(Washington, DC) — Last spring, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued revised regulations governing compensatory mitigation for authorized impacts to wetlands, streams, and other waters of the United States under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. These regulations, which went into effect in June, are intended to improve the effectiveness of compensatory mitigation to replace lost aquatic resource functions and area, expand public participation in compensatory mitigation decisionmaking, and increase the efficiency and predictability of the mitigation project review process. The July-August issue of the National Wetlands Newsletter examines the new rules through a variety of perspectives—the agencies, a wetland mitigation banker, and environmental advocates. A related article looks at trends in the entrepreneurial wetland banking markets of Chicago and Minnesota and offers insight as to how the new rules may impact banking in the future.
“Compensatory wetland mitigation accounts for a significant annual investment in habitat restoration and protection, amounting to nearly $3 billion annually in public and private dollars,” said NWN editor Rachel Jean-Baptiste. “Understanding how the new rule works is therefore pivotal to those in the wetlands field.”
The July-August issue also offers a preview on an upcoming report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the status and trends of coastal wetlands. Also included is an article that examines how climate change impacts coastal waters suffering from hypoxia.
For three decades, the nationally recognized National Wetlands Newsletter has been a widely read and esteemed journal on wetlands, floodplains, and coastal water resources. The Newsletter, published by the highly respected Environmental Law Institute®, analyzes the latest issues in wetland regulation, policy, science, and management through feature articles written by local, national, and international experts from a variety of perspectives.