Appendix
Trolling for Numbers

This section aggregates the significant monetary figures mentioned in this book. Its purpose is only to offer a taste of the Restoration Economy’s size and potential, not to pose as a thorough accounting of any kind. These numbers represent only a small fraction of the current (completed projects not included) market and pent-up demand.

U.S. RESTORATION MARKETS AND BUDGETS CITED IN THIS BOOK

• $128 billion annually in commercial building restoration (2000).
• $180 billion annually in residential building remodeling (we’ll allocate just a third of that, $60 billion per year, to restoration, to be very conservative) (2001).
• The TEA-21 Restoration Act allocated $218 billion in federal funds into rebuilding the U.S. transportation infrastructure over a six-year period, which will be supplemented significantly by state funds, so let’s call that about $50 billion annually.
• I don’t have a public sector total on restoration of buildings and monuments in the book, but it is definitely over $100 billion per year.
• Over $1 billion of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ $4 billion budget goes to river and wetlands restoration each year, plus another $1 billion to brownfields restoration.
• The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management together spend $75 million annually to restore rivers and streams.
• $200 million per year in federal money alone for Pacific salmon restoration (not including related watershed restoration efforts). (continued)
• 308$3,400,000 per year for estuary restoration by the Restoration Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
• $25 million per year (for 10 years) from the state of Maryland for oyster restoration.
• $11 billion per year (for 5 years) committed by the Bush administration to restore water infrastructure.
• $6.28 billion per year (in 2000) in the United States were spent on contaminated site cleanup.

Total U.S. restoration budgets cited in this book

$410 billion per year

(This might be half of the restorative expenditures in the United States, and is [conservatively] less than 20 percent of what is spent worldwide each year. Does not include restorative agriculture, watershed restoration, ocean fisheries restoration, ecosystem restoration, art/museum/hobbyist restoration, or budgets under $25 million.)

Estimated total worldwide restoration expenditures

$1.75 trillion per year

(Conservatively estimated at only five times the incomplete U.S. total [above].)

RESTORATION BACKLOGS CITED IN THIS BOOK

• The EPA estimates a $350 billion backlog of contamination cleanup at U.S. military bases alone, and just those in the United States.
• $1.3 trillion backlog of public infrastructure renovation in the United States, as estimated by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
• $4 billion backlog of renovation in the U.S. National Parks.
• $15 billion proposed restoration of Louisiana coastal wetlands.
• $20 billion proposed restoration of California rivers and deltas.
• $1 trillion proposed Tokyo restoration project.

Total restoration backlogs cited in this book

$2.689 trillion

(These are the only compiled backlogs uncovered in my research. I found no backlog reports related to the restoration of ecosystems, watersheds, agriculture, fisheries, heritage, or disaster/war, which means this is a small fraction of the total restoration backlog. This is mostly U.S.: No reports seemed to be available on worldwide backlogs, and Tokyo is by no means the only non-U.S. city in need of a massive restoration.)

CURRENT (OR RECENTLY COMPLETED) WORLDWIDE PROJECTS CITED IN THIS BOOK

• $12 billion restoration of a single watershed in China.
• Hundreds of watersheds are being restored in the United States, such as the EPA’s $359 million restoration of the Coeur D’Alene River watershed (projected to run $1.3 billion when completed), and New York City’s over-$1.5 billion restoration of its Catskills watershed.
• $950,000,000 over 5 years to rehabilitate Arkansas’ interstate highways (all 50 states are primarily rebuilding, not building, highways).
• $450,000,000 to restore Washington, D.C.’s National Airport.
• $15 billion to rebuild and restore Afghanistan (one of dozens of current or recently concluded conflicts that are, or soon will be, restored, but which aren’t in this list).
• $3 billion to restore the Pentagon.
• $2.5 billion to replace the Washington, D.C.-area’s Wilson Bridge.
• $21 billion to renovate the London Underground.
• $52 billion per year to restore natural disasters. (This does not include human-caused disasters such as oil spills, airplane/train/automobile crashes (mini-disasters), etc. This also does not include terrorism: Besides the thousands of lives lost in the events of September 11, 2001, at least $70 billion worth of damage was done.)
• $100 million to restore Angkor Wat, Cambodia.
• There are over a hundred thousand aging or useless dams in need of restoration or removal worldwide. Removal of average-sized dams often cost between $10 and $50 million, such as the $23 million Rogue River dam removal mentioned in these pages. We’ll toss only $100 million into this total for the sake of being utterly conservative.
• $110 million U.S. Supreme Court Building restoration.
• $225 million to restore site around Stonehenge.
• $9 billion in disaster relief and rebuilding from 1998 Hurricane Mitch damage.
• $1.5 billion to restore damage from 2001 Seattle-Tacoma earthquake.
• $3.1 billion to launch first phase of Russian railway rehabilitation.
• $72 million to restore the historic Atlantic City Convention Hall.
• $100 million to launch first phase of Chesapeake Bay restoration.
• The 2002 Farm Security Act earmarked $19 billion for restoring Chesapeake Bay.
• $352 million to launch first phase of Los Angeles water infrastructure rehabilitation/integration project.
• $500 million to restore Istanbul’s Golden Horn waterfront.
• 310$100 million restoration of the U.S. National Archives.
• $100 million first-phase funding for restoration of Black Sea.
• $700 million rebuilding of a single highway interchange (Springfield, Virginia).
• $450 million Mozambique restoration needs resulting from floods in 2000.
• $60 million Patuxent River spill of 110,000 gallons of oil in 2000 by Potomac Electric Power Company (just one—and not an especially large one—of thousands of spills annually that are not included in this list).
• $3.5 billion first-phase budget for Danube River basin restoration.
• $7.8 billion restoration of the Florida Everglades.
• Kobe, Japan, is still rebuilding from its $100 billion 1995 earthquake.
• The Estuary Restoration Act of 2000 (S. 835) allocated $275 million over five years to supplement state, local, and private budgets for restoring U.S. estuaries.

Total projects (worldwide) cited in this book

$1.888 trillion

(Includes only projects mentioned in this book that exceed $60 million. This total probably accounts for between 5 and 15 percent of actual restoration activity worldwide.)