The Oregon Bridge Replacement Environmental Stewardship Program
Oregon had hundreds of existing bridges on State highways that are also key freight routes in need of replacement or repair. Oregon DOT brought together its environmental regulatory and resource agency partners to develop a nationally innovative environmental streamlining approach to meet the goals of shortening and reducing administrative processes and procedures while achieving excellent environmental performance and community enhancement. Some of the innovations include preparation of an Environmental Baseline Report for every bridge to inform design teams of all opportunities to avoid or minimize impacts. Environmental Performance Standards that serve as a single, common set of terms, conditions and design targets that apply to all bridge projects and form the basis of programmatic or batched permits from multiple agencies, and the Comprehensive Mitigation and Conservation Strategy (CMCS) that integrates wetlands mitigation with habitat conservation. The CMCS allows impacts to be evaluated at the ecosystem level and uses a single accounting system for assigning mitigation credit and debit across all agencies. It establishes a program-level mitigation and conservation approach along with the establishment of specific conservation and mitigation banks that serve regional ecological priorities. The Oregon Bridge Replacement Stewardship program is an outstanding example of interagency coordination and collaboration that provides significant benefits to transportation and the environment by fundamentally changing how a major construction program and numerous State and Federal environmental laws are administered and implemented within existing legal frameworks.
Project Contributors:
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Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State Office
Jerry Magee
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Federal Highway Administration, Oregon Division Office
Elton Chan | Michelle Eraut
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Federal Highway Administration, Eastern Resource Center
Brian Yanchik
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Wayne Kober
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Mason, Bruce & Girard
Zak Toledo | Mike Bonoff | Bob Carson
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NOAA Fisheries
Marc Liverman
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Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
Tom Melville | Mark Charles | Ann Levine
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Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Randy Reeve | Patty Snow
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Oregon Department of State Lands
Eric Metz | John Lilly
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Oregon Department of Transportation
Lori Sundstrom | Heather Catron | Hal Gard | Bill Ryan | Art Martin | Bill Warncke
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Oregon State Historic Preservation Office
Roger Roper | Dennis Griffin
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Parametrix
Jeff Heilman | Kevin Halsey | Michelle Wilson
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US Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District
Susan Sturges | Larry Evans
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US Environmental Protection Agency, Oregon Operations Office
Yvonne Vallette
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US Fish and Wildlife Services, Oregon Office
David Leal | Joe Zisa | John Marshall
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US Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Federal Program Activities
Joseph Burns
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US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region
Richard Sowa
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