Category Archives: Profiles in Restoration

One of our goals at Restoration and Resilience is to offer a better analysis of green jobs potential from conservation work than past jobs multipliers have provided. To do this, we'll examine case studies of completed and proposed wetland restoration projects. Today we are presenting a post summarizing potential job creation from a restoration project in the Central Wetlands Unit, a degraded ecosystem just east of New Orleans. Bear in mind, we've relied on assumptions and estimates throughout our analysis, and we encourage you to send us feedback on our methods.

A desolate, flooded basin today, the Central Wetlands Unit could be restored to dense forest in the near future. Rehabilitation could create hundreds of jobs for people in southeastern Louisiana. (Source: Flickr (National Wildlife Federation - Coastal Louisiana))

In a series of posts published over the last few weeks, we have examined how many jobs might be generated by rehabilitation of the Central Wetlands Unit. We envisioned a four-part program of dredging in fill material (described in the first and second posts in the series), piping in water (the third post), replanting cypress (the fourth post), and maintaining the ecosystem in its post-construction phase (the fifth post). Based on that, we arrived at estimates for job creation during each of the project's stages.

Our analysis was based on interviews with experienced professionals from construction companies, state agencies, non-profits, and universities. From these conversations, we drafted a model with various labor and material inputs. To convert this information into an estimate of direct jobs, we had to determine, for instance, how long it would take a crew of workers to construct a linear foot of pipeline, or how long it would take a set of landscapers to plant an acre of cypress seedlings.

We then used this information to estimate the full-time equivalent job-years required for each of the project’s four phases (dredging and site preparation, pipeline system construction, tree planting, and operations & maintenance (O&M)). Using job multipliers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), we then estimated the number of indirect and induced job-years stemming from this project.

Distribution of full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs from restoration of the Central Wetlands (Graphical representation adapted from design by the Louis Berger Group, Inc., a New York-based consulting firm)

We arrived at a cumulative estimate of $72.02 million for the cost of restoring the Central Wetlands Unit, including ten years of O&M after the initial dredging, construction and planting phases. The total number of jobs created (as measured by 2,000 work-hour job-years) was 680.69, with 280.41 direct job-years and an additional 400.28 indirect and induced job-years stemming from the project. The cumulative employment/spending ratio (measured as jobs per budgeted $1 million) was 9.45 ≈ 680.69 / 72.02.

In our scenario, we found that labor costs accounted for about 9.5% of the total budget for the Central Wetlands Unit restoration. Within the respective phases, payroll as a percentage of total costs varied widely, from a low of 4.69% in the tree planting phase to a high of 36.21% in the dredging and site preparation stage of the project.

While we are confident in our work, we understand that there might have been debatable assumptions or methods employed in our analysis. To that end, we'll be addressing some of those issues in a "postscript" about the Central Wetlands Unit study later this week.

In the meantime, we're busy attending sessions at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference today in Washington, D.C. and staying abreast of the continuing crisis surrounding the Deepwater Horizon explosion on the Gulf Coast. As we mentioned last Friday, there is an immediate need for volunteers in the Mississippi River Delta to help with response to the oil spill, so please sign up today if you can help.

One of our goals at Restoration and Resilience is to offer a better analysis of green jobs potential from conservation work than past jobs multipliers have provided. To do this, we'll examine case studies of completed and proposed wetland restoration projects. Today we are presenting the fourth post of a series that lays out estimated job creation from a restoration project in the Central Wetlands Unit in southeastern Louisiana. Bear in mind that we rely on assumptions and estimates throughout our analysis, and we encourage you at the outset to send us feedback on our methods.  

Source: University of Florida

In the third post on restoration of the Central Wetlands Unit (CWU), we estimated how many workers would be involved in the construction of a water provisioning system in the 30,000 acre basin. In this piece, we look at how many workers would be needed to plant cypress trees throughout the wetland, estimating that a $19.68 million project over a period of six months could create the equivalent of more than 100 full-time jobs in Louisiana.

Bringing New Life to a Dead Forest

For our analysis, we assumed that a crew of workers would be planting bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) on 10,000 acres of restored wetlands (about one-third of the CWU’s total acreage). Rather than filling the entire basin with seedlings at inception, it could be feasible to allow space for natural regeneration. This would be accomplished through gradual distribution of seeds from the replanted cypress.

