Wetland Compensatory Mitigation: Current Reporting Information

Number of Proposals

From February 2002 to May 2008, DNR approved 78 proposals that included wetland compensatory mitigation. Table 1 shows that most of the mitigation proposals resulted in the purchase of bank credits. We have also approved four new mitigation banks since 2002, and one bank proposal is in the review process.

Table 1: Total wetland mitigation applications from February 2002 to May 2008
Mitigation applications	Number of proposals
Approved project-specific mitigation	17
Approved bank credit purchase	61
Subtotal	78
Application review pending	6
Application withdrawn	10
Total	94

Wetland Loss and Compensation Acreage

Table 2 shows that most authorized compensatory mitigation projects involve wetland fills less then one acre.

Table 2: Acres impacted by approved applications that included a compensatory mitigation proposal (February 2002 to May 2008)
Type of mitigation approved	Total wetland acres lost	Average acreage lost per permit	Range of wetland impact acreage
Project-specific mitigation	23.6	1.4	0.07- 14.3
Bank mitigation	29.5	0.5	0.01- 2.9
Total acres	53.1	0.7

A total of 40.3 credits have been purchased from mitigation banks as a result of the state program. Most on-site mitigation projects are still in the construction stage or have only been monitored for one to four growing seasons post-construction. It can be difficult to predict what ecological community will result from a restoration project, and so we cannot report what the final acreage of wetlands restored or created is for project-specific mitigation until five- to ten-year monitoring periods have ended.

Report to the Wisconsin State Legislature on Mitigation

The Department's most recent biennial report on wetland compensatory mitigation (PDF, 575KB) includes information on the program's activities through the end of 2006.

Last Revised: Thursday June 19 2008