Wetland Mitigation Banks in Boca Raton, FL

Mitigation banks in Boca Raton, FL, are the legal environmental surrogate entity enabling the authorized compensatory offset to adverse impacts to wetlands and other aquatic resources occasioned by private or public development or construction. Mitigation banking means the restoration, creation, enhancement, and, in exceptional circumstances, preservation of wetlands and/or other aquatic resources for the sole purpose of providing compensatory mitigation in advance of authorized impacts to similar resources.

The objective of a mitigation bank is to provide for the replacement of the chemical, physical, and biological functions of wetlands and other aquatic resources that are lost as a result of authorized impacts. Such authorized impacts commonly arise in connection with the development and construction of residential and commercial real estate projects or in the governmental sector, by the construction of roads, bridges, or other facilities or infrastructure projects.

Using appropriate methods, wetland mitigation “credits” are established for the substitution of actual wetland or aquatic resources impacted by construction and development activities, which are available to the mitigation bank sponsor or third parties to compensate for adverse impacts to wetlands (or “debits”).

Mitigation banks are established and governed in their operation by both federal and state law, which are administered and enforced by their respective governmental environmental regulatory bodies, including at the federal level, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and in Florida, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Mitigation banks provide greater flexibility to applicants needing to comply with requirements and can have several advantages over individual projects, including:

Advantages for maintaining the integrity of the aquatic ecosystem to consolidate compensatory mitigation into a single large parcel or contiguous parcels when ecologically appropriate;

Aggregation of financial resources, planning, and scientific expertise not practicable to many project-specific compensatory contexts, facilitating long-term management success, and maximization of contribution to biodiversity and/or watershed function;

Reduction of permit processing times and provision of more cost-effective compensatory mitigation opportunities for projects that qualify; and

Provision of implemented, functioning compensatory mitigation in advance of project impacts, reducing temporal losses of aquatic functions and uncertainty over the actual success of compensatory substitution of adverse resource impacts.

Mr. Lindley has assisted in the development of a large Florida wetland mitigation bank and provides insight into the challenges, operation, and availability of wetland mitigation credits.