Bald cypress is a deciduous conifer found throughout coastal Louisiana. It sheds its needle-shaped leaves each autumn, making it appear "bald". A close relative of the redwood and the sequoia, bald cypress (sometimes written as "baldcypress") grows naturally as far north as Illinois and New Jersey. 

Bald cypress is an important species in wetland ecosystems. Its pneumatophores, colloquially known as "knees", sit above the water line, allowing the bald cypress to remain oxygenated even during periodic flood and storm surge events. The large base and root systems provide hiding and nesting spaces for white-tailed deer and other wetland species. Cavities in its trunks house minks, raccoons, and wood ducks. Cypress seeds are eaten by migratory birds like Canada geese.  

Trends in Cypress/Tupelo Acreage in the Southern United States (based on available data) (Source: USDA Forest Service)

While the bald cypress is the state tree of Louisiana, the Pelican State's stands of cypress forest have shrunk significantly since the 1890s. Timber companies felled centuries-old trees to feed the voracious appetite for water-resistant heartwood in home construction, leading to a logging boom in Louisiana that lasted until the 1920s. Even after old-growth trees had been mostly removed, smaller trees were used for cypress mulch manufacturing, imperiling Louisiana’s remaining areas of wetland forest. In conjunction with saltwater intrusion and plant consumption by invasive species like nutria, wetland forests in Louisiana have continued to disappear, with more than 200,000 acres lost between 1991 and 2005.

Reforestation initiatives have begun to rebuild Louisiana’s cypress acreage. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service estimated that the Pelican State had nearly 750,000 acres of cypress forest, equivalent to 23% of the total bald cypress forest in the American South (see map below at right). Within the United States, Louisiana ranks second to only Florida in bald cypress acreage. However, the patches of forested swamp scattered throughout Louisiana’s coastal zone at present are only vestigial remnants of the verdant, canopied wilderness that hosted Native American tribes and early European settlers in the Mississippi River Delta.    

Percent Distribution by State of Cypress-Tupelo Timberland in the Southern United States (Source: USDA Forest Service)

The Central Wetlands Unit was once part of a belt of coastal cypress forests that stretched along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. As recently as the early 1960s, the basin was filled with hundreds of thousands of bald cypress trees, interspersed with tupelo and other plant species adapted to periodic inundation by brackish water. With the marked increased in basin salinity after construction of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO), the Central Wetlands Unit became inhospitable to cypress trees.

In this post, we assume that reforestation would begin after completion of a water provisioning system. The pipelines and outfall channels would transport treated, nutrient-rich wastewater in the basin, which would decrease the salt content of the area’s soils and ready it for a successful replanting project.

 How Many Jobs Could a Tree Planting Project Generate in the Central Wetlands Unit?  

Source: Melissa @ PPC (Flickr)

For this analysis, we received valuable input from Dr. John Day, Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University, Dr. Jason Funk, a conservation analyst with Environmental Defense Fund, Dr. Gary Shaffer, Professor of Biological Sciences at Southeastern Louisiana University, and Natalie Snider, Science Director at the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. In this analysis, we assumed that the landscapers would exclusively plant bald cypress seedlings. In practice, the planting project might also involve water tupelo (Nyssa aquatica) and other plants common to Louisiana's wetlands. Inclusion of additional species would have added to input costs, but could also have increased the number of staffers required, which would have boosted the direct jobs impact.

We assumed that about half of the targeted 10,000 acres would be replanted with 3-gallon cypress seedlings, which are hardier and more likely to survive storms and animal damage, while about half of the acreage would be replanted with bare-root seedlings. The bare-root plants have a lower survivability rate than the 3-gallon seedlings, but are quicker to plant (11 seconds for a bare-root seedling versus several minutes for a 3-gallon plant) and significantly cheaper on a per unit basis. Each bare-root sapling costs about $0.40, or about $1 if one includes transport and delivery costs to the restoration site. By comparison, a 3-gallon pot (including delivery to project site) costs upwards of $20.

At an average density per acre of 250 for bare-root seedlings and 150 for 3-gallon pots, the total number of trees needed for the reforestation project would be 2,000,000 ( = (5,000 acres re-seeded with bare-root seedlings * 250 trees per acre) + (5,000 acres re-seeded with 3-gallon pots * 150 trees per acre)). The total cost of trees would be $16.25 million ($16,250,00 = (1,250,000 bare-root seedlings * $1 / bare-root seedling) + (750,000 three-gallon seedlings * $20 / three-gallon seedling)).  

