Browsing by Subject "compensatory mitigation"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    AN EVALUATION OF WETLAND COMPENSATORY MITIGATION IN THE NEW YORK GREAT LAKES BASIN
    (2006-12) Chin, Stephanie
    An ongoing priority for EPA’s Wetlands Program is to determine the effectiveness of compensatory mitigation at offsetting impacts to wetlands and meeting the goal of ‘no net loss’ of wetland functions. The Army Corps of Engineers is also tasked to ensure that required compensatory mitigation actions are being taken for impacts to waters of the United States under the Clean Water Act-Section 404 permit program. The purpose of this study was to provide information about the success of compensatory creation and restoration mitigation efforts for permitted impacts in the New York Great Lakes region of the Buffalo Corps District. A review of the District’s records was performed in order to identify where Section 404 wetland impacts have been occurring and to examine the extent to which wetland mitigation sites have been successful in terms of acreage achieved, established plant community type, and invasive species colonization. In addition, percent cover of invasive species at mitigation sites was examined against landscape setting to see whether this was related to success. A number of recommendations were made concerning possible improvements to permitting, data management, and mitigation project monitoring and reporting. At the onset of this study, data retrieval proved to be difficult because project files were often incomplete. At mitigation sites, a disproportionate amount of emergent and emergent/open water systems were proposed to replace scrub-shrub and forested communities. Thus, functional replacement may be unlikely in those cases. Percent cover of invasive species increased with urbanization, possibly reflecting effects of disturbance on fostering invasive plant species colonization. Success in obtaining no net wetland loss is reliant upon the ability to issue permits with conditions that ensure that functions are properly replaced, and also on continued follow up compliance monitoring of these mitigation projects.
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    Integrating Large-Scale Planning into Environmental Markets and Related Programs: Status and Trends
    (2017-03-01) Olander, Lydia; Young, Ben
    Building on earlier efforts, guidance from the federal government on mitigation for environmental impacts recommends the use of large-scale plans, preferably carried out in advance of impacts, to steer both development and mitigation. The idea is that advanced planning can improve site selection for proposed projects and increase the return on investment for mitigation while helping to provide greater predictability for project proponents, increase the efficiencies of project review, reduce permitting times, and support better environmental results. This paper explores progress in integrating large-scale, spatially explicit planning into environmental markets and programs in the United States. Through interviews with experts and review of the gray literature and government documents, it identifies examples of large-scale planning in these programs. It describes how the planning is guiding decisions about impact avoidance and compensatory mitigation, whether the planning is required or optional, and if the planning incorporates co-benefits or other regulatory-driven priorities. The assessed programs cover wetlands and streams, at-risk species, water quality, stormwater, greenhouse gases, and natural resource damages. They range from somewhat centrally planned programs in which spatially explicit planning is more common to distributed, market-based approaches in which such planning is less common. Large-scale planning appears to face few barriers to development and use, but its uptake may be limited by other factors like cost and time, uncertainty in the required spatial models, or insufficient proof of value. There has been little study of such planning’s investment return, environmental outcomes, or permitting time.
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    Trends in Measuring Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Mitigation Quantification Methodologies
    (2019-05-02) Zambello, Erika; Olander, Lydia; Glidden-Lyon, Emma; Meza, Emily; Wilkinson, Jessica
    Over the last decade, efforts to use compensatory mitigation to manage and ameliorate the impacts of development on biodiversity and ecosystems around the world have accelerated. Mitigation mechanisms provide a structured way to advance economic development and infrastructure while also achieving environmental goals. In order to operationalize mitigation programs, practitioners need a methodology for calculating or quantifying impacts and offsets (debits and credits). The methods currently employed in the U.S. and abroad are extremely varied. Surprisingly, the literature on best practices or standards for developing science-based approaches to the quantification of impacts and offsets is sparse and there is also no single broadly accepted best practice guidance. This paper analyzes a sample of quantification methods currently in use to identify the most commonly used metrics and methods for quantifying impacts and offsets and evaluate the degree to which these methods conform to existing guidance. We reviewed 43 mitigation quantification protocols to assess both “what” these methodologies were measuring (i.e., the metrics used to quantify impacts and offsets) and “how” they were measuring it (i.e., direct or in direct measures of ecosystem functions). Interestingly, we found no trends in “what” or “how” biodiversity and ecosystems have been measured over time and thus see no indication that these methodologies have been converging over the study period (1965 to 2014) on a common set of metrics and methods for quantifying impacts and offsets. This is an indication that information on best practices is poorly shared across different types of mitigation programs (e.g., species program to wetland program) and even within the same program types (e.g., wetland program to wetland program). When current measurement practices (both “what” and “how”) are compared to the limited best practices outlined in professional and academic literature, we also find that few of the protocols adhere to these existing recommendations. This is another indication that existing technical guidance on quantification methodology development is poorly shared or somehow falls short. We conclude that there would be great benefit to investing in the development of further science-based literature on and best practices for the development of robust, reasonably precise mitigation quantification methodologies. We also offer several recommendations for further academic research on the topic that we believe would help to improve the ability of mitigation programs to achieve conservation objectives. Ultimately, we hope that this analysis can inform the development and dissemination of robust best practice guidance and the adoption of quantification tools that reflect high standards for conservation.
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    Use of Preservation in North Carolina Wetland and Stream Mitigation
    (2017-03-27) Young, Ben; Olander, Lydia; Pickle, Amy
    To better protect the nation’s wetlands and streams, the Clean Water Act allows use of compensatory mitigation to replace the benefits of lost wetlands and streams. This study summarizes North Carolina’s use of preservation for compensatory mitigation by private mitigation banks and a state-operated in-lieu fee (ILF) program. Within private mitigation banks, preservation activities have generated 5.6% of wetland credits and 9.1% of stream credits since 2008. Within the state in-lieu fee program run by the Division of Mitigation Services, 45.0% of wetland credits and 6.2% of stream credits have resulted from preservation. However, a majority of the wetland credits generated by preservation in the ILF program came from one site described as unusually large by program staff. Since 2008, North Carolina’s ILF program and mitigation banks have continued to use preservation at relatively low rates for both wetland and stream mitigation. Mitigation providers have stated that the clarity of the state’s preservation policy makes it easier for preservation to be included in projects in North Carolina than in projects in some other states. Notably, between 2012 and 2015, no wetland preservation was used for mitigation by the ILF program.