Published January 2006

‘Wetland bank’ open
for business in south county

SCBJ Staff

A new wetland restoration project in Snohomish County will serve as the first “wetland bank” approved by state, local and federal agencies under a Department of Ecology pilot wetland mitigation bank program, the state agency announced in December.

The special land bank owned by Habitat Bank LLC will enable developers whose projects require wetland mitigation to buy “credits” in existing wetland restoration projects instead of doing the specialized work on their own.

Department of Ecology Director Jay Manning and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Debra Lewis recently approved a memorandum of agreement with Habitat Bank for a 225-acre project located near the Snoqualmie River just north of the King County line. The privately funded project is open for business.

“I am very excited about wetland banking,” Manning said in a news release. “It holds great promise as a way to improve our ability to protect wetlands, which are critically important to the environment in which we live. Equally exciting is the fact that wetland banking provides a less costly, faster and more predictable process for people to follow in developing their property.”

Developers of certain smaller tracts in nearby locations will have the option of buying “credits” to set aside some of the bank’s wetland to satisfy their own obligations to mitigate — or offset — the loss of wetlands resulting from their developments.

The Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will manage the bank by determining how many acre-credits a qualifying project will have available and by allocating credits to developers. Habitat Bank will set prices for the credits.

The two agencies have allocated 163.1 credits for the 225 acres in Habitat Bank’s project, the agencies said.

To create the wetland bank, Habitat Bank purchased a former Snohomish County farm, which lost its wetland character when it its owners drained it decades ago. The company restored the property — in cooperation with the Department of Ecology, the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies — as a wetland that benefits fish and wildlife, water quality, natural flood control and other important environmental functions.

A study released by the Department of Ecology in 2002 found that most projects intended to replace lost wetlands fail, often due to poor placement and a lack of maintenance. The Department of Ecology, the Army Corps of Engineers and developers have promoted wetland mitigation banking as one tool for improving wetland permitting. In 2004, the state Legislature authorized a pilot project to establish and test criteria for wetland banks.

Snohomish County, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Natural Resources joined the Department of Ecology and the Army Corps of Engineers in reviewing the project.

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