Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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to the IRT, often based on a specific watershed or drainage basin. The credits must be drawn from the same service area as that in which the company's impacts take place. Many banks will try to "multi-task" the properties they acquire. That is, they might establish stream credits for return- ing a farming-impacted stream to its nat- ural course, they might also create an artificial bat habitat and/or some wetland acreage. Multipurposing a site is referred to as credit "stacking." The Growing Need Being Met by Mitigation Banks Mitigation banks are based on the princi- ple that if there is an impact to natural habitat such as a stream or wetland, that impact must be mitigated by creating compensatory habitat, generally close by. Currently, there are three main ways that mining companies can do this: • Permitee-responsible, in which the mining company takes on the task of developing the compensatory habitat, and is then responsible for ensuring that the habitat delivers the promised environmental benefits; • In-lieu fee programs, in which the min- ing company pays a fee to an entity, such as a state program, that then undertakes development of the com- pensatory habitat; and • Mitigation banks, which develop the habitat, have it approved by regulatory agencies, and then make those credits available for purchase. From the mining company's point of view, buying credits from a mitigation bank is more secure, in that some in-lieu fee programs can be extremely expen- sive, and the permitee-responsible option leaves the legal responsibility with the company involved. There are three main ways to work with mitigation banks: Private, owner-operated mitigation banks —In some cases, a company who has planned environmental impacts over multiple years or with multiple projects may develop their own in-house mitigation bank and buys properties, improves their environmental quality, and works with the IRT to have the credits approved for release. The company then transfers cred- its from its own internal bank when pro- jects require them. This approach may be best suited to companies that have a con- tinuous stream of projects for which envi- ronmental permitting is required—and it is possible to predict the geographic loca- tion of those projects, so as to be sure that the company has credits available in the service area where they are needed. Buying credits from a public bank —In this option, the mining company looks for a bank operating in the same service area that has credits available for purchase and buys those credits to use toward its projects. This option provides high flexi- bility, allowing the mining company to, for example, expand swiftly to respond to changing commodity prices. However, this option depends on another entity— the bank—having credits available in that service area when they are needed. JUNE 2014 • E&MJ; 105 www.e-mj.com M I T I G AT I O N B A N K S EMJ_pg102-114_EMJ_pg102-114 6/3/14 4:06 PM Page 105