Assessment of policy conditions, constraints, and consequences in the process of ecosystem service restoration – including the complex permitting process for restoration in urban harbors.

Stephen Norris and Kevin Carpenter are in charge of assessing and navigating the current political processes necessary to rehabilitate the Savin Hill Cove ecosystem. Ecosystems, as the name suggests, are systems of living things, and changing any part of the system can have far reaching effects for other members of the system, or nearby systems. This makes the process of changing any component of an ecosystem complicated, in order to protect the health of the system. Although Stephen and Kevin are looking to rehabilitate the Savin Hill Cove, they must still go through the political labyrinths of policy constraints and permit regulations. Stephen and Kevin have been tirelessly contacting members of the Boston city counsel as well as local community leaders and many others as they progress in finding ways to rehabilitate the Savin Hill Cove ecosystem under the confines of government policy and permit procedures. The daunting task of interacting with politicians and community leaders has proven challenging for the two, but they continue to make progress and update us regularly. Along with the aforementioned, they have contacted Andrew Jay of the Mass Oyster Project and Nature Conservancy with plans to contact Bill Golden (the lawyer that kick started the Deer Island Treatment Facility), Massachusetts State Representative Michael E. Capuano, members of the state legislature, as well as the Division of Marine fisheries.