Input Costs for Seedlings and Tree Planting Tools (Sources: Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana; Louisiana State University; The Home Depot, Inc.)

Based on recent tree planting projects in southern Louisiana, we estimated that a landscaping worker could plant a three-gallon plant in six minutes. This is in part because small depressions need to be prepared at planting sites prior to putting larger seedlings into the soil. This work would likely be done with a garden dibble, a shovel, or a similar garden tool depending on site conditions.

We estimated that the preparation and planting of a bare-root seedling would take about twenty-one seconds. The plant could likely be placed into wet soil in as few as eleven seconds, based on work rates provided by CRCL for a 40,000-tree project completed in twenty-five hours last year near New Orleans. However, a protective shield around each seedling would be recommended to stymie plant damage by nutria (Myocastor coypus), a rodent pest introduced to southern Louisiana in the early 1900s. Putting a shield in place around a seedling could involve about ten seconds of labor for each plant. Based on a per unit cost of $2 for each nutria protection device, we estimated that the total cost of bare-root seedling shields would be $2,500,000 ( = 1,250,000 bare-root bald cypress plants * 1 nutria protection device / plant * $2 / nutria protection device).

Based on these work rates, and using a seedling population of 1.25 million bare-root plants and 750,000 three-gallon plants, we estimated that the total number of work-hours required to plant the trees would be ((1,250,000 bare-root seedling * 0.3542 minutes / 1 bare-root seedling) + (750,000 three-gallon seedling * 6 minutes / 1 three-gallon seedling)) * 1 hour / 60 minutes = approximately 82,378.47 hours. If we assume that work-hours would be evenly distributed among workers contracted for eight hours of work (Monday-Friday) over a twenty-four week period, then the number of tree planting workers required for the six month planting project would be 82,378.47 hours / (6 months * 4 weeks / month * 5 days / week * 8 hours / day) = approximately 86 tree-planting workers.

You might wonder why we limited the project length to six months. This is because it is better to plant bare-root seedlings during the wetter months (October – March) in southern Louisiana. During other parts of the year, the roots would be less likely to survive in drier, saltier soil. Larger seedlings are more hardy than the bare-root plants, so there is more flexibility with the timing of their placement in wetland soils. Rather than staggering planting, we decided that simultaneous planting of the three-gallon and bare-root seedlings could take place over a twenty-four week period, likely during the autumn and winter.  

Estimated Labor Costs for a Tree Planting Project in the Central Wetlands Unit (Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana; Louisiana State University)

We estimated that five supervisors would be required for a planting project of this scope (equivalent to one for every fifteen to twenty workers). In addition, we estimated that one forest conservation technician would be staffed on the project. Using inflation-adjusted wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Louisiana employees, we estimated that the mean wages for the landscaping crew members would be $10.07/hour, while the mean wages for the planting supervisors would be $15.37/hour and the mean wages for the forest conservation technician would be $20.30/hour. With the forest conservation specialist and the five project managers also working forty-hour weeks during the six-month project, we estimated that the cumulative tree-planting project payroll would be $922,815, with $829,551 paid to the eighty-two crew members, $73,776 paid to the five supervisors, and $19,488 paid to the forest conservation technician.

Including the cost of worker tools (calculated to be about $3,700 for a work crew of 86 tree planters), we estimated that the cumulative project cost would be $19.68 million. The estimated number of direct job years would be 44.07, found by taking the work-hours for the laborers, supervisors, and technicians and dividing by 2000 hours, the length of a job-year for an employee with eight-hour days, five days per week, for fifty weeks of the year.

Summary Costs and Jobs/Spending Ratios for a Tree Planting Project Proposed for the Central Wetlands Unit

Using the “forestry…and related activities” jobs multiplier for Louisiana in 2006 (2.4285), and adjusting the figure downward by 6% to account for changes in wage levels between then and the present, we estimated the total number of indirect and induced jobs stemming from this tree-planting project would be (2.4285 – 1) * (1 – 0.06) * 44.07 = 59.18 jobs.  These jobs would include positions at plant nurseries and hardware retailers in Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes, providing work for both small-scale entrepreneurs and big-box store employees in New Orleans and other cities near the Central Wetlands. 

Summing this figure together with the estimated full-time equivalent direct jobs number (44.07), we found that approximately 103 direct, indirect, and induced jobs would be created by this $19.68 million tree planting project in the Central Wetlands Unit (44.1 direct jobs + 59.2 indirect/induced jobs ≈ 103.3 jobs).

