Evergreen Old Turtle Thorofare Wetland Mitigation Sites – West Wildwood, NJ

  At AKRF, Mr. Shotzberger worked with Evergreen Environmental, LLC on the design and construction of the Old Turtle Thorofare Wetland Mitigation Sites, located in Rio Grande, New Jersey. The 16.8-acre site consisted of a raised railroad bed construction on fill in the early 1900s, and was acquired by Evergreen in 2009 to be developed as a tidal wetland mitigation bank by the removal of fill for the commercial sale of mitigation credits. Mr. Shotzberger collected baseline data on the site and from adjacent reference marshes, including existing vegetative community structure, wildlife and listed species habitat, and biobenchmark data to inform restoration design. Following the collection and analysis of these data, the results were synthesized in a mitigation banking Prospectus for review by the Interagency Review Team (IRT) chaired by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District. The Prospectus provided technical justification for the Bank’s proposed Service Area and the proposed credit ratios by restored category within the site.

   Once the Prospectus was approved by the IRT, Mr. Shotzberger led AKRF to develop wetland mitigation plans that illustrated existing and proposed topography, proposed planting areas by species/community, and mitigation areas by restoration category (e.g., enhancement, restoration, etc.). Plans included planting details, construction notes, and soil erosion and sedimentation control provisions in order to support federal, state, and local (county) permitting requirements.

   The mitigation plans were used to support the development of the Mitigation Banking Instrument (MBI), the legal vehicle by which available credits are released and tracked. The MBI drew upon the design described above to develop the Bank’s credit ledger. The MBI also provided a protocol for post-construction monitoring of the site, an Adaptive Management Plan, and a long-term stewardship plan that included the potential acquisition of the restored site by the NJDEP.

  The MBI was issued for public notice by the USACE Philadelphia District in 2010. During the public notice period, the adjacent property owner issued a legal challenge to the Bank’s development over the meaning and intent of a previously established access easement. This challenge was ultimate resolved by the intercession of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTPA), an agency that was actively seeking mitigation credits for elements of its Garden State Parkway (GSP) Widening Project. In 2012, Mr. Shotzberger was contracted by Evergreen to revise the mitigation plans to reflect the establishment of an access easement and right-of-way for the neighboring property owner while simultaneously providing the NJTPA with 4.55 mitigation credits to apply to the GSP Widening Project. The release of these credits was approved by both the USACE and the NJDEP, and local permits were obtained in early 2013. Construction and planting of the wetland mitigation was completed in May of 2013, and the site met its final vegetative success criteria in 2015, three years ahead of projected schedule.