For years I have been concerned with failures of wetland mitigations.
Now that wetland banks have become so vogue or sexy I have even more
concerns, especially here in the Pacific Northwest of the US. The
percentage of long term failures generally hovers around 70% to 85% from
what I can find in the literature. That is not just bad, but disastrous
if you hold to the belief that we need cool clean water and habitat, not
to mention barriers for hurricanes and oil spills.
By mitigation I mean efforts required by regulatory agencies to offset
impact by development, industry, public works projects such as new roads
or dams, etc.
I am a horticultural professional of 40 plus years and an ecologist with
a background in botany, fisheries biology, and environmental
horticulture. I have spent most of my working career in the field. For
the last six years I worked with an environmental consulting firm
performing wetland delineations, permitting, mitigation design, and
execution of mitigations including planting, maintenance and invasive
weed control, and monitoring. For decades I also have possessed
pesticide applicator licenses in Washington and Oregon that include
Aquatic Pest Control.
During employment with that firm the president of its parent company let
me develop an exhibit and poster series for a Society or Wetland
Scientists, Society for Ecological Restoration joint conference here in
Vancouver, WA. Research provided the impetus to develop a presentation I
have done for volunteer groups and individuals in the public and private
sector locally called, Why Wetlnd Mitigations Fail.
I came to realize that horticultural expertise is mostly not even
considered when plants or seeding are involved. True most people know
that the brown part goes in the ground and the green stays above the
ground. Inspecting some mitigations (not my own) I suspect not all
people even know that.
After thinking about what the link is I came up with the following:
What Makes a Mitigation a Success for Me?
1) Return of Functionality
1) Establishment of desired plant associations (plants)
2) Successful creation of habitat that advantages desired animal
species (plants)
a) Food
b) Water
c) Cover for hiding and bearing young
3) Preservation, establishment or re-establishment of desired
hydrology (contributions by plants)
4) Preservation, establishment or re-establishment of healthy soil
complexes (contributions by plants)
2) Eradication of Invasive Weed Species (Establishment of proper
plant communities/associations dependent on successful weed control)
3) Salmon Recovery (Support of feeding groups of macroinvertebrates
such as Collectors, Grazers, Shredders, and Predators.). (plants!)
As you can see I have oversimplified in a big way. However, ultimately I
came to realize that in the long term alot hinges on how successful
plantings are.
Several colleagues from universities and community colleges on both
sides of the continent with PhD's in Horticulture explained to me
that many engineers, landscape architects, biologists, geologists,
hydro-geomorphologists, and others, just do not rank horticulture as
being in the same league as their disciplines. Of course when we buy
produce in a market or a local weekend market, sip a fine wine, or buy a
new variety of rose you are in direct proximity to the fruits, so to
say, of horticulturist's labors.
So, my challenge to all of you interested is to consider the possibility
that people who base their livelihood and reputations on successful
growing of plants may be critical to mitigation success.
Let's chat. I am looking forward to your responses!
Oh, and by the way my concern with wetland banks is focused on
salmonids. We'll get to that.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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