South Carolina

  1. General State Role in Wetland Mitigation & Stream Mitigation

In South Carolina coastal wetland policies have been adopted as part of a broader coastal zone management program. Wetlands are also regulated pursuant to a Section 401 Water Quality Certification Program however, there is no separate wetlands permitting program. There is no written mitigation policy for freshwater wetlands. The SCDHEC follows a standard operating procedure developed with the Corps to look at the qualities of the impact site as well as the proposed mitigation site to determine the proper ratio of mitigation.

  1. Have there been any state-sponsored evaluations of wetland mitigation programs in any part of your state (e.g., measurements of "success rates" of restored/created/enhanced wetlands)? Stream mitigation?
  1. Do you have written guidance (SOPs) or legally-binding performance standards or permit conditions to guide the design and construction of created, restored, or enhanced wetlands. Things like planting, grading, water sources. Any for streams?
  1. In your opinion, which of the following administrative standards or permit conditions in each category below have worked the best?
    Mitigation Site Protection (Legal): Deed restrictions? Third-party easements? Title transfers? Others?
    Mitigation Site Protection (Physical): Fencing? Signage? Zoning? Other?
    Financial Assurances: Performance bonds? Escrow accounts? Letters of credit? Others?
  1. How do you (or would you) deal with defaults?
  1. Any assessments of mitigation compliance? (statistics on percent of the wetland mitigation projects built within the last few years have been checked but not monitoredin detail to be sure they were completed) What was the result? If no data, what's your rough estimate? How about for stream mitigations?
  1. Any statistics on percent of the projects that have been monitored? What was the result? If no data, what's your rough estimate? How about for stream mitigations?
  1. What usually gets monitored?

jurisdictional boundaries (soils, veg, hydrology)?

for vegetation:

for hydrology:

for soils:

for geomorphic conditions (channel profile, bank stability, etc.):

functions (using rapid assessment methods)

condition (IBI, animal surveys, etc.)

  1. Which of the above parameters have performance standards, either statewide or site-specific?
  1. For how long are these parameters monitored? Is duration of monitoring advisory or mandatory? Is it adaptive? (can it be extended or shortened based on collected data?)
  1. Have there been any legal opinions regarding any of the performance standards or permit conditions? What were the outcomes (which ones are enforceable?)
  1. For approximately what percent of the projects was the above data collected BEFORE a site was restored or enhanced? (i.e., baseline data).
  1. If no standardized monitoring guidance, who decides what to monitor? e.g., MBRT?
  1. Are the construction and monitoring specifications or guidance the same for mitigation bank wetlands as for other mitigation wetlands?

There are 15 public and private banks in the state and several in various stages of development. Three are operated by the South Carolina Department of Transportation and the remaining banks are privately operated.

  1. Does the party that designed the mitigation project always do the monitoring? If not, who?
  1. Does any state agency keep a wetlands permit ledger, tracking system, or database? What does it track? (data fields) Streams too, or separate?

The SCDHEC has an extensive database for 401 Water Quality Certification and for coastal permits including project information, detailed mitigation information and a GIS layer to provide spatial data on where wetlands are lost and mitigated.

  1. Is the tracking system easily accessible to the public? If not, what arrangements exist for interagency sharing of raw data or the database?
  1. Can the data be displayed automatically on maps?
  1. Does the state do any wetland mapping of its own?

No. Relies on NWI maps.

  1. Have there been any attempts to use wetland delineations (done for 404 permits) to update small areas of existing wetland maps?
  1. Have HGM class codes been added to NWI or other wetland maps?
  1. Have maps been overlaid with other GIS layers to generate statistical profiles of wetlands in any region or watershed?
  1. Contact for state agency wetland mapping/ GIS efforts or permit tracking database?
  1. Contact for state transportation department, wetlands mitigation person?
  1. Contact for stream impact mitigation program, if separate?
  1. Can you send us (1) mitigation performance guidelines or standards?
  1. Can you send us (2) case history of a good mitigation project, in terms of administrative and technical performance standards, monitoring, adaptive management, etc.?
  1. Can you send us (3) list of data fields in the wetland tracking system (if any)?
  1. Other contacts suggested?

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