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Contact: Lori Irving, 202-366-0660
FHWA 24-03
Federal
Agencies Advance Wetlands Protection and Transportation Goals
The
U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) today
joined with the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers to issue new guidance that will help ensure the effective replacement
of wetlands affected by Federal-aid highway projects and improve regulatory
decision-making in the permit process.
"We're
pleased to be part of fulfilling the first action item in the Bush
Administration's wetlands mitigation action plan that helps preserve the
environment," said FHWA Administrator Mary E. Peters.
"This guidance will lead to greater understanding between the
agencies and simplify the way we mitigate a project's impact on wetlands."
EPA
Assistant Administrator for Water, G. Tracy Mehan III, said, "This guidance
further supports market-based approaches to achieving the best environmental
results for aquatic resource protection."
"This
action is consistent with the Corps' Environmental Operating Principles,"
added Maj. Gen. Robert H. Griffin, Director of the Civil Works Program.
"The preference for mitigation banking ensures timely permit decisions.
This represents a win-win approach to balancing critical infrastructure
needs with the preservation of valuable aquatic resources."
The
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century established a preference for
mitigation banking to compensate for unavoidable losses to wetlands or other
natural habitat caused by transportation projects receiving federal assistance.
Mitigation
banking is a system for balancing wetland losses against wetland gains. In this
process, wetlands are restored, improved, or created by cooperative efforts,
usually with pooled funds - wetlands banking projects are eligible for federal
funding support. The "bank" holding the funds has an account manager -
often an inter-agency committee - that determines wetland "credits"
based on the quality or capacity of the newly-created or restored wetlands.
The
preference relates to the eligibility of federal-aid funds for wetland
compensatory mitigation under the National Highway System and the Surface
Transportation Program. The
guidance announced today will help agency field personnel and the sponsors of
federal-aid highway projects by clarifying the factors to be considered in
implementing that preference.
The
National Wetlands Mitigation Action Plan affirms the Bush Administration's
commitment to the goal of "no net loss" of the nation's wetlands.
It outlines a series of steps to be taken over three years to improve
mitigation site selection, ensure more effective performance monitoring, and
develop interagency mitigation databases which accurately reflect the
performance of compensatory mitigation sites.
The period for this series of steps began in December.
The
action plan focuses on achieving these objectives through the efforts of several
government programs, including the Clean Water Act Section 404 program and
various non-regulatory and private initiatives. The action plan also emphasizes a watershed approach to
mitigation based on replacement of impacted or lost aquatic functions and
values.
The
action plan commits the agencies to develop additional guidance to provide
better mitigation decisions, such as considerations for on-site instead of
off-site and in-kind instead of out-of-kind mitigation by the end of 2003, and
the appropriate use of vegetated buffers and preservation by 2004.
The
guidance, formally known as, "Federal Guidance on the Use of the TEA-21
Preference for Mitigation Banking to fulfill Mitigation Requirements under
Section 404 of the Clean Water Act," is available on the Federal Highway
Administration web site at: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/wetland/wet_guid.htm
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