TESTIMONY OF GARY FRAZER, ACTING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS, OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE COASTAL BARRIER RESOURCES SYSTEM.

April 22, 1999

Good morning Mr. Chairman. I am Gary Frazer, Acting Assistant Director for Ecological Services of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I appreciate this opportunity to testify in support of two bills of interest to the Department of the Interior. H.R. 535 and H.R. 34 direct the Secretary of the Interior to make technical corrections to maps relating to the Coastal Barrier Resources System at Cape Henlopen, Delaware, and North Captiva Island, Florida, respectively. In addition, we would like to present testimony regarding reauthorization of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act.

I will begin with the two bills.

The Coastal Barrier Improvement Act of 1990, in addition to expanding the Coastal Barrier Resources System, for the first time designated some areas as "otherwise protected areas" or OPAs. This category of land gives additional protection to coastal barrier lands held for conservation purposes, such as parks, wildlife refuges, and bird sanctuaries.

H.R. 535, introduced by Representative Castle, addresses CBRA Unit DE-03P which was designated as an OPA with the passage of the Act in 1990. The purpose of this OPA was to provide additional protection to Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware. H.R. 535, which we support, would remove from the OPA approximately 32 acres of privately owned land outside of the State Park and add approximately 245 acres of State Park land that was left out of the OPA in 1990.

At the time Unit DE-03P was established, the Service was not aware that a portion of the Cape Shores development and land occupied by the Barcroft Company were included within the Unit boundary, as if those lands were within the State Park, which they are not. To the best of our ability to determine it, the intent of Congress was to include only the State Park lands, not those adjacent private lands, in the CBRA Unit. On the other hand, information provided by the State Park confirms that the property proposed for addition to the OPA was held for conservation purposes within the boundaries of Cape Henlopen State Park in 1990, and was erroneously left out of the DE-03P when it was established. Modification of the boundary therefore constitutes a valid technical correction that conforms the boundary of the OPA to the boundary of the State Park, which the Service and the Department support.

H.R. 34, introduced by Representative Goss, addresses a similar situation in CBRA Unit P19P at North Captiva Island, Florida. This Unit was also established as an "otherwise protected area" to give added protection to Cayo Costa State Park. H.R. 34, which we support, would remove from Unit P19P approximately 14 acres of privately owned land that is outside the boundaries of the State Park. Although the 14 acres are within the boundaries of the OPA as drawn on the official map of Unit P19P, the Department is of the opinion that the intent of Congress was to follow the State Park boundary when establishing the OPA boundary. The 14 acres in question are outside the boundary of the State Park, are not inholdings, and are not held for conservation purposes. Therefore, the Department supports the bill to modify the boundary of Unit P19P to reflect the State Park's official boundary.

Last year, the Service testified in opposition to virtually identical legislation. We did so based on the degree of development on these 14 acres in 1990, applying the criteria we use to determine whether an area of private land was already so sufficiently developed that a mistake was made when it and other private lands were added to the Coastal Barrier Resources System. We now believe that is the wrong question to ask. In the case of private lands adjacent to a State Park that were included in an OPA along with the State Park, we believe the controlling question is whether Congress intended to include these private lands within the OPA. In this case, as with the Cape Henlopen State Park, all the evidence we can find, both from the map itself and from the legislative history of the 1990 law, suggests that Congress intended only to include the public lands, not these adjacent private lands, in the OPA.

We are also aware that Representative Jones may introduce legislation affecting CBRA Unit NC-03P in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This CBRA Unit was established as an "otherwise protected area" to give additional protection to Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The Unit, as now mapped, includes some private property adjacent to, and landward of, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore boundary. It is the opinion of the Department that Congress intended when establishing the CBRA Unit boundary to follow the National Seashore boundary. It appears that when cartographers drew the original boundaries, they based the CBRA line on a National Seashore boundary depiction from a 1948 map that attempted to show the mean high water line, an indefinite and changing line. By doing this, privately owned beach houses were included within the CBRA boundary. Earlier this month, Service personnel in coordination with the National Seashore cartographer, walked the locally accepted and monumented boundary of the National Seashore with a Global Positioning System and provided those coordinates to the Park Service. The Service would support a technical correction adjusting the line to reflect the locally accepted and monumented boundary.

