Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 16.3.
Average funding per DFG project, Humboldt County, California, 1994-2007.
charged with administering. Prior to 2002, the agency managed only annual Clean
Water Act funding—approximately $5 million for the entire state. Since 2002, agency
staff, whose number of positions has not increased, also manages millions of dollars of
bond funding for restoration. For instance, in Humboldt County alone, SWRCB
funding was greater than $10 million and $6 million in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
Although the SWRCB previously used Clean Water Act funds to make small grants to
restoration practitioners, they now rarely give grants less than $250,000. From the
standpoint of those who administer restoration funds, making large grants for a few
projects is a much more efficient way to spend bond money than making many grants
for smaller projects. In the case of the SWRCB, staffing constraints have driven the
trend toward fewer, larger projects. Administrative efficiency, driven by the exigency
of managing larger grant portfolios with limited staff support, seems to be driving at
least some of the current shifts in restoration funding.
Perceptions about current restoration challenges among agency staff further legit-
imize these shifts. In our interviews, it was not uncommon for agency staff who man-
age restoration funding to express the opinion that much of the remaining restoration
work in the North Coast area requires large-scale, more technically complex projects.
One public agency grant manager explained how funds are becoming concentrated
in the hands of progressively bigger restoration practitioners, as small groups lack the
technical expertise, subcontracting capabilities, and statewide competitive edge to se-
cure grant funds. Another grant manager asserted, referring to the shift from smaller to
larger projects, that “all the easy stuff has already been done.” The implication of
these views is that in order to successfully address the remaining restoration chal-
lenges, work must be packaged into large, technically and ecologically complex units.
