89 



The Committee believes that wetlands protective legislation should incorporate a philosophy 

 that bases permit decisions on whether or not we can afford to lose a wetlands, not wheitner or not the 

 wetlands can be replaced This is an extension and endorsement of the current philosophy ("the 

 sequencing rules") of: 



1) encouraging wetland restoration whenever and wherever feasible and practical; 



2) minimizme detrimental impacts to wetland form and function when avoidance is not 



feasible or practical; and 



3) compensating detrimental impacts to wetland form and function when those occur. 



We also recommend expanded planning level assessment by state and federal agencies to: 



1 . Improve and standardize application of current knowledge applicable to wetland 



evaluation; 



2. Encourage multi-disciplinarv approaches to wetland protection/management; 



3. Encourage systems a^proacnes to wetland protection/management; 



4. Improve agency consistency in the wetlana permit review process: and, 



5. Provide advance warning of wetland areas inat will require extended review and 



mitigation. 



Because poor scientific understanding of wetlands and their functional values has been an 

 important contributing factor to conflicting attitudes and ambiguous approaches, we are convinced that 

 major new initiatives must be undertaken, requiring substantiul funoine from public and private 

 partnerships, to develop adequate knowledge upon which appropriate policies and regulations will be 

 founded. We simply lack the essential information to correctly place wetlands in the landscape and to 

 formulate a sound protection policy and implementing regulations. Consequently, a national wetland 

 policy must first provide financial resources to develop the requisite information base. 



MITIGATION 



Despite society's desire to protect remaining wetlands, some water-related projects arc 



impossible without impacting wetlands. Therefore, regulations require compensatory mitigation of 



velopment 



wetland impacts if the proposed development is approved. Compensatory mitigation has become a twil 

 that expands the regulators" role from a simple yes or no to one of negotiated oevelopmer 



Due to the broad sa)pe and manv interpretations of the term, we define 

 inKieation as: replncement of the ronn and runrlion of the wetland that will be 

 detrhnentully impucled. 



Inclusion of function is important since current mitigation is largely based on replacement of 

 wetland form, i.e., physical components of the impacted wetland. However, replacement of the major 

 components may or may not replace wetland functions depending upon specific functions, wetland 

 form, and spatial and temporal locations. 



Numerous compensatory mitigation projects have failed, and these failures are commonly cited 

 as reasons to deny the validity of the concept. IJnfortunately, existing information is often not used in 

 restoration, enhancement and creation projects Failure of many projects lies with the lack of, or 

 improper application of, existing knowledge. Too few developers employ experienced biologists in the 

 design, construction and operation of wetland projects and subsequent failures are predictable. 



Certain types of wetland - prairie potholes, midwcstern marshes, salt marshes and some 

 forested wetlands - have been successfully restored, enhanced and/or created, but our information on 

 other wetland ecosystems is rudimentary Similarly, our information on wetland ftinctional values 

 varies considerably. We have the ability to establish some life support functions - waterfowl, wetland 

 mammal, fish and limber production - but only limited information on many other biological products, 

 hydrologic buffering functions and water quality improvement functions. Our ability to replace 

 functional values is limited because of our poor understanding of these functions. 



Since compensatory mitigation projects attempting to create new wetlands have had widely 

 varying success rates and because opportunities for wetland restoration or enhancement are finite, 

 regulatory agencies should require natural wetland restoration or enhancement for mitigation rather 



