An Interagency Review Team (IRT) is the group that reviews a mitigation bank from prospectus through banking instrument approval. The Corps of Engineers district chairs (or co-chairs) the team. Other federal and state agencies with a stake in compensatory mitigation sit on it. The IRT is a review board that implements the process laid out in the 2008 Compensatory Mitigation Rule, a joint regulation issued by USACE in 33 CFR Part 332 and USEPA in 40 CFR Part 230.
If you are buying credits for a 404 impact, you mostly care that an approved bank exists in the service area. If you are proposing a bank, the IRT is the table you will sit at for a long time. Cypress’s service page for that work is mitigation banking.
Why the IRT exists
Compensatory mitigation under the Clean Water Act has to replace the aquatic functions you take. Mitigation banks are one way to do that: a third party restores, establishes, enhances, or preserves wetlands or streams, the Corps and the IRT approve the instrument, and credits are released over time as performance standards are met.
The 2008 Mitigation Rule (40 CFR Part 230, Subpart J / 33 CFR Part 332) prefers banks and in-lieu fee programs over permittee-responsible mitigation when the credits are available and appropriate. The IRT is how the agencies keep a bank from being a paper wetland with no hydrology.
On the Gulf, that review runs through the district that has the bank site — typically Mobile, Vicksburg, New Orleans, or Jacksonville for the work Cypress sees.
Who is usually at the table
Exact membership varies by district and by bank. In practice you will see:
- Corps district — This is the default IRT chair. Regulatory and often planning or operations groups may be present when civil works touch the site.
- EPA — Clean Water Act oversight interest.
- State resource agencies — water quality, coastal, wildlife, or conservation offices that have to live with the bank after credits sell.
- Other federal agencies as needed — NMFS, USFWS, NRCS, or others when the prospectus hits their statutes.
The IRT does not issue your Section 404 permit for a development site. It reviews the bank that may later sell you credits for that pad.
Prospectus, instrument, credits
Prospectus. The concept package: where the bank is, what resources it would generate, service area, ownership, and a sketch of the work. The district and IRT use it to decide whether a full draft instrument is worth writing.
Banking instrument. The contract-like document: baselines, credit types (wetland, stream, sometimes specific HUC or habitat), release schedule, performance standards, financial assurances, long-term management, and default remedies. When the district signs it (with IRT input documented), the bank can start generating releasable credits as milestones are hit.
Credits and debits. A credit is a quantified unit of aquatic lift. A debit is what your permitted impact subtracts. Matching credit type and service area to the impact is the point — not buying the cheapest acre on a spreadsheet. Stream credits and wetland credits are not interchangeable just because both say “mitigation.”
IRT review is iterative. Comments come in rounds. That is normal, not a technical failure of the prospectus or bank instrument.
What an IRT doesn’t do
- Evaluate bank feasibility, although they may express concerns about feasibility of a proposed bank.
- Provide restoration design advice, templates or engineering designs.
- Perform jurisdictional determinations, T&E surveys, stream surveys or other supporting studies.
- Issue state ERP or 401 decisions by itself. State members weigh in, but Florida ERP, Mississippi/Alabama/Louisiana 401 and coastal programs still have their own clocks, process and reviewers.
Banks vs the rest of mitigation
Permittee-responsible mitigation (you restore a site tied to your permit) and in-lieu fee programs still exist. Banks are often preferred when credits fit. Stream impacts may need stream mitigation credits or a stream plan the district will accept — sometimes from a bank, sometimes not.
If the only “bank” in the HUC is the wrong resource type, the IRT process on someone else’s prospectus will not save your permit timeline. Plan the debit before you promise the board a closing date.
How we use it
We help sponsors through prospectus and instrument work when a bank is the project, and we help permittees find whether approved credits actually match the impact when a bank is the mitigation path. Cypress Environment & Infrastructure works from Biloxi, Mobile, and Pensacola, in the Mobile, Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Jacksonville Districts. Office hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
See mitigation banking and projects.