Mitigating oil and gas impacts in coastal wetlands

This abstract refers to technical recommendations for avoiding, minimizing, and restoring (i.e., mitigating) drilling site access impacts related to oil and gas activities in coastal wetlands through regulatory review, drawing mostly from the Louisiana experience. The two standard methods used to access wetland drilling locations are canals and roads, both of which require dredging. Each access method impacts wetland values and functions and each has been implicated directly and indirectly in wetland loss by converting marsh habitat to open water or upland habitat and by altering the local hydrologic regime. However, numerous regulatory management techniques exist and should be employed to avoids minimize, and restore canal and road-dump impacts.