Mitigation banking essays

Mitigation banking essays Now more than ever the wetlands need our help and Mitigation is the way to do it. As America expands, more and more land is used up for construction. Recently environmental protection laws designed to preserve wetlands have been seem as cumbersome and can impede on land development. To help businesses get around environmental laws and continue to build, Mitigation Banking systems have been set up to ensure no net loss of wetlands. When a company wants to destroy an area of wetlands, they are now able to purchase wetland credits from a mitigation bank or other organization that protect or restore pieces of wetland (1). The credits purchased represent an amount of wetland. The credits bought must be of equal or greater acreage than intended to be destroyed in order to insure no net loss of wetlands. The purchases wetland areas can turn up in many different ways. The credits can go towards many styles of wetlands. They can be used to restore, rehabilitate, create, or moved wetl ands. Rehabilitation is often times the most expensive as well as most difficult, but when completed will reap the largest benefits. Rehabilitated wetlands often make the best filtration for reducing contaminate levels such as phosphate. Restoration is the act of taking dry or degraded wetlands and restoring them to their natural condition by raising the water level and reestablishing dominate plants. Both contribute to creating the natural wetland that once was. There still may be a problem with restoration or rehabilitation. Often time there is extremely high levels of contaminates, so high that it does not make sense environmentally of economically to help the wetlands. In these cases the wetlands are filled in and used for construction sites. Another alternative is moving a wetland area from one area to another. These areas are easily manipulated to represent the natural wetlands almost exactly. In Tampa, Florida, Steve Dibbs successfully mov...