Author: Sascha Medina
From the mountains to the coast, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Mitigation Services has invested over $1.1 billion to protect and restore more than 758 miles of stream and over 80,000 acres of natural land in the state.
“That’s equal to the travel distance from Murphy in Western NC to Manteo on the coast and halfway back,” said Marc Recktenwald, DMS Director.
Recktenwald and Jim Stanfill, DMS Deputy Director, lead a small team at DEQ to mitigate or compensate for regulated environmental impacts from development. Examples of environmental impacts that require mitigation can be culverting streams, which alters water flow through use of artificial channels, or draining and filling wetlands. Their focus is to maximize investments, which means concentrating its resources in areas where they will have the greatest ecological benefits.
“Protecting our state’s natural resources is critical for maintaining the state's quality of life, its economic growth and the health and well-being of its residents,” Recktenwald said.
The division offers four In-Lieu Fee (ILF) Programs to assist private and public entities in meeting state and federal mitigation and nutrient offset requirements. ILF Programs allow developers to make payments to the ILF program to transfer the mitigation responsibilities to the ILF Program in-lieu of conducting the mitigation themselves. Entities across the state voluntarily work with DMS to advance their development projects in a timely and cost-effective manner.
The Statewide Stream and Wetland ILF Program assists private and public developers meet their stream and wetland mitigation needs.
The Division’s NC Department of Transportation (DOT) Stream and Wetland ILF Program provides stream and wetland mitigation for DOT in advance of permitted construction and development that requires mitigation.
The Riparian Buffer ILF Program assists developers in meeting mitigation requirements associated with impacts to riparian buffers (the zones of land adjacent to regulated rivers, streams, and lakes) in the Neuse, Tar-Pamlico & Catawba River basins, Goose Creek watershed, Randleman Reservoir and Jordan Lake watersheds in the Upper Cape Fear River Basin. Riparian buffers are important for stabilizing stream banks, lessening erosion, mitigating floods and protecting water quality.
The Nutrient Offset ILF Program works with developers to offset nitrogen and phosphorus loading in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico River basins, and the Jordan and Falls Lake watersheds, which is critical for maintaining ecological balance. Ecological balance is a state of dynamic equilibrium where the ecosystem remains stable and is able to adjust to disturbance through natural processes (such as nutrient cycling). The program supports DEQ’s Division of Water Resources' nutrient management strategies to control or reduce nutrient levels in these bodies of water.
“These programs assist the state in avoiding environmental damage that may impact wildlife, water quality and habitat,” said Stanfill.
A Targeted Approach
DMS develops and uses local and regional watershed planning as well as river basin priorities to identify the best locations to restore streams, stream banks (or riparian buffers) and wetlands. For each of North Carolina’s 17 river basins, the watershed planning team develops River Basin Restoration Priorities to identify Targeted Resources Areas (TRAs), which are clusters of catchment areas that have the greatest need for restoration and protection.
“This allows us to focus our mitigation in areas that have the greatest opportunity for improvement and conservation,” said Stanfill.
Expanding Our Mission
For decades, DMS has successfully fulfilled its mission of providing high-quality, cost-effective compensatory mitigation to support private and public customer needs. And now the state has expanded the Division’s mission. The NC General Assembly allocated $8.5 million to create the Natural Infrastructure Flood Mitigation Program, which encourages the use of natural infrastructure, or projects that restore natural landscapes or emulate natural ecological processes, to mitigate flooding in targeted watersheds.
Strategies can include restoring natural systems such as wetlands, streams, floodplains and buffers or building systems that mimic nature such as stormwater wetlands, expanded floodplains or water farming (leverages natural systems to temporarily store excess water to reduce flood impacts).
In 2025, the program completed the Stoney Creek Watershed Flood Mitigation Pilot Project, a storm water wetland basin planted with native vegetation, located on the Wayne Community College campus. The $1.6 million project will reduce chronic flooding of businesses and roadways, specifically along Wayne Memorial Drive. Historically, flooding in this watershed has impeded emergency services in Wayne County and Goldsboro.
The program works closely with the NC Flood Resiliency Blueprint, which is the backbone of the state's flood planning process, ensuring the two programs’ projects and strategies complement each other for a more resilient North Carolina.
Learn more about the division and its impact on the state’s natural resources at deq.nc.gov/dms.