Let me now turn to reauthorization of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act. To put our comments in context I will quickly review the role of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with respect to CBRA administration. As authorized by Congress, the Secretary of the Interior is responsible for (1) maintaining the official maps of the Coastal Barrier Resource System, (2) conducting a review of the maps every 5 years to reflect changes to the system due to natural causes, (3) developing aerial photographic atlases of the system, (4) consulting with federal agencies that propose spending federal funds within the system, (5) ensuring Federal Flood Insurance Rate Maps accurately depict the coastal barrier Unit boundaries, and (6) preparing a report to Congress which examines the need for protecting undeveloped coastal barriers along the Pacific coast of the United States.

The Service supports reauthorization of CBRA. Coastal barriers are unique land forms that provide protection for diverse fish and wildlife habitats and serve as the mainland's first line of defense against the impacts of coastal storms and erosion. The coastal barrier ecosystem consists of unique fastlands, aquatic habitats, and shorelines. Fish and wildlife depend upon these coastal habitats for survival. For example, dunes and shorelines provide breeding and foraging areas for shorebirds and other protected species such as sea turtles. The aquatic habitats such as wetlands, tidal flats, swamps, marshes, lagoons, and estuaries provide essential breeding and rearing habitat for many waterfowl and fish species. Thus the Service has a keen interest in appropriate management of our coastal areas and in working cooperatively with other members of the Federal family and Congress to conserve and protect our valuable coastal resources.

In the reauthorization of CBRA, the Service recommends that Congress strengthen our ability to efficiently administer the Act by authorizing the Service to make technical corrections to maps of "otherwise protected areas" in limited circumstances. In each of the three particular situations I have already discussed, involving Cape Henlopen State Park, Cayo Costa State Park, and Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Congress clearly intended that an OPA boundary coincide with a boundary of a Federal, state, local, or other conservation area, but post-enactment investigation reveals that the map enacted by Congress does not accurately reflect the conservation area boundary. The authority we are recommending would enable the Service to resolve such situations by revising the map of the OPA administratively to make the boundaries of the OPA coincide with the conservation area boundaries as Congress intended. We would promulgate rules to define the circumstances for a valid technical correction based on errors in base map depictions of conservation areas and establish procedures to make those changes administratively. We believe that this streamlining of the technical correction process would be more efficient and provide better service to the public.

With respect to the current maps, the Service believes that there would be many benefits to eventually converting the official CBRA maps from hardcopy paper maps to a computer-compatible digital format suitable for display and use in a Geographical Information System or GIS. The Service could digitally capture the locations of the current boundary lines, store them in electronic files, and produce computerized GIS maps of the system by overlaying the unit boundary lines on current digital photographs or satellite imagery. Modernizing the maps would give landowners, insurance providers, Federal agencies, and local planners a more precise, and accessible, tool for determining boundary locations. It would also be useful to make the lines and images available over the Internet, as would be possible if the maps were in a digital format. The Service is currently coordinating with FEMA to explore methods and costs for map modernization. While we believe it would be premature now to convert the official maps to a digital format, we would support authorization for a pilot program for the creation of digital maps of some CBRA units so that the service and Congress can get a baseline of real-world information on the likely advantages and disadvantages of a possible conversion of the official maps to this new format.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, the Department will continue to work with Congress to ensure that the Coastal Barrier Resources System is accurate in its boundary descriptions, thereby ensuring fairness to adjacent landowners. The Service looks forward to working with Congress to administer the Coastal Barrier Resources Act in a manner that protects lives and natural resources along the coasts of the United States.

I would be happy to answer any questions that you or members of the Subcommittee may have. Again, I thank you for giving the Fish and Wildlife Service an the opportunity to testify.