A mitigation bank is a wetland, stream, or other aquatic resource that has been restored, enhanced, or preserved for the purpose of providing compensatory mitigation for unavoidable impacts to wetlands or other aquatic resources.

Mitigation banks have four components:

• Bank Site – The physical acreage restored, established, enhanced, ore preserved
• Banking Instrument – The formal agreement between the bank owners and regulators establishing liability, performance standards, management and monitoring requirements, and the terms of bank credit approval
• Inter-agency Review Team (IRT) – The inter-agency team that provides regulatory review, approval, and oversight of the bank
• Service Area – The geographic area in which permitted impacts can be compensated for at a given bank

The value of a bank is defined in “compensatory mitigation credits.” A bank’s instrument identifies the number of credits available for sale and requires the use of ecological assessment techniques to certify that those credits provide the required ecological functions. The 2008 federal rule on mitigation banking established a preference for using banks when appropriate credits are available.

If your development project is within the service area of Trillium, you may propose to offset unavoidable impacts to wetlands and other aquatic resources by purchasing mitigation bank credits. The proposal will need to be approved by the appropriate permitting agency, generally this will be the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District Regulatory

Trillium’s credits were generated by using two tools:  a functional assessment—Wetland Ecosystem Services Protocol for Southeast Alaska (WESPAK-SE) and the Credits or Functional Gain calculations in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Alaska District Credit Debit Methodology

The first step to determining how many credits to purchase is to work through the WESPAK-SE assessment to determine the baseline condition of each aquatic resource proposed for impact and the conditions of each aquatic resource with impact. The second step is to work through the calculations for the Debits or Functional Loss section of the Alaska Credit Debit Method to determine the number of debits needed to offset impacts to an aquatic resource.

For information on Trillium’s credit availability, please contact us.