EPA's Vessel General Permit and Small Vessel General

produced by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, boats and ships, as well as dredging,
construction, geological explorations, etc. (Richardson et al, 1995).
Integration and Synthesis of the Environmental Baseline
The direct and indirect effects of changes in land-use and land-cover of the United States have
had lasting effect on the quantity, quality, and distribution of every major terrestrial, aquatic, and
coastal ecosystems. Many native ecosystems exist as small isolated fragments surrounded by
expanses of urban and suburban landscapes or “natural” areas that are dominated by non-native
species. As a result, many of the native plant and animal species that inhabited those native
ecosystems over the past have become extinct, extinct in the wild, endangered, or threatened
over the past 200 years.
Beginning in the 1960s, a wide variety of programs undertaken by Federal, State, and local
governments, non-governmental organizations, and private individuals have been established to
protect or restore our nation’s forests, grasslands, wetlands, estuaries, rivers, lakes, and streams.
Those programs have helped slow and, for many ecosystems, reverse declining trends that began
in the past. However, those efforts have benefited some ecosystems and their associated flora
and fauna more than other ecosystems. Despite the efforts of agencies at every level of
government, non-governmental organizations, and private individuals, non-point sources of
pollution and ANS invasions still degraded our rivers, lakes, and streams; freshwater aquifers in
coastal areas remain at risk from saltwater intrusion because of water withdrawals; nutrients
transported down the Mississippi River remains sufficient to produce an hypoxic zone in the
Gulf of Mexico that had more than doubled in size; and the acreage of wetland declined from
slightly more than 274 million acres of wetlands to about 107.7 million acres between the 1980s
and 2004 (Dahl 2006).
Water quality is important to all of the above listed resources, either directly, as for fishes and
invertebrates, or indirectly, as for cetaceans that are affected through their diet. In some cases,
detriments to water quality have led to the endangerment of species; in all cases, activities that
threaten water quality also threaten these listed resources. Endangered and threatened species
have experienced population declines that leave them vulnerable to a multitude of threats.
Because of reduced abundance, low or highly variable growth capacity, and the loss of essential
habitat, these species are less resilient to additional disturbances. For example, stressors that
affect only a limited number of individuals were once tolerated with little impact to the species,
whereas now, the same stressors are likely to reduce population viability. It is with this
understanding of the environmental baseline that we consider the effects of the proposed action,
including the likely effects that ANS and pollutants will have on endangered and threatened
species and their designated critical habitat.
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