Kendall County forest preserve looks to create wetland mitigation bank

If you don’t know the difference between a swamp and a marsh, Dave Guritz, Kendall County Forest Preserve District director, can set you straight – just look at the plants.

“If those plants are trees, then you are in a swamp,” Guritz said. “If there are cattails and sedges and reeds, you’re in a marsh.”

The Kendall County Forest Preserve District is looking for wetland areas in the district that used to be marshes and swamps in order to start a wetland mitigation banking program.

The program would allow the forest preserve district to essentially sell wetland credits to developers who impact wetlands when they propose a subdivision or other development.

Guritz said the district could bank wetland credits by returning areas they own back into wetland preserves. Builders could then go to the Army Corps of Engineers who would broker those credits. The proceeds would go to the district.

“If I impact three acres of wetland, I have to purchase three acres of credits,” Guritz said.

He said developers could buy the credits or create their own wetlands that they would then turn over to the forest preserve district.

“The developers usually don’t want to get into the hassle of having to create new wetlands, so they will typically purchase the credits,” Guritz said.

But before the district can do that, officials need to find areas that used to be wetlands that can be restored. Guritz said the planned restoration needs to create a minimum of 25 acres of wetland area. The Army Corps of Engineers would approve and oversee the project. It would then establish how many credits would be available based on how many acres were restored.

“The Corps kind of acts as the broker,” he said.

Guritz said the idea of creating a wetland mitigation bank in Kendall County was something he suggested after taking over as director. He said the district has acquired enough property over the last nine years to find an area that qualifies.

“Kendall County was once rich with wetland areas,” he said.

However, settlers drained the wetlands in the 19th century so the land could be farmed.

Recently the Fox Metro Water Reclamation District, located on Route 31 just south of Montgomery in Kendall County, used a wetland mitigation banking program to purchase credits for an expansion program. The district announced in December that it is moving forward with plans to build a new $92 million wastewater treatment plant just south of its current facility to conform to a mandate from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

The agency will construct the new plant on land it previously purchased immediately south of its existing plant.

Fox Metro purchased its wetland credits from DeKalb County’s Afton Wetland Bank, a 240-acre forest preserve with 57.5 acres of wetland restored. It was farmland and they returned it to wetland, Guritz said. The district would also be responsible for maintaining the wetland in perpetuity.

The Kendall County Forest Preserve District Board of Commissioners discussed the idea during their Jan. 19 board meeting.

Commissioner Scott Gryder mentioned that if developers are going to be impacting wetlands in Kendall County, they should be purchasing their credits here.

“It seems like a lot of our surrounding forest preserves have a program in place and I think it’s great that we are looking at this,” Gryder said.

Commissioner John Purcell said he was on board but had some questions.

“Would we actually create wetlands or would we take areas that would typically flood and be mushy anyway and restore those, or would we take potentially high and dry land and make a swamp out of it?” Purcell asked.

Guritz said they could do both with the program. Once district officials identify an area, they could clog a drain tile and reflood an area or break up the tiles, causing the natural hydrology to return. He said they could also take existing wetland areas that are somewhat degraded and work to restore them.

“I think the important thing here is that you have to reach out first before you do the work – you have to reach out and get the project approved for mitigation credits through the Army Corps before you go to work,” Guritz said.

Purcell was also worried about mosquitoes.

“I’m curious on how many more mosquitoes we would be bringing into the area,” Purcell added.

Guritz said after the meeting that wetlands typically don’t generate more mosquitoes in an area.

“Wetlands are seen as places that harbor mosquitoes and that’s more of myth than a fact,” he said. “The mosquitoes that typically give us problems are not the same species that you would find in a wetland area.”

Commissioner Bob Davidson had some concerns about blocking off farm tile and what effects that would have on other properties that feed into the tile.

“You know there’s tile law out there that says we have to allow them to drain through us and that’s been taken to court,” Davidson said. “So we have to be careful with what we are doing when we start blocking tile and how we do it.”

Guritz said the district would have to consider the impact to adjacent properties before restoring a wetland.

“If we were to restore the hydrology of that property, where else might it impact?” he said. “You can’t just go in and break up tiles because you might end up flooding the adjacent farms.”