Likelihood:
- Certainty: Tidal restoration will kill off all freshwater vegetation – grasses, bushes, and trees that are exposed to the daily inundation of saltwater.
(See Vegetation die-off.)
- Certainty: Recreational use of the river will be disrupted as the byproducts of the vegetation die-off are removed by "cutting, chipping, burning, and targeted herbicide application."
(See vegetation management plan .)
- Certainty: Tidal restoration will cause the displacement or death of freshwater-dwelling birds, rodents, and other animals that are insufficiently mobile to escape the restored daily tides.
(See Timely relocation or death
.)
- High probability: Tidal restoration will improve the water quality in the Herring River by washing chemical and biological contaminants downstream into Wellfleet Harbor, where they will be harmlessly diluted.
- High probability: Mother Nature will restore salt-tolerant vegetation where freshwater vegetation has been killed off.
- High probability: Harm to human stakeholders will occur because of the complexity and duration of the project.
(See Planners and Normal Accidents.)
- High probability: Wellfleet taxpayers will be adversely affected because the likelihood of harm is high, and legal counsel has determined that they are financially responsible for losses caused by the project.
(See Planners and Henchy and Corbo and Truro.)
- Moderate probability: The population of nuisance mosquitoes (particularly O. cantator and O. sollicitans, which thrive in saltwater environments) will increase with the restoration of tides in the Herring River.
(See Mosquitoes.)
- Low probability: Mother Nature will not restore salt-tolerant vegetation where freshwater vegetation has been killed off.
(See Sesuit.)
- Low probability: Tidal restoration will create ebb tides that do not now exist that will carry silt downstream into Wellfleet Harbor to threaten the viability of shellfish.
(See Oysters.)
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Benefits:
Source: Slideshow presented by project proponents on February 4, 2015.
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