ABSTRACTThis paper discusses some of the variability in habitat restoration costs and

the many factors that capture that variability, including project design, projecttime, and choice of implementation tools. The paper presents examples andexperience from different restoration activities, and the funding of these proj-ects, conducted through the Bonneville Power Administration in the ColumbiaRiver Basin.

INTRODUCTION Out of the $125 million that the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA)

spends under its Fish and Wildlife Program annually, $40-50 million is spent onhabitat restoration activities. This amount of funding and resulting assessmentand analysis has provided BPA with a good idea of the variables and costs in someof its programs.

As with other agencies and organizations, BPA is seeing an increase in engi-neering and design costs because of increasing necessity. Over the past year andin conjunction with the Northwest Power Planning Council, projects are nowcoming to BPA in phased budgets. This new format was precipitated by largeconstruction projects with incredible cost overruns. Projects planned for $2million would go to $16-20 million. Clearly, we needed to find a solution, so webegan structuring projects and their projected budgets in phases. First, planningcosts, then construction and implementation costs, then monitoring and evalua-tion costs, and finally operation and maintenance costs. This is the first year thatwe have required this of our project sponsors, and the transition has not beeneasy because, understandably, most biologists are better at doing the job thanestimating the cost. But they are getting a lot better at it, and so are we. Ourfocus on the long-term aspects of a project makes it crucial that we balance ouroperation and maintenance costs so that there is money left for implementation.

Conceptual framework(s) for cost analysis

Variables in Habitat Restoration Costs

MARK SHAWBonneville Power AdministrationPO Box 3621Portland, OR 97208-3621mashaw@bpa.gov

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COST VARIABLES

Hidden Costs and Variations inExperience

In any restoration project, it is importantto examine the often hidden engineering anddesign costs that result from collaborationwith other agencies. Such costs are often notclearly reflected. For example, BPA has aNatural Resources Conservation ServiceStream Team (NRCSST) in southeastWashington, which contributes on average$400-500,000 a year over a series of projectsin that area. In addition, the NRCSSTprovides limited technical and policy supportout of the regional office in Portland to proj-ects throughout the basin. Engineers hiredfrom other federal agencies such as theBureau of Reclamation, have provided engi-neering support and staffing in the GrandeRonde Model Watershed and the LemhiModel Watershed. Those costs are separate,then, from other project costs and notreflected in the totals.

Cost variability can also come whenusing retired state or federal engineers.Often these retirees view such involvementas a sort of hobby. Hence, they charge muchless (e.g. $35 per hour) for a retireecompared with an engineer from a profes-sional engineering firm, that can cost asmuch as $150 per hour.

Experience can vary as well from onefirm to another, impacting costs. On a projectin north central Washington, one engineeringfirm bid $20 per foot on irrigation diversioncosts, and another bid $3.50 per foot. A gooddeal of that variation was based on theirrelative experience (e.g., whether a firm hasever really worked in a rural area, or hasexperience limited to laying sewer pipe inthe city).

Timing of ContractsWhen a request for bid goes out, timing

of that request can impact the cost because it

impacts the availability of firms and individ-uals. Statistics show that when a call forbids goes out in a rush, higher bids arereceived just as they are late in the season.Early calls for bids may well produce lowerbids. When you get behind in your schedul-ing and timing, your request for bid is goingout to firms that may already have a fullschedule. Invariably, they come in to youwith higher bids. Early in the season, firmsare hungry for jobs and are willing to comein at lower bids.

Acts of God Unpredictable events will invariably

affect project costs. For example, during abad fire season such as the one we recentlyexperienced, you might not be able to hire acontractor with a front-end loader, sincethey would all be on the fire lines some-where. And if you did locate one, they mightbid their costs extremely high, as thedemand for their services was high. Anotherexample is the 1996-97 flood season whenevery contractor was occupied. Projectsduring that period experienced incrediblevariability in costs.

Mechanized Versus Hand LaborThere’s a real revolution and a lot of

learning occurring in the cost of revegetatingand planting trees in riparian areas. As anexample, a project on Asotin Creek (SEWashington), for two or three years usedhand labor from the Salmon Corps and highschool students, which was relatively lowcost. But, over time, the effectiveness ofdoing that was very, very low. We haveswitched to mechanized labor (for example,using a Cat ripper and plunger on AsotinCreek and Tucannon River) where it’s physi-cally feasible to use those methods. Thatdoesn’t mean to say that very innovativespecialized equipment might not cost more,but the success rate may be high enough tobalance out the increase in cost.

