THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, September 21, 1994          TAG: 9409210445
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                     LENGTH: Short :   44 lines

BEACH CITY COUNCIL OKS THE CONCEPT OF WETLANDS ``BANK'' AREAS USED DURING CONSTRUCTION WOULD BE REPLACED BY OTHER LAND IN THE CITY.

Under a proposal approved in principle by the City Council on Tuesday, the city would set up the first municipal ``wetlands bank'' in the country.

Currently, the city is required to establish new wetlands to replace those it damages through road construction and other capital projects. The result is many small new wetlands areas scattered throughout the city.

But the wetlands-bank system would create large, consolidated areas of wetlands, saving management and wetlands-development costs. New wetlands would be ``banked'' and used to offset wetlands damage elsewhere in the city.

The proposal is similar to other wetlands-banking programs around the country. But it is the first that will be city-managed and provide wetlands mitigation exclusively for city projects, said R. Harold Jones, chief of the Southern Virginia Regulatory Section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Jones, who has spent three years helping develop the bank proposal, said the more comprehensive approach would make wetlands projects easier to monitor and would save the city money spent designing and managing multiple wetlands-mitigation sites. It may also speed up construction of capital projects by creating new wetlands before they are needed, he said.

Jones said he would like to see the 47-acre Creeds Field near Back Bay become the first area the city transforms into wetlands under the new plan. Wetlands are created by adding water to a site or preventing existing water from draining, he said.

Several council members said they were concerned about proceeding with the banking proposal before they understood all its costs and implications, but they unanimously endorsed the concept.

Other agencies that have an interest in wetlands - including the Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Environmental Quality and the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries - have already signed off on the plan, Jones said.

KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH CITY COUNCIL WETLANDS ENVIRONMENT by CNB