Translating this into a jobs / budgeted $1 million ratio, we find that the project would have an employment/spending ratio of approximately 5.25 (≈ 103.3 jobs / $19.68 million). This is lower than the jobs per budgeted $1 million ratios that we calculated for site prep (28.96) and pipeline construction (15.80) in earlier posts. This might be due to the fact that seedlings account for a very large percentage (nearly 83%) of the project cost, meaning that labor accounts for a much smaller share of the allocated spending. 

Once the trees are planted, work would immediately commence on maintenance projects to ensure the long-term success of a sustainable forested wetland in the CWU. In our last post on the Central Wetlands restoration, we will look at how many people might be employed in operations and maintenance work in the basin over a ten-year period.

One of our goals at Restoration and Resilience is to offer a better analysis of green jobs potential from conservation work than past jobs multipliers have provided.  To do this, we’ll examine case studies of completed and proposed wetland restoration projects.  Today we are presenting the third in a series of posts that lay out estimates of job creation from restoration of the Central Wetlands Unit, a degraded marsh on the eastern edge of New Orleans.  Bear in mind that we rely on assumptions and estimates throughout our analysis, and we encourage you at the outset to send us feedback on our methods.

Source: Municipal Sewer & Water Magazine

In our previous two posts on the Central Wetlands Unit (CWU), we looked at the direct and indirect jobs that could be generated there from dredging and site preparation.  In this post, we estimate the employment generated by installation of water provisioning systems in the basin.  Based on our calculations, an $11.02 million piping project completed over a period of fifty weeks could create nearly 175 jobs in Louisiana.

Previous Work on Water Provisioning in the Central Wetlands Unit

Water management is critical to the long-term success of the CWU restoration project, as cypress trees and other wetland plants thrive within certain ranges of salinity and seasonal inundation.  In addition, it is important from both a public health and ecosystem management perspective to ensure compliance with state and federal standards regarding tertiary treatment of water running into the basin.  As such, the Central Wetlands Unit will be managed using only disinfected, treated wastewater from local treatment facilities.  Plants in the restored wetland will use the nutrients in this wastewater as fertilizer for their development, lowering the compliance costs of sewage treatment for Louisiana's largest city and its eastern suburbs.

Estimating the Cost of a Water Provisioning System in the Central Wetlands

Detailed Map of the Central Wetlands Unit, showing areas labeled A1 - A4 (Source: Office of Environmental Affairs, City of New Orleans)

As part of preliminary planning for the Central Wetlands Unit restoration, the New Orleans-based engineering firm Waldemar S. Nelson outlined fourteen scenarios for wastewater distribution systems in the basin.  At the low end, Waldemar Nelson estimated that a system discharging one million gallons per day (MGD) of treated wastewater from the Riverbend Oxidation Pond would incur a project cost of about $75,000.  At the high end, the firm estimated that a system of pipes and outfall channels discharging 78 MGD into the A3 and A4 units of the Central Wetlands would cost $33.99 million (see map at right for the locations of units A1, A2, A3 and A4 in the Central Wetlands).

To estimate the maximum potential for job creation, we based our job estimates on a more ambitious design that would discharge 100 MGD into units A2, A3, and A4 of the Central Wetlands.  Using cost estimates from several Waldemar Nelson scenarios, we estimated that such a project would cost approximately $11.02 million (or $13.78 million if one includes 25% contingency costs, as is common for coastal restoration projects).

The proposed system would channel 94 million gallons of treated wastewater per day from Orleans Parish and 6 million gallons per day from St. Bernard Parish through nearly 90,000 linear feet of pipes and outfalls coursing through the CWU.  To handle this volume of water, the discharge system would require pipe diameters ranging from 28” (14,000 feet of pipe) to 54” (20,750 feet of pipe) for the primary headers extending from the East Bank Sewage Treatment Plant in Orleans Parish and the Munster Facility in St. Bernard Parish.  The secondary outfalls from each facility’s header pipes would be 3” in diameter.

How Many Jobs Could Be Created by This Pipeline Project?

We estimate that a team of six people, consisting of one civil engineer, two civil draftsmen, and three technicians, could finalize the layout of the piping system over a period of three months.  After their plans for water provisioning were completed, work would commence on both the piping system and a network of platform walkways.  The walkways would provide access for construction and maintenance crews to install fixtures, check valves spaced along the pipe length, and inspect tubes for leaks.  Later, the walkways would be used in the day-to-day operations of the wastewater distribution system.

