Wetland Transplant Provides Win-Win for Developer and Environment

Plans for a regional shopping center at a busy crossroads near I-75 and University Parkway in Sarasota presented big challenges for a developer that wanted maximum visibility for its retail stores. The problem: the prime corner on which to locate the stores was the site of a 7.2-acre mature hardwood popash forest. Building virtually anywhere else on site would also entail wetland impacts requiring costly mitigation involving the creation of new wetlands that take decades to mature.

SCHEDA evaluated the parcel and proposed a bold move that produced a significant environmental success and savings for the developer. SCHEDA scientists designed and permitted the first and largest forested wetland transplant in the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Instead of planting three-gallon trees on a 28-acre mitigation site, the developer agreed to spend more money to have SCHEDA transplant the hardwood wetland’s nearly 700 trees, up to 35 feet in height, about 350 feet north, and place the entire wetland under a permanent conservation easement.

In exchange for successfully accomplishing the transplant, the developer got six acres of prime land for development that would otherwise have been untouchable.

The transplant was accomplished in the winter of 2000; 95% of the trees have survived and thrived. The high success rate was accomplished by pruning the tree roots and injecting them with growth hormones before they were transferred, one by one, to the mitigation site during the winter dormant season. SCHEDA later supervised the installation of an additional 725 saplings to expand the transplanted wetland.

By successfully transplanting the mature wetland, regulators granted a 1.28 to 1 ratio for mitigation impacts as opposed to the conventional 4 to 1 ratio required for new wetland creation. More importantly, the ecological value of the mature wetland far exceeds what would have been achieved through conventional mitigation. Monitoring costs of the developer also were reduced because the transplanted wetland was successful so quickly.

“We’re always looking for ways to problem solve – in our minds that means getting the best environmental result while maximizing the land available to a client,” says SCHEDA vice president Tom Ries, who designed the mitigation. “In this case, we struck a win on both counts.”