Wetland mitigation, in the 404 sense, is compensatory: if you are permitted to impact a wetland, you restore, create, enhance, or (sometimes) preserve wetland function somewhere else — or buy credits from a bank that already did. Avoidance and minimization come first. Mitigation is what is left.
The 2008 Mitigation Rule (33 CFR 332) prefers mitigation banks, then in-lieu fee, then permittee-responsible mitigation. Preference is not a guarantee. The Corps still has to see that the credits or the plan replace the lost functions.
The usual sequence
- Delineate and confirm jurisdiction.
- Redesign to avoid and minimize.
- Quantify residual impact (acres, type, functions).
- Pick a tool: bank credits in the right service area, ILF, or a permittee-responsible site with a real hydrology plan.
- Monitor. Banks have their own long-term obligations; permittee-responsible sites do too.
What goes wrong
Buying the wrong credit type, underestimating monitoring, or proposing a “mitigation site” that will not hold water. On the Gulf Coast, salinity, subsidence, and invasive species are not footnotes.
Cypress Environment & Infrastructure writes mitigation plans when the data says you need them — not as a default add-on.
Questions about how this applies to a Gulf Coast site? Cypress Environment & Infrastructure works from Biloxi, Mobile, and Pensacola. Office hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
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