Marlinton Mayor’s Corner

In early November, Lauren Bennett and I were on a conference call with Jim Christie of Civil and Environmental Consultants, Inc., regarding Marlinton’s wetlands project.

The intent of the project is to clean up an overgrown area of town, adjacent to the Greenbrier River Trail. When complete, the 7.2-acre area will provide the perfect place for bird and butterfly watching and learning about plants and vegetation found in such an area. For those who may be interested, the required delineation report has been completed.

Using report language: The wetland delineations performed by CEC were conducted in a manner consistent with the criteria contained in the 1987 USACE Manual and 2012 Supplement, and with the level of care and skill ordinarily exercised by members of the environmental consulting profession practicing contemporaneously under similar conditions in the locality of the project. It must be recognized that the jurisdictional wetland delineations were based on field observations and CEC’s professional interpretation of the criteria in the 1987 USACE Manual and Supplement at the time of our fieldwork. Wetland and stream determinations may change subsequent to CEC’s delineation based on changes in the regulatory criteria, seasonal variations in hydrology, alterations to drainage patterns, and other human activities and/or land disturbances.

The wetland delineations were based on CEC’s professional judgment and interpretation of the technical criteria presented in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) 1987 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wetlands Delineation Manual (USACE Manual), and the 2012 USACE Regional Supplement to the USACE Wetland Delineation Manual: Eastern Mountains and Piedmont Region, Version 2.0 (Supplement). The wetland boundaries were delineated using the routine onsite determination method described in the USACE Manual and Supplement, along with the National Wetland Plant List (Lichvar, 2016). CEC used the following approach to identify and delineate jurisdictional wetland boundaries in the study area:

All to let you know, the report is completed and a design is now in progress.

Sam