WASHINGTON—ERDC-EL’s Jennifer Gerhardt-Smith and Joe Wilson, Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (HQUSACE), recently attended the Endangered Species Roundtable held at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) office in Washington, D.C.
Meeting participants included representatives from 14 federal agencies. Discussions included the legally required annual reporting of costs associated with Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA)-related activities to the USFWS.
Prior to 2005, reporting of threatened and endangered species (TES) costs was inconsistent across USACE and resulted in under-reporting.
In 2005, EL created the standardized TES Costs Reporting Template, and has since maintained the USACE database for the collection of ESA-related costs, reporting those costs to HQ for transfer to USFWS.
Wilson and Gerhardt-Smith shared the methodology used by USACE and noted that upon implementation, reported costs nearly doubled. Wilson offered assistance to the other agencies in formulating a method similar to USACE’s, and Gerhardt-Smith provided information for the roundtable to consider.
Several Department of Defense agencies expressed interest in the USACE methodology and a follow-on working group is being organized. The initiative is sponsored by the Dredging Operations Technical Support program.
Learn more about TES.