By Mary Ellen Ternes
Face it: we got slimed on the 4th of July. Blooms of blue-green algae ruined plans over the holiday for a lot of folks in Oklahoma, and it’s really tough for businesses. Blue - green algae (cyanobacteria) is ancient. Its photosynthesis is responsible for oxygen in our atmosphere today, and even the chloroplasts in today’s plants are “symbiotic cyanobacteria.” While we’re grateful for our oxygen, we don’t want nasty, gross, foul-smelling muckiness where we want to swim, nor do we want to wheeze and get sick if we happen upon blue-green algae when we’re busy recreating.
So what happened? Blue-green algae can “bloom” when conditions are ripe, i.e., lots of sun, lots of heat and surface water runoff contributing lots of phosphorus and nitrogen. We had all three at Grand Lake before Independence Day. We may have created lakes for flood control, but we also love our lakes for recreation, swimming, fishing and beauty, which drive tourism and investment, which benefits our economy. Our lakes are also ecosystems: physical environments full of different species and habitats with complex relationships, on which we can have a serious impact. Lake systems receive surface water runoff from surrounding areas, and so are particularly sensitive to increases in sediment, temperature, contaminants and pollutants, including nitrogen and phosphorus.
What can we do about it? And how do we address the issue without placing an unfair or otherwise onerous burden on any particular type of source or industry, which could adversely impact municipalities and important Oklahoma industries, leading to increased costs for all of us? We continue to improve “impaired waters” through the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program of the Clean Water Act 303(d), and better watershed management, but more help may lie in a relatively newer area of sustainability focus called “ecosystem services.”
Some of the actual “services” provided by ecosystems include pollination, insect pest control, prevention of soil erosion, water filtration, water absorption and breakdown, provision of shade and shelter maintenance of health waterways, maintenance and provision of habitat and more. We currently perceive these ecosystem services as “free” at the same time we consider them to be “priceless.” While perhaps neither free nor priceless, it is true that we have not assigned an economic value to them…until now.
“Ecosystem services” connects the benefits of an ecosystem to an objective, quantifiable, economic value. The general idea is that once we understand the value of an ecosystem’s services, we will have common ground for determining the best investment approach, and the level of investment necessary for preserving this value successfully. Also, if there is a market for these ecosystem services, investments could be traded efficiently. Thus, in addition to assigning an economic value to ecosystem services, this new area contemplates payments for their benefits, allowing investment in ecosystem services in order to maintain them. For example, government or public payments in the form of conservation incentives, tax credits and subsidies might be paid to private landowners for protecting or restoring an ecosystem service. Businesses or conservation groups might pay landowners to protect investments, perhaps in the form of developers paying a forest landowner to maintain a beautiful vista. Regulation may drive some payments, such as our national policy of “no net wetlands loss.” And with valuation and payments, there would be “ecosystems-including, for example, landowner providing sustainably managed wetlands-might sell their commitments to buyers of these commitments, including developers who need to mitigate wetland losses.
Recent developments in this area include the Office of Management and Budget and the Council on Environmental Quality's initiation of an ongoing ecosystem policy dialogue with the EPA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Corps of Engineers, Department of Interior and other federal agencies. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the EPA have partnered in establishing the Ecosystem Services Research Program, which provides tools and other resources for regulators and policy makers to consider when making decisions that affect ecosystem services. The Department of Agriculture has reorganized its Office of Environmental Markets and is developing technical standards and guidelines under its Farm Bill authority, working to provide a performance framework for environmental markets anticipating potential market trading in ecosystem services.The National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) is actively improving communication and information exchange between federal agencies regarding sustainability of ecosystem goods and services. Also, "A Community on Ecosystem Services" (ACES) brings together stakeholders from government, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and academia to advance uses of ecosystem services and related science in conservation, restoration, resource management and development decisions.
So what is the value of an ecosystem service? In 2000, The National Forest Service's economists valued the minimum value of water from the national Forest System lands to be $3.7 billion per year. What is the value of the ecosystem services provided by Grand Lake? That's a great question. What approaches would work best to protect them? Who would invest in these approaches, and how can some of us get paid to provide them?
This area is still new, but attempting to put a fair price on something we take for granted, and developing an investment and market strategy that could successfully result in preserving currently undervalued assets, seems to make sense. It sounds good, anyway. Here's to hoping we find our way, and to cooler weather.
Be Informed
Mary Ellen Ternes, Esq. is a former chemical engineer from both the EPA and industry. She is currently a shareholder with McAfee & Taft and co-chair of its Renewable and Sustainable Energy Industry Group, and is serving a three-year term as City of Nichols Hills Environment, Health and Sustainability Commissioner.
This article was published in the September 2011 issue of Slice Magazine. It is reproduced with permission from the publisher. © 2011 Southwestern Publishing.