EPA works on restoring wetlands
WASHINGTON (AP) - March 31, 2008 The approach, which emphasizes linking wetlands destruction and
replacement efforts across expansive watersheds, has been a
contentious issue since it was proposed two years ago.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers announced the regulation's final approval Monday, saying
it will help replace wetlands and streams that are unavoidably
destroyed or severely impacted in construction or other activities.
"It will accelerate our wetlands conservation effort by
establishing a more effective, consistent mitigation process,"
said Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for
water.
The regulation encourages expanded use of so-called "mitigation
banking" where a developer can obtain a permit to destroy a
wetland or stream if the developer agrees to invest in wetland
creation or enhancement elsewhere. This approach has resulted in
creation of businesses that specialize in wetlands creation for a
price.
While the regulation establishes standards for a number of
mitigation approaches for lost wetlands, it emphasizes a preference
for mitigation banking. "Sometimes you get greater ecological
success ... and increased watershed health by looking off site"
away from where a wetland is destroyed, Grumbles said in a
teleconference with reporters to announced the new rules.
But environmentalists worried the new mitigation policy could
encourage wetlands destruction and overall wetlands loss.
"There's nothing in here that says we're going to improve
mitigation. It's just going to be easier and cheaper," said Julie
Sibbing, a wetlands expert at the National Wildlife Federation.
"And the cheaper it is to mitigate, the more economic it is to buy
land that has wetlands on it and destroy them."
She said mitigation banking already is being used, but that the
new federal rule will make it difficult to argue that a developer
should be required to perform onsite mitigation instead. A wetland
often is important to a local ecosystem and "it doesn't help to
move it 100 miles away," said Sibbing.
With the new regulation, the business of wetland mitigation
banking is expected to prosper.
George Howard, who has such a business near Raleigh, N.C., said
"the vast amount" of mitigation banking involves not creating new
wetlands, but restoring wetlands that have disappeared. "There are
million of acres that have been ditched and drained for agriculture
that are no longer wetlands, but can be easily be restored,"
Howard said.
The National Academy of Sciences in a report has encouraged
development of watershed-wide mitigation programs and the EPA said
the report's recommendations were taken into account in the new
regulation.
"We do not feel there should be a preference for onsite
projects. There have been many onsite mitigation projects that have
failed," said Grumbles.
The EPA and Army Corps said the new rules will increase public
participation in the process and require increased monitoring of
mitigation projects.
Shortly before the new rule was proposed in 2006, the Government
Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, found that the
Army Corps could not ensure that 40,000 acres of wetland
restoration work, required annually, actually was being done.