The Wetlands Restoration Program helps to advance restoration projects from concept to construction – and beyond through post-construction monitoring. Assistance comes in many forms including technical feasibility studies, overall project management, procurement of funding, and monitoring of restoration results. WRP can provide both internal assistance from our experienced project managers and external technical assistance through pre-qualified private contractors.

Limited resources require that WRP focus its assistance on projects that will provide significant ecological benefits and have a high likelihood of achieving restoration success. To facilitate support of high-value sites, the program relies on a competitive nomination process to select priority projects. Designated priority projects are eligible to receive outside technical services funded by WRP (see the Priority Projects page for details). Other sites that do not attain priority status may still receive internal WRP support, or may be referred to other sources of assistance that are better suited to the project's objectives.

Technical services are often used to assess feasibility, costs, and benefits, and to develop priority projects to a point where they can attract mainstream funding and support. In some cases, feasibility studies reveal major restoration obstacles (such as flooding issues) that can prevent projects from developing further. This valuable information limits the expenditure of resources on sites that appear promising at first, but are deemed un- restorable due to practical reasons. WRP staff also devote considerable time to developing new promising sites identified in wetlands restoration plans and coastal atlases. All of these efforts improve restoration in Massachusetts by helping project partners advance high-value sites.

Two other sources of support are also available for project development: federal agency programs and corporate restoration partners. Several federal agencies operate restoration programs that fund feasibility studies (for example, the Army Corps of Engineers' Environmental Restoration Programs). In Massachusetts, the Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership also donates substantial funding and in-kind technical services for project development.