North Carolina's Ecosystem Enhancement Program: Transportation Projects and Compensatory Mitigation

• Author: Rebecca L. Kihslinger/James M. Mcelfish Jr.
• Pages: 183-195

chapter eleven

North Carolina’s Ecosystem Enhancement Program:

Transportation Projects and

Compensatory Mitigation

North Carolina developed a program in 2003 to identify lands and waters

important for wetland and stream conservation throughout the state. This pro-

gram targets mitigation funding associated with compensating for the adverse

effects of highway construction on wetlands and waters, toward identif‌ied

waters that produce broader ecological and watershed benef‌its than might be

the case if mitigation were organized project permit by project permit. The state’s

Ecosystem Enhancement Program (EEP) addresses conservation needs at mul-

tiple scales.

Transportation projects often adversely affect wetlands,streams, and other

aquatic resources. State departments of transportation, such as the North Car-

olina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), frequently need to provide

compensatory mitigation for impacts that cannot be avoided. Because these

departments create demand for mitigation activities while providing funding

from state and federal transportation infrastructure accounts, there is an

opportunity to direct mitigation funds in ways that confer biodiversity ben-

efits on the wider landscape—both on a statewide basis and by focusing on

particular watersheds. In 1998, North Carolina Department of Environment

and Natural Resources (NCDENR) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

(the Corps), which has jurisdiction over dredging and filling of waters of the

United States including wetlands under §404 of the federal Clean Water Act

(CWA),1entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU). 2The MOU

addressed circumstances under which the Corps would recognize NCDENR

activities as providing compensatory mitigation for the unavoidable loss of

wetlands subject to federal §404 permitting. The MOU specifically recog-

nized North Carolina’s existing Wetland Restoration Program (WRP), an

effort launched in 1997 pursuant to 1996 state legislation. The WRP oper-

ated as an in-lieu fee program—where permittees, including NCDOT,would

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