Removing dams to achieve mitigation credits is still relatively new, so each project is groundbreaking in some way, building knowledge and acceptance of the benefits.
RES recently completed a permittee-responsible mitigation project (PRM) for the Port 460 Logistics Center, supporting the Port of Virginia with a new facility in the City of Suffolk. This PRM is the second dam removal to provide mitigation credits in Virginia, and the first involving ecological restoration of farm ponds behind the dams.
This on-site project provides credits in a watershed that had no stream credits available. The two dams removed at the site actually produced more credits than the permit required. “The additional credits were considered a bonus by the agencies,” says Anna Stuart Lambert, the RES project manager.
It’s part of the RES way to embrace the creative problem-solving that comes with ecological and crediting innovation. This project called for a large measure of rolling up our sleeves, Lambert says.
Significant coordination was required with the client, their permitting consultant, separate landowners, and agencies including the locality, DEQ, the USACE, and EPA. As an on-site PRM, the mitigation project also needed close coordination with the logistics center’s construction team. On-site PRMs must also establish a long-term steward – all part of the RES project management effort.
The PRM faced numerous challenges that the RES team was able to overcome, including