Wally Iman: Podcast Q&A
David was recently joined by Wally Iman, who has been a mitigation banker in Missouri, USA, for two decades
Wally has worked in environmental real estate acquisition, development and restoration. He is currently focussing on project selection and approval for MITICO, an environmental services company that supports in mitigating the environmental impacts of development, throughout the entire process from preliminary site assessments to the oversight of mitigation projects.
During their chat, they covered what the US is doing to combat biodiversity loss and discussed Wally’s career as a pioneer in mitigation.
Can you tell us more about what you do?
I started doing wetland conservation in 1999, under a programme in the US called Wetland Reserve Programme (WRP).
We did a lot of wetlands restoration, which totalled around 12,000 acres between 2000 and 2005. This morphed into mitigation banking..
We did our first mitigation site for the Missouri Department of Transportation, which kicked off almost 20 years of working in compensatory mitigation. In the United States, this is under the Clean Water Act and monitored by site approvals, with jurisdiction coming from the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
Can you tell us about the Clean Water Act in the US?
The Clean Water Act came about in 1972, under the Nixon administration, and it was actually a product of the Cuyahoga River spontaneously combusting. It was so polluted that on hot summer days, it would just catch fire because of methane release.
The Environmental Protection Agency authored the Clean Water Act and the U.S Army Corps of Engineers administered it.
In the early 1990s, George H.W Bush established the no net loss rule for wetland, but it was ratified later. In 2008 what we termed “the mitigation rule” was actually penned. It is what we operate under today.
The Clean Water Act is the first part of the regulatory process that enables mitigation banking to operate. It has become the authority on that activity and lays out a hierarchy of the impacts you should avoid.
Can you talk us through what you’re involved in?
I work in three basic schemes. One is mitigation banking, and that's driven by impacts from development and unavoidable impact.
In 2002, we also started a foundation called the Land Learning Foundation. It would put on outdoor days for around 5,000 children and various associations for education on conservation.
In 2010, the Army Corps of Engineers told us that we should align ourselves with a nonprofit and create an in-lieu fee programme.
This amounts to the ability to pre-sell credits and then have three years under our standard to put them on the ground. Therefore, there’s mitigation banking, permitted responsible and in lieu fee and we’re involved in all three. If an impact is created in any watershed, we’ll help with the offset.
What is the process of mitigation banking?
Everything starts with the land. We locate the right piece of land, carry out a mitigation prospectus, which determines the credit value and lift, and then once the document has been completed, we submit it to the Army Corps of Engineers, who approve it. Once it has been approved, we can start construction.
We have 2 year and 5 year performance standards that we need to meet.
Once you’ve met the 5 year performance criteria, the property takes off on its own and is successful from there, unless there is some freak weather incident.
How does donated land work?
A nonprofit can work on donated land. It's a win-win for all involved because there is a tremendous amount of erosion in our area. Therefore, if a farmer or landowner donates the conservation easement, and we restore stream banks properly, the farmer will have access to better land and we can do our job.
Is there standardisation in the US around credits?
Every state has a mitigation method. Sometimes they run parallel, but sometimes they’re not the same. We operate similarly in Missouri and Illinois, but Arkansas for example has a different approach.
Does the developer in the US have to secure their mitigation credits before they can begin development?
That is correct. They can’t get their permission to impact until they have disclosed where their mitigation credit is coming from.
What are your thoughts on the onsite vs offsite debate?
In the U.S, onsite falls to the lowest part of the mitigation hierarchy, and falls into the ‘permitted responsible’ category.
That means that the developer is completely responsible for this mitigation project. It's a huge risk, because if it fails, which it likely will, the licensing entity has the power to make developers buy the credit again.
Plus, offsite solutions create large, meaningful biodiversity restoration projects.