Don't let a wetland project bog you down By SAMUEL R. CASNE Shannon & Wilson Several decades ago America became aware of the importance of its wetlands, and stiff legislation was adopted to protect our nation's swamps, marshes and bogs. As a result, today most developers know they'll have to do due diligence studies to determine if wetlands are present before starting any new construction. Development in wetland areas is sometimes allowed, provided that mitigation and monitoring are adequately performed. But the science of wetland mitigation and monitoring is still in its infancy. Confusion therefore exists about how best to define a "good" mitigation plan and verify its success. Here is an explanation of the problems that often arise, as well as a few tips for simultaneously satisfying the regulatory community, ensuring the long-term viability of the new wetland, and limiting responsibility to a reasonable cost and time period. Mitigation morass "Don't worry about the wetland. We'll just move it." People often make blanket statements like these without understanding possible environmental and geological limitations or the costs involved in wetland creation. In the formal sense, "mitigation" is the avoidance, reduction or minimization of wetland impact. "Compensatory mitigation" means creating a new wetland somewhere else, which can't be done just anywhere. There are good reasons why wetlands exist in nature where they do. Among other things, they require sufficient water and proper soil conditions. A dry, sandy field seven feet above the water table will not have sufficient water for a sedge marsh. The science ofwetland mitigation and monitoring is still in its infancy. Photo by Shannon & Wilson People also assume that mitigation and monitoring will be relatively easy and inexpensive. They forget that ideal conditions to sustain a wetland develop in nature over a long period of time. It is difficult to replicate them in a hurry. That is why permit conditions often require wetland mitigation monitoring and maintenance for five or more years, with mandatory contingency measures should the wetland "fail." When a monitoring plan is vague and success factors have not been adequately predetermined, the developer or owner can be liable for enormous costs long after the project was supposedly finished. The last thing you want is to find yourself rebuilding the mitigation site four years after you thought your obligations were completed. Here are four rules of thumb, which developers, contractors, architects and engineers can use to stay clear of potential wetland mitigation monitoring problems: Be proactive. Submit a wetland mitigation and monitoring plan with your permit application. Don't bury your head in the sand, hoping that the agencies involved will forget about your wetland mitigation and monitoring requirements, or draft a benign and easily met plan for you. They won't, and you'll be stuck with whatever they choose to give you. Remember that if you can't avoid impacting wetlands, you will have to mitigate. One great benefit of submitting your own mitigation and monitoring plan is that if it is well crafted, agencies typically approve it without change. Then you know in advance exactly what you will have to do to meet agency requirements, and you can allocate resources accordingly. In other words, you'll get a plan you understand, with specific criteria for success and a well-thought-out monitoring program. Get specific. Spell out the goals and objectives for your wetland-to-be. If your goal is to improve habitat, determine the exact habitat you mean. If it is green wing teal, say so. Or perhaps you mean great blue heron habitat. You may also want to specify whether you are including over-wintering or nesting habitat. Normally, you would try to create the same wetland functions that were lost due to your development. Better yet, you may decide to create habitat that once existed on or near the site, but has long been destroyed. The next step is to specify items to be monitored that will determine whether you met your goals. If the aim is to provide habitat for green wing teal over-wintering, then it would be a good idea to do duck counts between November and March -- much more meaningful than analyzing whether 80 percent of plants have survived. Be careful that the requirements you specify have parameters that are, in fact, measurable. Also, be aware of factors that might be outside of your control, such as acts of God or unseasonable weather patterns. If green wing teal nesting success is low, your November to March counts would also be low -- but not because the wetland failed. When considering water quality, don't just say that you intend to "improve" it. More appropriate goals might include exact measurements of dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH factors, muddiness (turbidity). All can be measured easily with instruments, and numerical values can be compared before and after development, as well as after mitigation. Think twice before adopting generic success criteria. Currently, some regulatory agencies use standard generic criteria to judge the success or failure of wetland mitigation projects. These generally are phrased something like, "There shall be at least 75 percent plant survival of woody species planted at the end of the first growing season." Or, "At the end of year two, success shall be based on a minimum of 80 percent cover of species representative of the area prior to construction." These generic criteria can be problematic. For example, we once planted willows to provide diversity to our wetland mitigation area. The willows thrived beyond our wildest expectations, making it impossible to count individual plants. Yet a count of individual willow plants was necessary to document 75 percent survival. The main glitch in adopting someone else's success criteria is that they may or may not overlap with the goals you had in mind at the outset. If you hope to preserve habitat for great blue herons, percentage of plant coverage may be a moot point. Or if the overriding vision is to re-establish duck habitat, you will want a certain area of open water rather than 80 percent plant cover. In cases like these, it makes sense to write your own criteria, to make sure that your goals will definitely be met. Avoid surprises. Read the fine print before you sign your permit, regardless of whether you've developed your own mitigation and monitoring plan. Often people are so overjoyed to get their permit that they forget to check the details, particularly with regard to monitoring requirements buried in the permit conditions. Later they are dismayed to learn about a very costly long-term commitment, which they have not budgeted for. The bottom line is that wetland mitigation is designed to recreate the functions and values lost when the original wetland area was lost. Monitoring makes sure that wetland goals are met. Neither of these can be cookie-cutter approaches, as each wetland mitigation poses unique challenges and opportunities. Neither can they be achieved with vague, qualitative descriptors. One way to ensure a successful wetland mitigation is to carefully determine both mitigation expectations and specific monitoring criteria in advance -- and then to appropriate adequate resources from the outset of the project to meet monitoring obligations. Samuel R. Casne, formerly with the King County Department of Natural Resources, is currently an associate and manager of the Natural Resource Group at Shannon & Wilson, a full-service environmental and geotechnical engineering consulting firm headquartered in Seattle.