The Nova Scotia Department of Transportation and Public Works (NSTPW) has worked with a variety of new partners to develop a 'habitat banking' initiative to address regulatory requirements for habitat compensation, simplify future environmental permitting needs, and maximize the environmental, economic and community benefits. This initiative has clear cost- and time-savings for us (proponents) in both the short and long-term. The larger bankable projects typically yield much higher ecological values than many smaller projects with lower risks for government regulators and the Public. In our approach, habitat banking involves the restoration and enhancement of historic-damaged salt marsh and coastal marine habitat by means of culvert replacement, dyke breaching, shoreline armouring-stabilization and channel dredging. We restore more habitat than is actually required by federal and provincial regulators for a given highway construction or maintenance project and we bank the extra 'habitat credits' for use in the future when our work is likely to cause further unavoidable damage to a stream, lake, wetland or coastline. This project was nominated for the 2006 TAC Environmental Achievement Award. For the covering abstract of this conference see ITRD number E216511.
Abstract