Herring River Restoration Project

The Herring River Restoration Project has been in planning for decades, which speaks to its complexity. Completion of the project is anticipated to take decades more, which means that exposure to the risk of unexpected consequences is substantial.

A book titled Normal Accidents "analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety – building in more warnings and safeguards – fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable." Hence the book title, which tells us that accidents in very complex systems are so certain to occur they should be considered normal.

The complexity and duration (decades for full implementation) of the Herring River Restoration Project make it highly likely that one or more unintended consequences will occur. Such events can cause financial loss to stakeholders (individuals or businesses) or be harmful to the environment.

An example of environmental harm caused by a restoration project is the Sesuit Creek Habitat Restoration in Dennis, Massachusetts, 14 years ago. The consequences of restoring tidal flow to the upstream marsh by installing a larger culvert under Bridge Street were devastating.

Notes recorded by the chair of the technical committee that was planning the Herring River Restoration Project in 2006 seemed so certain that unintended consequences would occur that he asked the following questions:

• "When will a fund be established to mitigate any damage to private property owners, businesses and shell fishermen?"
• "When will a plan covering cost, funding, and assignment of liability be drafted?"
• "What will be done to compensate private individuals for damages related to the restoration?"
• "How will the costs of restoration affect the tax rate?"