quote:
Can manipulating a wet land get you in a shite ton of trouble? That falls under multiple federal jurisdictions I would think. I would be careful

Yes. It can get you in a lot of trouble with both the Corps of Engineers and U.S. EPA. fines start in the $10K's and go upward from there to the millions.

That being said, there are legal ways to manipulate and exploit the rules if you know them. In order to have a jurisdictional wetland you need 3 things, wetland vegetation, hydric soils and sufficient hydrology. If you take any one of those three things away, the corps loses jurisdiction.

I used to work for a (now defunct) firm that did wetland delineations and advised land owners on how to maximize the buildable footprint of their property. All of it was within the rules, but at times it left a bad taste in my mouth and was ultimately why I decided to part with them. I once had a corps employee tell me that lots of times the delineation line is more like a swath and that often times any point along that swath could be considered the "line" on a map. Lots of times we "made our money" on how far we could push that line towards the clients favor while still staying within the rules. Got a lot of pressure from the bosses to push it to the absolute max we could get away with. While I rarely had a flag moved by the corps, I lost many nights of sleep because of that one.

For example, "man made" wetlands are not subject to ASACOE jurisdiction. Out here in the aird intermountain west, you'd get lots of "wetlands" that existed because the farmer/rancher had over irrigated their property for 100 years. This gave them all three things mentioned above. The first thing we'd always do is advise them to shut off all irrigation water for the first 2 years, thus removing the hydrology part of it. If you could demonstrate that the hydrology was only irrigation water, you could remove those from a delineation. We also did alot with putting in ground water sampling wells.

But don't attempt any of this on your own. You're asking for trouble. The process can take a long, long time and folks get impatient with it. The people I saw that got in trouble tried to rush the process and got caught. And that being said, there are some properties that you simply can't go anything with because they're just too wet.

This post was edited on 10/31/19 at 11:05 am

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Posted by Cracker

in a box

Member since Nov 2009

18894 posts

Posted on 10/31/19 at 1:58 pm to Lonnie Utah

I had a developer buddy that they bought credits from a group for messing up a wetland what is that about?

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Posted by Cowboyfan89

Member since Sep 2015

12930 posts

Posted on 10/31/19 at 6:28 pm to Cracker

quote:
I had a developer buddy that they bought credits from a group for messing up a wetland what is that about?

Mitigation Bank. That is THE way to mitigate in Louisiana. The Corps rarely accepts any other method in Louisiana.

ETA: I had a boss similar to Lonnie's former. Guy wanted me to change a line and I refused. Thought for sure I would get fired for that.

I would NOT deal with any consultant in Louisiana that even tries to propose what Lonnie described. It is damn near impossible to drain or fill a wetland without leaving noticable signs of such activity. And unless you are doing it in some thick canopied forest, chances are, there is aerial imagery that would point to a wetland anyway. And the Corps of Engineers uses some pretty sweet LIDAR that helps them pick out the tiniest frog holes there are.

This post was edited on 10/31/19 at 6:34 pm

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Posted by Lonnie Utah

Utah!

Member since Jul 2012

28912 posts

Posted on 11/1/19 at 8:04 am to Cowboyfan89

quote:
I would NOT deal with any consultant in Louisiana that even tries to propose what Lonnie described. It is damn near impossible to drain or fill a wetland without leaving noticable signs of such activity

Yeah, I've done work on the east coast and while the delinestion process is the same, the mitigation techniques are totally different. It's easy (out here) when you have a big pipe, a well or headgate delivering water to your site. Most farmers out hete flood irrigate for the simplicity of it. After doing it for years and having cows or sheep stomp around in it forever and you get a mess. It's an easy fix to simply turn off the tap. Funny thing is you tell them how much money they are pouring on the ground and they don't even want to listen. Often they don't even want to put it in a trough. Their few dollars in cows cost them thousands when the developers come in.

That's not the case where you have real natural hydrology. There are no easy fixes for mother nature.

FWIW, I haven't done one of these in over 15 years.

This post was edited on 11/1/19 at 8:20 am

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