The conference was opened by Robert Brumbaugh of the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). He chaired the workshop "A Mitigation Banking Primer" with HIS definition of mitigation: "Wetland restoration, creation, enhancement and, in exceptional circumstances, preservation."

The next three panelists gave their perspectives on WMB: Royal Gardner on the legal aspects of WMB, Lew Lautin on creating a WMB, and John Ryan, the fourth generation earth mover from the largest earth moving company in the US, on the mechanics of creating a WMB. Royal Gardner, a law professor, got my goat by opening his remarks with the "admission of bias towards wetland." His words remind me of the bumper sticker: "A bigot is a conservative who wins an argument with a liberal." My acceptability as a capable participant was questioned because some felt I could not have an open mind. Gardner explained the three step sequence required in mitigation: avoidance, minimization and compensation. First, the damage to a wetland must be avoided if at all possible. If avoidance is not possible, then the effects to the wetland must be minimized. If minimization is not possible, then compensation or mitigation must occur. This is a lengthy process, taking 3-5 years in some cases.

In his closing remarks Gardner said he expects the court to rule against the Corps in the Tulloch Case. This would take authority away from the Corps to regulate drainage ditch maintenance. If this becomes fact, Mr Gardner felt we will have no need for WMB. None of the mitigation bankers in attendance seemed too concerned.

Lew Lautin, a quick witted, charismatic speaker, is CEO of Florida Wetlands bank, a 355 acre wetland he bought for $1 million and has sold $17 million worth of wetland credits.

Lautin showed slides of the improvements. He spends $150,000 annually on monitoring. He moved all the topsoil, chopped all the unwanted melalucca trees with a giant weed eater mounted on a large track crane. It cost $1.5 million to get all of the permits. I could not help compare the cost of permitting to bribery by the tone that some used in talking of permitting.

Every mitigation banker mentioned the USFWS and Corps as adversarial in developing WMB.

Most mitigation bankers spoke against "fee in lieu of mitigation". When a developer needs to mitigate wetlands, he sometimes has the option to pay a "fee in lieu of" to the Corps. These fees are generally less than the cost of credits from a WMB. The Corps promises to mitigate the acres at a later date. In most cases, fees in lieu of have been "deposited in slush funds with no accountability and no subsequent improvements to wetlands." One speaker compared this to allowing the pitcher in a World Series to be his own umpire.

Some WMBers have needed eight signatures before receiving the permit to go ahead with a WMB. John Ryan talked about site selection for a WMB. He used the same definition and requirements of a wetland as the local NRCS office. I felt he wanted the NCRS to liberalize their definition of a wetland, especially concerning days water must be present.

Once a WMB is operational, it must be monitored for five years to guarantee the proper mix of vegetation. Then, the management is generally turned over to an interested agency such as the Corps, USFWS, Nature Conservancy, etc., along with a trust fund for maintenance into perpetuity. Maintenance was reported to cost from $1 per acre per year to as much as $10,000 per acre per year.

Those involved in WMB said the advantage of buying credits from a WMB, as opposed to doing your own mitigation, was the WMB assumes all risks and responsibilities to maintain the characteristic of the wetland. The person who buys WMB credits has no liability should a hurricane, tornado etc. destroy the mitigated acres.

Those who have tried to do their own mitigation have reported spending as much as $199,000 per acre (New Jersey DOT). The average price of mitigation credits in New Jersey is from $85,000 to $150,000 per credit (acre). Some hardwood wetlands in the south cost from $5 to $20 per square foot to restore.

We saw a video on the history of WMB. North Dakota made the show by having the first WMB. In 1975, ND DOT would create wetlands and sell them to the USFWS. A picture of WMB's in the US showed ND with 2 WMB's, one operated by the ND DOT and the second by no net loss. It was explained that with the repeal of no net loss, ND lost the authority to operate its WMB. Many outside the state (especially Ducks Unlimited and USFWS personnel) were well aware that ND had repealed no net loss. They became very quiet when I told them I supported the repeal.

Most involved in WMB said regulators (Corps and USFWS) were more apt to grant mitigation permits if the mitigated acres were "on site" and "in kind." On site would be geographically close to the destroyed acres and in kind refers to having similar biology to the destroyed acres.

Editor’s Note: Dennis made a thorough report of the conference. See the remainder of his comments next month.