State of MT publishes new Restoration Economy report

Last week the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, in partnership with the MT Dept of Natural Resources, released a new report entitled: An Estimation of Montana’s Restoration Economy.   The  purpose of the project was to “estimate the economic activity resulting from public spending on restoration activities in Montana.”

Wildlands CPR also just finalized a series of reports about the Political Economy of Watershed Restoration.  Several of the reports in our six-part series address similar topics as those covered in the MT report.  While the Wildlands CPR Political Economy series is generally focused on watershed restoration and its economic impacts, the MT report utilizes a specific mining reclamation project as a case study.  The MT researchers are quick to point out that their analysis may not be universally applicable throughout the state and that it also may not apply directly to forest restoration projects. 

Overall, the MT report finds that approximately 11 direct jobs and an additional 20 indirect jobs are created for every million dollars spent on mining reclamation work: 

In total, 31.53 jobs are created in Monatan for every million dollars of funding spent on restoration.  …

The case study results also indicate that each $1 million dollars in restoration spending results in $2.59 million in total economic activity.  The $2.59 million includes $1.06 million in employee compensation (wages and benefits), $0.21 million in proprietor income, $0.51 million in other property income (such as rent), and $0.11 million in business taxes collected by federal, state, and local governments.

Wildlands CPR recently partnered with The Wilderness Society to assess the actual job creation and multipliers for Legacy Roads projects in Idaho and Montana.  This analysis used the same economic model (IMPLAN) as the MT report, though the multipliers were not quite as high as in the MT case study.  For example:

In summary, we confirmed over $2 million in LRRI projects in 12 Montana counties. Businesses in nine Montana counties were awarded more than $1.8 million in LRRI contracts.ii As contractors hired workers and purchased materials, LRRI funds resulted in $2.49 million in increased final demand for Montana businesses, $0.65 million increased wages, $0.38 million increased business income, and approximately 35 jobs. Nearly all sectors experienced positive economic impacts.

The MT Restoration Economy report also looked at several other factors affecting the economy, including ecosystem services, and property values, but they did not have any new conclusive results in these topic areas (though they did include valuable information from a previous assessment).  Wildlands CPR’s Political Economy series digs a little deeper into some of the property value and other issues in The Economic Benefits of Watershed Restoration.  

From all three of the analyses cited above, it seems clear that restoration projects have the potential to have a significant positive impact on the economy while simultaneously benefitting the environment.