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$4.4 Million From USDA Backs Wetland Mitigation Banks Serving Agricultural Producers
Producers who convert agricultural wetlands can buy credits from mitigation banks to keep their eligibility for benefits under USDA programs.
Seven projects in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Illinois will receive U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) awards to help develop wetland mitigation banks. Each bank enhances, restores or creates wetlands to produce credits that a producer can buy to offset wetland impacts at another site.
In southern and mid-Michigan, four new banks will create, restore or enhance about 107 acres of forested wetlands, and their credits will be reserved for agricultural producers. An existing South Dakota wetland banking program will add four bank sites in the eastern part of the state, which are set to produce about 120 mitigation credits. Selection favored banks located in states with high numbers of conservation compliance requests, individual wetlands and wetland acres, USDA said.
The sponsor of Indiana’s only agricultural mitigation bank will set up a forested wetland bank of at least 30 acres in eastern Indiana. That existing bank’s remaining credits are expected to run out by year-end 2027, the department said.
Award money can cover bank setup costs such as site identification, restoration, land surveys and permitting, but not the purchase of a conservation easement or land. Awardees may seek as much as $1 million per project, and projects can run for as long as four years, USDA said in its announcement.
