Frequently Asked Questions

Send us a credit inquiry with your project location, the credit type and the quantity your permit requires. We reply by email with a quote showing pricing and availability. Once you confirm, we issue an invoice. When payment is received (usually by check), we send a Credit Transfer Certificate that serves as your receipt and as documentation for the regulatory agency, along with a copy of the official credit ledger recording the sale.

Quotes usually go out within a business day of your inquiry. The certificate is issued as soon as payment clears, so the overall timeline mostly depends on your side: how quickly you confirm the quote and send payment. If you have a permit deadline, tell us in your inquiry and we will work to it.

Credits must be used in the watershed where they were generated. Our Neuse credits serve the Neuse River basin below Falls Lake Dam (HUC 03020201, excluding the Falls Lake watershed); our Jordan Lake credits serve the Upper New Hope arm; and our Tennessee stream credits serve the Hiwassee watershed with Watts Bar Lake and Middle Tennessee–Chickamauga as secondary areas. The fastest check is to type your project address into the service-area map. If you’re still unsure, send us the address and we’ll confirm.

Three kinds: nutrient offset credits in pounds of nitrogen (Neuse and Jordan Lake) and phosphorus (Jordan Lake); riparian buffer credits in square feet (Neuse and Jordan Lake); and stream mitigation credits quantified with the Tennessee SQT (Porterhouse Valley Mitigation Bank).

A Credit Transfer Certificate identifying the project, the credit type and quantity, and the site the credits came from, plus a copy of the agency-approved credit ledger showing the debit. In North Carolina that ledger is maintained for the Division of Water Resources; in Tennessee we provide a transfer letter suitable for TDEC and the Corps of Engineers.

No. We sell the quantity your permit requires, whether that is a few hundred square feet of buffer or thousands of pounds of nitrogen. Small purchases are common for utility crossings and driveway culverts.

Yes. Our North Carolina sites are approved by the NC Division of Water Resources, and the credits are tracked on DWR-approved ledgers, so they satisfy the Neuse and Jordan Lake nutrient offset and buffer rules as administered by DWR and delegated local governments. The Porterhouse Valley Mitigation Bank is approved by TDEC and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Tennessee ARAP and Section 404 permits.

Both satisfy the rule. Private-bank credits are typically available immediately, priced competitively, and come from a specific, approved site you can visit. The state’s in-lieu fee program has at times suspended new applications in parts of the Jordan Lake watershed, which leaves private providers as the practical option. We are happy to quote so you can compare.

The project restores a portion of your property to a wooded habitat that provides wildlife habitat and water quality improvements in the ditches and streams on your land. Native trees such as oaks, poplar, sycamore, cypress and persimmon are planted to give the woods a jumpstart, and invasive species are treated with herbicides.

Your property has farmed areas along streams or ditches that could be restored to a natural habitat. Cropland or pasture that runs to the edge of a channel in the Neuse River basin or the Jordan Lake watershed is exactly what generates credits under North Carolina’s nutrient and buffer rules.

This is a real estate transaction with fair-market, negotiated compensation to establish a conservation easement on a portion of your property along the streams or ditches. You keep ownership of the land.

Yes. RestorEcology can use a partnering approach that shares project revenues with you as credits sell. Other options include purchasing the land outright, installment payments, or full payment when the project is approved.

The NC Division of Water Resources (DWR) oversees the development and approval of the project, reviews monitoring reports, and maintains the ledger of credits the site generates.

RestorEcology bears the cost of project development, including survey, permitting, planting, monitoring, maintenance and long-term stewardship. You provide the land; we provide everything else.

Developers in the watershed are required to offset the negative impacts to water quality created by development. They pay RestorEcology to be credited with a piece of the project. No ownership of the project or the land transfers to the developer, only the water quality improvement, measured in pounds of nitrogen or square feet of buffer, that the project created.

After the trees are monitored for five years and are growing successfully, RestorEcology funds an endowment for a long-term steward, typically a land trust, to hold the conservation easement and ensure it remains intact in perpetuity. You retain the right to walk, hunt and fish in the easement area, but cannot build trails or structures there.

Yes. The easement covers only the restored strip along the streams or ditches. Farming, timber and other uses of the rest of the property continue as before, and on livestock operations we design fencing and watering structures so the farm keeps running without interruption.