 |
|
 |
| ||
|
Wetland Credits & Debits
A concept paper proposing creation of a wetland mitigation banking system has got enviros worried, business excited, and biologists and regulators close-mouthed. The paper, floated by Will Travis of the S.F. Bay Commission and now making informal rounds for comments, is a bold if highly controversial attempt to improve a current and not very successful mitigation system in which builders and developers who destroy wetlands must replace them.
"Developers only do restoration because they have to-they aren't really interested in it and don't do a good job of maintaining the restoration sites," says Travis. "The idea of this system is to create an environment where a new type of entrepreneur, who's interested in restoration and can develop expertise in it and do it well, can make a profit by restoring and protecting wetlands instead of developing them."
Under the system, restoration experts could purchase degraded Bay wetlands, restore them, and then sell "mitigation credit certificates" to developers at a price set by the free market. The developers in turn could satisfy any mitigation requirements by delivering the required number and type of certificates to the appropriate regulatory agency. Under the current proposal, at least two acres of wetland would have to be created for each acre of mitigation credit issued. Because the credits represent mitigation that has already occurred rather than that which is merely planned or prescribed, the environment always comes out ahead, says Travis. Mitigation banks would typically be larger and moreecologically productive than the "postage stamp" wetlands created to mitigate the damages from individual parcels.
"Even if it's two for one, you still lose one, " says Audubon Society's Arthur Feinstein who is preparing a ten point comment letter on the concept paper. "Unless it was limited to small fills, a banking system would ultimately facilitate wetland development and lead to a net loss." Save the Bay's Mark Holmes agrees, saying "The idea probably has merit if it is limited to the kinds of small projects-say less than half an acre-for which mitigation has typically not been required and that have caused big cumulative losses over the years." Indeed limiting banking to small fills is a criteria for banking adopted by regional consensus inthe S.F. Estuary Project's 1993 Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for the Bay and Delta.
While environmentalists would like to carefully rein in any new mitigation banking system, business would like to open up the throttle and let it rip. "Frankly, we've been waiting for something like this for a longtime," says Paul Campos of the Home Builders Association of Northern California. "We would like to see mitigation banks be the first rather than the last resort," he says. But Travis' concept paper does not throw out the existing checks and balances on a mitigation love-in. His concept system would still avoid wetland destruction wherever possible, minimize it where it is not, and mitigate it on-site and in-kind whenever feasible.
California's Secretaries for Resources and Environmental Protection have endorsed Travis' concept but other state and federal agencies, as well as wetland scientists considered key to assessing the true biological gains versus losses of any such system, declined to comment for this article. "Right now it's really a thought piece," says Travis. "We want to keep the dialogue going to see if we can reach a consensus on how we might implement a system like this," he says. For a copy of the concept paper, contact Will Travis at (415)557-8775.
[ ABAG HOME | SFEP HOME ]
Copyright © 2002, San Francisco Estuary Project