A marsh was "moved" when the south beltline highway was expanded several years ago, here in Madison. Can you actually move a marsh? In our situation, I think they dug out some nearby lowlands, that had gradually filled in, and restored a wetland, in the same place where one had previously existed. There were no trees involved, just grasses, sedges, and cattails.

Having some experience with these things, 83 dead trees out of 1400 is phenominal success (about 94%). Moving established trees is very very hard. That's why they usually bulldoze the old trees and plant seedlings in the new wetlands. Seedlings transplant easily and much more successfully. I just can't fathom why they tried it.
As for the replacement of wetlands, it is a lot better than the old way of doing business. Unfortunately, government agencies are swayed by politics and their policies are not always the way we would like, but they have gotten a lot more environmentally friendly over the years. Ironically, the Army Corps has probably destroyed more wetlands than any other entity and they enforce the rules.

Ziggy

I agree Ziggy that engineering wetlands from scratch is tricky anyway without the added burden of trying to relocate mature trees. I'm guessing that politics had something to do with the effort to focus on relocating the actual trees rather than using more viable seedlings and saplings. Supposedly, Wall-Mart had to compensate for the loss of mature trees and not just the area of lost wetlands but perhaps that could have been accomplished by expanding the size of the restored wetland or including some component in the mitigation plan for longterm conservation of existing wetlands.

I worked with the Corps for a few years doing environmental work and agree with your assessment that the Corps has accounted for more wetland loss despite a small few worthy efforts like the Everglades restoration. My experience was that Gov't agencies like the Corps take their lead from the White House Executive Office who have the power of appointment and policy committment to steer agencies fairly widely within the broad mission jurisdiction. I was in the private sector consulting with the Corps during the Reagan years when the Corps considered their environmental responsibilities to be elective - they were after all part of the DOD (Dept of Defense) though a civilian part. I was told many times by COE officials of my mitigation recommendations that I should be careful not to call for too much environmental adherence or the Corps would simply choose not to follow them. Later when I worked with the Corps as an employee during a more environmentally conscious administration, more (some) emphasis was given to environmentally friendly solutions when possible including avoidance and restoration as well as flood control that used natural principals (in addition to and often instead of engineered ones). There was also a more open planning process with public hearings and serious input from stakeholders. I hear now that under the new admin, all my friends in the Environmental Division either left or are hanging on and trying to wait it out. They don't get funded, they don't get to hire replacements, their managers are not scientists, their recommendations are ignored, they don't get invited to meetings that are now run by the engineer planners.

So anyway, sorry you are unemployed. Maybe in the next administration, we'll see more emphasis on environmental management again.