Mitigation banks continue to support much-needed offset for unavoidable impacts to our Nation’s streams, but are we deploying the best methods for restoration of stream banks and enhancement of riparian areas?
According to the 2008 Mitigation Rule, All restoration and/or enhancement measures should be designed with the goal of improving integrity, habitat, and water quality using the most passive, least invasive techniques available.
In places like the Upper Yellowstone River watershed in Montana and elsewhere across the U.S., increasing flood frequency and duration are causing traditional bank stabilization and rechannelization efforts to fail wholly and catastrophically.
Yellowstone River
NEBA member, Trout Headwaters, Inc. (THI) recently published an article describing one example of a proven approach to reducing excess streambank erosion and restoring stream buffers that is lower-cost, lower-risk, and sustainable.
The Effects of Hardening the Artery – Rivers and Riprap by THI
A newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report is shining a spotlight on a concern many in the mitigation banking industry have raised for years: inconsistent implementation of the federal compensatory mitigation program across U.S. Army Corps of Engineers districts. Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, the Corps requires compensatory mitigation when permitted
Read MoreFor too long, environmental policy debates have been framed around a false and unproductive premise: that economic growth and environmental protection are inherently at odds. This mindset is not only outdated—it is actively harmful to both outcomes. Mitigation banking offers a clear path forward. By design, it aligns economic incentives with ecological restoration, proving that well-functioning
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