Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 9, Number 6 • November-December 2001
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
|
|
New York State now has an operational Wetland Mitigation Bank in the Rochester area, called The Cornerstone Group. The bank, 20 acres of converted farmland just south of the Rochester airport, is a mixture of aquatic bed, emergent, wet meadow, and forested wetlands. Credits banked are being used by developers to compensate for wetland impacts in the Black Creek Watershed, including parts of Monroe and Genesee Counties. The bank also mitigates for the northern portion of the Genesee River Watershed, servicing parts of Livingston, Monroe, and Genesee Counties.
Wetland mitigation banking is administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in conjunction with state and local regulatory programs to lessen the impact of wetland loss. Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, compensatory mitigation is required for “unavoidable” impacts to wetlands. Technically, banking can occur only after three steps are taken in the federal process for protecting wetlands. First, wetland development must be avoided if possible; second, when this is unavoidable, impacts must be minimized; and third, impacts that cannot be minimized to an acceptable level must be mitigated. Developers can often purchase “credits” from a mitigation bank established by a third party to compensate for permitted losses.
However, voicing the same outcry being heard around the country, citizens in the New York region of the Great Lakes feel that the Army Corps of Engineers favors development over preservation by “rubber stamping” permits without consideration of ecological impacts, public input, or following the clear guidelines of federal law. New York activists believe the preservation of wetlands should be the rule and not the exception in the Corps’ permitting process.
The popularity and promotion of mitigation banking adds to this concern. It is widely known that a constructed wetland makes a poor substitute for a natural wetland. This summer a prestigious National Academy of Sciences panel released a report that said mitigated wetlands ALL failed to duplicate the ecological functions of the destroyed natural wetlands.
Mitigation should be tightly regulated and it should be the exception and not the rule. There must be strong scientific standards for mitigation projects, to ensure that original ecological benefits of the destroyed wetlands are fully recreated within the watershed. Evaluation of the functions that a wetland serves to the area must be carried out before destruction is permitted. And heavy fines should be levied on developers who fail to meet standards, perform necessary evaluations, or follow proper procedures.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave interim approval for construction of the Millennium Pipeline Project to transport natural gas from Canada to the northeast United States, mainly the New York City area. A certificate of public convenience and necessity was granted by the Commission to Millennium Pipeline Company, L.P. and Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. to construct and operate approximately 424 miles of interstate pipeline, compressor stations and related facilities to transport gas from the U.S.-Canadian border near Lake Erie, New York to near Mount Vernon.
Despite opposition to every aspect of the Lake Erie crossing, and well-organized and vocal community opposition in downstate New York, the Final Environmental Impact Statement stated the all-too-familiar: The proposed project, with mitigation, would have “short-term” and “limited adverse environmental impact.” It is unimaginable how unknown repercussions of this precedent-setting project would have limited, short-term impacts in an ecosystem that is alarmingly characterized as “deteriorating from an acceptable state” in the recent binational “State of the Lakes 2001” report. Further, the FEIS included a new statement that would grant Millennium proponents almost 800 acres of permanent right-of-way under Lake Erie. This concession invalidates the proponent’s use of 100-year-event assessments to deflate the risk of pipeline rupture from ice scour or seismic activity.
The approval of this project appears to be in direct violation of FERC’s own policy against using cost as a basis for routing, as well as providing opportunity for public input. Many comment letters and petitions submitted in response to the EIS and FEIS have not been received after FERC halted mail from the U.S. Post Service during the Anthrax outbreaks.
Maria Maybee
Great Lakes United
Serving as Hub for Indigenous Peoples and New York Hub
1300 Elmwood Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14222
(716)-886-0142
(716)-886-0303 (fax)
E-mail: mmaybee@glu.org
Website: www.glu.org