To mitigate the mitigation…how outrageous!
By Kathy Cantwell
Mitigation is a scheme where environmental impacts are supposed to be offset or balanced by an environmental “credit”. In other words, you do something good to the environment to make up for something you did that was bad for the environment.
The US Government (via the Army Corps of Engineers) and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have been allowing mitigation for years, especially for wetland destruction. Developers are allowed to offset the destruction they would do to a wetland by permanently protecting another wetland or enhancing or rehabilitating another wetland. Developers can also buy credits in a mitigation bank in lieu of actually purchasing a wetland.
For decades, the Army Corps of Engineers has allowed developers to buy conservation easements (CE) on wetlands owned by individuals and then donate the CE to the state Water Management Districts. The Water Management Districts then monitor those easements to make sure they are not violated. It is estimated that the St Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) monitors over 700,000 acres of CE.
A conservation easement is a legal restriction on land which usually prohibits development of the land and may have other restrictions, especially if it is a wetland. The landowner still owns the land and can sell the land but the restrictions are to remain in perpetuity - that is until recently!
The SJRWMD has been ordered to develop rules whereby they can now release those easements when it is “for the public good”. The developers are drooling over this and have been haggling with the Water Management staff over what these rules will say.
The Water Management District (WMD) staff has told the board that they believe the developers should pay the WMD the monetary value of the CE and replace it with another CE or put money into a mitigation bank. Staff also believes developers should replace the wetland with a wetland in the same hydrological basin, and they want a narrow definition of “public interest” to mean projects that are local government public works projects, such as a road.
Of course the developers are saying that this is “unfair” and that a CE “has no monetary value” and the WMD has no property rights conveyed by a CE. They want to be able to replace a nice juicy prime development property that happens to be a wetland with a CE on it with a much cheaper property in another hydrological basin. They want the definition of “public good” to be expanded as well. (After all, the public needs more shopping malls, no?)
The St Johns River Water Management Board will be deciding on these rules on Feb 10. This board of businessmen and citizens appointed by the Governor will be making the final decision after hearing all arguments.
The Board needs to hear from you (as does the Governor) that this whole scheme is a betrayal of public trust. A conservation easement is supposed to be permanent; any exceptions to this should be rare.
The WMD needs to receive the full monetary value of the easement if there is no other alternative, and it needs to be replaced by a wetland in the same basin. Email your comments to mhightower@sjrwmd.com, with subject, “rules regarding release of conservation easements.” Address your comments to the Governing Board.
The letter was presented at the Jan 13 SJRWMD Governing Board meeting. Because of the public outcry, the decision was postponed until Feb 10, the next Governing Board meeting.