Ep 47: The Clean Water Act and Ecological Offsets, with Preston Smith
Preston Smith is the Managing Partner of Wildwood Environmental Credit Company and President of Trout Headwaters Inc (also featured in episode 14 with Mike Sprague). Wildwood owns, operates, and manages roughly 35,000 acres of permanently conserved ecosystems in the southern US. In this episode, Preston walks me through environmental offsets and how they work. We also discuss the Clean Water Act, including how it started, the changes that have been made over the years, and where we stand today.
Website: www.wildwoodcredits.com
Instagram: @wildwood_credits
Facebook: /wildwoodcredits
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 47 with Preston Smith on the Clean Water Act and ecological offsets. So we can hop right in if you're ready to go.
Preston
Yeah, let's do it.
Katie
All right. Well, why don't we just start with that then? If you want to just kind of tell me how you got introduced to the outdoors, where did you develop your passion for fishing and hunting?
Preston
Sure. No, so not unlike many people, I was introduced by my family. So spent a lot of time following my dad around, fishing, hunting, started with small game birds and then moved up to waterfowl and, you know, can vividly remember my dad taking me duck hunting and just freezing me to death in cold water, not understanding what we were doing as a child. But then really he had a passion for as much as anything as fishing. And so we spent a lot of time fishing and growing up in East Texas. It was mostly lakes for perch and crappie and bass. But then really when I got into college, I did a summer school program through Southern Methodist University out in Taos, New Mexico. And I was kind of reintroduced to fly fishing and cold water fisheries and kind of, you know, learn my way around the fly rod and reel that summer and then actually ended up kind of car camping and backpacking my way across New Mexico, one river to the next fishing and fishing and fishing. And then since then I've been hooked. And so now it's just something that I'm always looking for an excuse to go do whether it's in the mountains or of saltwater and even taking my fly rod out and here in East Texas and trying to chase bass in the springtime.
Katie
Did you, I know you said you picked fly fishing back up a little bit around that time. Did you learn to fly fish from your dad or was he was that mostly gear?
Preston
No, he was a big fisherman and honestly, the matriarch of our family, my grandmother is an avid fly fisher woman. She is a huge inspiration. She's very much the same way. Even now in her 90s, she will pick up a fly rod and have a little perch bass popper and try to hook a brim here and there. Now, we'll have to help her get it off the line these days, but she and her husband for years went out west and would fish the big horn and the Yellowstone. I like to think that's in my blood. It's been fun continuing that family passion.
Katie
That's awesome. You have to tell me what you were fishing for around Taos because that area of the country is somewhere I'd like to hit. I know I'd like to catch some of those, for me, sounds like more exotic species like Apache trout and Gila trout. Did you get to chase any of those species while you were down there?
Preston
I did not. I was doing a lot of the smaller streams, mountain streams, just trying to find anything that would bite a woolly booger because I didn't know any better at the time. I did end up fishing the San Juan and some of those fisheries, which were, um, which were really an experience for someone that was still relatively new to fly fishing. But no, there there's, you know, there's something magical about a river flowing out of the mountains and the life that it sustains. And so it's, it's really something that kind of hypnotized me then and still does today. And just, um, like you said, any excuse to go and try to find some of those species new or different, or the same ones that we've been chasing for years is always fun.
Katie
Well, yeah, I agree. It seems like it would be repetitive to just catch what many people would deem the same fish over and over again, but it's crazy how different every fish is, but especially if you go around and catch them in different places. It feels like a completely different fish, different experience, just changing one or two factors.
Preston
Oh, absolutely. I'm guilty of this all the time. I get very hyper-focused on my fishing. sometimes forget to pick my head up and look around because fishing can take you some amazing places and also the landscapes are changing and different but if you're only looking at that dry fly or your indicator you can get kind of hyper-focused into a very small world but no it's amazing the places really fishing can take you.
Katie
For sure. So how did you pivot that passion into what you're doing now with both your environmental offset company. By the way, I think I saw it's called Wildwood. Is that right?
