The Corps of Engineers has become national leader in the environmental field. We have responded to society's values in environmental restoration as effectively as when we responded to the turn of the century navigational needs and the mid-century needs for flood control.
	The Corps is a steward of 11.7 million acres of our country's habitat as well as over 12,000 miles of navigation waterways. Our significant regulatory role and water resource development responsibilities place us in a leadership position in managing our nation's natural resources.
	The Corps knowledge of planning and implementing major water resource projects has made them an obvious choice for restoring some of our most precious ecosystems. Many of our water resources projects have expanded the quantity and quality of our wetlands resources. The entire central Florida ecosystem is currently being manipulated to restore the Everglades. The federal agencies, state and local governments and other stakeholders have looked to the Corps to execute this massive undertaking. Other major ecosystem restoration initiatives include the entire upper Mississippi River initiative and the controversial Columbia River efforts. Both of these require strong scientific and engineering expertise to balance flood control, navigation, hydropower, fisheries and other competing water resource needs.
	New England Biomes NED has 55,000 acres of its own to manage. These include significant wetlands of the Charles River and sensitive coastal resources of the Cape Cod Canal. We are also nationally recognized leaders in habitat restoration.
	Our innovative response to flooding along the Charles River Basin received national recognition as a unique combination of flood control and natural resources preservation, decades before the term ecosystem management came in vogue.
	Charles River NVS This natural ability for wetlands to store flood water led to NED's decision to preserve 8100 acres along the Charles River to protect downtown Boston from flooding.
	Canoeing This non-structural flood control solution also preserves fish and wildlife values and provides a significant recreational opportunity for the public.
	Fish Lift This cooperative effort with the Atlantic Salmon Commission has opened 21 miles of significant riverine spawning habitat.
	Recently we have created a significant clamflat in coastal Maine using dredged material from the Jonesport Harbor project.
	Jonesport Clamflat Our scientific studies have confirmed that the area supports dense clam and worm populations. (Worms are worth about $6^ a pound as bait).
	Fledglings We have also used our dredged material to construct other habitat, such as Nott Island in the Connecticut River and here in Chatham, MA.
	Intertidal Sandflat ...we are providing crucial habitat to the endangered Piping Plover by constructing an intertidal sandflat with our dredged material.
	Colebrook Our ongoing project operations have increased habitat for waterfowl, fisheries and mammals, including many rare species. We have also begun to systematically map and classify our project lands for wetlands, endangered species and historic and archaeological resources.
	Osprey Nests/Hopkinton-Everett With regards to increasing habitat, October 22, 1994 was a very special day at our Hopkinton-Everett lake. Working hand-in-hand with volunteers from the student conservation association, the Public Service Company of New Hampshire and the Audubon Society, we successfully established and artificial nesting area for a species of raptor that has been displaced from much of New England -- The Osprey.
	NED has had success partnering with other federal agencies to identify significant ecological needs in New England. One of our more recent examples is the success of our teams working on the Whitehouse sponsored Coastal America initiative. All New England federal agencies are participating in restoring the coastal environment; including the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, and many other federal and state agencies.
	The noted ecologist E.O. Wilson, in his book on biodiversity, ranked coastal wetlands with tropical rain forests and coral reefs in terms of species richness
	Phragmites Unfortunately, many of our New England salt marshes are dominated by monospecific stands of the tall reed Phragmites.
	Ecosystem Services The restriction of saline tidal flows into coastal salt marshes reduces the overall productivity of our estuaries. Very often tidal restriction is associated with infrastructure such as roads, railways and dredged material disposal
	NED has been able to begin the implementation of the Coastal America's Northeast Regional Implementation Team's number one priority restoration - the Galilee Rhode Island Bird Sanctuary
	Galilee Salt Marsh This Section 1135 project is being cost shared with the RHODE ISLAND Department of Environmental Management and other Coastal America Partners.
	More importantly, NED has initiated several regional analyses of degraded salt marshes, in partnerships within the Coastal America initiatives.
	Schematic - Eastern Connecticut Our Planning Assistance to States or Section 22 Program has analyzed numerous sites in eastern CT. The various Coastal America partners are implementing some of the restorations, for example DOT has funded two site restorations using "Ice-Tea" (ISTEA) funding.
	Senator Lieberman and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro Our Congressional delegation was so impressed with these efforts that they authorized NED to restore all of Connecticut's degraded embayments in Section 346 of WRDA '92.
	Continuing the Coastal America effort into Massachusetts, we have begun another Section 1135 at the Cape Cod Canal.
	Canal Focusing on this side of the canal from the Cape Cod Bay side...
