Virginias mitigation bankers and in-lieu fee providers are a hardworking, honest group. Compliance issues have been minor, and a cooperative approach has worked to ensure compliance issues are resolved in a manner that is fair to the banking community and acceptable to the Interagency Review Team (IRT). However, it is becoming increasingly clear that a key aspect of mitigation banking, the transfer or sale of mitigation credits, is mosdy a paperwork exercise that is ripe for errors. As of this writing, Virginia has 148 approved and 43 sold out but still active mitigation bank and in-lieu fee sites. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) has one full-time employee managing all of these sites and their credit ledgers. For the VDEQ, and often for the Norfolk District Corps of Engineers (COE), the staffs that write permits and receive the approved bills of sale do not oversee mitigation bank operations. In Virginia, mitiga- tion bankers and in-lieu fee fund providers are not required to update their Regulatory In-Lieu Fee and Bank Information Tracking System (RIBITS) ledgers more than four times per year (for banks approved since 2010) or not at all (for banks approved prior to 2010). Most bank sponsors maintain their RIBITS ledger because it is either required as part of certain bidding processes or because it provides potential customers with important information.
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