Preston
That's correct. Wildwood Environmental Credit Company. We started this iteration of the company back in 2014 and really had our roots planted by previous work we were doing dating back all the way to 2008. That's really when the team was formed and we started working in this industry. But really before that, I, you know, I came out of college with a degree in entrepreneurial business and art. And I had no idea what I was going to do with that, but I thought I wanted to do sports marketing and was very fortunate. I got to go to work for some great clients, the North Face, NCAA, Anheuser-Busch, and I traveled all over the country. You know, fast forward about 11 months, I'd been in 110 cities. I was kind of like, maybe this isn't what I want to do all the time, because I was on the road, and I was missing opportunities to go spend time with family and, and really kind of retreat into the wilderness. And about that time, really was 2008. We were starting a kind of an ecological offset company geared at these mitigation markets, and they needed someone to come in and do sales and marketing and help with business development. And so I started, really, that's when I pivot and align my personal passions and hobbies with a professional career. I've been very fortunate to continue to do that and that's what I'm still doing today.
Katie
That's interesting you mentioned that because I feel like I talked to a lot of people who are either biologists or something biologists adjacent. I think you're the first person I've talked to that maybe went to school for just straight up art. Not something I hear a lot, especially pivoting into what seems like a more scientific role. I'm not sure what exactly you're doing at Wildwood. I'm sure we'll get into that. But it's an interesting transition from an art degree to what you're doing now.
Preston
Oh, yeah. No, there's no doubt. I'm very much surrounded by a lot of -ologists and foresters. There's a lot of technical expertise that I have to lean on our team for. But it's a fun way for me to be a consummate student, continue to learn and pick up new things. Really, almost every day I come to work, which is a lot of fun.
Katie
Now, what is your role at Wildwood?
Preston
I'm one of the managing partners and founders. My area of expertise is really a lot more around the finance and economics, due diligence, we'll assist in permitting efforts, new projects, new markets. I do actually manage a lot of our endangered species projects and the permitting efforts for that. But really, we have a team here that's just very talented in not only permitting and developing these projects but managing the development of them and the restoration and then even the long-term stewardship. I just play a overarching role in helping guide some of those things and even all the way down to investor relations and the marketing of the company.
Katie
Now, this might be where I waited over my head because I did do a little research on your website before we talked, just so I didn't sound horribly ignorant. But I also like to not go too deep, because I want to have true questions that I'm wondering and not just setting you up with softballs. So I don't really know a whole lot about environmental offsets, apart from you hear about carbon credits. If you fly, you can offset that. And I'm sure this is a similar type deal, but I'm sure it's also a little bit different in how Do you want to give me your elevator pitch for what ecological offsets are and how they work and who might benefit from them?
Preston
Sure. What I'll probably do is zoom out a little bit. I know this is one of the questions you and I discussed previously is what is the Clean Water Act? But really, there's two federal programs that guide what we do as far as environmental credits. One is the Clean Water Act and the other is the Endangered Species Act. were, you know, kind of initially ratified in the 70s and refined over time through different administrations, but specifically with the Clean Water Act, George Sr. kind of put into effect a no net loss of the functions and values of these stream and wetland ecosystems. And so by that, any development that results in the, you know, the adverse effect or degradation of wetlands and and streams is required to offset that loss before they're given a permit to go develop whatever that project is. That could be a highway, it could be oil and gas, it could be any number of things, commercial development. And so what we do at Wildwood is we go out and find degraded ecosystems in need of restoration that are home to a variety of wetland types and stream types, and we put together a plan to restore those ecosystems. And in that process, we develop these environmental credits, these offsets. And then we can go provide those to responsible developers who have a need for offsets and they can purchase credits. And it actually helps expedite their permitting process, add some efficiencies, even transfers that environmental liability of that loss to our projects where we're gonna go ensure success of these sites. Really, our focus is providing a service to industry where we let our clients do what they're good at, build commercial buildings, build highways, oil and gas infrastructure, whatever that may be, and then we do what we're good at, which is the ecological restoration.
Katie
This brings up two questions for me. One is, say a client has a need, they're building a subdivision and they need to offset that. Do they come to you and say, we're doing this and then you then go out and do a restoration project that matches that? Or are you doing these on the side separately and then building up credits that then you can sell out to people whenever they need them?
Preston
The short answer is both.
Katie
Okay.
