2009 Environmental Consultation and Mitigation Outreach effort

Exploring Opportunities and Challenges for Advanced Mitigation

In November 2009 the TPB, in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), hosted a workshop on linking conservation and transportation planning. The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate a discussion with state and local transportation and environmental resource agencies on ways to better coordinate transportation and conservation planning, in order to streamline the delivery of transportation programs and promote meaningful environmental mitigation.

Summary of Presentations and Discussion

This workshop focused largely on the concept of “advanced mitigation”, which was identified at the TPB environmental consultation meeting held in March 2008 as a next step. Advanced mitigation expands traditional environmental mitigation to be more flexible for both transportation and environmental agencies so that goals of both sectors are better met. For instance, a common method of advanced mitigation is “mitigation banking” where transportation agencies can pool the mitigation funding from many projects and do mitigation on a larger scale achieving better environmental results and more streamlined transportation project delivery.

The workshop explored this concept by discussing detailed examples of various forms of advanced mitigation and exploring regionally specific methods of creating meaningful mitigation opportunities in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The final product of the workshop included the development of a set of next steps to help implement advanced mitigation in each state in the metropolitan area and focus future TPB environmental consultation efforts. 

As a benchmark for the day, presentations were provided by agency staff from Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the District of Columbia Department of Transportation on how conservation and transportation planning are currently linked in their jurisdictions. FHWA staff also presented some national examples of advanced mitigation. These presentations were followed by a session in which meeting attendees shared their views on the benefits, opportunities and challenges of linking conservation and transportation planning in the Washington, DC-MD-VA metropolitan region.

A second set of presentations explored methods, data sources and analytical tools that can support advanced mitigation. Following this, attendees discussed opportunities and strategies in support of advanced mitigation at their smaller tables and then shared their thoughts with the larger group, which prioritized these opportunities and developed a set of next steps for future environmental consultation efforts.