State budget cuts have forced the state Department of Ecology (DOE) to scrap a much-anticipated rule to help replace and restore wetlands when other wetlands are destroyed by development. The rule was originally designed to encourage and certify wetland mitigation banks.

Canceling the rule was in response to a cut in the agency’s Shorelands Environmental Assistance Program staff from 153 to 138. The agency is axing $3.15 million and 29 positions from its budget, which are a two percent reduction in funding and a slightly higher reduction in jobs. The cuts will take the form of layoffs, job shifts and elimination of unfilled positions.

Among the positions eliminated are a dairy inspector, a hydrogeologist, two employees assigned to review county and city shoreline development permits, four auto emissions inspector positions and two water quality employees assigned to road abandonment projects on U.S. Forest Service land.

The wetland rule would have established standards and procedures for certifying wetland banks. A “bank” is typically a piece of property with degraded wetlands, which, if improved, would provide fish and wildlife habitat, flood control or improved water quality for groundwater or nearby rivers and streams. The owner of the bank, which could be a private developer or government agency, receives a set number of credits for their work. The credits can then sold to a developer or government agency when their activities damage wetlands somewhere else. For example, developers could buy credits when building a shopping mall or highway, or sell them to other developers.

Despite bids to replace wetlands and policies that support no net loss of wetlands, roughly 90,000 acres of wetlands are lost on nonfederal lands each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

According to Jodi Slavick, legal counsel for the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), financial backing for a wetlands bank will be hard to come by without a state certification program. She questioned DOE’s decision to eliminate the rule, which would have led to a benefit for both the environment and development.