How States Are Streamlining Permitting for Ecological Restoration Projects
By Bailey Troth, Conservation Markets Intern
Wetland habitats are critical for biodiversity conservation. They feature a high concentration of plant and animal species and filter pollutants from water before it enters lakes and oceans. They also recharge aquifers by naturally slowing the course of rivers and streams. However, many of America’s wetlands have already been damaged or destroyed by human activity. Prior to European colonization, an estimated 220 million acres of wetlands covered 5% of what is now the contiguous United States. After four centuries of coastal development, shoreline hardening, and conversion to cropland, only 110 million acres remain.
Since the late 1980s, the U.S. government has made efforts to conserve what remains of these critical ecosystems. George H. W. Bush was the first president to call for “no net loss” of wetlands, a commitment reaffirmed by the subsequent Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers have worked towards this ambitious goal by establishing a nationwide permitting process under section 404 of the Clean Water Act for actions that impact federally regulated wetlands. The avoidance and mitigation of impacts to wetlands under this legislation reduced net wetland losses to 13,800 acres per year by 2009.
These efforts have also contributed to creating a $9.5 billion dollar ecological restoration economy. That economy includes both private mitigation bankers who fund restoration by selling mitigation credits to permittees and restoration NGOs who undertake voluntary restoration projects using federal grant funding and individual donations.
Permitting requirements for development and infrastructure projects are responsible for the success of the mitigation banking industry. However, one factor hampering the growth of voluntary restoration is the permitting and review process for restoration projects. Review processes designed to avoid environmental harms from development projects are poorly designed to assess projects that reverse environmental degradation. Restoration projects like dam removal and fish passage clearing may cause short-term damage to wetland and aquatic ecosystems and need to be based on good science to ensure they will achieve a positive long-term impact. But existing permitting mechanisms slow down projects that are urgently needed to enhance endangered species habitat and reverse the loss of wetland ecosystems. Permitting and review can consume as much as a third of public funding for a restoration project, so establishing permitting efficiencies for projects that enhance wetland habitats has the potential to free up resources for more restoration programs.
Some states are already making progress on efficient permitting for voluntary restoration projects. In California, the 2014 Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Act (Fish & G. Code §§ 1650-1657), as well as the State Water Control Board’s Section 401 General Order on Small Habitat Restoration Projects have already helped fasttrack important and innovative restoration projects. For instance, the Scott River Watershed Council’s beaver dam analogue projects, some of which took advantage of the HREA, have helped restore habitat for endangered coho salmon. Beaver dam analogues, pioneered in Oregon, are an innovative restoration strategy that uses artificial logjams to create the cool, still pools salmon need to spawn. Beavers then take over maintenance of the dams and develop complex wetlands that enhance water availability and groundwater recharge while creating fish passages and habitat.
The California Natural Resources Agency has built on this progress in permitting efficiency for voluntary habitat restoration through its recent Cutting Green Tape initiative, which convened a roundtable discussion between numerous parties involved in voluntary restoration work, including restoration NGOs, landowners, regulators, and tribal nations to expand the state’s expedited permitting mechanisms for restoration projects. Their recommendations included increasing the size and variety of projects that can be permitted under the HREA and 401 General Order. They also recommend the state create a single, online permit application shared across state agencies. This would help automate the recordkeeping process for agencies. If this paperless permitting system is implemented, restoration organizations will no longer have to restate the same information in different ways on multiple paper applications, a process which often involves hiring pricey consultants.
Ducks Unlimited, a major wetland restoration organization, has initiated a similar process of consultation between restoration organizations and state regulators regarding permitting efficiency in Michigan. DU championed two 2018 bills which created a separate permitting pathway for voluntary wetland restoration projects. These bills allow expedited permitting for projects which will result in a “functional uplift” of wetland services in altered, degraded, or former wetlands, easing the permitting process for restoration projects in Michigan. Additionally, the legislation creates working groups that include members of Ducks Unlimited and state regulatory agencies to continue improving Michigan’s permitting system.
Maryland’s Comprehensive Conservation Finance Act (SB0737), which unanimously passed Maryland’s Senate in March, would likewise help streamline permitting for habitat restoration projects in the Chesapeake Bay area. It would establish a Green and Blue Infrastructure Policy Advisory Commission made up of representatives from throughout the restoration sector, including private restoration companies, restoration non-profits, and state environmental agencies. The commission will consider, among other things, “ways to prioritize green and blue infrastructure projects through state permitting processes.” Green and blue infrastructure projects are efforts that enhance and restore natural features which provide critical ecosystem services, like wetlands.
Taken together these efforts to establish more efficient permitting mechanisms for habitat restoration projects provide good models of how restoration organizations, legislators, and regulators can work together to increase the pace and scale of restoration work. These changes will be needed to achieve America’s conservation goals, including “no net loss” of the nation’s wetlands.
A few recommendations for states that want to streamline restoration permitting include:
Legislators should advance bills to create separate permitting pathways for voluntary habitat restoration projects at both the state and federal level.
Regulators, restoration NGOs, landowners, and other stakeholders in restoration should form long-term working groups and advisory committees to establish and adaptively manage permitting efficiencies that enhance the speed and scale of restoration work.
Regulatory agencies should develop shared paperless permit applications to speed up the application process and reduce permit processing time.
