Berg-Oliver Associates, Inc home page

                      Texas Gulf Coast Wetland Mitigation Banks
                    • Coastal Bend Wetland Mitigation Bank
                    • Prairies, Woods and Bays Wetland Mitigation Bank
                    • Gulf Coastal Plains Wetland Mitigation Bank

                    What is a Mitigation Bank?

                    A mitigation bank is a wetland, stream, or other aquatic resource area that has been restored, established, enhanced, or (in certain circumstances) preserved for the purpose of providing compensation for unavoidable impacts to aquatic resources permitted under Section 404 or a similar state or local wetland regulation. A mitigation bank may be created when a government agency, corporation, nonprofit organization, or other entity undertakes these activities under a formal agreement with a regulatory agency. Mitigation banks have four distinct components:

                    • The bank site: the physical acreage restored, established, enhanced, or preserved;
                    • The bank instrument: the formal agreement between the bank owners and regulators establishing liability, performance standards, management and monitoring requirements, and the terms of bank credit approval;
                    • The Inter-agency Review Team (IRT): the inter-agency team that provides regulatory review, approval, and oversight of the bank
                    • The service area: the geographic area in which permitted impacts can be compensated for at a given bank.
                    The value of a bank is defined in "compensatory mitigation credits." A bank's instrument identifies the number of credits available for sale and requires the use of ecological assessment techniques to certify that those credits provide the required ecological functions. Although most mitigation banks are designed to compensate only for impacts to various wetland types, some banks have been developed to compensate specifically for impacts to streams (i.e., stream mitigation banks). Mitigation banks are a form of "third-party" compensatory mitigation, in which the responsibility for compensatory mitigation implementation and success is assumed by a party other than the permittee. This transfer of liability has been a very attractive feature for Section 404 permit-holders, who would otherwise be responsible for the design, construction, monitoring, ecological success, and long-term protection of the site.

                    For more information see the EPA flyer on Compensatory Mitigation.  You will need the Adobe PDF viewer to view this file.  If you do not have that you can get it here.

                    Benefits of Mitigation Banking

                    Mitigation banking has a number of advantages over traditional permittee-responsible compensatory mitigation because of the ability of mitigation banking programs to:
                    • Reduce uncertainty over whether the compensatory mitigation will be successful in offsetting project impacts;
                    • Assemble and apply extensive financial resources, planning, and scientific expertise not always available to many permittee-responsible compensatory mitigation proposals;
                    • Reduce permit processing times and provide more cost-effective compensatory mitigation opportunities; and
                    • Enable the efficient use of limited agency resources in the review and compliance monitoring of compensatory mitigation projects because of consolidation.
                    In its 2001 critique of compensatory mitigation, the National Research Council (NRC) concluded that third-party compensatory mitigation such as mitigation banks offer advantages over permittee-responsible mitigation in the fulfillment of regulatory goals.1  One such advantage identified by NRC is the consensus-driven, interagency review process used to approve banks.2  The 2002 National Mitigation Action Plan acknowledges that more expertise and collaboration should be brought to bear on the Section 404 mitigation process. The 2008 Corps/EPA compensatory mitigation regulations codify the consensus-based interagency review team approach endorsed by the NRC. NRC also noted that banks are more likely than traditional compensatory mitigation to achieve desired long-term outcomes and to create mitigation sites that are protected in perpetuity by organizations dedicated to resource conservation.3 Additionally, banking represents an increasingly important economic component of the environmental consulting sector, showcasing the synergies that can arise between effective environmental protection and economic expansion. Sixty two percent of the banks identified in ELI's 2002 study were privately-owned entrepreneurial mitigation banks; entrepreneurial providers of bank credits have emerged as a nationally-organized industry4 contributing hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the domestic product.

                    1 - NRC, 2001, Page 9
                    2 - NRC, 2001, Pages 82, 160-4.
                    3 - NRC, 2001, Page 163.
                    4 - National Mitigation Banking Association

                    The complete text of the NRC, 2001 Report titled 'Compensation for Wetland Losses Under the Clean Water Act' can be found here:
                    The following links might also be of interest:

                    United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Galveston

                    United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Galveston - Regulatory Branch

                    Final Rule: Compensatory Mitigation for Losses of Aquatic Resources

                    sdCopyright 2009 - Berg-Oliver Associates, Inc.