Credit System Could Facilitate Wetland Preservation

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Wisconsin law now requires projects that affect wetlands to make up for the loss a few different ways, including one that could help landowners make money.

One way to make sure there are enough wetlands in the state is to buy credits from landowners in Wisconsin who have restored their own wetlands and pledged to permanently protect them. There are currently two such proposals in the works.

Eighty-three year-old Howard Randall is retiring as a cattle dealer in Tomah who doesn’t need his land anymore.

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“When I bought the farm, it was a ditch. I cropped it there for 50-something years. What they propose now, is we’re going to fill in those ditches and make it a wetland and hopefully we can sell some mitigation credits off of it.”

Randall’s talking about credits he could sell through the wetland mitigation bank. It’s not a financial bank: Randall will get a certain amount of credits from the state for the wetland acreage he restores. Then, other people that need to fill in wetlands could purchase those credits from Randall.

If Randall’s proposal is approved by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Army Corps of Engineers, he and a landowner in Marathon County could become the next wetland bankers to offer credits. Once it is approved, the bankers can set their own price per credit.

DNR Wetland Mitigation Coordinator Pam Schense says the bankers cannot sell their credits all at once. As an example, if a landowner earns 50 credits, they can only sell 10 each year. Schense says this is to make sure the wetlands stay preserved.

“We want to make sure that they’re actually restoring a quality wetland, because it’s being used to offset a wetland that’s being filled, so we have to make sure that’s a good project.”

Schenze says, ultimately, the DNR tries to get people to avoid building on wetlands.