Wetland mitigation is the rebuilding or enhancing or wetland areas in order to preserve the wetland resources of an area and offset the impact of development in the area. This is required by Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and enforced by the Army Corps of Engineers. Usually the mitigation involves the replacement of wetland functions such as water quality, habitat, and hydrologic functions. Mitigation plans are designed to provide for wetland attenuation, water quality improvement, erosion control, and habitat restoration and enhancement for sensitive or endangered species. The Corps operates under the guidelines that the acreage amount of compensatory mitigation is equal to the acreage lost due to development.
7Q10 has worked on many wetland construction projects, as well as the monitoring of the completed mitigation wetlands. They have successfully guided clients through the regulatory process and into the construction, implementation and monitoring of constructed wetland systems. Their close connection with engineering firms, such as Chow Engineering, Inc. allows them crucial insight into projects and enables them to find cost effective solutions for developers.
More recently, a new option for providing required wetland mitigation has been made available called wetland banking. The Army Corps of Engineers defines wetland banking as “wetland restoration, creation, enhancement, and in exceptional circumstances, preservation undertaken expressly for the purpose of compensating for unavoidable wetland losses in advances of development actions, when such compensation cannot be achieved at the development site or would not be as environmentally beneficial.” This involves a developer providing wetland mitigation away from the development site and gaining “credit” for future projects. By allowing this, one benefit is that many small wetland on-site projects can be joined together to provide a large wetland area with all the benefits of a larger size. Developers also have more flexibility in their planning since the land they wish to develop does not have to be interrupted by small patches of wetland areas.