Making the Most of the Billions Spent on Wetlands Mitigation

From the Nature Conservancy Press Release:

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has announced a grant of $185,000 over two years to The Nature Conservancy for the initial phase of a pilot project in partnership with the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The goal for this phase is twofold. First, it is to design, demonstrate, and test a methodology by which to implement the recently required watershed approach to the wetlands mitigation section of the Clean Water Act (Section 404). Second, it is to improve the alignment of mitigation sites with natural areas identified by the states as conservation priorities in their wildlife action plans.

The project will pay particularly close attention to the potential for mitigation projects to help the states conserve natural wetlands identified as conservation priorities in their wildlife action plans.

There are several recent, ongoing and planned wetlands mitigation projects in the Meadowlands. Will the results of this pilot project have any effect on our work here? We’ll be watching. By the way, if you’re interested in taking a look at the NJ Wildlife Action Plan, visit http://www.wildlifeactionplans.org/new_jersey.html.

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