Innovative Approaches for Port-Led Advance Mitigation and Mitigation Banking

As landowners and lessors, ports are in a unique position to select and dedicate sites for wetland and fish and wildlife habitat mitigation. To avoid project delays associated with project-by-project mitigation, more ports are choosing to conduct advance mitigation or construct mitigation banks to proactively address mitigation needs for future development projects. Mitigation planning in advance of habitat impacts requires outreach and negotiation with regulatory agencies to agree on the number and type of credits generated from ecological improvements and the type of development actions eligible under the program. Some ports have elected to develop umbrella mitigation banks that provide Clean Water Act (CWA) mitigation and Endangered Species Act (ESA) Section 7 habitat conservation credits across a range of habitat types for sale, while other ports are planning advance mitigation programs to reserve credits for their own use. These options can provide significantly reduced costs for mitigation and have the potential to generate revenue. This paper will review factors for planning and implementing advance mitigation and mitigation banking and will provide recent examples of port-led programs.