Hill Heat

E&E News:

Members of a House panel will delve into ways to protect and restore the United States’ coasts and estuaries at a Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee hearing Thursday.

The hearing comes on the heels of a recent Restore America’s Estuaries report that found coastal areas vital to the U.S. economy are at risk.

Coastal tourism, fishing, property values and infrastructure are worth between $20 billion and $80 billion a year, according to Linwood Pendleton, the report’s author and director of economic research at the Washington-based Ocean Foundation.

Estuary regions make up about 13 percent of the continental United States and are home to 40 percent of its population, the report says. They also are centers for ports, employment and recreation.

Beachgoing, for example, may be worth up to $30 billion in economic well-being to Americans, while recreational fishing contributes between $10 billion and $26 billion, the study says. But those activities are threatened by pollution, invasive species and algal blooms.

Damage to coasts and estuaries could harm tourism, recreation activities and commercial fishing. U.S. EPA estimates nearly 75 percent of the commercial catch depends on estuaries.

Environmental degradation in coastal areas also could hurt housing values, while restoration efforts could boost them significantly, the report notes.

Healthy coasts and estuaries are better able to weather large storms, facilitating business at ports. They also experience less coastal erosion, saving the government time and money directed toward repair efforts. Dredging operations currently cost the United States nearly $600 million annually.

And preserving coastal areas around the Gulf of Mexico protects energy infrastructure and the nation’s oil economy. Already 45 percent of the United States’ petroleum refining capacity is at risk due to wetland loss along the Gulf Coast, the report says.