Reviews for Compensating for Wetland Losses Under the Clean Water Act

The average rating for Compensating for Wetland Losses Under the Clean Water Act based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-07-16 00:00:00 Krystal Civil The National Research Council appointed a committee to put together this report on wetland mitigation, the policy where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grants permits for wetland filling on the condition that the applicant restore or create a wetland to replace what they destroy. The committee's mission was to assess the state of the art of wetland restoration and creation, evaluate how well the mitigation program is doing at meeting the official goal of "no net loss," and suggest what kind of research is most needed to improve techniques. The book ends up focusing much more on administrative reforms than environmental engineering issues. There's plenty of problems for them to point out there: applicants never even start some mitigation projects, inspections are rare, and legal obligations are certified as fulfilled after only five years, even when there's no guarantee that the wetland will be protected in the future and it may take fifty years to mature. Even so, the committee's recommendations to fix these problems are frustratingly vague.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-01-25 00:00:00 Kathy Tracy McEvoy's thorough, well-researched, and not at all interesting examination of fishery issues in California that led to the passage of the 1976 FCMA constitutes a good case application of Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" problem. In short, the book presents a compelling but not especially sophisticated argument for increased sensitivity to environmental problems: brute self-interest will lead only to devastation. I'm really amazed at how readable this book was, given its subject matter (McEvoy himself says that he is following Robert Wiebe's injunction to write in simple prose so that laypeople can avail themselves of scholarly research).