Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank

One of the rare plants benefitting from the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank is the fringed water-plantain, a perrenial herb.

Photo Credit: Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank

by Sarah Leon and Deblyn Mead

In eastern Solano County—half way between San Francisco and Sacramento—a number of threatened and endangered species are benefiting from efforts to preserve, enhance, and restore habitat at the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank. Interestingly, this parcel of land, now a sanctuary for imperiled flora and fauna, was once fated for development.

"My father had purchased the property with the intent of putting in a housing development," says Michael Gridley. But years later, the ranch land sat unchanged and cul-de-sac free. After determining that the property was unlikely to be developed, Gridley turned to LSA Associates, Inc., a company specializing in environmental assessment services, for an analysis of the land's potential.

"I needed to know what my options were for this piece of property," says Gridley, who had never heard about conservation or mitigation banking before meeting Larry Kennings and Steve Foreman of LSA Associates.

Gridley was surprised to discover how biologically valuable the nearly 1,900 acres (770 hectares) are to the environment and the wide diversity of habitat and wetlands the site provides. The property, which has been in the Gridley family since the mid 1960s, boasts a rich mix of sensitive habitats and a number of endangered, threatened, and other rare species.

According to Foreman, a wildlife biologist for LSA Associates, banking seemed like the best fit for the Gridley's land. "At that time, there was a real need for banks in the county," Foreman explains. "There was a ton of development going on, so there was a real backlog of people needing habitat."

Working with the Service and a number of other agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento and San Francisco Districts, Environmental Protection Agency, and California Department of Fish and Game, Gridley and his partners established the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank. Not only is the bank—named to honor Gridley's mother, Elsie—one of the first multispecies banks to be approved, it's one of the few banks able to sell both wetland habitat and species credits. "We have a good variety of credit types for sale," says Ed Flynn, project partner. "This provides us with marketplace flexibility," adds Gridley.

According to Flynn, the value of habitat credits fluctuates based on the economy, competition and market demand. So far, prices have ranged from a few thousand dollars for upland habitat credits to substantially more for vernal pool credits. Vernal pools are a vanishing type of wetland that provides habitat for a handful of imperiled species, including the threatened vernal pool fairy shrimp and the endangered vernal pool tadpole shrimp. Like habitat credits, species credits also vary in price.

The endangered vernal pool tadpole shrimp, a small freshwater crustacean, depends on ephemeral wetlands like those found on Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank lands.

Photo Credit: Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank

While banking may sound like a lucrative business, Flynn notes that it can also be a risky one. This is because conservation banking, like any market-based industry, depends on supply and demand and the approval processes of local, state and federal agencies.

According to Flynn, when the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank began selling credits in March 2006, "the first two and a half years, until mid 2008, was good for us because of the backlog of permits and the demand for habitat. But since the economic downturn, it's been pretty slow, with infrastructure being the only client. It's going to take some time—it's a tough time now for all businesses."

While business may be slow now, those at the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank are hopeful about the future. "There's always going to be a pipeline that needs to go in or a road that needs to be expanded," says Flynn. "It's not just about housing development projects, but public projects, too."

Activities on the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank include cattle grazing—needed to manage the habitat—occasional tours and "open houses," particularly in the spring when peak floral displays occur, and research by university students. When the conservation easement was prepared for the property, "we kept out …6 or 7 acres where we want to put our research center," says Flynn. The hope is that the research center can be used by students and other academics to study the ecological processes and rare, endemic species that occur on the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank and surrounding conservation properties.

Some may see irony in the fact that the success of conservation banking relies on the forward march of development, but Flynn believes banking is one of the best ways to protect important habitat for species in the face of the unavoidable. Conservation banks help ensure that mitigation is achieved at a large and ecologically beneficial scale.

While development may affect small and often isolated habitat segments, some rare species can benefit if mitigation results in the protection of larger, sustainable parcels of habitat. And since every bank is covered by a conservation easement and has an endowment that generates funds for continued management, the lands are guaranteed to be protected and managed in perpetuity.

With its location in a high-priority conservation area near a nature preserve and other ecologically significant properties, the Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank is contributing to the recovery of listed species and the conservation of other rare species.

Sarah Leon, a communications specialist with the Service's Endangered Species Program headquarters office in Arlington, Virginia, can be reached at sarah_leon@fws.gov. Deblyn Mead, a fish and wildlife biologist in the Arlington office, can be reached at deborah_mead@fws.gov.