July 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 43

ity rather than just paying an in-lieu
fee for outright destruction of aquatic
resources during their project. Finally,
parks are great stewards of conservation lands. Public park and recreation
agencies have an excellent track record
of long-term, conservation-focused
land ownership, and parks agencies
are highly likely to honor commitments for perpetual conservation as
required for mitigation banks.
What Makes a Good Mitigation Bank
It is a maxim of Don Seaborn, a principal of Angler Environmental, that,
" A good environmental restoration
project does not necessarily make a
good mitigation bank. " Many factors
determine an ideal mitigation bank
site, not just the need for stream restoration. Optimal stream mitigation
bank sites are not likely to be found
on rivers or large tributary streams,
mostly because the regulatory agencies prefer " in-kind " mitigation, i.e.,
the streams that are restored in banks
should be similar in size and in type
to those that were originally impacted,
and larger tributaries or river sites are
less likely to gain regulatory approval.
In addition, economic demand
plays a part as well. The most successful banks are usually located relatively near the impact areas that they
are intended to mitigate. However,
highly urbanized areas may not be
best candidates to qualify for mitigation projects since they have so many
prior restrictions on land use, such as
utility easements, and they lack the
required land for buffers.
Nonetheless, however attractive the
idea of mitigation banks might be to
many park and recreation agencies,
we found during the rollout of the pilot project that not all agencies were
as equally interested in pursuing the
idea of a stream mitigation bank in
their parks, even though they might
have had excellent candidates for

bank sites and many needs for restoration. For some, the bar might have
been too high to enter into a mitigation banking agreement through a
complex public/private partnership
agreement, and at least one agency
thought that their appointed or elected governing boards might not be
willing to approve perpetual conservation easements on their parklands.
Other agencies had no problems with
the idea of permanent conservation
easements, and said they regularly
placed easements on their highest value natural parks to ensure long-term
protection. One agency indicated the
potential revenue from credit sales
was not their highest priority and, in
fact, they might not even want direct
revenues. Instead, because they had
so many restoration needs in their
park system, they wanted proceeds
from credit sales to go toward more
restoration work to repair environmentally damaged streams.
Procurement has proved to be a
thorny issue for public-private banks.
Virtually all public agencies must follow specific procedures for contracting, including issuing formal requests
for proposals and awarding contracts
to the lowest qualified bidder, a procurement process that may not necessarily achieve the best results for
highly specialized environmental
restoration in sensitive natural areas.
Nonetheless, there are solid solutions
to procurement challenges, as the
Prince William Environmental Bank
has demonstrated, and which other
agencies in the Parks for Mitigation
pilot program are proving as well.
Some established mitigation bankers claim that mitigation banks on
public lands appear to be giving bank
sponsors an unfair advantage because
the land on which the bank sits was
paid for by taxpayer funds rather than
purchased from a private landowner.
This has not proven to be the case.

Whether a bank is on private land
or public land, the bank sponsor is
a private, independent entity who is
taking the same risks and investing
the same capital they would as if the
land were owned privately. The bank
sponsor takes the risk and reaps the
rewards, whether the bank is on private land or public land.
Next Steps, New Opportunities
At the 2013 National Mitigation and
Ecosystem Banking conference in
New Orleans this May, more than
175 people attended a session on
Parks for Mitigation, and the incredible amount of questions during the
session confirmed the keen interest
on the part of mitigation bankers,
financial institutions, regulators and
public-agency personnel about the
exciting prospects of stream mitigation banks in parks.
While the pilot continues, NRPA
will use the knowledge gained from
on-the-ground experiences to develop tools and resources for the field of
parks and recreation, and to provide
these resources to NRPA members
and agencies who are interested in
mitigation banking.
If your agency may be interested
in mitigation banking, mark your
calendar and make plans to attend a
session at the 2013 Congress on the
Parks for Mitigation program titled
" Mitigation Banking: Promote Conservation and Produce Revenue for
Parks, " on Tuesday, October 8, 4:45-
5:30 p.m.; check the final Congress
program for room location.
As Debbie Andrew of Prince William County says about her five years
of experience with the Prince William
Environmental Bank so far, " This is
important work. You really see what
a difference you can make. "
Richard J. Dolesh is NRPA's Vice President of
Conservation and Parks (rdolesh@nrpa.org).

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