In 1994, at the request of the Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds (OWOW), the Science Advisory Board (SAB) established a Marsh Management Subcommittee to review the state of the science underlying the use of the structures to manipulate marsh hydrology. This approach to marsh management, termed Structural Marsh Management (SMM), entails the use of structures such as canal plugs, weirs, tide gates, and levees to manipulate local hydrology in tidal and Great Lakes marshes. The Subcommittee was asked to evaluate the impacts of SMM on emergent marsh vegetation, natural marsh-sustaining processes, and fish and wildlife. In addition, the Subcommittee was asked to assess the cumulative impacts of numerous large-scale SMM projects in a region, identify high priority research and monitoring needs, and suggest scientific or technical evaluation criteria that the agency could use to evaluate proposed SMM projects. The SAB report provides a summary of the state of the science on the ecological consequences of SMM from a national perspective, science based-evaluation criteria for SMM projects, monitoring and research recommendations, and a discussion of SMM issues in various regions of the country.

Cover title. Memo signed by Joan M. Daisey, Mark A. Harwell and Anne McElroy. "EPA-SAB-EPEC-98-003." "January 22,1998."