Preston
But to expand on the Clean Water Act, in 2008, they created the new rule, and so basically a refinement of that Clean Water Act. What they did is they put a hierarchy in place for how they want to see permittees offset these adverse impacts. The top choice is mitigation banking. The second is permittee responsible mitigation. And so we really perform both functions, but our focus has historically been on mitigation banks. Where we'll go look at an area that has a need for mitigation and we demonstrated demand through historical permit data. And we'll go out and select a site and try to match that site as far as size and scale to the market to then accommodate a variety of clients within that region. Now, it does happen on occasion where there's not sufficient bank credits or an area that's not serviced by a bank and we'll have a client come to us that says, "Hey, we need an offset for this particular project." And in that case, we'll create a specific restoration plan on a specific site for that impact.
Katie
I see. Okay, that makes sense. And the other question that I thought of was, if someone's, let's say someone's building, again, like a subdivision or something, and they're turning land that was previously, I would assume like open field, open grassland, or even woods that are being cut down. Now, there's a specific area associated with that. How do you translate that into what the equivalent restoration project would be? Because obviously, it's not like you're going to be like, "Okay, well, they're building buildings here, so we're going to tear down buildings over here and turn it into nature. That's not going to happen. How do you equate what equals what when it comes to restoring something in order to make it the equivalent of what they need to offset?
Preston
That's a great question. Really what you look at and how I've always tried to describe it is that if you went out and took every wetlands or stream or natural resource in the United States and scored it from zero being a parking lot to a 10 being the most pristine untouched ecosystem that you can imagine, everything falls somewhere between those two bookends. And so what happens is people that are doing responsible development, they'll work with environmental consultancies to quantify the score of that specific track of land or those acres. And so they'll determine how well it functions as a wetland or as a stream or as an endangered species habitat. And then that quantification will show, okay, it was maybe a three out of 10. And since it's going to be a parking lot, we've got to replace, you know, the three that did exist that now won't exist as a parking lot. And so that's really, it's, there's a lot of different, I'd say, fairly complicated tools that go score forestry and wildlife habitats and the hydrology. But kind of all summed up, it's looking at kind of a, you know, plus and minus scale of the functions and values. And so that's, you know, and similarly, when we're offsetting a place, you know, or say creating a mitigation bank for those offsets, we will go score that environment. And ideally, we find something that's reasonably high functioning, but it may be impaired from historic logging or overgrazing, any kind of things that may have created a detriment on the landscape. And we'll go look at it and score it, and its current state of a, call it a 5 or a 6, we'll develop a restoration plan that says we're going to go treat invasive species, we're going to go fix this stream, we're going to go plant trees, and it's going to take it from that 5 or 6 to maybe an 8 or 9, with the idea that even at the end of our site development work, that Mother Nature will help keep it moving in the right direction. Then somewhere on down the line, it may be a more perfect scoring environment. That's then how we generate the credits that we sell. We establish that baseline, come up with some functional lift and prescriptions to accomplish that. Then by the number of acres on a particular site will derive at some number of credits.
Katie
Interesting. I assume both area and the work being done are taken into account. Like if you were to turn a three into a nine, but only in a soccer field size area, that's going to be weighed differently than if maybe you only took something from a five to a six, but it was 100,000 acres. Those things might weigh out differently.
Preston
That's exactly right. Honestly, it's been our philosophical choice, I guess you could say, at Wildwood where we've tried to work with bigger projects. We like restoring at scale. We actually own one of the largest mitigation banks in the country. It's called Piney Woods Mitigation Bank. It's a 19,000 acre wetland and stream complex along the Neches River. And so when we're doing restoration there and offsetting over kind of a wide geographic area, you're really seeing some significant gains, not only to the hydrology and the forestry, but the wildlife components. And so it's really fun when you're working at that kind of a size to really see the good that can come from working over a landscape like that.
Katie
What do you say a bank? Is this just an area you're working in?
Preston
It goes back to what we do is we target these properties and permit them as a mitigation bank. Yes. The components of that for some context are that we are going to quantify that baseline score. We're going to come up with a site development plan of how we're going to restore that site and then it goes under conservation easement for permanent protections so that even once we're done after we don't even own the land anymore, it's gone on down the road, it's still going to be permanently protected in that restored state.
