Blogs

Mitigation Management is excited to release its National Market Update for 2011.  Many interesting trends were identified in this issue and we look forward to receiving feedback from other practitioners around the country.

Attachment: 

2011 National Update.pdf

Mitigation Management is excited to annouce that we will be acting as the exclusive sales agent for the Patriots Pride mitigation bank.  This bank is in the final stages of the banking instrument approval process and is anticipated to generate 104,650 stream credits in the Altamaha river basin.
 
For additional information please reference the attached service area map.  For pricing and availability, please contact us or use our "request a quote" feature.

Attachment: 

patriots_pride_flyer.pdf

Mitigation Management is excited to announce that we are acting as the exclusive sales agent for the Ogeechee River mitigation bank.  This bank has 39.61 remaining and available wetland credits.  These credits have been authorizied to offset unavoidable impacts to freshwater tidal wetlands.
 
For additional information, please reference the attached service area map.  For availability and pricing please contact us or use our "request a quote" feature.

Attachment: 

ogeechee_river_flyer.pdf

On November 10, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control's (SCDHEC) Board of Directors unanimously approved a compromise with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Georgia Ports Authority for a permit to dredge the Savannah River.
 
In denying a permit to the project in September, the South Carolina agency expressed concerns about the potential environmental effects of deepening a 38-mile stretch of the Savannah River, which the two states share, from 42 feet to 48 feet.

The compromise approved Thursday came with several environmental mitigation commitments by Georgia, including maintenance of equipment the Corps will install to inject oxygen into the river and preservation of an additional 1,500 acres of wetlands.
 
Following the approval of the permit, conservation lawyers filed a legal challenge in early December with the South Carolina Administrative Law Court. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) alleges SCDHEC acted improperly in granting permits. They claim the agency's board changed course and approved the permits after SC Governor, Nikki Haley, met with GA Governor, Nathan Deal. The SELC feels that the project fails to meet the legal benchmarks that protect South Carolina's valuable environment from unnecessary destruction. 
 
To read further into this ongoing dispute, click here and here. 

The Georgia Water Supply Task Force submitted its final report to Governor Nathan Deal on December 14. The committee called for dividing $300 million the governor is requesting from the General Assembly during the next four years for water supply projects into $100 million in direct state investment and $200 million in low-interest loans to local governments.

The state's task force wants to spend $300 million that Deal has promised to expand water supply by building multi-million reservoirs, reopening inactive wells or drilling new wells. The state should offer loans to cities and towns for such projects, the task force said.
 
Critics of the state's plan say existing water systems should be made more efficient first before the state puts money into building new reservoirs. The panel’s plan left out water conservation and efficiency projects.
 
The water plan recommendations were open to the public for comment from November 14 to December 5. 
 
To read more about the plan, click here or visit the task force's website to see the plan and review the public comments.
 

Flanked by drilling rigs and pipelines, many of the wetlands feeding into the Sabine River in East Texas have been damaged by energy companies trying to extract gas from the Haynesville/Bossier Shale formation. The boom in shale oil and gas has offered salvation to mitigation banks, which have been battered by the housing bust, as many commercial and residential developments that might have needed mitigation were put on hold.
 
Last year the Army Corps approved 104 new banks, up 17 percent from 2009, for a total of 975 today. Of those new banks, 23 percent were in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. In states with little oil and gas drilling, some mitigation banks have struggled to stay afloat. Other banks see an opportunity in the turmoil of the housing market. 
 
Ecosystem Investment Partners, a private equity firm in Towson, Md., that has mitigation banks in Louisiana, Virginia, Delaware, and Montana, plans to buy land and begin the two- to three-year permitting process so it can be ready to sell credits when the economy turns around. “The drop in real estate prices is great for those of us who want to invest in the future,” says David Urban, the company’s director of operations.
 
Read more here. 

