A Monday Legislative Update from CWD action champion state representative Rick Hansen, DFL-S. St. Paul--who will chair the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resource Finance beginning in January--illustrates why simply shifting resources and staff to deal with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) costs hunters in other ways:
Below you'll find information sent to me from the DNR on the financial impacts of Chronic Wasting Disease.
Date: November 21, 2018
Question: What is not being accomplished due to CWD surveillance?
Answer: Since expenditures for the majority of the 2018-2019 response are incomplete, data were used from 2017 efforts for staff time calculations. Also, since some staff work the entire year on wildlife health, data were used from October-December for all staff to focus on the fall surveillance work.
Total Staff Hours = 11,047 = 6.5 FTEs (calculated based on ~1,700 hours of work time per year)
(Regular Hours = 9,358; Paid Overtime Hours = 243 hrs; Compensatory Hours Earned = 1,446 hrs)
Regular hours (5.5 FTEs) spent on CWD surveillance during a given pay period would have been spent on other activities, such as:
Habitat work, including wetland/water management and fall prescribed burns on WMAs
Maintenance of accesses, parking facilities, and boundary management on WMAs
Forest and Department coordination efforts
Hunting season and general public Information
Season and registration station management
Compensatory time (0.9 FTEs) represents hours worked on CWD and later taken as time-off from work at the supervisor’s discretion. These hours are similar to vacation and could be taken at any time during the year. Therefore, an assessment of what did not get done because of CWD for those hours is impossible to credit to certain activities.
Additional costs for CWD surveillance are primarily for supplies, sample testing, and travel expenses. Of the total anticipated cost for surveillance this year (~$1.1 million), roughly half is salary and paid from the Game & Fish Fund Operations Account (GFF). Of the remaining $550,000, an additional $250,000 will be paid from the GFF and the remaining $300,000 from the Cervid Health Account (funds not available for other uses). In addition, a sharpshooting contract with USDA Wildlife Services will be necessary (~$200,000 from the GFF). The resulting $450,000 total burden on the GFF in excess of salaries and the Cervid Health Account comes at the expense of discretionary projects that were not funded in FY19. Some of those are:
Habitat enhancement projects - $400,000
User Facility Projects on WMAs - $240,000
Internship Program Expansion - $70,000
Conservation Easement Monitoring - $40,000
Hunter Walking Trail Development - $36,500
Urban Deer Disposition Trial - $20,000
The entire fall CWD effort represents approximately 2.5 percent of the Section of Wildlife FTEs. Two factors that should be considered, however, are 1) given the societal issues related to CWD and the interactions of the disease between cervid farms and wild deer populations, what is the appropriate funding source to surveil and manage the disease, and 2) if CWD becomes established and potentially expands in the state, current funding sources will not be able to sustain surveillance and management efforts without severely impacting other important work.
A chart of Estimated costs related to FY 2019 CWD surveillance from the Legislative Update:
|
Category |
Game & Fish Fund (GFF) |
Cervid Health Account |
Total |
||||
|
Salaries |
$550,000 |
$0 |
$550,000 |
||||
|
Supplies & Expenses |
$250,000 |
$300,000 |
$550,000 |
||||
|
USDA Sharp Shooting Contract |
$200,000 |
$0 |
$200,000 |
||||
|
Total |
$1,000,000 |
$300,000 |
$1,300,000 |
||||
On Sunday, Hansen tweeted:
Minnesota public money spent on Chronic Wasting Disease. Spending money without reforms will not resolve #deerhunting #deerseason #CWD pic.twitter.com/lTVgH3y0tI
— Rep. Rick Hansen (@reprickhansen) November 26, 2018
As Environmental committee chair, he may well be able to get that party started in the Minnesota House.
Meanwhile on the federal level
In Minnesota officials call for federal help to combat fatal deer disease, Minnesota Public Radio's Nina Moini reports:
At Sunday's meeting with Klobuchar, state wildlife officials shared that it costs $1 million a year to test and track CWD in Minnesota.
So far, that money has come from revenue from hunting and fishing licenses. Klobuchar said that without more federal funding, the fatal deer disease poses a serious risk to the state's economy and the sport.
"Not many people know that nearly 500,000 people hunt deer in our state's fields and forests every single year," she said. "They've helped make the sporting industry a $1.3 billion sector in our economy."
This afternoon's broadcast of the story said that Klobuchar is working on a bill--as soon as we see it, we'll update this entry. We're hoping that the Senator's call for more funding means exactly that, rather than a mere shifting of resources. We'd loved to be able to update this post with that news, and will watch her News Releases and Legislation tabs.
Earlier this month, Senator Klobuchar did call for increased staffing for study of CWD in a letter to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, urging the agencies to up their game in surveillance mapping and developing standards for interstate transport of deer and elk :
We suggest that your two departments assign senior staff to expand the examination of CWD, particularly as an issue for deliberation with the Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation Council (HSSCC). The HSSCC is co-chartered by U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of the Interior under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. It is an ideal venue to assess current efforts at the Department of the Interior with respect to surveillance mapping and at the Department of Agriculture for developing standards for interstate transport of deer and elk. We believe your agency experts, representatives from states and tribes, and the HSSCC can identify needs for national policy on this matter.
The Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation Council was established on January 9, 2018 and its membership was announced in May 2018, giving the advisory council quite a track record upon which to depend.
While Montana Senator Jon Tester has introduced the Chronic Wasting Disease Support for States Act, which would provide exactly that, neither Senator Klobuchar nor any of the other signers of the letter--Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Bob Casey (D-PA), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Tina Smith (D-MN), John Thune (R-SD) and Roger Wicker (R-MS)--are co-signers of the bill.
In the United State House, there's a similar bipartisan bill introduced by Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind, H.R.4454 - the Chronic Wasting Disease Management Act.
Here's hoping that Senator Klobuchar soon posts the details of the increased federal funding that she hopes will help the state of Minnesota's effort. We'll be eager to compare the two bills.
Photo: A whitetail deer stricken with CWD.
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