No Net Loss

Wetlands Policy in Virginia: 2025 Review

Part One: Wetlands Compensatory Mitigation Policy

Salt marsh on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Photo credit: U.S Fish and Wildlife Service

2025 was a tumultuous year for Virginia’s wetlands policy. From state policy to federal policy to local issues, Virginia has been grappling with the task of managing “no net wetland loss” in the face of increased development and climate change. This series will unpack the mitigation debates that defined the year. We start with the legal and policy basics, then move to the projects, guidance updates, and contested standards that revealed how challenging “no net loss” can be in practice.

This essay begins a short series on the mitigation controversies that played out in 2025. To see why these disputes mattered, and why the arguments turn technical almost immediately, we need a shared baseline: what wetlands compensatory mitigation requires, and what a mitigation bank is designed to do in practice.