Comment period on Long Bar Pointe mitigation bank to end Aug. 13

The comment and public hearing request period for the Long Bar Pointe mitigation bank project will end on Aug. 13.

Long Bar Pointe, LLP, a company controlled by Medallion Home president and Senate candidate Carlos Beruff and Sarasota developer Larry Lieberman, is planning for 263 acres to become a mitigation bank on the coast of Sarasota Bay right above the actual Long Bar Pointe, adding to the other 40 Florida mitigation banks pending approval by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The mitigation bank is a part of a proposed 463-acre, 3,200-home development called Aqua by the Bay.

A mitigation bank, as described by Bill Mitsch, director of Florida Gulf Coast University’s Everglades Wetland Research Park, is a parcel of disturbed wetlands purchased typically by private businesses to be able to provide compensation for unavoidable aquatic impacts in nearby locations required by Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.

The landowner creating the mitigation bank must then restore, enhance, create or preserve that land, which can be a wetland, stream or other aquatic resource area. As required by Section 404 and “No Net Loss,” developers who fill in or remove wetlands need to be able to replace those lost lands elsewhere.

Developers can build wetlands themselves, but it costs both time for a man-made wetland to be functional and money to create it.

Another option developers have to offset their impact is by buying “credits” within an established mitigation banks. Like an actual bank, “credits” are sold by the bank’s landowner and bought by developers who need to compensate the type of land that they’re permanently impacting. The credits are determined by an assessment that monetize how much the functional land is worth and can go for anywhere between $100,000 to $200,000 per credit.

The money goes to the owner of the bank.

“Normally a developer is required to mitigate for more acres than what they are destroying and this ratio is often based on the uncertainty of success of that type of wetland,” Mitsch said.

Wetlands are vital to the health of wildlife and humans. They prevent algal blooms, filter contaminants in surface and groundwater and help with flood control, something particularly important for land at sea-level. According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, wetland function gained must equal what function is lost.

According to the prospectus, Long Bar Pointe plans to incorporate six types of land in its enhancement project:

• Preserving 4.3 acres of estuarine low and high salt marsh.
• Preserving 110.1 acres of marine seagrass meadow.
• Enhancing 120.8 acres of estuarine mangrove swamps.
• Enhancing 18 acres of palustrine shrub swamp and evergreen shrub swamp.
• Enhancing 3.3 acres of hardwood-conifer mixed forest.
• Enhancing 6.4 acres of hardwood mixed forest.

The prospectus also states that proposed mitigation bank could potentially sell 18.6 credits to developers that need credits, worth nearly $2 million.

Suncoast Waterkeepers, an enviromental group, argues the main way the bank will preserve and enhance the seagrass beds is by installing shallow seagrass advisory signs, which they say costs $3,960. The seagrass beds on the proposed site are 7.39 of the total 18.6 potential credits developers can buy, potentially worth more than $700,000 to Aqua developers.

They also argue that this would be the first mitigation bank to allow mangrove trimming, considered an environmental impact that requires a permit. In the prospectus, it reads: “Long Bar Pointe, LLLP will conduct mangrove trimming within the 30% of Bank’s mangrove swamps that are 500-ft or less in width from the shoreline.”

Anyone with questions about the proposed mitigation bank can contact Amy Thompson at Amy.D.Thompson@usace.army.mil or by phone at 904-232-3974. To learn more and read the prospectus, visit www.saj.usace.army.mil and search for SAJ-2016-01900 (SP-ADT). Comments on potential effects of the project or requests for a public hearing can be sent in writing to District Engineer, Department of the Army, Jacksonville District Corps of Engineers, P.O. Box 4970, Jacksonville 32232-0019.

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 2:55 PM with the headline "Comment period on Long Bar Pointe mitigation bank to end Aug. 13."