Come join us in Wilmington, NC to learn about the latest developments in the Ecosystem Enhancement Program.

DATE:  24 July 2014

           Social Hour starting at 5:30 PM
           Dinner at 6:30 PM
           Speakers at ~7:00PM

LOCATION: Front Street Brewery
                  9 N Front Street
                  Wilmington, NC 28401 

The NC Ecosystem Enhancement Program (EEP) has changed substantially over the last three years.  Since early 2011, EEP has changed credit procurement practices, watershed planning, organizational structure and staffing.  Each suite of changes was planned to achieve specific objectives, and success has varied.  Michael Ellison will discuss the changes and results, and other developments on the horizon both for EEP and mitigation in general.

Michael Ellison is the Director of the NCDENR Ecosystem Enhancement Program.  Before state employment he spent over twenty-five years as a consultant and contractor focused on the analysis, restoration and management of disturbed landscapes.  Mr. Ellison completed his first ecosystem restoration project in 1987 at Tanglewood Plantation in Hale County, Alabama which 25, years later became the University of Alabama's J. Nicholene Bishop Biological Station.  He has since worked on hundreds of sites all over the country to restore wetlands, prairies, streams and forests. In addition to managing North Carolina’s in-lieu-fee mitigation program, Michael served on the coal ash task force that was created in response to the Dan River release, and now oversees the state’s three active Natural Resource Damage cases.