Why Mitigation Matters: A Practical Path for Streams, Wetlands, & Endangered Species
For decades, many who are concerned about the environment have wrestled with a troubling paradox: mitigation banking and compensatory mitigation programs only exist because streams, wetlands, and habitats are being destroyed. It can feel uncomfortable to support a system that relies on loss. Yet, as policy-makers and conservation professionals, it’s important to step back and look at what mitigation achieves in practice.
When designed and implemented properly, mitigation is not a loophole—it is a framework that ensures environmental losses are offset by real, measurable gains. At a time when regulatory protections are being weakened, mitigation offers one of the few mechanisms capable of channeling unavoidable impacts into lasting ecological benefits.
The Role of Mitigation
Mitigation banking and in-lieu fee programs are built on a simple principle: when a wetland, stream, or habitat must be altered or destroyed, the loss must be compensated with equivalent or greater ecological value elsewhere. This is not meant to encourage destruction but to ensure accountability and balance.
Without mitigation, impacts often occur piecemeal, with little oversight or follow-up. By contrast, mitigation banks consolidate conservation into larger, ecologically meaningful projects that are managed long-term. Instead of a scattered patchwork of small restorations, mitigation banks create contiguous wetlands, stream corridors, and preserves that actually function as viable ecosystems.
Why It Matters Now: Sackett and WOTUS
The urgency of mitigation has grown in recent years. In 2023, the Supreme Court’s Sackett v. EPA ruling significantly narrowed the definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act. The result is that countless wetlands and ephemeral streams—especially those without continuous surface connections—are no longer federally protected.
This shift means that large portions of ecologically important landscapes can now be drained, filled, or degraded without federal oversight. While some states maintain their own protections, many do not. The upcoming revisions to WOTUS rules will likely reinforce these narrowed definitions, leaving even more areas vulnerable.
In this weakened regulatory environment, mitigation programs take on heightened importance. They represent one of the last structured pathways for ensuring that when destruction occurs, restoration and conservation also occur. Far from being obsolete, the mitigation industry is becoming more critical as the policy safety net frays.
Benefits Beyond Compliance
It is worth emphasizing that mitigation is not just a compliance exercise. Properly structured, it delivers benefits that go far beyond balancing a ledger of losses and gains:
Water Quality Protection – Restored wetlands filter pollutants and recharge aquifers, supporting safe drinking water and resilient communities.
Flood Resilience – Mitigation projects often reestablish natural floodplains, reducing downstream flooding risks.
Habitat Connectivity – By consolidating efforts into large-scale projects, mitigation banking creates habitat corridors critical for wildlife survival.
Endangered Species Support – Many banks target habitat for listed species, ensuring recovery efforts are integrated into development planning.
Economic Efficiency – Developers and land users gain predictability, while conservation efforts gain long-term funding tied to enforceable credits.
Addressing the Perception Problem
Understandably, many who care about the environment hesitate to endorse mitigation banking. The fear is that it can be misused as a license to destroy. But it is important to recognize that the alternative is often worse. Without mitigation requirements, impacts occur with little or no offset.
Mitigation does not eliminate the need to avoid and minimize impacts in the first place—that remains the top priority under the mitigation hierarchy. But when impacts are truly unavoidable, it is far better to direct investment into a professionally managed wetland or stream restoration than to allow losses to go uncompensated.
A Policy Tool, Not a Panacea
Mitigation banking will never be a perfect solution. It does not prevent all destruction, nor does it erase the ecological and cultural value of what is lost. But it is one of the most practical tools we have for ensuring that development and conservation coexist in a balanced way.
In a world where regulatory protections are shrinking, it would be shortsighted to dismiss mitigation as a compromise. Instead, we should view it as a safeguard: a way to make sure that when change happens on the landscape, it leaves behind restored wetlands, functioning streams, and habitat for species that otherwise might vanish.
Moving Forward
The environmental community faces a choice. We can view mitigation as a flawed concession to environmental loss, or we can embrace it as a pragmatic strategy that channels loss into restoration. Supporting mitigation does not mean endorsing destruction—it means insisting that when impacts occur, they are balanced with real, enforceable conservation outcomes.
With the Sackett ruling and the narrowing of WOTUS, wetlands and streams are more vulnerable than they have been in decades. That makes mitigation not just an option, but a necessity. If we want to ensure that ecological values are protected, restored, and passed on to future generations, mitigation is one of the most reliable ways to make that happen.
