Florida’s Water Quality Enhancement Areas: What the New ERP Rule Means for Developers and Consultants
Understanding the process of obtaining authorization for wetland mitigation is crucial for any development project.
The process starts with obtaining an environmental consultant who will conduct a wetland delineation, identifying potential impacts to wetlands based on your site plan. Each wetland will be marked as an individual polygon if multiple wetland impacts exist.
It’s important to note that you only need to purchase wetland mitigation credits for direct and secondary impacts, not for the entire site.
The quality and current conditions of the wetland will be evaluated. If the wetland is high quality, more credits will be required compared to a low-quality wetland. This assessment is vital for estimating the number of mitigation credits needed and the associated costs for purchasing them.
Once the necessary credits are established, the environmental consultant will submit an application to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Water Management District (WMD), and/or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to request authorization for the wetland impact (functional loss) and replacement with the proposed wetland mitigation credits (functional gain). This process ensures a no-net loss of wetlands.
Once the wetland mitigation credits required are established, the applicant will obtain wetland mitigation credits from a wetland mitigation bank within the same drainage basin, watershed and/or HUC code.
Depending on which watershed your property is located in determines which wetland mitigation banks you are eligible to purchase credits from.
Depending on the location, there may be 1 wetland mitigation bank option, 7 mitigation bank options, or no available wetland mitigation banks within the same watershed; and/or anything in between.
Pricing and Availability are unique to each wetland mitigation bank.
For more information, please contact me at victoria@mitigationbankinginc.com
