That s why Stan Settle of Pulte Home Corp. used the Julie J. Metz Mitigation Bank in Northern Virginia for a recent 125-acre project. There was really no room to mitigate on site, says Settle, vice president of land for the Washington, D.C. area builder. Without the option of buying mitigation credits, we would have had to do something different and much more expensive. If you re working with a proven bank, however, the Corps is less likely to feel the need to include all that stuff. There are no national average numbers on the costs of credits.
Costs vary, with areas closer to urban markets commanding higher prices.
As long as pricing gives the bank s owner a reasonable return on investment and still costs the builder less than it would to build, maintain, and monitor his own wetlands it works for everyone. Like any development project, building a bank involves monetary risk, and until recently, mitigation banks didn t have much of a track record to point to when lenders and investors wanted to know about paybacks. These days, it s a little easier to show investors examples of profitable operations, says Art Berger, the president and CEO of Atlanta s Wetland Environmental Technologies. He built the first mitigation bank OK d by the Corps in 1993. Wash. One site has about 350 acres, and there s enough demand that we could sell every credit from that one today.