We estimate that this construction work (pipe installation and platform walkway construction) could be completed by a team of sixty-six workers.  This larger group would be subdivided into three sub-crews. Each sub-crew would have twenty-two workers (two supervisors, fifteen construction laborers, and five operating managers). We assume that their respective average wages would be $26.23 (supervisors), $16.91 (operating engineers), and $12.48 (construction laborers) per hour, based on Occupational Employment Statistics wage data from the Labor Department.

We estimate that the pace of pipe installation and platform walkway construction by each sub-crew would be one linear foot every four minutes, equivalent to 15 feet per hour or 120 (= 15 ft./hr. * 8 hours) feet per day, assuming an eight-hour work day. Because the three sub-crews would be working simultaneously in different parts of the CWU, the pace of installation by all three crews would be 15 + 15 + 15 = 45 ft. per hour, equivalent to 360 ft. per day.

The 43,675 feet of platform walkways would run along the length of the pipelines, but not that of the outfall channels.  We assume that construction of 89,875 ft. pipes and 43,675 ft. of platforms, done by three sub-crews of 22 people installing pipe for eight hours each day during the regular work-week (i.e.) from Monday through Friday, would take 89,875 ft. * 1 day / 360 ft. * 1 week / 5 days  = approx. 49.93 weeks, equivalent to roughly a year of work.

To install the pipeline and construct the adjacent platforms, the workers would need lumber, tubes, valves, work tools, and vehicles like trenchers, tractors, and dumptrucks. We estimated that the total cost of materials and machinery would be approximately $9.02 million, while the direct jobs payroll for the project would be roughly $2.01 million. These figures are shown in the below chart (at right).

Converting the labor hours into full-time equivalents (FTE) of 2,000 work-hours per year, we estimate that pipe construction in the Central Wetlands Unit would create 67.4 FTE direct job years in civil engineering and construction.  Using the 2006 RIMS II employment multiplier for waste management and remediation services (2.687 jobs), and adjusting its impact down 6% for changes in wage levels, we estimate that an additional (2.687-1) * (1-0.06) * (67.4) ≈ 106.8 indirect and induced job years would be generated at pipe manufacturing firms, lumber yards, and other industries supporting the project.

With a total budget of $11.02 million and approximately 174 (≈ 174.2 = 67.4 direct jobs + 106.8 indirect/induced jobs) FTE job years stemming from the project, we estimate that the jobs per budgeted $1 million ratio would be 174.2 jobs / 11.02 ≈ 15.80.  This is less than the cumulative employment/budget outlay ratio from dredging (28.96 jobs per $1 million) that we estimated in the previous post on the Central Wetlands Unit. However, it is in line with employment/spending ratios for other green economic activities like building retrofits, estimated at 16.66 jobs per $1 million by researchers from the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI).

With water and mud in place, the foundation for the restored wetland will be established.  However, the most visual demonstration of its health will be the growth of trees and grasses, which will in turn encourage the return of local fauna.  In our next post on the Central Wetlands Unit, we will look at how many jobs could be generated from tree planting and related horticultural work in the basin.

One of our goals at Restoration and Resilience is to offer a better analysis of green jobs potential than past jobs multipliers have provided.  To do this, we’ll examine case studies of completed and proposed wetland restoration projects.  This is the second in a series of posts that lay out some estimates of the job creation that could be generated by restoration of the Central Wetlands Unit.  Bear in mind that we rely on assumptions and estimates throughout our analysis, and we encourage you at the outset to send us feedback on our methods.

Last week, we introduced a jobs framework that we will use to estimate the employment generated by marsh restoration.  Continuing with the discussion of site preparation, let’s look at the indirect and induced job creation that could result from site preparation in the CWU.  We estimate that a $3.71 million dredging and filling project in the Central Wetlands could create more than 100 direct, induced, and indirect jobs in the state of Louisiana.

A Waukesha hopper dredge (Source: Dredge Brokers LLC)

For this study, we estimated that the work crews would be based on a 1,500 cubic meter, 1400-horsepower trailer suction hopper dredger.  A boat of this size would be capable of hosting a ten- to fifteen-person staff of material movers and dredging managers.  Based on data from a 2003 report on an Australian dredging project by Evers Consult, we estimate that dredger draft could vary from 1.5-2 meters (empty) to 3-4 meters (loaded vessel), with a draft of 2-2.5 meters during storm swells.  We assume that the vessel will operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, as is standard for dredgers.

