INFRASTRUCTURE SAVINGS

* Protection of open space can help a community avoid the potential crippling costs of water filtration plants, flood control, and wastewater management.

TPL e-mail correspondence between Ernest Cook and Jennie Gerard. January 1996.

"One of TPL's big time storm water projects is the GDC transaction in St. Lucie and Charlotte Harbor. The open space bought at the edge of the GDC developments provides water retention. At the time use of natural water retention sites was considered a great innovation (!) because they avoided construction and diversion."

Fausold, Charles J. and Robert J. Lillieholm. 1996. "The Economic Value of Open Space: A Review and Synthesis." Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Research Paper.

* Do not cite without permission

"... Thibodeau and Ostro found that each acre of wetland had a present value conservatively estimated at $33,370 for flood prevention ($2,000 per year), $16,960 for pollution reduction (reducing nutrients and biological oxygen demand), and $100,730 for water supply (present value discounted at 6%, 1978 dollars).

Ulrich, Dana. April 25, 1996. "Put a value on open space." Recorder Publishing Company.

Natural open spaces protect water resources by "contributing to the quantity of water which reaches aquifers. When land is covered by pavement, buildings, and other impervious surfaces, rain water runs off in sheets to the nearest storm sewer or other water course. Natural areas enable the aquifer to recharge by allowing rain water to percolate to underlying geologic deposits which may be tapped by wells as a potable water source.

In a similar manner, natural areas protect water quality. Rain that rapidly runs off impervious surfaces to rivers and streams carries with it pollutants such as chemicals from car exhaust and lawn treatments. This is known as 'non-point source pollution' and is the leading cause of water pollution today.

Studies of water quality have shown that non-point source pollution can be greatly reduced by the buffering of streams and rivers by forests and wetlands. When heavily vegetated areas surround surface water bodies, many pollutants are trapped and filtered from the rain water before it reaches the water bodies.

Thus, allowing natural areas to recharge aquifers and cleanse storm water potentially saves municipalities millions of dollars in water supply and treatment costs."

McAliney, Mike (ed.) December 1993 . Arguments for Land Conservation: Documentation and Information Sources for Land Resources Protection. Trust for Public Land, Sacramento, California.

Open space can save a city millions of dollars in construction costs. For instance, open space's capacity to absorb stormwater and provide natural drainage means that a preserved system of natural streams can substitute for or supplement extended sewer systems. Also, street trees and parks help reduce glare, clean the air and offset noise pollution. Open Space and the Future of New York, Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, September, 1987

Wetlands filter sediments from water flowing through them; when wetlands are destroyed, sediments collect downstream resulting in loss of agricultural land (erosion) and clogged shipping channels.

Wetland loss near the port of Redwood City, California is believed to be responsible for damage to shipping channels. The Army Corps of Engineers recently spent $2.3 million on a dredging project there.

Smith, Van. Summer 1991. "Protecting Rivers, Trails, and Greenways Reap Economic Returns." Exchange.

"The cleansing and buffer properties of vegetated areas help control water, air, and noise pollution, which may decrease pollution control costs borne by public agencies. In Boulder, Colorado, for example, the city avoided a major outlay for constructing a wastewater treatment facility by restoring Boulder Creek through revegetation, terracing, and construction of aeration structures".

PKF Consulting, Inc. June 1994. Analysis of the Economic Impacts of the Northern Central Rail Trail. Greenways Commission, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Annapolis Maryland.

"Worth noting are ongoing negotiations between the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and MCI Telecommunications Company. At the time of this writing MCI is offering DNR $200,000 to be used for improvements to the trail as specified by DNR ($26,316 per mile used). MCI is making this offer in agreement for a non-exclusive perpetual license agreement to use 7.6 miles of the corridor right -of-way for fiber optics routing. These ongoing discussions (near completion) emphasize another intrinsic value long touted for greenways - as infrastructure corridors."

Thomas, Holly L. February 1991. "The Economic Benefits of Land Conservation." Technical Memo of the Dutchess County Planning Department, Dutchess County, New York.

