the mitigation site to take advantage of refuges, buffers, green spaces, and other preserved elements of the landscape. Design a system that utilizes natural processes and energies, such as the potential energy of streams as natural subsidies to the system. Flooding rivers and tides transport great quantities of water, nutrients, and organic matter in relatively short time periods, subsidizing the wetlands open to these flows as well as the adjacent rivers, lakes, and estuaries.

3. Restore or develop naturally variable hydrological conditions. Promote naturally variable hydrology, with emphasis on enabling fluctuations in water flow and level, and duration and frequency of change, representative of other comparable wetlands in the same landscape setting. Preferably, natural hydrology should be allowed to become reestablished rather than finessed through active engineering devices to mimic a natural hydroperiod. When restoration is not an option, favor the use of passive devices that have a higher likelihood to sustain the desired hydroperiod over the long term. Try to avoid designing a system dependent on water-control structures or other artificial infrastructure that must be maintained in perpetuity in order for wetland hydrology to meet the specified design. In situations where direct (in-kind) replacement is desired, candidate mitigation sites should have the same basic hydrological attributes as the impacted site.

Hydrology should be inspected during flood seasons and heavy rains, and the annual and extreme-event flooding histories of the site should be reviewed as closely as possible. A detailed hydrological study of the site should be undertaken, including a determination of the potential interaction of groundwater with the proposed wetland. Without flooding or saturated soils for at least part of the growing season, a wetland will not develop. Similarly, a site that is too wet will not support the desired biodiversity. The tidal cycle and stages are important to the hydrology of coastal wetlands.

4. Whenever possible, choose wetland restoration over creation. Select sites where wetlands previously existed or where nearby wetlands still exist. Restoration of wetlands has been observed to be more feasible and sustainable than creation of wetlands. In restored sites the proper substrate may be present, seed sources may be on-site or nearby, and the appropriate hydrological conditions may exist or may be more easily restored.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Mitigation Memorandum of Agreement states that, “because the likelihood of success is greater and the impacts to potentially valuable uplands are reduced, restoration should be the first option considered” (Fed. Regist. 60(Nov. 28):58605). The Florida Department of