Cross-section of a 1000 cubic meter hopper dredge in deep-water conditions (Source: Gippsland Ports, Government of Victoria (Australia))

We assume a high workability percentage (close to 100%) because of the natural and manmade barriers that dampen the effect of ocean swells on water levels in the Central Wetlands, the Mississippi River, and Lakes Borgne and Pontchartrain.  We assume that workers will be paid even during the infrequent events when dredging is delayed by weather, hence why we factor in continuous eight-hour shifts for our estimates of labor costs.

There is wide variation in the cost per cubic yard of a dredging project.  Waldemar Nelson estimated that the all-in or turn-key cost of fill material would be $7 per cubic yard in 2004, equivalent to roughly $7.95 in 2009 USD.  Converting the fill material costs from the Evers Consult study yields a range of dredge material costs from $5.92 per cubic yard at the low end to $16.75 per cubic yard at the high end.  If we took the midpoint of this $10.83 range as our average cost per cubic yard of the CWU dredging ($11.34), then the estimated all-in cost for a five-million cubic yard fill would be $56.7 million.

We estimate that the cost could be much less if the CWU project used beneficial-use material from local dredging.  In addition, because potential sources of fill material are close to the basin, transport costs would be significantly lower than comparable dredging initiatives, which often involve trips out to confined disposal facilities (CDFs) upriver or depositing sites miles offshore.

Estimating the Total Employment Effects of CWU Dredging

To estimate the indirect and induced jobs, we looked at how much might be spent on (i) mobilization of materials and personnel for site preparation, (ii) legal work and scientific analysis ahead of dredging, (iii) material inputs (boats, fuel, etc.) for fill dredging and transport, and (iv) demobilization after project completion.

These costs are summarized in the below chart.  We then used employment multipliers provided by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for economic activity in the state of Louisiana to estimate the cumulative jobs impact of dredging and site prep at the Central Wetlands Unit.

After speaking with freight brokers, we found estimated dredger costs ranging from $1.6 million to $4.725 million.  We decided to base our estimates on the newer, more expensive vessel, as it would likely have greater horsepower, better machinery, and easier maneuverability within the canals and lakes east of New Orleans.  We assumed that the vessel would be delivered at Port of Houston, as Texas is a larger market for dredging activities than southern Louisiana, but close enough for feasible transport to the New Orleans area.

Tugboats for both work crews and equipment would be needed during mobilization.  In addition, there would be standby fees for both the dredge and piping materials before the project started in earnest.  In total, we estimated that mobilization spending would equal about $92,460.

Scientific studies and legal paperwork would need to be processed and presented prior to the project.  We estimated that a team of six scientists, one lawyer, and two paralegals would be sufficient for this.  The cumulative cost of this phase of the project would be $114,491.

During dredging itself (estimated to take fifty weeks in Part I), we estimated that the fee for the hopper vessel would be about $151,000, based on a weekly lease rate just north of $3,000 ($3,029 = $4,725,000 hopper cost / (52 weeks of leasing per year * 30-year lifespan of a hopper dredge)).  If the lifespan of a dredging vessel were longer, then the weekly lease rate would be lower.  Aside from expenses on pipelines ($252,840) and supplies and tools for the crew ($340,113), we estimated that more than $1.238 million would be spent over the fifty-week period on gasoil, the likely fuel for the hopper dredge.  This was based on an estimated cost per gallon of $2.19.  For 8,400 hours of dredging activity ( = 24 hours per day * 7 days per week * fifty weeks per year ), we estimated that the average hourly fuel cost be $147.41, equivalent to roughly sixty-seven gallons of gasoil every sixty minutes.

Demobilization would require less expenditure than mobilization, and we based our estimates for this phase of the dredging project on the numbers calculated earlier.  Before transfer to the next lessee, we assumed that the hopper dredge user would pay for some clearing of the piping and the boat, as well as relocation costs for personnel.

Added with the direct jobs payroll ($1,344,252) from Part I, we estimated that the cumulative cost of labor and materials for dredging and site preparation at the Central Wetlands Unit would be approximately $3.71 million.  To estimate the total number of jobs created, we referred to the Regional Input-Output Modeling System (known as RIMS II), a model developed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis to estimate the economic effects of new employment and spending.  RIMS II aggregates information into several dozen industry categories, such as “oil and gas extraction” or “transit and ground passenger transportation”.  These multipliers and ratios are calculated for user-defined areas, such as individual metropolitan regions, U.S. states, or combinations of contiguous counties across state lines, such as in the "BosWash" megalopolis.

