Mitigation

Mitigation: Its Purpose. Its Value. Its Role.

At a time when school budgets are being cut, joining school habitat restoration programs with mitigation practices, can create a funding mechanism to support field-based education. Through wetland mitigation on school grounds, a subsidy for maintaining school property could free up funds for higher priority expenses.

The Federal Clean Water Act and State of Oregon Removal-Fill Law requires that most in-water activities that affect the resource through the deposition or extraction of material to obtain a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USA CE) and Oregon Division of State Lands (DSL). Resource agents representing the USACE and DSL review proposed impacts to jurisdictional resources associated with land use projects that require a permit.

Resource agents confirm the natural resource value as presented by the project applicant. They determine if proposed impacts can be avoided; for those impacts determined per missile – the agents ensure that impacts have been minimized to the greatest extent possible and determine the amount of compensatory mitigation required to be provided by the applicant as a condition of permit. The applicant implements the permitted mitigation strategy to compensate in-kind for wetlands lost during development.

Providing mitigation on school sites allows for the development and facilitation of a curriculum that teaches wise land-use practice, policy, and regulation that is embedded in the fabric of the campus itself.