January 28, 2013
David Flick, Principal and Founder, announces that the firm’s Prospectus Mitigation Banking Instrument for the proposed Crimson Ridge Wetland & Stream Mitigation Bank has been placed on public notice by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This Prospectus was written for Habitat-Kansas, LLC who is submitting an application to establish a roughly 38-acre stream and wetland mitigation bank within the Crimson Ridge residential subdivision. The habitat improvements on this property would be used as compensation for unavoidable impacts to wetlands and streams within the Lower Kansas River watershed in Kansas.
In its current state the proposed Bank property has highly incised stream channels, eroding stream banks, a reduced amount of floodplain wetlands and a lack of fully functional riparian corridors and in-stream habitat. The establishment of a wetland and stream mitigation bank in this location presents an opportunity to increase the quality and quantity of the in-stream, riparian and wetland habitats at this site which will enhance the benefits to humanity provided by these natural systems, including water quality improvement. In addition, the proposed mitigation activities will help to protect these stream, wetland and riparian resources from the additional degradation that will occur as this watershed continues to undergo urban development. In particular, the installation of rock grade control structures throughout this site will help to minimize future stream bed incision and the resulting erosion that is currently carrying a significant amount of sediment downstream to the Kansas River which is listed by the State of Kansas and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as impaired by Total Suspended Solids which includes sediment. The State of Kansas has created a Total Maximum Daily Load for the Lower Kansas River due to the documented detrimental effect that the unnaturally high levels of sediment are having on aquatic life in this important river.
Habitat-Kansas is proposing to plant more than fourteen acres of riparian buffer, enhance more than nine acres of existing riparian buffer, establish more than four acres of forested wetlands, enhance a small amount of existing wetlands and enhance more than nine acres of existing buffer. In addition, numerous in-stream benefits are proposed on the five tributaries to the Kansas River that total more than a mile in length within the proposed mitigation bank. These include removing more than 900 feet of abandoned sewer pipes along the streams and constructing ten engineered rock riffles to provide much-needed grade control to prevent future incision of the stream channels. The mitigation bank will then be legally protected in perpetuity.
The public notice ends February 27, 2013.
For more information about centralized mitigation, contact your local office of Terra Technologies. |
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