The most recent RIMS II multipliers and employment ratios available are from 2006.  To adjust for changes in wage levels over the past four years, I adjusted down the employment impact ratios by 6%.

For “industry category”, we selected “construction”.  For construction in 2006 in Louisiana, the direct effect employment multiplier was 2.0306.  This means that for every additional job in Louisiana’s building sector in 2006, there were 2.0306 total jobs – 1 direct job in construction = 1.0306 indirect and induced jobs created in the state.  This information is useful because it allows us to estimate the cumulative effect of spending on the economy, which is often multiples of the original budget allocation.

If we adjust the 1.0306 indirect/induced jobs / 1 direct job in construction ratio down by 6%, then the new ratio is 1.0306 * (1 – 0.06) = 0.9688.  If we take this ratio and multiply it by the total number of full-time equivalent direct jobs from Part I (54.6), we get 0.9688 * 54.6 = approximately 53 indirect and induced jobs.

So, for $3.71 million in total spending on dredging and site preparation at the Central Wetlands Unit, we estimate that approximately 107 jobs are created (direct, indirect, and induced) in Louisiana.  This is roughly equivalent to 29 jobs per budgeted $1 million.  As a point of comparison, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst estimated that $1 million in spending in the oil and gas sector creates a total of 5.18 jobs, and that $1 million in spending on building retrofits, a central part of the $5 billion weatherization stimulus plan, creates 16.66 jobs.  Thus, dredging and filling as part of wetland and coastal restoration compares favorably with other economic sectors in terms of its employment effects.

Once the mud and other fill material has been deposited in the CWU, designers and scientists will have to direct installation of water control structures to channel treated water and nutrients through the basin.  These issues, and others related to water provisioning, will be examined in our next post on job creation from restoration of the Central Wetlands Unit.

One of our goals at Restoration and Resilience is to offer a better analysis of green jobs potential than past jobs multipliers have provided.  To do this we’ll examine case studies of completed and proposed wetland restoration projects.  Today we’ll start a series of posts that lay out some estimates of the job creation that could be generated by restoration of the Central Wetlands Unit. Bear in mind that we rely on assumptions and estimates throughout our analysis, and we encourage you at the outset to send us feedback on our methods.

View of the New Orleans CBD from the Central Wetlands Unit (Source: Tierra Resources LLC)

From the vantage point of the skyscrapers along Poydras Street or the top of the 40 Arpent Levee in the Lower Ninth Ward, one can see a flooded area just south of the recently-closed Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) Canal that serves as a cemetery of dead trees and submerged hopes. The Central Wetlands Unit (CWU) is a 30,000-acre expanse of degraded marsh straddling Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes. Once a verdant area of cypress forest, the CWU served as a lush habitat for birds, fish, and other wildlife right next to New Orleans. After the construction of MRGO in the mid-1960s, saltwater intrusion from the Gulf of Mexico raised salinity levels in the basin, killing wetland plants, accelerating land loss, and destroying an ecosystem. Within a decade, this thriving recreation area had been transformed into an unproductive expanse of water, punctuated by ghostly cypress trunks.

Now, five years after Hurricane Katrina and under renewed focus as part of the MRGO restoration, the Central Wetlands Unit will be revitalized with support from the federal government and state agencies. Renewal of the CWU will generate employment directly in construction, dredging, planting, and other restoration work.  The revitalization effort will ripple throughout adjacent neighborhoods, creating spillover economic activity in the Lower Ninth Ward, Chalmette, and other communities near the wetland. In the long term, the restored area will provide steady job opportunities in ecosystem management, recreation, and tourism for residents of Louisiana's largest metropolitan area.

The question is, just how many jobs will be created?

In Part I, we look at direct employment from dredging and site preparation in the CWU, estimating that the direct jobs payroll would be approximately $1.34 million, with the equivalent of 55 full-time positions created for dredging crew material movers and managers.

Why is the Central Wetlands Unit Important?

Map of the Central Wetlands Unit within the New Orleans Metropolitan Area (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District)

Besides serving as a local habitat for wetland fauna, a restored Central Wetlands Unit could provide valuable services for the New Orleans metropolitan area. Though it is encircled by levees, the CWU could function as a flood and storm surge “sponge” on the region's eastern reaches, taking pressure off of century-old pumping systems and other manmade defenses.

