New Wetland Rules Favor Off-Site Mitigation

compensatory mitigation, were recently consolidated and updated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers. The update favors use of

mitigation banks, wetlands that have been restored and had credits assigned to their ecological functions. Developers purchase these credits to offset the ecological damage of their projects. EPA and the Army Corps claim that this approach should improve the success and verification of wetland mitigation, since credits are assigned only after a mitigation project is complete. They also argue that the approach allows regions to consider an entire watershed, rather than looking at water quality on a site-by-site basis. Some environmental groups, however, claim that the new rules make it more difficult to promote onsite mitigation projects, which keep the ecological functions of a wetland in the same place. More information on the rules is available at www.epa.gov/wetlandsmitigation/.