Federal guidelines call for perpetual management of a mitigation bank's land once its credits have been sold. Another mitigation bank is planned for south Alabama. Documents at ADEM list the applicants for this mitigation bank as Robin H. Luce, Jex R. Luce, Jr. and Milton L. Brown. The bank is an 877-acre tract on Mon Louis Island, west of Highway 163. The bank's owners plan to call it the Alabama Port Wetlands Bank.
Regulatory documents show the project is early in the review process.
The State of Alabama may soon sell mitigation credits. Discussions about a state mitigation bank began over five years ago during the Jim Folsom administration. Pete Conroy was the Governor's Liaison for Environmental Affairs under Folsom, and during those years, Conroy served as Chair of the Alabama Wetlands Mitigation Banking Task Force. Conroy told The Harbinger the Task Force met monthly for two years beginning in October 1994. Conroy said the Task Force envisioned the bank as a cooperative effort of state and federal governments as well as non-profit organizations such as the Nature Conservancy.