Katie
Okay. I think you kind of already alluded to some of these things in one of your previous answers, but what kinds of things count toward restoration? I know you mentioned maybe taking out some invasive species or planting trees. Is it kind of a place-by-place basis and you just figure out what needs to be done? Or are there some common things that you do to all these areas to improve the habitat?
Preston
There are probably some blanket answers of what you can do to restore, but it is very site-specific. Every stream is different from the next. Every ecosystem is going to be a little bit different from the next. You have different types of invasive species in different areas. you have different types of desirable tree mixes that you're looking for depending on where you are in Texas or the country. It takes a real boots on the ground approach to not only quantify what's going on with the site, but what you need to do to restore it.
Katie
Are you guys doing the restoration work directly or do you partner with somebody who's actually doing the boots on the ground?
Preston
We try to internalize as much of the process as we can. That way we know we're getting really quality restoration. But we also work with really good partners on different aspects of it when it comes to reconstructing streams or large-scale herbicide contracts for invasive species. We do a lot of it and we manage most all of it, but yeah, we do have some really good partners that we work with in implementation.
Katie
That's pretty cool because I think looking at your website and just going over the offsets, the credits. I assumed that most of it was done via a third party. That's pretty cool to hear that you guys are doing a lot of it directly.
Preston
It's fun for us. We've got a really good team that's passionate about what we do, and so it makes work fun. It's not always fun when it's August in Texas and it's 110 degrees and you've got to go to one more plot and brave the heat stroke. But because we fundamentally believe we're leaving a legacy on this landscape, it makes it a little bit easier to go do those things even when it's maybe not the most hospitable weather.
Katie
Yeah, I'm sure. Did you say that basically anyone who's doing any development has to buy these?
Preston
This is where I get probably out of my league as far as what the exceptions are but there are some minimum standards that if you're less than a certain amount of acreage or less than a certain amount of linear feet, You have exclusions where you might not have to. But typically, what you see with any major development is that they're meeting these minimum standards and then they'll be required to offset those impacts prior to getting their permits for construction.
Katie
All right. That's good to hear. I don't really feel like I was aware of that. There's a lot of subdivisions that pop up around me. Just being in the foothills of Colorado, it's right for building new houses. It's nice to hear that people who are building things at least making some positive impact somewhere.
Preston
Yeah. It's probably very much like how we determine what to do on a site. It's on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, you have bad developers and then you have responsible developers, good developers. I think that's one of those things that, again, it just depends on the case and time in each specific site. But I like to believe as kind of an eternal optimist that, yes, most people are doing the right thing.
Katie
That's good to hear. I know you-- and this might be a good transition into kind of what the Clean Water Act is. But I know you mentioned that you work with both the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. And I saw on your website, too, that that kind of helps people comply with those. Can you give an overview of what the compliance with those acts
Preston
So, I mean, and we've kind of touched on it, right? Like mitigation banking, you know, these project act as like large-scale restoration projects that are designed to provide offsets for unavoidable impacts, you know? So, similar with the conservation banks, it's a way to expedite permitting of specific oil and gas or wind farms or any of these things that have a, and we typically and historically have worked with the American Bering beetle across Oklahoma. Things across Eastern Oklahoma in the range of the ABB that require these offsets, it becomes a more efficient cost-effective way for them to go develop their projects while entrusting that long-term conservation and stewardship to us.
Katie
Right. I guess I was just wondering, do they each have their own separate requirements or are they hand-in-hand tied together?
Preston
There's a variety of different permits under both the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. You go into larger projects under Clean Water Act that require like an individual permit, which are typically larger impacts. So maybe a port authority developing a new export terminal or I'm trying to think of other good examples, but larger scale developments. Then you have nationwide permits which apply to midstream projects some of those housing development projects you mentioned, and then kind of on the endangered species side, you run into things called habitat conservation plans where somebody that's developing a project is having to address how they're either minimizing or avoiding endangered species habitat. And if they're not able to avoid what then they've, you know, minimized into, you know, mitigation or conservation for that species. So, there is a huge variety of permits that are out there that I am definitely not an expert on. I mean, we focus really on kind of providing the client service side and the mitigation side. And there's, I say, much better organizations out there for helping permit those projects. And for us, it's kind of a slippery slope. We don't want to be the one that tells you you need to buy 100 credits and then, oh yeah, here were the 100 credits we can sell you. So we try to avoid that conflict of interest situation best we can.