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Type of Equipment Additional cost variables arrives with

equipment choices. How big a channel isbeing dug? What size of front-end loader isneeded to get in there? Does access into thechannel require a very specialized piece ofequipment, such as a front-end loader, trackhoe, or a spider? Some of those costs canchange a great deal from time of estimation.

Availability of Materials and Access toThem

In a BPA project on the Grande RondeRiver (NE Oregon), our only access methodto large woody debris, in this case from ablow-down, was a very large Chinook heli-copter. This was very expensive, but to meetthe objective of that project, it was the onlyway to get those trees off the ridge. That’swhere arbitrary cost effectiveness is difficultto come by if we’re to meet the objectives of aproject and restore natural function to achannel.

Availability of materials can increasecosts dramatically. The cost of hauling rockto an area may increase the price of thatrock 2-3 times. And changes in Federal forestpractice also impact variations in cost. Verylittle tree cutting is occurring, especially onWest Side forests that are in the range of thespotted owl. This is the case in the upperSalmon as well. Materials have become veryscarce due, in part, to changes in both stateand federal land practices, thus driving upcosts (if you can find material at all).

Time (and Money) Spent Searching forMaterials

The scarcity of materials means spendingtime and money to find them. Of course,advance planning can be helpful as staff cankeep an eye out for materials. Sometimestiming is accidental, and materials becomeplentiful and easily accessible. In oneinstance, a windstorm blew through an areaabout two weeks before a project was to take

place, and it literally blew down about athousand trees. All of a sudden, materialsavailability went up and the cost went downfor that particular project.

Size of the site also has an impact. At ourSoda Creek project we are working in achannel that is 20-30 feet wide in a flood-prone stage versus in the Grande Ronde,where a site is easily 2-3 times that large. Inthe systems up in the Yakima and some ofthe larger rivers, costs can go up consider-ably due to the size of the equipment needed,the size of the rock, the root balls in the logs,etc. Or if a large channel is very sensitive tosediment and diverting those flows becomesnecessary, a new channel has to be created;in a smaller channel, a smaller diversionwould be needed. The unpredictability of thework and the materials needed influencesthe costs.

Complexity of design and requestedmaterial may also substantially changeproject cost. Specialized materials for ahighly engineered concrete and steel struc-ture versus using natural materials for thesame results will result in substantiallydifferent costs. Fencing a riparian exclosurecan take on several different designs. Asimple, portable electric fence may meet aprojects need, or it may require a multiplestrand smooth wire high tensile fence, or alog buck and pole fence. Costs for such fenceswill vary widely depending on access andlocation to the construction site and avail-ability of materials if using natural materialssuch as log poles.

Land PurchasesA number of issues impact the cost of

land purchases. Most obviously, the cost isalways based on an appraisal and a compari-son with like property values in the area.Then the value of the water has an influence.In the desert, for example, it takes 40 acresto graze a cow for one season. The landdoesn’t grow very much, but the value of this

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area is increased many times with the valueof an aquifer and the clean storage of water.

Costs can vary considerably if contamina-tion clean up is required. For example, wepurchased a contaminated property nearHermiston, Oregon, a necessary politicalmove. The clean up of such an area thatmust be purchased can significantly drive upcosts.

A further issue occurs if an area is rich inculture and resources. This impacts howmuch restoration activity can take place,whether monitored excavations are needed,and how much that costs.

And if the state where the project islocated has in lieu taxes, over time, this canconsiderably change the cost of purchasingthe land. The federal government (BPA is afederal agency) generally does not pay stateor local property taxes, but in some caseswhere Bonneville does not maintain owner-ship of a fish and wildlife mitigationpurchase, the controlling entity does payproperty taxes through the property’sOperations and Maintenance budget. We doa lot of irrigation diversion screening. Thecosts vary by the size of the diversion you’retaking out and whether or not you haveaccess. Purchasing easements to get in to thesite also contributes to the costs. In theYakima, we’ve learned that land costs candiffer considerably and that politics can playa part. We have been taken to court a fewtimes, as the owner tried to get the money hethought was appropriate. Another factor canbe the views of the judge as to federalgovernment involvement, which may influ-ence the price of a particular property.

