Mitigation Banking

What is a Mitigation Bank?

Mitigation banks handle the restoration, establishment, enhancement or preservation of wetlands, streams or other aquatic resources. The purpose is to provide compensation for unavoidable impacts to aquatic resources and is permitted under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.

While many banks only compensate for impacts to various wetland types, there have been banks developed to compensate for impacts to streams (i.e., stream mitigation banks.)

Mitigation banks have four components:

The Bank Site: The physical area to be restored, established, enhanced, or preserved.
The Bank Instrument: Agreement between the bank owner and regulators that establishes liability, performance standards, management and monitoring requirements, and the terms of bank credit approval.
The Interagency Review Team (IRT): A group of professionals from several different federal and state agencies that provide regulatory review, approval, and oversight of the bank.
The Service Area: Geographic area where the permitted impacts can be mitigated for.

A bank’s value is defined in “compensatory mitigation credits”. The bank’s instrument analyzes the number of credits available for sale and requires an ecological assessment to certify that the credits provide the required ecological functions.

More information on compensatory mitigation can be found in the EPA’s Compensatory Mitigation Fact Sheet.