Part II Just What IS Mitigation Banking?

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Well, it’s about water quality.

As mentioned in the previous blog post about mitigation banking, the primary purpose of banking is to maintain or even increase the water quality of our wetlands and streams.

Wetlands and streams are protected by the federal government in large part because they are nature’s means of helping filter our water. They provide balance to the earth’s ecology.

Brief History

The 1950s and ‘60s saw a growing awareness in the United States of people’s relationship to the environment. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was released, and the end of the ‘60s saw several pollution-related disasters, including the Cuyahoga River fire in Ohio, which occurred because of the tremendous amount of pollution dumped into the river.

The first Earth Day was in April 1970 and a spate of legislative action followed, including the Clean Water Act of 1972, which introduced the concept of “No Net Loss of Wetlands.”

Over the next 40 years, as laws were tested and refined and scientific understanding about how best to preserve and protect waters of the U.S. increased, mitigation banking began to stand out as the best means to preserve and protect both wetlands and streams while encouraging continued economic growth and development of roads and bridges, housing, energy infrastructure, etc.

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Fall-Off Creek Mitigation Bank

How do mitigation bankers restore wetlands and streams?

Restoring and preserving wetlands and streams is a complicated process that takes many years and careful monitoring. Mitigation bankers either preserve a wetland area or stream system or attempt to restore it to as close as possible to its original state.

For example, previously, the land for Fall Off Mitigation Bank had been used for grazing cattle and farming, which depleted the soil and affected the biodiversity of plant life in the area, thereby decreasing water quality. In restoring the bank, environmental scientists are working to eradicate non-native and invasive plants and animals and reintroduce native plants that increase water quality. The process will be monitored by the scientists and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over many years to confirm that the bank’s restoration process is effective.timeline2-poster-fb-01

Want to learn more?

To learn more about the history of mitigation banking, view our Mitigation Banking Timeline web pages or register to receive a free infographic that details how mitigation banking became the Gold Standard for offsetting unavoidable impacts to our wetlands and streams.

 

MSUSA Provides Sweet and Healthy Donation to Houston-Area Food Banks

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In advance of National Honey Bee Day, celebrated August 18, 2012, Mitigation Solutions USA donated nearly 200 pounds of natural honey to two worthy Houston-area organizations, the Houston Food Bank and Star of Hope Mission.

Both organizations feed the city’s hungry. The Houston Food Bank is the country’s largest size Feeding America food bank, feeding 137,000 different people each week. Star of Hope‘s mission expands beyond feeding the hungry, providing shelter and services to the homeless, many of whom are families in great need.

“The Houston Food Bank is not simply about providing food to people who are hungry, but giving these individuals nutritious, wholesome items as often as possible,” says Brian Greene, president/CEO of the Houston Food Bank. “As we all know, honey is naturally made and it has many health benefits, too.”

Local honey helps fight allergies, and because honey is full of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant that helps to protect cells, it is considered an immune booster. It also believed to aid in digestion and is a healthy way to sweeten our food and drink.

More about MSUSA’s Natural Honey

MSUSA’s honey donations originated from company president Terry McKenzie‘s own mitigation bank, Martin Creek. McKenzie explains the story of the honey:

“The honey that we donated was from bees that are usually brought down in November from North Dakota and spend the winter at Martin Creek Mitigation Bank  and head back to North Dakota in May. They travel by a large flatbed trailer with a fine mesh net covering the entire trailer.

“The honey is pure. Honey is graded on color; the lighter the color the better. MSUSA’s Natural Honey is one of the lightest graded honeys you will find.”

“MSUSA truly hopes the individuals and families who receive our honey enjoy the sweet addition to their pantries,” says MSUSA Marketing Manager Lisa Bricarell.

For more about Mitigation Solutions USA or MSUSA’s natural honey, please contact Lisa Bricarell. And don’t forget to celebrate National Honey Bee Day!

Just What IS Mitigation Banking? Part 1 in a Series

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Strategic Communications Advisor Yvonne Taylor has set out to help explain the complex world of mitigation banking to those interested in knowing more through a blog series on MSUSA’s site. The following is the first in a series.

Last year, I visited Mass Audobon Society’s Boston Nature Center as part of an artists’ retreat. The site was beautiful and near pristine. Another member of the retreat (not affiliated with the Society), however, lamented that the Society had allowed construction of modern buildings on the site. And as we watched a yellow and black construction digger move precious dirt, she commented, “This type of development is what your industry [mitigation banking] allows people to do to the land. Maybe your time here will help change your mind about what you do for a living.”

Of course, her comment betrayed her lack of understanding about what mitigation banking is and does, but as my background is that of a writer and not an environmental scientist, I simply smiled politely and asked about the specifics of the artists’ retreat.

Yet her comment and attitude stayed with me. As I’ve worked in the industry as a communicator in support of a company that markets and sells wetland and stream credits. I have frequently run into lack of awareness, confusion, ignorance, and, at rare times, downright hostility.

I believe many reasons exist for the lack of understanding and ignorance, but the biggest one, when it comes to the general public, is an incomplete understanding of nature and our relationship to it.

Again, I’m an English major, not an environmental scientist, but I believe that my perspective as a nonscientist may help provide a layman’s perspective on the industry. As I’ve come to understand more about mitigation banking and am asked about it frequently, I feel compelled to help explain the enormous good that it does, its positive impact on the environment, and reasons John Q Public should care.

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Fall Off Creek Mitigation Bank

Fall Off Creek Mitigation Bank

For the purposes of this blog series, I’m going to use Fall Off Creek Mitigation Bank as my main example. Fall Off Creek is a newly permitted stream bank located just a bit northeast of Ft. Hood, Texas. It’s a picturesque property that abuts the Leon River and is located in a gorgeous slice of North Central Texas.

Fall Off Creek has an interesting history. Once owned by Texas Governer Pat Neff, it’s a few miles up SH36 from Mother Neff State Park, the first state park in Texas.

The 600+ acres of Fall Off Creek were primarily used as agricultural land–in particular, as cattle grazing land. Cattle fed on the Bermuda and native Buffalo grasses under a more than century-old pecan grove near the Leon. The grove still produces enough pecans to generate a sizable profit.

Flora and fauna at Fall Off Creek

Fall Off Creek is surrounded by similar plots of land used for similar purposes. Land owners produce crops and graze cattle, providing us humans with our necessary food supply and pastoral, bucolic views from peaceful Texas roads.

From the layman’s eyes, this is as it should be. Before my entry into the world of mitigation banking, I saw this as the natural order of things. And such land usages are vital to supplying us with our food supply. But both single-crop farming, such as the rice farms that dot the roadsides of Liberty county and overgrazing of cattle have detrimental effects over time to the soil, plant life, and biodiversity of a given piece of land.

Biodiversity and Water Quality

And that biodiversity matters. Over time, the single-crop style of farming can deplete nutrients from the soil, leading to decreased soil quality, rendering the land incapable of sustaining crops. Consistent grazing of land can decimate plants the cattle feed on and increase other non-native or invasive plant types, such as prickly pear cactus, juniper, and King Ranch bluestem.

As these hardy plants increase, the native plants disappear. Their disappearance is not only a problem for cattle, it’s a problem for our water quality. And its the water quality that mitigation banking serves to protect and restore.

The Falls at Fall Off Creek Mitigation Bank

Stay tuned for the next blog entry that will discuss how the the delicate ecosystem of wetlands and streams affect our water quality and what mitigation bankers to do preserve and restore those systems.