"Two functions that wetlands provide for free--groundwater recharge and water purification--are lost when those wetlands are developed. Suffolk County's (New York) groundwater recharge area acquisition program was triggered by public awareness that uncontrolled growth threatened the quality and quantity of the county's water supply. The county's voters realized that protecting the groundwater system by buying important areas above it made better economic sense than finding another water source."

Brabrec, Elizabeth. 1992. "Trees Make Sense." Scenic America: Technical Information Series v. 1 (1).

"Trees decrease the amount of water that runs off a site by breaking the impact of the rain and slowing the flow, allowing time for water to infiltrate the soil. Trees can reduce runoff in urban areas up to 17 percent according to a study by the U.S. Forest Service (Ebenreck, 1988). This reduction has implications in the infrastructure costs of storm sewer capacity of sewage treatment plants, flooding of rivers and streams and the loading of sediment and pollutants into rivers and streams."

"Without the cooling and moderating effect of trees and greenspaces in our urban environments, urban areas grow hotter and dryer- a heat island effect. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of the current electric demand in cities is spent to cool buildings just to compensate for the heat island effect. In Los Angeles this translates to $150,000 per hour and in Washington, DC, close to $40,000 per hour during peak times. Nationally the hourly cost may be as high as $1 million." (Rodbell, Phillip, Greg McPhereson and Jim Geiger. 1991. "Planting the Urban Desert." Urban Forests, June/July.)

"Trees are the only part of the municipal infrastructure that actually increases in value every year. Money spent by a municipality on roads, fire hydrants, and street lights depreciates in value every year. Trees, however, increase in individual value, as well as adding to adjacent property values. These property values lead to increased tax revenues for the municipality, and often to the revitalization of residential and commercial areas In Cincinnati, the dollar value of public trees slated for removal must be paid by the offending party before the tree is removed. Milwaukee includes the cost of tree planting in the capital budget for road building (at) 2 cents to the dollar."

Sandfort, Steve and Reno C. Runck. 1986. "Trees Need Respect, Too!" Journal of Arboriculture. 12 (6): 141-145, and American Forestry Association. 1989. "The Street Construction Dollar." Urban Forest Forum, v.8, no. 4.

Littman, Margaret. May/June 1996. "Green City." The Neighborhood Works, v.19, no. 3.

"The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) has released $3.3 billion over six years to be spent on transportation enhancements nationally, with a 20 percent local funding match required. In addition, ISTEA authorized a new trust fund, called the National Recreation Funds Act, which provides up to $30 million for six years to pay for recreation trails."

"Building green spaces along water sites can significantly reduce the costs of water purification, which is important, as it seems like those costs are increasingly being passed onto the shoulders of local governments. the streams of southern Staten Island save New Yorkers hundreds of millions of dollars by handling rainwater and relieving the area of the need for more storm sewers."

Gumb, Dana F. September- October 1996. "Staten Island stormwater management." National Wetlands Newsletter.

"the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) is pioneering a different approach with its Staten Island Bluebelt project, an effort that preserves streams, ponds, and other wetland areas in order to allow these systems to perform their natural functions. Even though NYCDEP's specific mandate is the provision of drainage services, the wetland preservation underway not only preserves natural drainage patterns for flood control purposes but also provides for the filtering of stormwater runoff, utilizing the natural cleansing functions of wetlands. In addition, the wetland and riparian corridors called Bluebelts provide important community open space amenities and diverse wildlife habitats.

The project saves scarce capital construction dollars as well. NYCDEP has found that wetland preservation saves millions of dollars in infrastructure costs when compared to the conventional storm sewer system."

"From 1990 until now, NYCDEP has undertaken a major effort to acquire wetland properties in order to complete the continuity of the stream corridors and other wetland systems in the Open Space Network. the total acreage of the acquisition program amounts to about 250 acres.

NYCDEP has found that wetland acquisition will save some $50 million of the construction costs for the fully conventional storm sewer system first envisioned for the area in the early 1960's. The land acquisition will help to complete the Bluebelt corridors by building upon existing parks, other city-owned properties, and private land zoned as open space along the streams and other wetland systems."

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