Banking on Shale Gas to Preserve Wetlands

Flanked by drilling rigs and pipelines, many of the wetlands feeding into the Sabine River in East Texas have been damaged by energy companies trying to extract gas from the Haynesville/Bossier Shale formation. That destruction is an opportunity for a Houston company called Mitigation Solutions USA, which buys and restores damaged marshes, swamps, and bayous. “Demand’s strong,” says Terry McKenzie, the company’s president. “Luckily, in Texas we have the luxury of oil and gas.”

Federal environmental regulations require companies that destroy wetlands to create similarly sized wetland in the same watershed. While some choose to do the work themselves, many turn to a so-called mitigation bank such as McKenzie’s. After these companies knock down levees, fill ditches and canals, replace invasive plants with native species, and prove that the changes can be sustained over time, they receive “credits” that each represent roughly an acre of wetland.