During the week of April 3 to 7, 1995, more than 450 wetland professionals gathered in New Orleans to participate in the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station sponsored wetlands workshop "Technology Advances for Wetlands Science." The workshop not only served as a forum for the presentation of research results from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wetlands Research Program, but also featured wetlands technology from at least 13 other federal organizations as well as presentations by state and local government agencies, academia, and the private sector.
The meeting opened with an informal evening social, followed by a full day of plenary sessions. Dr. Russell F. Theriot, program manager for the Corps WRP, moderated the workshop. After welcome and opening remarks by Corps officials, Michael Davis, chief of the Corps Headquarters' Regulatory Branch, delivered the keynote address. Davis also chairs the White House Wetlands Working Group.
Davis cited some Corps regulatory statistics for Fiscal Year 1994. More than 48,000 Section 404 permits were filed; of these:
In the afternoon, speakers in two panel sessions provided comprehensive information on wetlands research conducted by 12 Federal agencies: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the U.S. Department of Interior's National Park Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Biological Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey; the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration; the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service and Forest Service; and the U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority.
A final feature of the meeting was a wrap-up plenary session where topic-area chairs summed up the presentations. This format allowed workshop participants to come away with an overall impression of the technical sessions, since the concurrent format did not allow attending them all. Some 200 workshop participants heard from session chairs and, finally, from wetlands leaders who discussed views on tendencies for the 21st Century.
Delineation and Evaluation. WES's Ellis (Buddy) Clairain said that the main focus of the presentations was on "where is the wetland?" He concluded that in delineation there is "more stability on issues; a tendency to focus on concerns on wetlands in the West; and an emphasis on professional judgment." He explained that papers dealt with field observations that lead to establishing criteria and that it is generally felt that regional guidance is needed when it comes to wetland delineation.
Assessing Wetland Functions. R. Daniel Smith from WES began his talk with a summary of each paper and an introduction of the speakers. His subjective interpretation of themes followed. Smith said, "Functional assessments must include consideration of regional and geographic characteristics as well as classification and increased suitability of the wetland."
He said, "When attempting to use standards--reference wetlands--for assessment, it will be important to know what is the appropriate standard--for example, Whitney's floristic assessment of vernal pools. Also, ecosystem changes must be incorporated." Smith also said that Lori Sutter's project (North Carolina coastal area GIS-based wetland functional assessment procedure) successfully established a link between ecosystem and landscape in regional planning and management, an example that needs to followed. He ended by saying that functional assessment is unique because it cuts across all areas and phases of wetlands science and is a unifying factor. "My take-away message to you is that functional assessment is evolving, dynamic, but approaching stability," said Smith.
Restoration, Protection, and Creation. Topic area chair Dr. Mary C. Landin, WES, reported that most of the sessions included presentations on non-regulatory, regulatory, and constructed wetlands. "Public education and learn-as-you-go seem to be challenges in construction of non-regulatory wetlands," she said. "Public perception, restoration versus creation, and excessive costs appear to be major concerns in the regulatory arena." Landin concluded her synthesis by commenting on the positive trends and successes in wetland construction and that an education outreach program toward policy makers about these successes is needed.
Watershed Planning. Billy Teels, from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, reported on 10 presentations covering California to Indiana. All were long-term projects with interagency involvement and public participation. Teels said that lessons learned included the need to plan early, to seek consensus from the public, to get sponsors, and to work on attainable goals by limiting objectives (including wetland preservation). His take-away message was, "integrate wetland conservation into watershed planning, which should be the direction for the future."
Constructed Wetlands. Tommy Myers, WES, said that latest findings from a variety of research efforts show that constructed wetlands are capable of removing a broad spectrum of water-borne pollutants, including livestock wastes, mining drainage, stormwater runoff, and domestic wastewater. "Pollutant removal requires careful engineering design, especially for nonpoint source pollution abatement. With continued performance data collection, the design elements for pollutant removal by constructed wetlands can eventually be standardized," he said. Myers said that more pollutant removal performance data are needed to develop cost/benefit relationships and to identify design flaws.
Stewardship and Management. Chester Martin, WES, summarized or described the work presented in 30 papers. "All types of wetlands throughout the United States were represented and the topics covered everything from inventory, cumulative impacts, getting information to the users, to an emphasis on making science user-friendly for field personnel," Martin said.
Mitigation and Mitigation Banking. Dr. L. Jean O'Neil, WES, said that although mitigation banking is a new concept for wetlands, interest in such programs is booming. "Presenters agreed that `no net loss' is difficult to attain, that attainment of functional equivalency of wetlands in banks can only be evaluated after more time has passed, and that functional analyses need to be beefed up--the hydrogeomorphic classification method is a good start," said O'Neil.
Wetland Education and Training. John W. Bellinger, Corps Headquarters, reported on a trend toward interdisciplinary cooperation. "We need to connect wetland education and training to other disciplines who showed a lot of interest in this meeting--perhaps integrate it (ed. note: the interdisciplinary approach) into PROSPECT training," he said.
"The workshop went extremely well. The entire staff and topic area chairs did an extremely professional job," said Theriot. "Many participants were complimentary on the format and the fact that sessions and papers focused on field level problem solving."
(The proceedings from this workshop will be placed on the World Wide Web under the WRP home page at "http://www.wes.army.mil/" under the heading "Other WES Resources, Centers, and Programs," Wetlands Research and Technology Center, hyperlink to "research".)