States and Tribes

Cost Estimates and Resource Requirements for Maine's Bioassessment and Biocriteria Program

From Davies et al. (1999).

Biological Monitoring Program Costs

Maine’s current Biological Monitoring Program for rivers, streams and wetlands is operated on a budget of $200,000 to $235,000 per year. This figure includes staffing (3 professional biologist full-time equivalents, and 1 summer intern), overhead, contractual services and equipment. This figure represents about 2% of the State’s total expenditure, of about 10 million dollars per year, for water resource management.

Maine’s Biological Monitoring Program was staffed with 1.25 full-time equivalent biologists for the first five years. In 1988 a second full-time biologist was hired for the rivers and streams program and a third biologist was added for development of wetland bioassessment methods in 1997. Part-time summer intern assistance has been available for most field seasons. Activities directed to development of bioassessment approaches for lakes and estuaries are performed by staff in the Department’s Lakes Program and the Marine Program, respectively.

Numeric Aquatic Life Criteria Development and Program Implementation Costs

Total staff resources expended, by the Department, to develop narrative and numeric aquatic life criteria was 13.5 full-time equivalents at a total cost of about $600,000, expended over about seven years. Federal grants targeted to water quality planning and standards allowed the Program to contract significant work products, including programming of database management software and multivariate statistical analysis. Contractual services costs for criteria development total approximately $57,000 over the same time period. These services include sample taxonomic work-up, software development and statistical analysis.

For additional information, contact Susan Davies at Maine DEP (207-287-7778) e-mail: susan.p.davies@state.me.us or visit http://www.maine.gov/dep/blwq/docmonitoring/biomonitoring/

References

Davies, S.P., L. Tsomides, J.L. DiFranco,  and D.L. Courtemanch, 1999. Biomonitoring Retrospective: Fifteen Year Summary for Maine Rivers and Streams, Chapter 1, pp. 10-11. Division of Environmental Assessment, Bureau of Land and Water Quality, Augusta, Maine.