Wetlands Search Comes Up Dry

According to the report the county-wide search was conducted using GIS layers to sort out the parcels. According Ms. Palmer "Restoration of drained wetlands is the preferred mitigation banking method." "the sites revealed using the given GIS search parameters did not result in any significant restoration opportunities within Gogebic County."  The reports states that "The economic history of Gogebic County is not rooted in agriculture, therefore an effort at finding sites suitable for restoration of drained farmland have turned out to be largely unsuccessful."

 Ms. Palmer told the EDC members that "If the EDC was interested in pursuing a restoration based wetland mitigation bank, additional GIS site searches could be conducted to examine 10 acre and smaller agricultural lands. There may be smaller sites within the County that may offer feasible restoration opportunities. "

"Given that no suitable restoration sites were found within the County during Phase I of the project, an alternative is to attempt construction of a wetland mitigation bank based on creation of new wetlands. The created wetlands option is much more costly than traditional wetland restoration and would require close consultation with the MDEO to determine if it would even be a feasible to pursue. This scenario may not be the most cost effective for the EDC, particularly because there is no scheduled return on the investment "

One of the alternatives still available is to have the developers handle the mitigation themselves.

The Final Report for Phase 1 is reported below

In considering a wetland mitigation bank in Gogebic County, setbacks from local airports must  be considered. The FAA recommends a setback distance of 10,000 feet for hazardous wildlife attractants including wetland mitigation banks. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. Air Force, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Department of Agricultural - Wildlife Services signed a Memorandum of Agreement in July 2003 to acknowledge their respective missions in protecting aviation from wildlife hazards. The FAA provided an Advisory Circular in August 2007 outlining specific setback requirements at airport facilities. The FAA requires that wetland mitigation projects that may attract hazardous wildlife (i.e. waterfowl, migratory birds, etc) be sited outside of the minimum separation criteria for the airport facility. The FAA criteria include land uses that cause movement of hazardous wildlife onto, into, or across the airport's approach or departure airspace or air operations area. The separation distances are based upon 1) aircraft flight patterns, 2) the altitude at which most strikes happen (78% occur under 1,000 feet and 90% occur under 3,000 feet above ground level) and 3) National Transportation Safety Board recommendations. For airports that serve turbine powered aircraft (such as Gogebic County Airport) the FAA requires a separation distance of 10,000 feet for any wetland mitigation site development. This separation distance for the Gogebic County Airport is shown in Figure 1 in Attachment 4. No sites within 10,000 feet of the airport were included in this report.

The 10-acre all inclusive (County and privately owned) agricultural and wooded lands GIS search resulted in 6,800 acres of land. To facilitate ground-truthing of individual sites and in keeping with the EDC's request, this massive acreage was trimmed down by narrowing the search to include only 10-acre County lands as the EDC had expressed that County owned lands are the desired location for a wetland mitigation bank. The 10-acre County owned lands with agricultural or wooded coverage turned up 13 sites ·encompassing 189 acres; 174 of these acres are wooded. Three sites comprising 43.5-acres (Sites 412, 414 and 415) were not accessible by vehicle. A fourth site of 20.5-acres (Site 280), lying immediately north of Extreme Tool in Wakefield Township was deemed likely be in conflict with the mission of this industrial park area nor was it accessible by vehicle, and, therefore, was not ground-truthed. Thus, the remaining 9 sites (125-acres) of County owned land were ground-truthed. A County-wide map showing individual site locations is included. The individual site specific data sheets are included.

The 20-acre and greater site search (County and privately owned) agricultural lands search resulted in 428 acres comprising 15 sites. All of this acreage was on private land (any County owned lands occurred within 10,000 feet of the Gogebic County Airport and were, by rule, eliminated). One 24-acre parcel (Site 1) was not accessible by vehicle. Thus, the remaining 404-acres of privately owned property (14 sites) were ground-truthed. Again a County-wide map showing individual site locations is included. The individual site specific data sheets are included.