Katie
Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I wasn't sure how much of it you're privy to. It sounds easier and less stressful to just be on the providing side and not on the ensuring everyone's compliant just being like, we're here to provide the product that you need and we're not here to dictate what it is you need or what's going to happen if you don't get it.
Preston
That's exactly right. I guess there's plenty of stress with what we do as well, but there's been a lot of review through different government agencies before they determine exactly what they need as far as mitigation. And so that's where it kind of gets back to, we're just helping ensure compliance and some efficiency in the latter stages of those permitting processes.
Katie
Now, switching over a bit to the Clean Water Act itself, another thing I came across in your website was mention of the Clean Water Act plus the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Is that a separate thing? I feel like the Clean Water Act has had updates that have their own names. Sometimes I am surprised that I'm still talking about the same thing. Are those two separate acts or are those related to each other?
Preston
Yes. They are all related. I think this is what you see when you have administrative changes that the pendulum swings back and forth on what's included and what's not included. The Navigable Waters Protection Act was the latest revision to the Clean Water Act under the Trump administration.
Katie
That's what I was thinking. It might be just like an iteration of it.
Preston
Yeah. I'm fairly convinced that they like to change the name and the acronyms to keep us all on our toes. But I'm sure there's good reason for new names and new updates when they come along.
Katie
Well, that's a perfect segue then into the history of the Clean Water Act and how it came about. what are some of the major changes that it's gone through, and where does it stand today, and where do you think it's going?
Preston
That's another good question. I'll have to pull out my crystal ball and see what it says about the future, or maybe just my magic eight ball. I'll shake it up and see what it says. The Clean Water Act has been around for a long time. It was originally, I guess it was really permitted in '72 with revisions along the way. And like I said, George Bush senior really kind of was instrumental in implementing a no net loss policy. And then we saw a revision to it in 2008, they kind of set the groundwork for mitigation banking as being the favorable offset. We saw a presidential memorandum under Obama in 2015, calling for kind of additional considerations for the Clean Water Act. And then we saw what would be considered kind of a rollback of regulation under the Trump administration with this new navigable waters rule. So, you know, I guess every administration kind of gets their touch on how they think it should be implemented and looked at. And so now we're kind of in a new administration, right? Biden administration, and they'll get to look at what's been done and how they'll respond to that. And I think it's probably safe to say that we're looking at maybe increased regulations around that. I don't know what that timeline looks like and their priorities as far as administration. I think we'll have the inevitable waters rule in its current state for the next couple of years. But then looking forward past that, I would be surprised if the current administration didn't put their own twist or flavor on it. and we saw maybe a little bit more inclusion of some of these ephemeral waterways that really went away under the new rule today.
Katie
Okay, so that's kind of bringing things to mind for me because I feel like I was aware of the fact that things were rolled back during the Trump administration, but I didn't realize the name that was associated with it. So I must've been thinking about the Navigable Waters Protection Act, but didn't know that that's what I was aware of. Do you have kind of an overview of what changed? because you mentioned the ephemeral streams, and I remember that being one of the changes I heard that a lot of these ephemeral streams and a lot of headwater streams were losing protection and there was an uproar because arguably those are the most important parts of any stream system or the source of them. Do you happen to know some details about what was rolled back? Also, I guess, what was implemented during the 2008 amendment?
