actual costs to restore a site, would help agencies fund
> restoration projects like these more realistically, and maybe look for
> ways for the process to be done cheaper and more efficiently?
>
> Plus knowing the actual costs, would help public agencies to set more
> realistic bond requirements for pipeline and other projects on our public
> lands, or for more realistic, real-world amount for funds that are paid by
> developers for a HCP (Habitat Conservation Plan) mitigations,
>
> Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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