Opportunities and Challenges for Port-led Mitigation Banking

As landowners and lessors, ports are in a unique position to select and dedicate sites for wetland mitigation and fish and wildlife habitat conservation required for ports, port tenants, and other parties. To avoid project delays, more ports are choosing to construct mitigation banks or conduct advance mitigation to proactively address mitigation needs for future development projects.

Some ports have elected to develop umbrella mitigation banks to take advantage of their large real estate portfolio, which can include multiple habitat restoration sites intended to restore a range of habitat functions, such as fish and wildlife habitat and/or wetlands in freshwater, marine, or estuarine areas. Other ports have evaluated mitigation credit demand and elected to implement advance mitigation programs to generate habitat conservation credits for future port or tenant development needs. Many ports are recognizing that both options can serve as a source of revenue from credit sales, while achieving goals of promoting environmental stewardship and waterfront commerce.
This presentation will review factors relevant to Ports for planning and implementing mitigation banking, including credit need forecasts, time frames, costs and funding mechanisms, and lessons learned. It will provide a summary of challenges implementing joint wetland mitigation and habitat conservation banks, including at the Port of Tacoma, Port of Seattle, and Port of Everett. It will also review successful mitigation banking partnerships, including a public-private partnership at the Port of Vancouver USA and the partnership between the Port of Long Beach and City of Long Beach. Marine mitigation banking strategies will also be reviewed that have been implemented by the Port of Los Angeles and are in development by the Port of Bellingham. Many of these Port-led banks have generated multiple benefits by cleaning up and restoring contaminated shoreline properties in support of a self-sustaining habitat restoration line of business.