Preston
So we'll start with the 2008 amendment. Yeah, that makes more sense. Because that was really a pivotal point for the mitigation banking industry as a whole because really it went on, it was, I say, stricter enforcement of the no net loss policy, and then it created this mitigation hierarchy, which for entrepreneurial bankers like myself, it put some preference and some teeth into the rule for these mitigation banks. And so kind of these larger scale restoration projects had a preference as being the, to say the best is I don't wanna make that claim, but to be the preferred offset for development. And so that's really what kind of established some of the mitigation markets as we know them today. Now that has evolved and it evolves differently across the country because a stream where you are in Colorado is very different from a stream where I am in Texas, right? I mean, you would probably scoff at what I call a stream and I'm definitely not gonna go trout fish in the streams here, whereas I would in Colorado. But the biggest rollback that we saw under the navigable waters rule was, what we kind of what we mentioned is the ephemeral streams. And so if you think about a stream or a river, it really is customarily divided into three components. Perennial, flowing all the time, intermittent, flowing large portions of the time, and then ephemeral, which are associated with flows typically after a rain or flood event. And so that ephemeral definition really was being challenged. And you make a good point, where does that start and stop? And where does an intermittent stream start and stop? And I think there's a little bit of interpretation on that. And so it'll be an interesting challenge over the next couple of years to see how people interpret that in different parts of the country and then how they go on to enforce it. But along with that, we also saw things like perched wetlands. So things that didn't have significant nexus to other major water bodies or floodways. They were kind of rolled off the protection list as well. So those were the kind of probably the highlights or maybe low lights of the rollback depending on your perspective, as to what's lost protections under this new rule.
Katie
Now, I don't know if you'll know the answer to this, but I assume the word navigable in that amendment has to do with the fact that it's focused more on the larger, like you said, perennial streams. Is there an actual definition of navigable that's associated with this, or is that just a word that they're using to generally describe larger rivers?
Preston
I think that comes from the history of waters in the US. What was navigable for commerce and trade? That was an overarching theme. I say no. I don't know specifically, but I think that was a remnant from earlier days because a lot of the things that lost protections would never have been navigable in that historical sense anyway.
Katie
All right. That's the impression I was getting from it because I know that navigable has been up in the air before in terms of what counts as navigable. And like state by state, I think even today there's a lot of rules that depend on whether a body of water was deemed navigable and different states had different definitions for it. You know, like can a boat go down it? Can a log go down it? Can it go down without touching the bottom? All these intricacies that differ based on each area. So I was thinking that maybe navigable here was more of a representative word than an actual definition, but I wanted to check just in case I was misunderstanding that.
Preston
Yeah, no, and if I was going to jump on my soapbox for a minute, I think that's a word that's so antiquated in the context of natural resources and ecology across the country now that we really need to evolve how we think about and look at these things. Because to your point, right? Headwater streams, ephemeral streams, where do they start? Where does it become intermittent. What's important and what's not important to protect really don't have anything to do with the historic commerce and navigable waters that we think about in that context. It's really more clean water, clean air, healthy ecosystems. It's probably something that would be worth a revision in maybe this administration if they're going to take on that challenge.
Katie
Right, as though the only streams worth protecting are ones that you can take a cargo ship down, you know? Like, not that I want any water to be polluted, but if something's going to be polluted, I'd rather it be at the mouth of the Mississippi than way up here, and it's going to pollute everything from here to the mouth of the Mississippi. So you know, again, I would maybe argue that the headwaters and the smaller streams are the more important part to really keep clean, because that'll keep everything behind it clean as well.
Preston
Yeah, and there's plenty of arguments about that, right? you know, where's the most important part of it? Is it up, you know, upper parts of the watershed or the lower parts? I mean, you know, I think what we all know is that it's integrated on some capacity somewhere. And so, you know, figuring out the right balance of that, you know, I say development and, and restoration is, is really what, you know, kind of where we fall in, right? And I'm not anti development, I'm pro development in a lot of cases, as long as it's responsible development, and we're seeing the appropriate amounts of offset for that. in the context of what we're losing. So, and again, obviously that's kind of the world I've lived in and we try to help facilitate that through these restoration projects that we do.
Katie
You know, as much as I feel like in the past, I would have, you know, my stance used to be more of like, just don't touch it, you know, just stay out. And I think I've more and more kind of turned into what you just described there, where I think if we're gonna make any progress, you can't be anti-development because it's not going to happen. We can't just stop the world and no more houses are getting built, no more new areas are being developed. That's just not realistic. So I think the more practical approach at this point is to focus more on that, like you said, responsible development, not no development. Sure, there are areas that should definitely have no development in my opinion. There are places that should just be left as they are. But I think for too long, people were focused on stop this instead of fix it. I like to hear that someone in the space who is working with these development companies and might actually have a voice or make a difference, kind of feels the same way that working with them to be better is a better approach than trying to stop them altogether.
