PROJECT: BLACKWATER RIVER MITIGATION BANK
CLIENT: FIGURE 8 OF ALABAMA, LLC
The Blackwater River Mitigation Bank (BWRMB) is 635.84 acres of wet pine flats, bayhead drains, and Atlantic White Cedar wetland communities. The BWRMB was managed for forest products production and heavily logged and replanted for over 50 years. Icarus assisted in the development of a Mitigation Banking Instrument (MBI) for submittal to the Mobile District office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The proposed management strategies were created to restore the vegetative structure and composition of the wet pine flats through the reintroduction of a natural fire regime.
Over 363 wet pine flats credits, 34 bayhead drain credits, and 49 atlantic white cedar credits were incorporated in the MBI. The BWRMB monitoring protocol includes fixed plots containing nested plots at each location of 1m2, 2m, 10m and 100m radius. A functional capacity index is calculated for the wet pine flats systems. Incremental credit releases are determined by a functional assessment to determine the functional lift against baseline (FCIbaseline). The difference between the target FCI of 0.9 and the baseline is used to assess the % increase necessary to achieve a credit release.