Natural Resource Damage Assessment: Methods and Cases

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Overview State agencies have had legal standing to sue for damages to the natural resources in their respective states for decades. Some state agencies have been active in pursuing settlements with responsible parties for damages resulting from releases of oil or hazardous materials into the environment. Other agencies are just beginning to explore how a program to deal with natural resource damages (NRD) cases might look. In order to secure NRD settlements, trustees must engage in the process of NRD Assessment (NRDA). Much has been written to describe and improve upon the state of the art in NRDA. However, most state programs lack the funding or staff capacity to effectively use such sophisticated and expensive assessment methods. Furthermore, most of the cases that a state agency might have to grapple with are, in fact, very small, and may be poorly documented. In such cases, it may be infeasible or nonsensical to conduct a case-specific NRDA. This multi-part project reviews how state agencies with NRD programs have chosen to conduct NRDAs for their projects (Chapter 1), evaluates simplified assessment methods developed at the state level that might be adapted for use in other states (Chapter 2), and examines how trustees and academics have wrestled with the particularly thorny issue of evaluating NRDs when the damaged resource is groundwater (Chapter 3.) The project report also includes a document which may be of use in states where the trustees are just beginning to pursue NRD cases; it gives a summary of the federal statutes that give trustees the authority to pursue NRD cases, and provides summaries of illustrative cases (Chapter 4). iv
Chapter 1: Tables and Figures Table 1.1: State Office Responses ............................................................................................4-5 Table 1.2: Number of Agencies Reporting Statutory Authority under State Law........................6 Table 1.3: Year in Which Offices Began NRD Activity..............................................................6 Table 1.4: Staffing of NRD Programs (in FTE) ...........................................................................6 Table 1.5: Number of Cases Settled by Agency Prior to 1995.....................................................7 Table 1.6: Number of Cases by Agency from 1995 to 2001 ........................................................8 Table 1.7: Statutory Authority Invoked ........................................................................................8 Table 1.8: Number of Trustees Involved in a Case ......................................................................8 Table 1.9: Number of Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs).....................................................9 Table 1.10: Distribution of Cases among Statutes and Year of Onset of Injury..........................9 Table 1.11: Type of Event Responsible for Natural Resource Injury...........................................9 Table 1.12: Type of Contaminant .................................................................................................9 Table 1.13: Injured Resources .................................................................................................................................... 10 Table 1.14: Cost to Trustee of Performing NRDA .....................................................................11 Table 1.15: Damage Estimates from NRDA ..............................................................................11 Table 1.16: NRDA Methods Used by Different Agents.............................................................11 Table 1.17: NRDA Methods Used for Varied Types of Injured Resources ...............................11 Table 1.18: Amount of Settlement .............................................................................................12 Figure 1.1: Mean Settlement by NRDA Method .......................................................................13 Figure 1.2: Mean Settlement by Statute Invoked........................................................................13 Figure 1.3: Mean Settlement by Resources Injured....................................................................14 Figure 1.4: Relationship between NRD Estimates and Final Settlements..................................14 1
Page 1 and 2: WMRC Reports Waste Management and R
Page 3 and 4: RR-108 Natural Resource Damage Asse
Page 5: Acknowledgments Funding was provide
Page 9 and 10: staff of agencies that are just beg
Page 11 and 12: All: 64 Nevada Division of Environm
Page 13 and 14: Table 1.5 Number of Cases Settled b
Page 15 and 16: Table 1.9 Number of Potentially Res
Page 17 and 18: Table 1.14 Cost to Trustee of Perfo
Page 19 and 20: Mean Settlement (million $) 90 80 7
Page 21 and 22: V. Conclusions Trustees have had re
Page 23 and 24: Appendix: Materials in Information-
Page 25 and 26: NRD: Natural resource damages. Guid
Page 27 and 28: Survey of State Natural Resource Da
Page 29 and 30: 19) Has this case been settled? (Ch
Page 31 and 32: I. Introduction Chapter 2 Simplifie
Page 33 and 34: Number of Spills 1,000 800 600 400
Page 35 and 36: damages not quantifiable at reasona
Page 37 and 38: (b) Columbia River Estuary: Bird, f
Page 39 and 40: Example of the Washington method in
Page 41 and 42: % of All Cases 35 30 25 20 15 10 5
Page 43 and 44: preventing excessive expenditures o
Page 45 and 46: Example of the Florida formula in u
Page 47 and 48: damages to natural resources at con
Page 49 and 50: discharge on receptors studied in t
Page 51 and 52: Information for this calculation is
Page 53 and 54: ased funding for the program was pr
Page 55 and 56: a spill occurs in a high income are
Page 57 and 58:
References Cozine, M. H. 1999. “N
Page 59 and 60:
Chapter 3: Tables and Figures Table
Page 61 and 62:
This chapter will examine the exten
Page 63 and 64:
Comprehensive Environmental Respons
Page 65 and 66:
Output price P0 C D S0 is the suppl
Page 67 and 68:
Travel-cost analysis can be used fo
Page 69 and 70:
area B and computing willingness to
Page 71 and 72:
Table 3.1: Summary of Studies Estim
Page 73 and 74:
Schultz and Lindsay (1990) estimate
Page 75 and 76:
Table 3.3: Using Benefits Transfer
Page 77 and 78:
Number of Cases 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
Page 79 and 80:
Table 3.4 Groundwater Case Studies
Page 81 and 82:
and overall protection of the resou
Page 83 and 84:
References Abdalla, C. W. 1991. “
Page 85 and 86:
Nielson, E. G. and L.K. Lee. Octobe
Page 87 and 88:
United States, adjoining shorelines
Page 89 and 90:
Once there is a “release” of a
Page 91 and 92:
1997). Second, there can be no reco
Page 93 and 94:
settlement of NRD claim prior to an
Page 95 and 96:
egulations divide the assessment pr
Page 97 and 98:
Damages: The trustees calculated th
Page 99 and 100:
The State hired consultants (ARCADI
Page 101 and 102:
C. Lake Barre/Texaco Site: The site
Page 103 and 104:
would be inefficient and unnecessar
Page 105 and 106:
Damages: The U.S. Coast Guard requi
Page 107 and 108:
Creek and the cultural importance o
show all

Natural Resource Damage Assessment: Methods and Cases

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?