Swallow Tail operates the 212-acre Clear Fork Wetland & Stream Mitigation Bank which will serve as compensatory mitigation for impacts to wetlands and streams across most of the Missouri portion of the Kansas City metropolitan area as well as much of the west-central part of the state.
This former agricultural property includes over a mile of both sides of the Clear Fork of the Blackwater River and more than a mile and a third of tributary streams. Almost all of these streams were surrounded by row crop fields with only narrow riparian buffers and a stretch of Clear Fork more than 1,000 feet in length was entirely devoid of riparian vegetation along one side. The mitigation activities completed on the site have addressed the needs of the property and the watershed through the planting of 98 acres of new riparian buffers and the establishment of about 60 acres of herbaceous wetlands, 18 acres of forested wetlands and 5 acres of scrub-shrub wetlands. In addition, roughly 19 acres of existing riparian buffers were enhanced and about 10 acres of upland buffers were established or preserved.
These habitat improvements will provide important water quality and wildlife habitat benefits. In particular, agricultural runoff from approximately 570 acres of surrounding farmland is diverted into the roughly 60 acres of contiguous wetlands in the southern portion of the mitigation bank which allows for significant pollutant removal, flood abatement and wildlife habitat creation. Additionally, because this mitigation bank is situated along Clear Fork between Knob Noster State Park and the Ralph and Martha Perry Memorial Conservation Area, it will serve as a valuable stopover point for wildlife traveling between these two important protected areas.
The service area includes all or part of Jackson, Platte, Clinton, Cass, Ray, Johnson, Carroll, Saline, Chariton, Pettis, Cooper, Morgan and Benton Counties.
Contact our St. Louis office at
314-984-0050 for more information.
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