Vernal Pool

Welcome to the Mitigation and Conservation Banking Page, of the Oregon Department of Transportation.  The Mitigation and Conservation Banking Program is responsible for developing and establishing mitigation and conservation banks and advance mitigation projects to provide an efficient and effective way to offset unavoidable natural resource impacts, improve environmental compliance efforts, and create ecologically sustainable mitigation and conservation projects.
 
ODOT’s Banking Program will meet the Agency’s mitigation needs for highway construction and maintainence projects, address resource and regulatory agency statutes and regulations, and increase efficiency in the mitigation/conservation permitting and approval process by:

• Improving project delivery by increasing certainty and removing mitigation and associated permitting issues from the critical path of project development;
• Meeting or exceeding state and federal compensatory mitigation and conservation requirements;
• Ensuring banking program projects optimize mitigation investment by addressing ecological priorities on a watershed and landscape level and implementing long-term protection, stewardship and adaptive management for bank sites.

 
ODOT will continue to work with its agency partners during the ongoing development, implementation, and adaptive management of the Banking Program to ensure that high quality, sustainable resource mitigation and restoration projects are developed and provided with long-term protection and funding.  
 
Mitigation Banks and Advance Mitigation Projects are regulated by the Department of State Lands (DSL) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (Corps).  Another regulator and co-chair for the Vernal Pool Mitigation Bank is the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
 

The Inter-agency Review Team is typically comprised of the following additional resource agencies:

• National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS);
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA);
• Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ);
• Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) 

Wetland Mitigation and Conservation Bank Projects
 
Currently, the following ODOT Mitigation and Conservation Banks are available for credit use:

• Bobcat Marsh (at the Jackson Bottom site), Region 1
  
• Vernal Pool Mitigation and Conservation Bank, Region 3
• Crooked River Mitigation Bank, Region 4
• Lost River Mitigation Bank, Region 4

The following mitigation banks are under development:

• Greenhill Mitigation Bank, Region 2
• Necanicum River Mitigation Bank, Region 2