Environmentalists are criticizing a Massachusetts pilot wetlands restoration program that would allow developers to fill in wetlands in exchange for buying “credits” that would go toward restoring wetlands in other locations.
The program – which will be conducted for the Taunton River watershed – allows a public or private developer to fill wetlands without immediately restoring them somewhere else, only after all other options have been exhausted. Instead, developers could buy a credit from a bank of wetlands designated by the state or from an organization that has restored wetlands in other locations. The value of the credit would be assigned based on the amount of wetlands the developer would be filling, the ecological value of the wetlands, their area or other factors that have yet to be determined.
“If you want to put a mall in a swamp, it’s a bad idea to begin with,” said James McCaffrey, director of Sierra Club Massachusetts. “Our view is that it will be easier for them if they can buy into wetlands banking credits somewhere else. It’s like it’s OK to fill them in and it’s not. Wetlands serve a public function and value, so they should only be filled in as a last resort.”
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Critics like McCaffrey said the pilot program – drafted by the state Legislature – will encourage developers to fill in wetlands, but supporters and other state officials, including one from Rhode Island, said it will provide a better opportunity to restore the lands.
“This will not make it easier to just run roughshod over the existing regulations,” said Jennifer Flagg, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. “The existing regulations are still in place. Any developer must still go through the permitting process and exhaust all other avenues before they can even be considered a candidate for this program. Before, there was nothing really at the end of the line; now (restoring wetlands) is an option.”
Russ Chateauneuf, chief of ground water and wetlands protection for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, agreed that the new law is designed to ensure wetlands are restored, not make wetlands filling easier.
“Under law, developers are required to restore wetlands but it doesn’t always work out,” he said. “It’s difficult to replace, restore and mitigate wetlands on-site. There might not be one on-site or nearby and who oversees that to make sure it’s done? Rather than mitigate in ways that have been shown to be unsuccessful, (the developer) contributes to a project done elsewhere.”
The state is currently looking at BlueWave Strategies, a Boston-based environmental consulting firm, as a possible candidate to become the state’s banker for wetland credits. BlueWave is looking at a former cranberry bog – owned by the state – in Hanson and Halifax as a possible restoration site. The bank or other group must put in a bid for the position; the state has 30 days from the signing of the bill to choose a banker.
McCaffrey said he and others are concerned the law will foster complacency among private developers.
“A developer comes forward … with a project,” said McCaffrey, “they go through the environmental reviews, and at some point they say, ‘We can’t avoid filling in 25 acres of wetlands, but it’s OK because we’re buying 50 acres of wetland banking credits.”
Developers would still have to minimize the impacts to wetlands before being permitted to buy credits for wetland mitigation elsewhere, but McCaffrey is concerned that the state is opening the floodgates by allowing private developers to take part. Originally, the bill specified that only public projects would be considered.
“We’re not 100 percent opposed to wetland banking credits, especially if there is a public need or benefit from it,” McCaffrey said. “We’re just very concerned about it.”
Good or bad is subjective, Chateauneuf said. It might be easier for a developer because, instead of restoring or creating wetlands on-site, they can simply pay into a fund that will restore wetlands somewhere else. But projects will still be evaluated in the same way – those that might be rejected before would still be rejected, he said.
Two years ago, Rhode Island had a similar in-lieu fee bill on the table that, if it had passed, would have established a fund that landowners would contribute to that would prevent more wetland destruction, Chateauneuf said. Each year, Rhode Island loses 2 acres of wetlands, he said.
“This isn’t really going to affect us other than the fact that the Taunton River basin is tributary to us at one point,” he said. “It’s been recognized nationally that wetlands mitigation has not really been successful, so a program that looks to produce positive results is a good idea.”
According to McCaffrey, this bill is the latest in a comprehensive effort from the state to “meddle with” wetlands regulations. The state Department of Environmental Protection is currently amending wetland protection rules. The proposed amendments would eliminate reviews for some projects; would make it easier for homeowners to build additions and other features; and restrict the public’s ability to appeal some wetlands decisions.
“In most cases, it would be cutting the size of the buffer zone in half,” he said. “It would allow 20 percent more of an expansion into wetland area.”
Flagg said, “It isn’t in our mind that this will have any direct effect immediately on wetlands protection regulations. We see this pilot program as an educational tool rather than a vehicle for revamping everything.”
Flagg said she thinks the concerns are due to a fear of the unknown, and there are plenty of precautions in place to make sure wetlands are restored. The Sierra Club, she added, will also have a representative on the steering committee that will make the decisions on each project. The program, she said, is a chance for Massachusetts to increase its wetland restoration.
“Creating wetlands is extremely difficult,” she said of the current system.
“Now we almost expect a new gain of wetlands.”