Preston
Sure. I'm not naive. I mean, there's critics of what we do, right? We're creating an avenue for loss and for development. I don't really see it that way, but I can respect that side of the argument. I mean, we work within a regulatory construct. And one of my long time, maybe lifelong goals is that I think as we make restoration, mitigation, and conservation more readily available across a wider avenue of resources, wetlands, maybe not just wetlands and streams and endangered species habitat, but prairies and forests and light pollution, all these things, and the more active participants markets, the easier it gets to participate. And so at some point, we get enough restoration, mitigation, conservation going on across the country, it becomes more cost effective for the average person to participate in these markets. And so, yeah, maybe I want to build a house on a piece of property, I want to change that one acre prairie into a St. Augustine yard, well, great. If it's, you know, $100,000 for me to make that offset, it's not practicable. But if I can go pay $1,000 or $5,000 to some offset facility that helps restore prairie where I'm where we've lost it, well, yeah, maybe that's something that I could get on board with. And so, you know, I think one of the biggest issues we still see is is non compliance, or, you know, like I said, there's these minimum thresholds that people don't meet, or they permit to ensure they stay under that, well, we're still seeing ecological loss at those levels. And so again, I think it's kind of our job and our responsibility on the restoration side of this, you know, the ecological restoration, specifically industry, to help develop those markets and work within the regulatory constructs that have been, you know, built to encourage more compliance and encourage more restoration so that we're going to trend that in the right direction.
Katie
Well, I can see the broad idea of where the criticism comes from. Like, oh, you're not promoting it directly, but you're allowing development to happen or providing an avenue for it to happen. But at the same time, I don't know any developers personally, but I can't imagine many of them are sitting there thinking, "You know what? I would develop, but I just can't because I just feel bad about the land I'm developing on. So, I'm just not I mean, in my mind, development's going to happen, and because you exist, some will offset. Obviously you said there's an issue with some people not complying, but like I said, I don't feel like people would just not do this if you weren't there. So I don't view it as an avenue to development. I view it as an avenue toward at least making some of it better than it was to begin with. And maybe I missed, if you mentioned this, but when you were talking about the individual offsets, is that something you're hoping to work toward, or is that something that already is out there and is an option for people?
Preston
No, it's something I'm hoping the markets will evolve towards. That's maybe a bit of a far-off dream, but I think it's a big goal and something that we should aspire to as far as an industry because there's a lot of different ways and mechanisms in which that can occur. No, I agree. I think the criticisms are what they are. what I can say quantifiably is that if you go back and you look at how development was offset 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you saw kind of a patchwork of small on-site or near-site restoration projects. No real permanent protections and it may be in the symbol as, hey, we're going to build this five-acre development, we're going to put five acres in conservation next to it, and then, you know, move over five acres and then there's another development, another development. So you had these little islands of restoration that became disconnected, didn't support wildlife and really hydrology and much of anything else. And so really when we're working on these larger scale mitigation projects, conservation projects, where we've aggregated thousands of contiguous acres, we can really aggregate all those smaller impacts into a single site and create some, again, really significant ecological benefit.
Katie
That's true. I hadn't thought of that when you mentioned that you work on bigger areas. When you first said it, I was kind of thinking, you know, get one big area and then you can focus your time on that instead of jumping around from place to place that may have completely different issues that you have to tackle. But yeah, I mean, I feel like when it comes to habitats, the sum is usually greater than, or the total is usually greater than the sum of the parts because you might have migrations through there, or streams that are connected that transport fish from a place where they spawn to a place where they winter, or something like that, where having them all together is more valuable than having them separated, even if the separate parts are all what they would be together but not connected.
Preston
Yeah, and then even from the sense of looking at loss of low-quality ecosystems, right? Typically somebody's not building in the middle of the most pristine area ever, they're building on the edge of town, they're urban sprawl expanding, and those areas have been degraded to some extent already. We're replacing low-quality impacts in a lot of cases with high-quality ecosystems. There really is a no net loss and even maybe to an arguable amount of gain that's there with working at some of these larger scales.
