Road Ecology Center

Wetland mitigation projects in Washington State are developed using well-defined and documented guidance in the design, permitting and construction phases. Traditionally, there has been little guidance for post construction management of these sites. Post-construction management has largely been left to the discretion of the permit holder. There were no methods in place to effectively determine when regulatory requirements were achieved, or a standard to certify that the site was considered complete. Over the last decade, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has developed standardized mechanisms and processes for site management, reporting, and closeout procedures. These include establishment of site management crews, predictable funding sources for management activities, monitoring and reporting methods, and inter-disciplinary adaptive management teams that develop strategies for short and long-term site management. Recently, WSDOT partnered with local U. S. Army Corps of Engineers staff to develop a process for closing out mitigation sites with fulfilled permit requirements. These process improvements provide predictability for our mitigation efforts and long-term budget requirements to support site management activities. They also increase our credibility with the resource agencies by demonstrating the effectiveness of our adaptive management. These overall improvements also benefit future mitigation project proposals. We intend to use our monitoring data to increase the scientific knowledge about mitigation site development and management practices, and to continue the process of fine-tuning ecologically meaningful performance measures for future mitigation projects.