Corps Responds to Letter on Data Accessibility; RIBITS Update

Becca Madsen on September 9, 2010 Comment

Let me put it simply - multiple interests in the US are pretty frustrated with the lack of accessibility to data on wetland mitigation held by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Earlier this year twenty leaders in the wetlands field signed a letter to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works with a listing of their grievances along with multiple citations of how the Corps was either required to or voluntarily promised to provide data within a specified time frame.

The Assistant Secretary responded on June 1, noting the efforts taken by the Corps and the challenges encountered. The letter also pointed out a link for a report on yearly national permit statistics which turns out to be a 2000-page pdf document, separating all of the information out by 4 Divisions and 38 Districts with no apparent section on national permitting data. Did I mention that people have been pretty peeved about the accessibility of Corps data?

The response also touts the Regional Internet Bank Information Tracking System (RIBITS) "in use across the nation," which is a bit of a stretch. Ecosystem Marketplace checked on 9/3 - there are 28 of 38 Districts with information available for public viewing, Nine Districts have no bank information available (not counting Hawaii, which has no banks), and two Districts only have one bank publicly accessible (our own bank data collection effort found 45 banks in these Districts). This is not to discount the tremendous strides that have been taken, but to point out that it's not quite Done-and-Done.

But let's end on a bright note. RIBITS now provides four additional reports on credit availability under the "Reporting" button:

- State Mitigation Bank Available Credits by District
- District Mitigation Bank Available Credits by 8-Digit HUCs
- Potential Credits from Approved-Active Banks by Mitigation Type
- District Mitigation Bank Available Credits by Cowardin