Compliance with Wetland Mitigation Standards in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA

Abstract

The United States has lost about half its wetland acreage since European settlement, and the effectiveness of current wetland mitigation policies is often questioned. In most states, federal wetland laws are overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but Michigan administers these laws through the state's Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). Our research provides insight into the effectiveness of the state's implementation of these laws. We examined wetland mitigation permit files issued in Michigan's Upper Peninsula between 2003 and 2006 to assess compliance with key MDEQ policies. Forty-six percent of files were out of compliance with monitoring report requirements, and forty-nine percent lacked required conservation easement documents. We also conducted site assessments of select compensatory wetland projects to determine compliance with MDEQ invasive plant species performance standards. Fifty-five percent were out of compliance. We found no relationship between invasive species noncompliance and past site monitoring, age of mitigation site, or proximity to roads. However, we found wetland restoration projects far more likely to be compliant with performance standards than wetland creation projects. We suggest policy changes and agency actions that could increase compliance with wetland restoration and mitigation goals.

The ecological outcomes of biodiversity offsets under “no net loss” policies: A global review

“…(); (d) Hill et al. (); (c) Kozich and Halvorsen (); (j) May et al. (); (f) Morgan and Roberts (); (g) Reiss, Hernandez, and Brown (); (h) Shafer and Roberts (); Van den Bosch and Matthews ()…”

“…Of the 12 program‐scale evaluations in the literature that included outcome variables from which NNL assessments could be made, seven reported achieving NNL (Figure ). All seven used change in habitat area as outcome variables, and reported results from offset programs focused predominantly on habitat creation and restoration (BenDor, Brozovic, & Pallathucheril, , ; Breaux et al., ; Harper & Quigley, ; Kettlewell et al., ; Kozich & Halvorsen, ; Robertson & Hayden, ). The other three studies also using area as their outcome variables that failed to achieve NNL were all reporting results from offset systems based predominantly on avoided loss offsets (Gibbons et al., ; Goldberg & Reiss, ; Morgan & Roberts, ).…”

“…There are rarely legal mechanisms for imposing financial penalties for non‐compliance (Hahn & Richards, ). Improving monitoring alone will not guarantee improved outcomes (Kozich & Halvorsen, ): compliance likely requires strict enforcement, with regulators empowered to impose punishments when permits are violated (Gray & Shimshack, ). Such pecuniary enforcement measures have been demonstrated in the context of other environmental policies to have direct and indirect benefits, such as both increasing compliance rates within punished firms, and inducing spillovers improving compliance within unpunished firms (Gray & Shimshack, ).…”

“…There are rarely legal mechanisms for imposing financial penalties for non-compliance (Hahn & Richards, 2013). Improving monitoring alone will not guarantee improved outcomes (Kozich & Halvorsen, 2012): compliance likely requires strict enforcement, with regulators empowered to impose F I G U R E 5 Percentage compliance and compliance criteria reported for regions in our dataset, with bar chart colors corresponding to the region providing the compliance values. Note that the type of reported compliance standards varies between studies, so rates are not comparable.…”

Biodiversity offsetting and restoration under the European Union Habitats Directive: balancing between no net loss and deathbed conservation?

“…Whereas the science for designing and implementing ecological restoration, rehabilitation, or conservation actions is still relatively young (Suding 2011, recent studies on the practical effects of restoration measures consistently point to the relative ineffectiveness of restoration efforts in the context of biodiversity offsetting schemes (MorenoMateos et al 2012(MorenoMateos et al , 2015, especially in relation to measures aimed at the recreation of habitats (Kozich and Halvorsen 2012).…”