Instream Structures Another contributing factor is the avail-

ability of trained and experienced experts. Insome projects in the Grande Ronde, we haveliterally cut the costs in half by assembling,over time, a group of contractors with theexperience to put a project in. Experience in

design and options in construction tech-niques are really helpful. There is an old jokethat asks how many engineers it takes to putin a j hook vane (a small rock structure putinto a stream to protect the bank andenhance habitat diversity). The answer —depends on how many engineers are around.If there are lots available, it will take four orfive of them to do the job, but with experi-ence, it may take only one. We’re finding alot of variability in cost effectiveness whenwe hire outside contractors or whether wehave teams of agency people, or contributedagency design time, who can cost effectivelydesign and implement the projects. In addi-tion, some design standards require morematerials. A conservation district, forinstance, is required by law to have theirdesign comply with the Natural ResourcesConservation Service (NRCS) design stan-dards. The NRCS has certain design stan-dards that rely on a strict interpretation ofengineering design standards. I’m not tryingto denigrate the NRCS, but they are movingslowly as to certain advances in instreamengineering designs. For example, some rockstructures on the Tucannon River done fiveor six years ago would literally fill up a largeconference room. However, today we areusing a tenth of the materials to do the samekind of project because we are making betterdecisions in design. Another NRCS factor isthat their regulations require multiple levelsof review, which can add to the costs.

A lot of innovation during construction isoccurring. If your project has team memberswho really know their stuff, it can saveconsiderable money when they’re putting theprojects in.

EasementsThe use of easements is quite common

now in our wildlife program, and we’regetting into it as well with the fisheriesprogram. We talked about cooperating withthe Conservation Reserve Enhancement

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Program (CREP) which has allocated $500million dollars to Washington, Oregon andIdaho. We are actively supplementing someof the costs of implementing CREP to makethem more attractive to the landowners. Thisextent of project supplementation varies bystate and by whether we do a projectourselves or whether we use those samestandards or standards established by otherregulatory agencies.

Another cost variable is the time period ofthe easement, whether the rancher or farmeris willing to accept a 10- or 15-year easementor whether he wants a permanent easement.In a project under current consideration inJohn Day, potential purchases there may beimpacted by something new: developer rightsin the easements. In other words, keepingdevelopment off these properties is going toincrease the cost in some areas.

Variability in Costs on HabitatRestoration Projects

There can be a significant range of vari-ability within the cost of stream restorationfor projects that we fund right now. Theseprojects include complete channel restora-tion, recreating natural form and functionon a river. In a U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers project here in Oregon, the costhas varied from $48 per linear foot inSouthern Oregon to $100–140 per linear footin Eastern Oregon. In an OregonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife streamproject in the Umatilla, the cost wasupwards of $170 per linear foot; however,after some experience was gained in differ-ent areas, the cost was reduced to about $60per foot. (Note: these figures may not reflectall costs.) For example, the cost of a projecton the Red River, tributary to theClearwater, ranged from $100 a footupwards to $170 a foot. I would actually goup to $170 per foot for something that is

actually going to last and actually producesome benefits for us.

David Rosgen in Colorado, the fluvialgeomorphologist, has been one of thepioneers in the stream restoration tech-niques here in the Western United States.With his experience, he can get costs down to$17–$35 per foot, which shows the value ofexperience and innovation and ability tochange. This kind of experience is highlyvaluable to have on a project. In twomeander reconstruction projects on AsotinCreek, some of the crew had worked withRosgen and we were able to get the costsdown to about $37 per foot.

In another example project, we used anengineering firm and a retired engineer whowas willing to keep the costs down. On BearCreek in the Wallowa system, we put in aseries of rock vortex weirs where there hadbeen a channel widening due to channeliza-tion. The rock vortex weirs, facing down-stream, decreased the channel width enoughto create pool habitat at a cost of about $20per foot.

I think we are learning on both the localand global area. On the BPA web site thereare examples of projects (www.bpa.gov)where good cost assessments have been done.I believe we’re getting a lot smarter aboutcontrolling our costs, and I think if we pay alittle more attention to these things and lookat the reports that are available, we can geta lot closer than we are at estimating costs.