Katie
Now, moving a little bit to maybe something more positive, Not that this hasn't been positive, but it's a lot of like degradation. But on the more positive side, can you tell me a little bit more about wetlands and how they help? Because I'm well aware that wetlands are some of the most important water-related habitats out there for what they do for other waterways that connect to them. And you brought it up with the Navigable Waters Protection Act and how some wetlands are no longer being protected. do you have, I assume with being a fisherman and having boots on the ground in these areas, you have some knowledge on how the wetlands affect all the areas around them and the role they serve?
Preston
Well, let's think about it in the context of, we'll start in Colorado, right? You've got high mountain streams that lose a lot of elevation, and so that water's moving at an extremely high velocity, right? ignoring maybe some of the broader issues of water going all the way from Colorado to Texas, but as it gets to the Texas Gulf Coast where we have very little topography, that water slowed down immensely. It's spreading out over a wider area. That's effectively what creates a wetland area. That loss in velocity and then of course, the plant animal communities that exist in these wetland areas, they really create a filter for that water. So as that water slowing down, we're filtering more sediment, all kinds of pollutants and the ecosystem is adapted to absorb those and process those far better and more readily than going back to the Colorado stream where it's just moving too quick to drop out of the water table and it's just moving downstream, downstream until it does find that place where it can slow down. So, you know, in a kind of a big, you know, really zoomed out picture, that's the value of wetlands is that they're creating a filter before a lot of these waters reach the oceans and then recharge in the water table and, you know, kind of through that whole water cycle. So, you know, a lot of what we work with in and around Texas, the Texas Gulf Coast, you know, that's what we are looking at, at least on the freshwater side. So forested and emergent wetlands, And then we even do some tidal restoration projects where you're looking at kind of those plant and animal communities that are resilient to storm surge and the tidal influences and things of that nature that kind of create an additional buffer for development along the coast.
Katie
Well, Preston, before we wrap things up, I just wanted to finish with asking you if you've been getting out on the water at all. I know you had that storm roll through recently, which I heard affected some of the fish down there along the coast, but I'm not sure to what extent, but I'm sure that there's also some areas that may not have been hit as hard. Have you had any good fishing this winter yet?
Preston
It's just on the cusp of getting to be a really good spring fishing. I got to take my three and a half year old out on Saturday and set him up with a little Zebco rod and he caught a nice perch. And so that was a fun dad moment for me. And then I even snuck around the side of the lake to catch a, you know, pretty good, uh, large mouth bass, but I'm looking forward to getting out more of the spring and then even, uh, hopefully out West some to kind of keep chasing those illustrious trout.
Katie
Yeah. What, what time of year usually gets pretty good for you guys there? I'm sure the summer gets pretty hot, but there's gotta be a sweet spot right in the middle there.
Preston
You will really early spring. So really now through April, um, you know, where we are, we were predominantly chasing bass and so they start spawning, filling up with eggs, putting on a lot of weight, going on the beds and getting aggressive. It's a fun time to be on the water here in East Texas.
Katie
That's awesome. Well, Preston, do you have any emails, websites, anything that people can reach out to you or check out if they're interested in learning more about this?
Preston
Yeah. They're more than welcome to come to our website, wildwoodcredits.com. My email is there, precedent at Wildwood Credits. It's a complicated topic with probably more gray area than clear, but really that's a big part of my role is just providing education and helping answering questions for people that are interested in these markets and where they can participate. Happy to continue to answer questions in that capacity if somebody wants to reach out.
Katie
Awesome. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on and really appreciate you having the patience to wait out these couple months and glad you made it through COVID and the Texas storm. Hopefully things are looking better now.
Preston
Yeah, we're getting to spring and be fishing season and so we're all on the up and up here.
Katie
Sounds good. Well, thanks again, and I'll be talking to you soon.
Preston
Yep, thanks Katie. You have a great day.
Katie
All right guys, thanks for listening. Remember to head over to the website fishuntamed.com for all episodes, show notes, blog posts, everything else. If you've got a minute or two, leave a rating or review on iTunes. And if you're looking for me on social media, you can find me @fishuntamed on Instagram or under my name Katie Burgert on GoWild. And that's all for this week, but I'll be back here in two weeks and I'll see you guys then. Bye everybody!
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