Ohio Site Visit
May 3 – 5, 2005
[ Objective | Participating Scan Team Members | Local Participants | Summary | Site Descriptions and Photos ]
Objective
This scan provided information on Ohio’s wetlands mitigation program and included
field visits of the following project sites: Bluebird Wetland Mitigation
Area, New Albany Wetland Conservation Area, Coon Path Road Wetland
Mitigation Area.
Participating Scan Team Members
- Dennis Durbin, FHWA Headquarters
- Rob Ayers, FHWA, North Carolina Division
- Katherine Trott, USACE Headquarters
- Morgan Robertson, USEPA Headquarters
- Pat Clements, USFWS
- Katie McDermott, CTE, NC State University (Facilitator)
Local Participants
- Dave Snyder, FHWA, Ohio Division
- Herman Rodrigo, FHWA, Ohio Division
- Bill Cody, ODOT, Central Office
- John Baird, ODOT, Central Office
- Matt Raymond, ODOT, Central Office
- Mike Pettegrew, ODOT, Central Office
- Rebecca Rutherford, USACE, Huntington
- Ken Lammers, USFWS, Reynoldsburg
- Tom Linkous, ODNR, Division of Natural Areas & Preserves
- Randy Sanders, ODNR, Division of Real Estate & Land Management
Site Visit Summary
Coming Soon!
Ohio Wetland Site Visits
(All photographs are at a screen resolution of 72 dpi. If you would like a higher-resolution copy of a photograph for print purposes, please contact Katie McDermott, CTE technology transfer director.)
The three sites below were selected as examples of how Ohio DOT has used innovative techniques to mitigate unavoidable wetland impacts from highway projects. The Bluebird site was constructed on park-owned land (no land cost, and they have agreed to maintain the area in perpetuity). The WCA site was constructed next to a high school that developed an entire educational program utilizing the wetland as training tool. The Coon Path site uses Ohio DOT’s pooled mitigation concept (mitigates one project with an individual permit and then banks additional credits at the site for future project impacts).
Bluebird Wetland Mitigation Area
This wetland mitigation site was constructed in 2000 on property owned and
managed as a park by the City of Columbus to mitigate for a portion
of the wetland impacts associated with the FRA-161 New Albany Bypass
project. Three emergent wetland cells (totaling 7.6 acre) were constructed
in previously upland old fields to closely integrate with, and enhance,
the existing wetlands and pond located on the property. The mutually
beneficial partnership between the City of Columbus and ODOT reduced
ODOT’s construction costs (by avoiding land acquisition costs) while
enhancing the wildlife habitat and diversity of the City’s park.
Because of its location within a city park, this wetland has developed
recreational values in addition to natural functions and values.
Wetland Conservation Area (WCA)
This 13.68 wetland mitigation site was designed to provide a combination of
open water, emergent, and forested pool wetland habitats, interspersed
with upland buffer areas and existing forested wetlands. Created
in 1996 to mitigate for a portion of the wetland impacts associated
with the FRA-161 New Albany Bypass project, the site has become
an important educational and recreational resource for the nearby
New Albany High School/Middle School and the general public. Forested
pools created within the site have become breeding areas for smallmouth
salamanders and other amphibians, while the emergent and open water
areas have become increasingly important habitats for flora and
fauna diversity in a landscape that is quickly becoming urbanized.
The mitigation site (which has now been turned over to New Albany
Schools) continues to be monitored and managed by students in the
school’s Environmental Science program.
Coon Path Road Wetland Mitigation Area
This area was designed to transform 26.5 acres of previously farmed lands into wetland habitats, and to preserve an approximately 19 acre forested upland buffer. The wetland was created in 2002 as a pooled mitigation site to compensate for unavoidable wetland impacts resulting from ODOT projects. The site has been planted with over 32,500 container grown plants, 500 bare root stems, and 200 gallon container sized trees to develop a diverse community of aquatic bed, non-persistent emergent, emergent, and forested vegetation. In addition, the berms surrounding the four constructed wetland cells were drill seeded with a wildlife seed mix (containing several prairie species) to enhance the diversity of vegetation throughout the mitigation area and to stabilize the berm soils. To date, 21.65 acres of the 26.67 acre site have been used to mitigate for project impacts resulting from two ODOT projects. ODOT intends to use the additional 5.0 acres of wetland created at this pooled mitigation site to mitigate for future unavoidable impacts within the watershed.
For more information on these projects, please contact Katie McDermott, CTE technology transfer director. |
