THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411100187
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
City, state and federal officials signed into law this week a unique, more efficient way to preserve local wetlands.
At a ceremony Monday overlooking the Virginia Marine Science Museum's back yard marsh, officials from all levels of government signed a memorandum of agreement to establish the first municipal wetlands bank in the country.
When it's operational, the wetlands bank will allow the city to create new, quality wetlands before it damages existing ones.
The city is required to establish new wetlands to replace those it destroys through road construction and other capital projects. The result is many small areas of new wetlands scattered throughout the city.
The wetlands banking system would instead create large, consolidated areas of wetlands, saving management and wetlands-development costs. New wetlands would be ``banked'' and used to offset wetlands destruction elsewhere in the city.
The agreement, which took four years to draw up, was signed by the city, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the state Marine Resources Commission and the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
The system is designed to help public projects, not those that solely benefit private developers, according to the agreement.
``I think with this proposal, we're going to have the opportunity to prevent long periods of delay on smaller (road) projects such as Doziers Bridge, Gum Swamp bridge and other smaller projects,'' Councilman Robert K. Dean said. ``If we had wetlands bank in place right now, we would have been able to move forward (with those projects), because we would have had land set aside for mitigation.
``I think what we're trying to do is preserve the very very important resources we have in Virginia Beach so those who follow us can also enjoy the same quality of life and natural resources we have today,'' he said. ``Who wants to move to an ugly place?''
The details of the project have yet to be worked out: no site has been picked and no decision has been made on how many acres to designate. Col. Andrew M. Perkins Jr., district engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers, said he expects somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 100 acres will be turned into wetlands over the next few years.
Perkins said the bank will help the Army Corps review permit applications more quickly. He said he will be able to reduce the permitting time for most applications affecting wetlands from 60 to 45 days.
John P. Wilfin, the signator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, told the group of gathered dignitaries that the system will help in the struggle to balance human and environmental needs.
``I'm going to sign this agreement because it represents a step in the right direction not only for natural resources, but for people.''
KEYWORDS: WETLANDS
by CNB