Concerns expressed by the team and answered by our discussions include: \ 



• Skepticism that wedand restoration techniques can fully restore ail weUand functions 

 and values. The team recogiuzed early that the state-of-the-art of wetiand creation is 

 more ait than science. Projects in-place and on-the-ground can be better evaluated than 

 the promise offered by plans for mitigation. 



• Concern that a wedand bank will be perceived as "buying" a §404 permit. The team 

 agreed the purchase of existing wetlands or the establishment of a fund for other 

 agencies to create wetlands was not acceptable. 



• Skepticism of wetiand banking at higher levels in the bureaucracy. A "ghost" policy 

 at the headquarters office of a federal resource agency briefly prevented the agency 

 fix>m signing an agreement. This policy discourages the development and use of 

 wetiand banks. I^ocal agency personnel call this a "ghost" policy because although it 

 appears real, there is no document which describes it 



• Disagreement on who is responsible for financing operation and maintenance of 

 wetiand banks. Federal Highway Administration policy prohibits state transportation 

 agencies from using federal dollars for operation and maintenance of roadway projects, 

 including wetiand banks. State monies are sparse. A trade of Habitat Evaluation 

 Procedure (HEP) credits rather than dollar currency is a possible solution to this 

 problem. 



• Concern that there is a need for change in agency policy to make wedand banking 

 work- Specifically, a change in the mitigation policies of the US Fish and Wildlife 



Service and the Environmental Protection Agency that describe in-kind, on-site ^ 



mitigation as most desirable. r 



• And finally, different concepts among agency personnel of what is wetiand banking? 



WHAT IS WETLAND BANKING? 

 The team envisions wetland banking as the offsite creation, restoration, or enhancement of wetiands to 

 compensate for unavoidable impacts of constructing, operating, and maintaining roads by the Idaho 

 Transportation Department (ITD). The practice enters the gray zone of US Envirormiental Protection 

 Agaicy and US Fish and Wildlife Service mitigation policies in that wetiand bank sites may be distant 

 from an impacted wetland. ^ 



Wetland banking has been used inftcquentiy in few states to mitigate for the impacts of a single project 

 or to compensate for minor wedand losses. However, the Idaho effort is the first to enlarge the scope 

 of wetiand banking to an entire state and to all the activities of a single agency. 



WHY CHANGE PRESENT PRACTICE? 

 E.0. 1 1990 - Protection of Wetiands delivered a message to die Idaho Transportation Department and 

 other development agencies that wetlands arc of national importance. Idaho Transportation Department 

 activities in wetiantS are scrutinized by federal and state resource and regulatory agencies, and the 

 Federal Highway Administration. 



Resistance to promulgated rules and regitiations resulting from E.O. 11990 caused conflicts with 

 regulatory and resource agencies, and delay in project approvals. Time is money in the highway 

 business. It is the need for greater efficiency, and not empathy for the resource, that likely encouraged 

 the Department to change their way of doing business. 



Historically, mitigation has not been required by the regulatory agencies for wetiands impacted by (^ 

 some roadway projeas. This, and the finstration of negotiating a reasonable mitigation plan but seeing 



