WATERWAY AND LOCATION: The project would affect waters of the United States (WOTUS) associated with an approximately 41.74-acre parcel along Troy Creek and an Unnamed Tributary to Troy Creek. The proposed site is located within Section 3, Township 71 North, Range 09 West, Jefferson County, Iowa at Latitude 40.975642 and Longitude -91.888123.
EXISTING CONDITIONS: According to the provided information within the prospectus, the site consists of approximately 27.75 acres of row crop fields, approximately 14 acres of forested area, two straightened perennial streams (Troy Creek and an Unnamed Tributary to Troy Creek), two ephemeral streams, three drainageways, four emergent wetlands, and five forested wetlands within the project boundary. Land surrounding the proposed bank site is a mix of forested areas and agriculture fields, including Zillman’s Hickory Hills Recreation Area directly adjacent to the west that consists of mixed hardwood habitat.
PROJECT PURPOSE/BANK OBJECTIVES: The fundamental objective of compensatory mitigation is to offset environmental losses resulting from unavoidable impacts to waters of the United States authorized by Department of Army Permits. Other Objectives include: restoration of riparian buffer adjacent to active agriculture, reduction of pollutant loads and non-regulated stormwater run-off, reducing excess nutrients in the watershed and downstream by nutrient attenuation with riparian zones, restoration of stream and buffer communities in order to reduce sediment inputs from adjacent and upstream land use, and improve local water quality and support native biodiversity within the Site’s watershed.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION/BANK ESTABLISHMENT: The purpose of the Bank is to provide mitigation credits to satisfy compensatory mitigation requirements for adverse impacts to wetlands and Waters of the United States (WOTUS) within the Mississippi Service Area. The sponsor proposes to complete activities on 42.74 acres of property currently owned by Robert Deutsch that would result in the generation of stream mitigation credits. The bank would be called Odyssey Stream Mitigation Bank.
The goal of the bank is to perform stream restoration and enhancement with buffer areas on 42.74 acres to generate 62,612 stream credits. The stream restoration proposal includes re-meandering 1,577 linear feet of Troy Creek and 1,239 linear feet of the Unnamed Tributary to Troy Creek, install floodplain benches, install rootwads on five meander bends, create one riffle where the confluence of the streams are, and one riffle just before Troy Creek flows out of the Bank Site, plant 70 trees per acre via 20ft x 20ft spacing, and reseed the understory with flood prone seed mix of native perennial species. Success criteria are required to be met in order to generate credit for the proposed activities.
SERVICE AREA: The proposed bank service area will be the Mississippi Service Area in Iowa.
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