Stream Buffer Mitigation Bank – Gwinnett County, Georgia

Proceedings of the 2007 Georgia Water Resources Conference, March 27-29, 2007, Athens, Georgia.Recent regulations to mitigate the impacts of development on the environment have focused on stream buffers. The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District required municipalities in the Atlanta district to have a stream buffer protection ordinance. The uncertainty and subjectivity in the variance procedure of the model ordinance was a discouragement to development and the economic welfare of the local jurisdictions. Gwinnett County developed a mitigation procedure that removes the uncertainty using a spreadsheet model that calculates the difference in the environmental value of the existing buffer and the proposed buffer. This model also calculates the value of on-site mitigation and if needed the in-lieu mitigation fee required. In-lieu fees are paid into a dedicated fund to be used for projects that enhance stream water quality and habitat.Sponsored and Organized by: U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Conservation Service, The University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of TechnologyThis book was published by the Institute of Ecology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2202. The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of The University of Georgia, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Georgia Water Research Institute as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-397) or the other conference sponsors