Giving “Green” the Business

…or, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Paving Paradise• Series on Florida’s

vanishing wetlands May 2005-Dec 2006

• Won top awards for investigative enviro journalism

• Led to book contract with University Press of Florida

They Won’t Say No• Between 1999 and

2003, the Corps approved more than 12,000 wetland permits in Florida

• Number of permits denied: one.

• Efforts to mitigate with man-made wetlands fail repeatedly

Mitigation Banking

• Touted as free-enterprise solution to wetland losses• Congress & state spending millions on it• Florida permits: Surprise!

How it’s supposed to work• Entrepreneur buys

drained swamp• Restores flow,

replants wetland flora• Gets credits from

regulators• Sells credits to

developers to make up for destroying wetlands elsewhere

When Dry Is “Wet’’

• Florida gives credit for dry land as if it were swamp• One bank: 90% of credits for dry land• What about no net loss? “Good luck with that!”

From top dog to bad apple

• Ecobank in 1996: Top dog firm hailed by both Republicans and Democrats as industry leader

• Ten years later Ecobank is “the bad apple” of the industry• Bankruptcy records led to discovery of civil court case that

exposed how Ecobank really did its business • Records showed Ecobank paid politicians for help landing big-

money contracts with government agencies

….and one more thing

• Turns out Ecobank founders started as developers• They ran the 1st Florida company charged criminally

with DESTROYING wetlands

What if there’s no restoration?

• More credits for dry land than wet

• Did no restoration• Got all 138 credits

for preserving land, not for restoring swamps

• Flunks the “no net loss” test

Where do you mitigate?• Restored 1,600 acres

of wetlands• Mitigation bank lies a

mile off coast• Selling credits for

projects up to 30 miles away on mainland

• Study: Island restoration not a replacement for mainland wetland functions

Who’s minding the store?

• Sundew “the poster child” for agency neglect

• In 5 years, owner sold 60 credits but did no restoration

• GAO: Sundew one of 10 Florida banks Corps never inspected

And what about the wildlife?

• Florida panther: State animal & most endangered mammal east of the Mississippi

• Fish & Wildlife Service hasn’t blocked a single development in panther habitat since 1993

• Result: 40,000 acres of habitat paved over

Solution: Species banking• Preserve ranch land

& sell credits to developers…but:

• Bank on 4,000A not occupied by panthers selling credits to developers of habitat

• Land worth $713,000 selling $144M in credits

• FWS: Ranch important as dispersal zone

The bottom line• Banks allow regulators

to OK environmentally destructive projects

• But regulatory oversight lacking

• Some banks miss point of why they’re allowed

• End result: Mitigation banks don’t achieve same result as just saying no

Read the book & the blog

http://www.pavingparadise.org