Information for Regulators

The King County Mitigation Reserves Program (MRP) has state and federal authorization to provide compensatory mitigation for unavoidable impacts to wetlands, rivers, streams, shorelines, and buffers. The MRP can provide compensation for local, state, and federal permit requirements.

The MRP can be an effective tool for mitigation, particularly when compared with on-site, permittee-responsible mitigation projects. Regulators appreciate the certainty of success that King County’s MRP provides, with its strong track record of building carefully designed projects in a timely fashion, achieving or exceeding performance standards, and responding rapidly and fully to any issues on mitigation sites. The MRP has a dedicated staff with extensive ecological restoration, environmental engineering, and project management expertise. Regulators also benefit from the aggregation of mitigation work into the MRP’s relatively larger sites – reducing the number of sites that regulators have to monitor for compliance.  The MRP is a valuable tool for regulators because it lets developers focus on what they are good at – developing – and focuses King County’s expertise on what it is good at – wetland protection and restoration.

Use in cities

If city code allows, the MRP can provide compensatory mitigation within city jurisdictions. King County has worked with multiple cities to successfully complete compensatory mitigation within city jurisdictions.

Quantification of Impacts

The Credit-Debit Method (Calculating Credits and Debits for Compensatory Mitigation in Wetlands of Western Washington PDF (6.9 MB), Ecology Publication #10-06-011) is the preferred method for calculating debits associated with proposed wetland impacts when using the King County In-Lieu Fee Mitigation Program. For river, stream, shoreline, and buffer impacts, quantification is done with an area-based method and ratios that the permittee discusses with regulators. King County’s MRP can provide mitigation for river, stream, shoreline, and buffer impacts on a case-by-case basis.

For more information on quantification of permittees’ impacts, see our Calculating Debits page.