Terra Technologies designed and is performing construction oversight, marketing, and monitoring of a 278-acre Wetland and Stream Mitigation Site located southwest of Kansas City in rural Miami County, Kansas. The ecological improvements made on this site will serve as compensatory mitigation for future development and infrastructure projects across an area including virtually all of Miami, Linn, Osage, and Franklin counties as well as parts of Bourbon, Allen, Anderson, Johnson, Coffey, Lyon, Wabaunsee, and Douglas counties. The restoration plan for this site includes the expansion or enhancement of 101 acres of riparian corridor as well as the establishment of 77 acres of wetlands which will improve water quality by filtering agricultural runoff that flows onto the site from neighboring properties.
Scientists with the firm characterized the site, which had been in row crop production for decades, as relatively flat floodplain topography with poorly drained hydric soils and more than 18,750 feet of perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral streams. This topographic uniformity will be conducive in facilitating the establishment and restoration of forested and emergent wetlands onsite.
The design of the site took advantage of its location for the restoration and enhancement of a wide riparian buffer along more than 16,500 lineal feet of both sides of intermittent and ephemeral streams and along 2,253 lineal feet of one side of Pottawatomie Creek. In addition, severe incision within one intermittent stream will be addressed through the use of the innovative method of regenerative stream restoration where the incised channel is partially filled to re-establish a stable and healthy new channel that will have improved floodplain connectivity. Floodplain connectivity will also be greatly increased along the highly incised Cockers Branch as a result of a floodplain connectivity weir that will divert some of the stormwater flows onto tens of acres of new wetlands while still allowing low flows and some storm flows to pass through the structure.
Most of the site will be planted as a forested wetland, which is appropriate based on the landscape position of the site within the floodplain of a large stream. Within the forested areas, large spaces will be excavated to a greater depth to create shallow marsh areas, providing an additional amount of habitat diversity and enhancing habitat for migrating waterfowl.
This bank was approved in 2016 by the US Army Corps of Engineers and substantial completion of construction is expected in Spring 2017. For more information about mitigation services, contact your local office of Terra Technologies. |
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