Wetlands determination

[youmyboyblue]

Looking to acquire some acreage near my home for a future home site. Received all the disclosures from sellers agent and it is marked as no wetlands. So I proceeded with sale, yesterday while showing a mud/clearing guy the site, he recommended I get a full wetlands report because of some vegetation he saw. I still have 12 days remaining in my inspection period. I have read all I can read and still can't find clarity. In worse case of wetlands, In once instance I read I could get a general national permit-no problem, another section talks about buying credits from farmers and another section talks about exemptions.
Has anyone had any experience with this?
It's a 15 acre tract that appears high hardwoods from visiul minus a little river that runs the back end of property. I was able to locate a soil map and it appears the soil is much Aa, some Bg and some Gy. However those acronyms do little for my understanding. Is there a company you hire for this or do I go straight to the corp of engineers? Any info would be appreciated.

[youmyboyblue]

I would plan on building a road, home site and detached barn. So if the home and barn combined only physically takes up 1 acre, in worse case, would I only have to mitigate 1 acre?? Or do you have to mitigate/permit the entire 15 acres?

[FF_T_Warren]

In your case you need to hire a firm and ASAP if your under a 15 day window. I had the corps do mine as part of my purchase agreement. Unfortunately it was 5 months later before I got a determination. If you hire a company they just expedite the process by doing the field work for the corps so you aren't waiting on them. Now like the above poster said. You only have to mitigate te percentage of the property that is wetlands

[Jrchip1]

Mitigation of wetlands/acre can run $3000.00 to $20,000.00/acre. You can maybe "self mitigate" on your own land, but it requires a COE mitigation. Wetland Mitigations usually involve 8-10 Local State and Federal determinations, and a lot of sleepless nights.

[marshmellow]

Reputable survey companies generally have an environmental division who can make a wetlands determination. I have no idea what their day rate is, but its usually a 2 man crew (i.e. not cheap).

[malliegator]

I just had a preliminary jurisdictional determination complete by Providence Engineering. The contact person is Paul Clifton. Paul is the Director over the group at Providence that deals with natural resource regulatory concerns. Paul's email address is paulclifton@providenceeng.com. His cell phone number is 225-939-1317. Do you know if you are in a Coastal Planning Zone? If you are this triggers additional permitting obligations and the national exemptions do not apply. If you are not in a CPZ your best approach is to try to make the exemptions work.

[youmyboyblue]

Thanks for the info and pm's. I hired a firm which will have the pre indications by next week.

[Smalls]

Damn, wish I would have seen this sooner. Could have offered some assistance.

All of the above advice is spot on though. The cost of mitigation will depend on acreage, wetland quality, wetland type, and mitigation credits available in the area. The Corps recently released new methodology that seems to benefit the permittee.

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