Wetland Mitigation Program

What is Mitigation?

The Southeast Alaska Land Trust (SEALT) operates a mitigation program in partnership with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to provide offsets to unavoidable impacts to waters and wetlands in Southeast Alaska.

When unavoidable impacts to waters of the U. S. must occur, either permittee-responsible mitigation or compensatory mitigation may be required. SEALT’s In-Lieu Fee Mitigation Program provides compensatory mitigation for impacts to both wetlands and streams. Mitigation involves the preservation, restoration, enhancement, or establishment of wetlands to offset the losses to aquatic resources from the development project, ideally within the same watershed or region where the development occurred.

For example, when the Juneau Airport expanded the runways in 2009, some wetlands were lost due to this necessary project. SEALT worked with CBJ and the USACE to provide mitigation to offset those lost wetlands by permanently preserving other at-risk wetlands nearby. SEALT has provided mitigation for many different projects around Southeast Alaska, including roads, housing, and public buildings.

Flexible, Appropriate, and In-Kind Mitigation

The SEALT In-Lieu Fee Mitigation Program preserves and restores streams, rivers, wetlands, and tidal wetlands in Southeast Alaska.

SEALT has operated a successful mitigation program with the USACE since 1998, permanently preserving, monitoring, and ensuring the continued function of wetlands across Southeast Alaska. In its 25-year history, SEALT has had a 100% success rate for its mitigation projects during monitoring and long-term management.

SEALT signed a new instrument with the USACE in November 2022, expanding upon and improving the program with four new service areas, stream credits, updated assessment tools, and a streamlined credit transaction process for permittees.

SEALT originally developed the WESPAK-SE and NATAK-SE tools in 2009-2011, and completed an update to them in 2022 in partnership with Paul Adamus for the renewed SEALT ILF Mitigation Program. Both WESPAK-SE and NATAK-SE are available for all trained practitioners of WESPAK and NATAK to use, and can be downloaded by clicking the links below.

Contact Us for Credits

SEALT has up to 140 advance credits and 4,500 advance stream credits available for sale. In addition to advance credits, SEALT also has released credits from existing mitigation sites.

Contact our office to learn more about the program, request a credit price, or purchase credits to fulfill an existing permit.

Margaret Custer, Executive Director – 907-586-3100 – margaret@sealt.org

Links