6.1. SR 02-01-1993 - Laserfiche WebLink

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.Acre-made-for-an-acre-Iost ~. . requirement doesn't hold water I . 'By Norman Draper .6taffWriter Birch Run Station is where both wet- lands and the law got dumped on. Three-and-a-half acres of wetlands were destroyed when the strip mall was built in Maplewood in 1989. Despite assurances from the develop- ers that they would replace what they had paved over. that was never done, And because of an oversight by wet- lands regulators. a $75.000 line of credit set up to hold the developers to their promises ex.pired without anyone getting a penny of it. The mall, formerly called Maple- wood Crossing, is one of the Twin Cities' most tarnished monuments to mitigation, the federal requirement lthat for every acre of wetland tilled, a new or improved one must be creat- ed nearby. It shows that despite a raft of state and federal wetlands laws and regula- \ions, developers have sometimes ed too free a hand to do as they eased. It also shows that regulators . sometimes don't pay enough attention. 1n addition, those in charge of moni- toring mitigation compliance in the Twin Cities area do not know how manv efforts have failed. worked well: or not been done at all. .' Mitigation sites can range from a small lake anchoring a housing devel- opment in Oakdale to a pond inside a'freeway ramp at the Interstate Hwy. 394-Hwy. 100 interchange. Some have been carefully ex.cavated and landscaped. Others were de- sIgned with too little attention paid to replacing the proper soils and veg- etation. Some are merely scooped- out holes in the earth that fill with water. Occasionally, as with Birch Run Station, the mitigation isn't done. " Projects that destroy sizable amounts of wetlands are required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Natural Re- sources (DNR) to include mitigation plans, Since the late I 980s, dozens of tiojects that have involved filling etro area wetlands for roads, uses, golf courses and other pur- poses have done so only on the con- dition that they replace what they've destroyed. As a result. state and federal regula- tors can boast that new or better wetlands should have been created in the wake of big projects that collec- tively devoured hundreds of acres of We~lands. Studies to tind out how mitigation is working are underway. The Environ- mental Protection Agency (EPA). which can veto Corps of Engineers wetlands permits. recently awarded the Minnesota office of the National Audubon Society a grant to perform one such study. It will take four years. [~iust don't know what's going on," said Ted Rockwell. EPA's director of Minnesota operations. "I'm con- cerned that not enough followup is being done." the Corps of Engineers and the DNR rarelv resort to them, preferring in- stead to negotiate a developer into compliance. Mitigation was basic and generic in its earlv davs. It often entailed noth- ing mo're than a big hole being , scooped out of the ground. But Corps of Engineers officials and private consultants say those days are gone. Thev contend that miti211tion can succeed if the site is properly graded and the right soils and plants are used. Regulators and wildlife biolo- gists who work with developers say they are trying harder to tailor the mitigation to the type of wetland lost. "We dug a lot of duck ponds back in the '80s," said Steve Eggers, an ecolo- gist with the Corps of Engineers' St. Paul district. "That didn't take into account the specific functions and values of the ditTerl'nt wetlands being lost." But unofficial observations reveal that there are plenty of problems with mitigation. Paul Burke, a wildlife biologist with the Twin Cities field office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. has viewed as many as 100 mitigation sites in the Twin Cities in the past five years. He said about one-quarter of the etTorts were poor or nonexis- tent, and another quarter were good. The remaining half were somewhere in between. he said. Wetlands were never re-created at Birch Run. northwest of the intersec- tion of Kennard St. and Beam Av. The Corps of Engineers issued a wet- land fill permit to the maWs develop- er, Michigan-based Maplewood Crossing Limited Partnership. with the understanding that a mitigation plan would be fonhcoming. When the partnership's parent com- pany. Weatherford/Walker Develop- ments Inc.. was slow in developing an acceptable mitigation plan. the Corps of Engineers agreed to give the company more time. Eventually, and despite a warning from a federal wildlife official that the amount was too low to ensure compliance, the Corps of Engineers accepted a $75,000 letter of credit issued by the Bank of Michigan on behalf of the developer to ensure compliance with mitigation requirements. .. .~": , "" And mitigation remains unproven, more art than science. The idea that humans can duplicate nature's handi- work in less than a fraction of na- ture's time has created plenty of skepticism about mitigation's value. even among federal and state officials. "It's like asking an engineering team to design the Columbia shuttle. and saying, 'Oh. by the way, you've got a month to do it: .. Rockwell said. Federal mitigation evolved informal- Iv after 1977 amendments to the Clean Water Act provided for the protection of the nation's wetlands. It became more common after 1986. when mitigation regulations were first spelled out. For projects that fill more than an acre of wetland, the Corps of Engineers requires at least an acre of mitigation for every acre of wetland filled. State mitigation re- quirements, which are less specific, date from the early 1970s. Although both state and federal law I provide for fines and jail sentences, But beset by financial hardships, the-; partnership and WeatherfordfWalker collapsed before doing the required"' ~ mitiltlltion. The mall went into fore~". closure and is now run by an Edele~ Prairie propeny manager who knows nothing about any wetlands mitiga:' J. tion plan. The deadline for the line'of credit expired two years ago. .':" ..f. "Our attorney has basically said we're screwed," said Tim Fell, the "T' Corps of Engineers' environmental. , speciali.st charged with monitoring '~ the proJect. "Pan of the problem is' :' mine. I didn't bird-dog it enough." :~ "'A.