A last-minute amendment to a sea grass protection bill has former advocates scrambling to derail it. Part of the amendment would allow private companies to create sea grass mitigation banks on state-owned land. Environmental groups are concerned because wetland mitigation banks in the state don’t have a good track record, according to a St. Petersburg Times investigation in 2006.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is opening the Williamson County draft habitat conservation plan (HCP) to public review. The HCP is designed to address threatened and endangered species concerns for standard county construction, maintenance and improvement projects. The plan would allow “incidental take” of endangered species such as the golden-cheeked warbler, black-capped vireo and two underground (karst) invertebrates, Bone Cave harvestman and Coffin Cave mold beetle, as long as they were properly mitigated. Purchasing credits from a species conservation bank is one option.

The New Jersey Meadowlands may be getting a wetland mitigation bank soon. Meadowlands Conservation Trust (MCT), owner of a 587-acre tract, is putting approximately 250 acres up for lease. The highest bidder will have the right to develop and sell mitigation credits on the land. MCT expects bids to start at $15,000 an acre and believes credits could go for at least $100-160,000. Credit buyers would likely include state entities that have to mitigation for infrastructure maintenance and expansion, such as NJ Transit.

Charlotte County's troubled environmental land acquisition program hit a snag over Ryals Ranch, a 1,600-acre property Charlotte commissioners recently agreed to buy for $27 million. Critics say the county wasted precious taxpayer money on a site that would have been preserved anyway. The owners were in the process of developing it into a conservation bank, which means that it would have been protected by a conservation easement.

“Wildlands Inc., a Rocklin-based environmental mitigation and banking firm, said Monday it has acquired Acer Environmental Inc., which has offices in the southeastern United States… “Acer's talented mitigation banking and ecological restoration team will provide a perfect fit for expanding our services in the Southeast and working toward our nationwide conservation and restoration goals,” said Steve Morgan, chairman and chief executive of Wildlands.

The biodiversity banking program in the Australian state of New South Wales is now accepting proposals from landowners that are interested in creating biodiversity credits on their land. “BioBanking enables 'biodiversity credits' to be generated by landowners who commit to enhance and protect biodiversity values on their land through a biobanking agreement. These credits can then be sold, generating funds for the management of the site. Credits can be used to counterbalance (or offset) the impacts on biodiversity values that are likely to occur as a result of development.”

The owner of a mitigation bank in Vero Beach, Florida is interested in donating the property to the city. The deal could be a win-win situation, as it could make it possible both for the land to become a valuable recreation area and the owners to shed responsibility for upkeep or any potential liability. That annual upkeep, however, is estimated at $18,500 – and the owners have offered to supply only $40,000 in endowment funds.

Monroe County is working through an “additionality” issues regarding mitigation plans. That is, if the county already secured land for conservation purposes, can it be used for private development offsetting? “We bought it, and the whole idea is conservation, so who cares who actually bought it, as long as it’s conserved?” asked Jim Cameron, County Planning Commissioner. Development on Big Pine and No Name keys is limited by a habitat conservation plan because of endangered species on the property.

For years, the Maine Department of Transportation has been planning to restore Sherman Marsh in an effort to reduce erosion problems. But early this year they decided to abandon the cooperative restoration approach and instead are proposing that the site be part of Maine's first mitigation bank. Agencies and organizations working with DOT were both surprised and disappointed by this change in plans.