Restoring Coastal Habitats Creates Jobs, Boosts Local Economies

Contact: Linwood Pendleton, (805) 794-8206, linwood.pendleton@duke.edu; Tim Lucas, (919) 613-8084, tdlucas@duke.edu

March 2, 2010

DURHAM, N.C. – A panel of six national experts will discuss the economic value and job creation potential of coastal and estuary habitat restoration in a Congressional briefing at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 2, in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center’s South Congressional Meeting Room.

The hour-long briefing, “Restoring Habitats, Revitalizing Economies,” is being co-hosted by the environmental nonprofit Restore America’s Estuaries and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Restoration Center.

The briefing will focus on the need for increased capital investment in infrastructure to support coastal economies and restore coastal ecosystems. Panelists will present three case studies showing how federally funded restoration projects have helped improve employment opportunities and economic and environmental conditions in three coastal communities.

“While estuary counties make up only 13 percent of the U.S. land area, they historically have generated 49 percent of our gross domestic product and supported 40 percent of all American jobs,” says panelist Linwood Pendleton, director of coastal and ocean policy at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. “Lately however, these areas aren’t living up to their economic potential.”

Estuary fish harvests have declined in value by 35 percent since 1985, he notes. Coastal erosion and wetland loss threatens 45 percent of the nation’s petroleum refining capacity and 43 percent of its strategic petroleum reserves. Increased bacterial contamination, pollution and turbidity in coastal waters has depressed waterfront home values by more than $18,000 on average, according to a study of 500 homes in Maryland.

Increased investment in coastal and estuary restoration projects would help address these problems, he says, and improve local economies by employing out-of-work commercial fishermen and under-employed laborers, barge operators, ship captains and coastal engineers.

David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay-San Francisco, will moderate the briefing. Other panelists are Christine Miller of the North Carolina Coastal Federation; Gordon Smith of Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy; Jonathan Stone of the nonprofit environmental group Save the Bay-Narragansett Bay; Steven Koenig of Project SHARE in Maine; and Simon Rich of Steven’s Towing Company,a barge towing firm operating in North and South Carolina.

The text of Pendleton’s presentation can be found here >

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