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While the following story is fictional, it represents a collection of the experiences of many agencies and private citizens who have run afoul of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) by affecting wetlands that they often did not even know were there. For park districts and forest preserves, it's a cautionary tale about filling wetlands and compensating for the wetland fill. A Director Tells His Story About Developing a Park on Wetlands The Strauss family donated a 40-acre property to us, the XYZ Park District, almost a year ago. I looked at it soon after we got it, but got busy with other things until the following spring. I walked the site again before we started to put some ideas on paper and I was able to see that it had good potential for recreational use. A creek runs through it from northeast to southwest, and north of the creek are about 15 acres of wooded bluff and hills. The southern part is flatter, consisting of a floodplain and steam terraces which had been farmed until the spring of this year. There was some grassy vegetation and small trees along the fences, but it mostly was a blank slate on which we could create another needed park. I went back to the office and started writing down ideas. Since the area south of the creek was accessible from the road and was mostly flat, we could put an entrance lane and parking area there. There would also be soccer fields and a small playground south of the creek. North of the creek, the woods would have a hiking trail with a small picnic pavilion and several lookout points over the creek. During the first board meeting to discuss potential plans for the areas, our landscape architect mentioned he'd been out to the site and noticed what he called a swampy area along the creek. |
He said we better be sure that we didn't fill any wetlands while we were working on the entrance road or the parking lot. The board wasn't sure what a wetland was, but agreed that more information was needed. At the next meeting, the attorney brought along a map called a National Wetlands Inventory, and there was a wetland shown along the creek. But since the map didn't show any other wetlands on the property, we modified the plan for the road and thought that we would have no further problems with wetlands. A year later, and our park development budget severely deflated, I know better. The first bad news came in the form of a certified letter from the Army Corps of Engineers about three weeks after construction began on the road and parking lot: "A representative of the Regulatory Branch observed that fill material has been discharged into wetland on the site.... You are hereby ordered to cease and desist all work on the project until this violation is resolved" The letter also informed me that "violators may be subject to civil or criminal penalties and fines of up to $25,000 per day or imprisonment and may also be required to restore the site." We didn't know we had violated any wetland laws. We didn't even know we had any wetlands, except for what the wetland map showed. I called the staff person who had sent the letter, but they weren't in. Three days later, after I had |