	Scusset River inlet weir ...the Scusset River enters under the Canal Road...
	1981 Fire ...and travels all this way to feed the 250 acre marsh. The black area is the post fire pattern after the 1981 fire that burnt the Phragmites and nearby houses..
	Sagamore Press Event The efforts here were highlighted by an interagency press event for a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to restore wetlands throughout MA, hosted here by Congressman Studds, with the 250 acres of 20 foot tall Phragmites in the background.
	Cape Cod SEC 22 More importantly, we are undertaking another regional analyses for all Cape Cod using our Section 22 program. Those identified marshes will be restored by DOT during their routine highway maintenance. Several other salt marsh restorations are beginning, ...
	Lighthouse Such as this former dredged material disposal site...
	Phragmites at New Haven's Lighthouse Point, again dominated by Phragmites.
	Other Coastal America projects with Corps involvement include the Blackstone River Section 22 study.
	Slater Mill In the mid-1800's, four fisherman were killed battling the capitalists against installing the Slater Mill dam. The capitalists won and the Industrial Revolution begin right here, to the demise of the salmon and other anadromous fisheries. This was probably America's first lesson in non-sustainable development and we hope the Coastal America partnership can restore anadromous fisheries, remediate contaminated sediments and improve the waterfowl habitat in the Blackstone River.
	We have other significant partnerships with States and Canada, such as the regional National Estuary Programs, the Gulf of Maine Program and the International Joint Commission. All of these partnerships are working toward the sustainable development of our water resources. We will use our NEPA analyses to assure sustainable development and in the arena of dredged material we will incorporate sustainability into our ports long term management strategies.
	Besides Ecological Restoration we have intense involvement in remediation of chemically and radiologically contaminated sites throughout New England. NED is involved with all major superfund activities, we are the lead in remediating formerly used defense sites in the DERP program and bases closures.
	DERP Many DERP sites have already been remediated...
	Tank Removal Abandoned underground storage tanks have been removed...
	Big Tank ...others filled in place.
	Clean Fill
	Transformers PCB contaminated transformers have been properly disposed and contaminated soils remediated.
	NED's superfund responsibilities range from technical assistance to EPA all the way to lead in such....
	...complex superfund remediations as the New Bedford Harbor site.
	New Bedford CDF NED's dredging expertise and contracting knowledge, as well as our scientific monitoring skills all combine...
	Dredge with Oil ...to minimize ecological damage to a sensitive estuary while isolating the highly toxic sediments. Here you can see an unanticipated challenge - the sediments with 400,000 parts per million of PCB (or about 40% pure PCB) are generating an oil slick of PCB. The brilliant solution of the NED team - we are using the dredge to skim the oil slick and pump it into the Confined Disposal Facility where its discharge is intensively filtered before re-entering the estuary.
	We are now actively cleaning and closing Ft. Devens, including its EIS, but we are also working on a challenging clean-up at another BRAC site.
	Watertown After accomplishing the closure EIS on Watertown Arsenal, we began the remediation of residual contamination.
	Watertown Reactor Outside This included decommissioning and decontamination of a...
	...Inside of Nuclear Reactor ...decommissioned nuclear reactor formerly used for defense research.
	We have learned a lot from our diverse experience, and are not in the forefront of the new philosophy of our country and the world's commitments in Rio. We understand the needs for sustainable development to avoid the costly cleanups of today and ensure future resource abundance.
	Fish Trawling We may be the first generation that cannot pass a sustainable fisheries resource to the next generation, ...
	Small Catch of Fish ...but we can take the lead here at NED to conduct our missions in a sustainable manner.
	We have already begun sustainable projects, in response to flooding...
	Flooding ...we previously built large structures...
	Dam but we can now envision other alternatives...
	Charles River NVS ...such as wetlands storage.
	Cliff Walks Hard structures were the previous standard for coastal erosion...
	Revere Beach ...while now our teams are implementing beach nourishment such as our Revere Beach project.
	Boston Harbor Our DAMOS program has lead the way in analyzing dredged material quality. Our ongoing EIS efforts in Boston and Providence will assure sustainable development of our ports and harbors.
	NED staff are participating in Dr. Zirschy's Environmental Task Force to help shape the environmental future of the Corps. Other significant interactions include discussions with the President's Council on Sustainable Development, and Ecosystem Management Initiative, as well as presentations of NED's efforts to the Corps national Environmental Advisory Board. all of these efforts have a common response... New England District is in the fore front of accomplishing our nation's newest mission - its environmental mission.
	Essayons

Last Updated: May 21, 1997