Plans are already underway to convert the Central Wetlands Unit into a natural system for water treatment. Treated wastewater from the East Bank Sewage Treatment Plant in Orleans Parish and the Munster Facility in St. Bernard Parish will be pumped into the basin, where grasses and trees would then use dissolved residual nutrients as fertilizer. In addition, a reforested CWU could serve as a sink for greenhouse gases, providing natural carbon sequestration at the doorstep of one of the Gulf Coast's largest cities.

Recreation and education are other activities that will benefit from restoration of the Central Wetlands Unit. Surrounding schools have already expressed interest in integrating outdoor learning into local science curriculums, and commercial enterprises are already drawing up plans to transform the area into a living laboratory and incubation center for a new generation of restoration-focused entrepreneurs.

What Will Restoration Require?

Detailed Map of the Central Wetlands Unit, showing areas labeled A1 - A4 (Source: Office of Environmental Affairs, City of New Orleans)

Returning the Central Wetlands Unit to its previous state will provide several years of work. Fortunately, the area is included in the MRGO restoration area, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is allocating financial resources for its revitalization. In addition, Phase I engineering and design work has provided templates for possible regeneration plans in the zone. Aside from Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP) funding, future restoration work could draw support from the sale of carbon credits and corporate sponsors in the energy and transportation sectors.

The Central Wetlands Unit restoration could be broken down into four stages:

• Preparation of the basin (dredging, filling) for restoration,
• Provisioning of treated, nutrient-rich wastewater from local treatment plants,
• Planting of trees and marsh grass, and
• Protection of the restored acreage through operations and management post-completion. 

Over the next few posts on the CWU, we'll apply our jobs framework to estimate the jobs that will be created by this project.  To start, let's look at employment from site preparation.

Estimating the Direct Jobs from Dredging and Filling in the Central Wetlands Unit

Within the Central Wetlands Unit, ground elevations vary from several feet below to several feet above sea level. In one possible scenario, low-lying areas would be filled in, allowing them to sustain cypress and other freshwater species.  Fill could come from one of three sources: the Mississippi River bed (primarily sand), the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain (primarily mud), or the bed of Lake Borgne (though this mud may be too saline).

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District

The amount needed will depend on the goals of the final restoration plan. Planting on already elevated areas, like those near the Riverbend Oxidation Pond in St. Bernard Parish, require less fill (about one million cubic yards). On the other hand, pumping in sand and mud to raise elevations in deeper areas throughout the basin (including the flooded Bayou Bienvenue “Triangle” near the Lower Ninth Ward) could require as much as twenty million cubic yards of material. For our example, let’s examine a moderately low-fill strategy requiring five million cubic yards of material.

To estimate labor costs, let’s assume that the work is carried out by three dredging crews working in shifts around the clock.  Each work crew would require thirteen people (three managers and ten material movers) working each eight-hour shift. This gives us a combined dredging team of thirty-nine people, consisting of thirty-one material moving crew members and eight operation managers. Based on wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), we estimate that the median hourly wage for dredge operation managers in Louisiana is $18.01, while the median hourly wage for material moving crew members is $10.60.

Engineering firms involved in wetland and coastal restoration in Louisiana told us that the basin could be filled at a pace of 100,000 cubic yards per week for mud and 50,000 cubic yards per week for sand, which is denser than lake mud. Assuming that we decide to use only lake bottom material for filling the Central Wetlands Unit, we estimate that the five million cubic yard project would be completed in 5,000,000 / 100,000 = 50 weeks.

Fifty weeks of 13-person crews (on average) working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week yields 50 weeks * 7 days per week * 24 hours per day * 13 work-hours per hour = 109,200 work-hours.

Using the BLS median wages, we find that the cumulative dredging/filling payroll would be (84,000 material moving crew work-hours * $10.60 per crew work-hour) + (25,200 manager work-hours * $18.01 per manager work-hour) = $1,344,252, as shown in the chart at right. The aggregate dredging crew work hours are equal to roughly fifty-five job-years, when we translate these work hours into full-time equivalent (FTE) units for employees working eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks per year.

Aside from fill, additional materials required would include a dredging boat, piping materials, and other safety and construction equipment. The job would need monitoring and legal assistance to ensure compliance with labor and environmental standards. These are some of the indirect jobs that site preparation in the Central Wetlands Unit would create in Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes. In our next post on the Central Wetlands, we will lay out some estimates of the indirect and induced employment stemming from this phase of the CWU restoration.