Number: 1976-16
WHEREAS, conservationists feel that mitigation for wildlife losses due to water resource development projects has been inadequate when based on man days of use; and
WHEREAS, an evaluation system which analyzes the resource itself and not the expected use of the resource more accurately assesses the effects of water resource development projects; and
WHEREAS, a task force, the Federal, State, and Private Conservation Organization Committee developed a system known as the Ecological Planning & Evaluation Procedures for implementing the new Principles and Standards for Planning Water & Related Land in the Resource Projects; and
WHEREAS, these Procedures provide for a numerical evaluation of wildlife habitat and a reasonable determination of needed wildlife habitat mitigation; and
WHEREAS, the Fish and Wildlife Service has adopted this system for the evaluation of both terrestrial and aquatic habitats; and
WHEREAS, the system, in determining project benefits and losses, includes for both monetary (man days of use) and non-monetary (habitat evaluation) procedures; and
WHEREAS, this system recognizes that lands offered as mitigation have an existing value and that only the difference between the existing value and the wildlife habitat potential possible through management can be used to mitigate losses; and
WHEREAS, the Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal water resource agencies have been slow to adopt as operating policy the Ecological Planning and Evaluation Procedures;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, in annual meeting assembled March 19-21, 1976, in Louisville, Ky., hereby urges the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal water resource agencies to adopt the Ecological Planning and Evaluation Procedures developed by the Federal, State, Private Conservation Organization Committee as a method for implementing the New Principles and Standards for Planning Water and Related Land Resource Projects to the end that the effect on wildlife habitat of water resources development projects may be properly evaluated.