Recognizing the importance of wetland protection, in 1988 the H.W. Bush Administration endorsed the goal of “no net loss” for U.S. wetlands. Specifically, it directed that the filling of wetlands should be avoided, or minimized when it cannot be avoided. It further directed that where impacts are permitted, compensatory mitigation must be undertaken; that is, specific types of wetlands must be restored, created, enhanced, and preserved, to replace the permitted loss of the type of wetland, in area and function, such as water quality improvement within the watershed.
Unfortunately, despite all that has been learned under the Clean Water Act about the true costs of our nation’s ongoing wetland losses, some in the environmental restoration industry are currently insisting on reinvigorating a tried and failed idea. Some are suggesting we simply roll back the clock and forget everything we’ve learned about the success of high quality advance mitigation for unavoidable impacts – and the epic failures of permittee-responsible mitigation (PRM). >See Example via Tracking by Industry Watchdog – National Environmental Banking Association
In 2001 a widely-publicized report was issued assessing our national commitment to the goal of “no net loss” for wetlands. Among its findings, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report revealed that compensatory mitigation efforts (largely permittee-responsible mitigation projects) were failing due to technical, programmatic, and other reasons. Dozens of recommendations aimed at redressing the failures were outlined by the report. Ultimately those recommendations drove and guided the creation and subsequent implementation of the 2008 Mitigation Rule.
The idea that we should move backwards either by diminishing environmental performance standards for mitigation projects, or by reverting to the use of permittee-responsible mitigation given its long-proven failures, is to simply insist that we’ve learned nothing from history. This is why Trout Headwaters believes strongly that such restoration industry ‘amnesia’ or other misguided efforts to roll-back mitigation standards will only result in greater damage and impact to the very clean water on which all development, industry, agriculture and wildlife depend.