King America Finishing was ordered to submit plans to pay to undertake supplemental environmental projects in the amount of $1 million. This is the result of several months of investigation by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division after they were notified in May of thousands of dead fish found in the Ogeechee River.

The fish kill started just below the King Finishing discharge line and non-permitted chemicals were found, according the EPD. The investigation showed that King Finishing had been making unauthorized discharges of flame retardant chemicals into the black water stream for five years. 

King Finishing is required to spend $1 million on an unspecified “supplemental environmental project,” it does not require the company to pay a penalty, nor does it require that it cover the costs for the restocking of the fish in the river which was conducted by the state last month. State taxpayers will be responsible for picking up that bill.

In response, the Ogeechee Riverkeeper has filed notice to file suit against King America Finishing. The suit alleges that the plant is still discharging color, ammonia, and formaldehyde into the river in violation of it's state-authorized permit.
 
Tip of the hat to Luke Owen of the NPDES Training Institute for bringing awareness to this in his October newsletter. 
 
For further details regarding the Riverkeeper suit, click here.

The mysterious Altamaha spinymussel, found in Georgia’s Ocmulgee River and Altamaha River, is the latest addition to the endangered species list. The spiky-shelled mussel, which looks like a projectile and is thought to eat with its foot, has already disappeared from the state's Oconee and Ohoopee rivers.

The organisms are imperiled party because they filter algae, bacteria and decaying matter from water. While this makes them helpful in cleaning the water supply, they are susceptible to pollution. The Endangered Species Act makes it illegal to kill or harm a listed species and directs federal wildlife officials to help it recover.
 
The Fish and Wildlife Service is designating critical habitat along the upper Altamaha, lower Ocmulgee and Ohoopee rivers in Appling, Ben Hill, Coffee, Jeff Davis, Long, Montgomery, Tattnall, Telfair, Toombs, Wayne and Wheeler counties. Wildlife regulators must be consulted to be sure any project that uses federal dollars or requires federal permits does not harm the habitat.

Read more about the spinymussel and its listing here. 

The Georgia Water Coalition has released a “Dirty Dozen” list of projects across the state that it says would wreak havoc on the environment. The consortium of more than 180 organizations criticized two proposed reservoirs aimed at providing additional water supplies to the region’s growing population.
 
According to a report released by the coalition, the Dawson Forest Reservoir, which would be built on up to 2,200 acres of property in Dawson County owned by the city of Atlanta, would shift huge quantities of water out of the Etowah River basin into the Chattahoochee River system, affecting the flow of water to downstream communities including Rome, Ga.
 
The proposed Glades Reservoir in Hall County would have the same effect on the Chattahoochee by removing water from that river system immediately upstream of Lake Lanier, according to the report.
 
The coalition suggests putting greater focus on water conservation and efficiency. Supporters of the reservoir approach counter that conservation and efficiency alone would not save enough water to ensure adequate supplies.
 
To read more click here, or see the attachment from the coalition further detailing their viewpoint on the matter.

Attachment: 

Georgia's Dirty Dozen.pdf

The Georgia Department of Transportation and the Tennessee-based contractor, Wright Brothers, must pay a record $1.5 million fine and spend about $1.3 million on cleanup to settle a federal complaint accusing them of polluting Georgia streams with rocks and soil cast off during roadwork. It is the largest environmental penalty ever against the Georgia DOT, and also one of the largest federal penalties of its kind ever assessed under the Clean Water Act.

The DOT hired Wright Brothers to dispose of rock and soil from 2004 to 2007 from two Georgia highway projects in Rabun County, widening U.S. 76 and U.S. 441. The federal government says that with the DOT's approval, Wright Brothers buried all or part of seven trout streams and rerouted the water through pipes. 

The DOT and the Wright Brothers deny any wrongdoing but say they are settling to put years of legal fighting behind them. The money that goes to cleanup may not go directly to the sites concerned in the case. Instead, about $1.3 million will go towards the purchase of mitigation credits.

To read more about the settlement, click here.