New Wetland Mitigation Requirements The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District (COE) and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) have revised and finalized their wetland mitigation recommendations. These recommendations are likely to increase design and monitoring costs, but are also expected to increase the probability of success – and thus reduce overall compensation costs. The new recommendations replace the Branch Guidance for Wetlands and Compensation, Permit Conditions and Performance Criteria issued in 1995. The goal of these new recommendations is to improve the likelihood of success of wetland and stream mitigation projects by providing specific design and monitoring recommendations. The recommendations have been issued as a result of the National Mitigation Action Plan in response to criticism from the National Academy of Science (NAS) and the General Accounting Office (GAO), who found documented wetland mitigation failure rates as high as 50 percent. It should be noted that in most of the studies cited, a significant percentage of failures were simply due to failure to actually construct the wetland mitigation area. If you need additional information about wetland mitigation requirements, contact Mike Rolband, P.E., P.W.S., Mark Headly, P.W.S., Ian Smith, P.E., or Laura Giese, Ph.D., C.F., P.W.S.