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<br />- <br /> <br />identifying where significant increases in production costs occur as output levels are <br />increased, better information is provided to assist in determining desirable project scale. <br /> <br />(7) The final step in the CE/ICA process will be to tabulate and graph the incremental <br />costs. It is not necessary to display all such iterations in ecosystem restoration report <br />documentation. What will be provided, however, is a table that summarizes the pertinent <br />incremental cost and output information associated with the increasing size (in terms of <br />output) of the Best Buy plans. Graphing the Best Buy plans can help visually display the <br />relationship between the increasing financial investment required for increasing <br />environmental outputs. <br /> <br />The results of cost effectiveness and incremental cost analyses are intended to help <br />decision makers make better informed decisions. In all but the most unusual cases, the <br />NER Plan should be derived from the final set of Best Buy solutions. Other solutions, <br />identifitld as non-cost effective in cost effectiveness analysis; as well as cost effective <br />plans identified as relatively less efficient in production ("non-Best Buys") in incremental <br />analysis, may continue to be considered for selection. In some cases, the economic and <br />environmental models used to estimate the effects of ecosystem restoration plans are not <br />capable of capturing the full range of such effects, or considerable uncertainty may <br />accompany the estimates of such effects. Other evaluation criteria, such as environmental <br />significance, acceptability, completeness, and effectiveness also impact the decision <br />process. For example, concerns about endangered species, support by a local sponsor or <br />other interest group, unintended effects on other economic and ecological resources, and <br />other factors may lead to the continuing consideration and selection of solutions that may <br />not be the most cost effective, or that may incur substantial incremental costs. <br /> <br />Significance or Ecosystem Outputs and Cost Worthiness <br /> <br /> <br />Information on the significance of ecosystem outputs will help determine whether the <br />propos.ed environmental investment is worth its cost and whether a particular alternative <br />should be recommended. Statements of significance will be prepared for alternative plans <br />in ordtlr to provide qualitative information to help decision-makers evaluate whether the <br />value of the resources of any given restoration alternative are worth the costs incurred to <br />produee them. The significance of restoration outputs will be recognized in terms of <br />institutional, public, and/or technical importance. This basically means that someone, <br />some lentity, some law/policy/regulation, or scientific evidence indicates that a particular <br />resource is important. How to determine and characterize institutional, public, and/or <br />technical significance is an important point and explained in greater detail in Appendix E <br />ofER 1105-2-100 on pages 159-162. Procedures for determining and describing the <br />significance of environmental resource(s), including a hypothetical restoration study <br />example as well as sample significance statements, is found in IWR Report 97-R-4, <br />Resource Significance Protocol for Environmental Project Planning found at <br />www.iwr.usace.army.mil <http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil>. An effective significance <br />statement is one that convincingly answers the question: Why are the resources <br /> <br />10 <br />