Mitigation next for Little Otter Creek, surveyors out in county
May 8, 2019 | Community News |
Caldwell County’s Little Otter Creek Watershed Plan is nearing completion, but one of the steps left involves mitigation features. Compensatory mitigation by definition is intended to replace or restore specific resources that have been lost or damaged by a specific action. The idea is to compensate for human activities that cause significant harm to fish and wildlife habitat and the environment — in this case, the building of Little Otter Creek Lake.
Mitigation for land and streams and wetlands lost to reservoir inundation will be addressed through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 404 and Missouri Department of Natural Resources 401 permit process.
The land and stream beds lost by the building of the lake have to be replaced somewhere.
“We’d like to mitigate with land and streams as close to Little Otter Lake as we possibly can in order to benefit both Caldwell and Daviess County,” says Caldwell County Presiding Commissioner Bud Mosinger.
A preliminary study is looking at several locations to survey. One of those locations is Daviess County. Five areas have been identified in Daviess which might be used to piece back together the fabric of the biological landscape.
The Daviess County Commissioners have allowed Allstate Consultants, the engineers and contractors for Little Otter Creek, to survey Daviess County.
There are three ways to compensate via the mitigation process: Stream Mitigation Banks, Individual In-Lieu Fee Stream Project Approvals, or Permittee-Responsible Mitigation.
The third type, Permittee-Responsible, means Caldwell County would be responsible for making sure the project is maintained years down the road.
“Permittee-Responsible is actually the last choice on the Corps hierarchy,” says Mr. Motsinger. “The other two choices are out of our hands.”
For Daviess County, mitigation could mean taking out low water crossings and creating an unobstructed flow of water and putting a bridge over it, which would be paid for through state or federal funds.
While that would be beneficial to Daviess County — which would no longer have to worry about silt buildup or trash backup — it’s a long way from being a reality.
“We don’t want to get people’s hopes up, because we don’t know if the Corps will approve it,” Mr. Motsinger says.
Two other sites have been identified as possible locations, and those sites are not local. One is not even in the state.
The process is in the most preliminary stages and no contracts have been signed.
