Owner/Client
Appalachia Midstream Services, LLC
Location
Wilmot Township, PA
CEC Services
- Survey / GPS / GIS Services
- Wetlands and Waters Delineations
- Clean Water Act, Section 401/404 Permitting
- Wetland & Stream Impact Mitigation Design
Owner Objective
Appalachia Midstream Services, LLC (AMS), now part of Williams Field Services, LLC, is a natural gas midstream development company with operations in several states in the U.S. At the time of this project, the Northcentral Office of the PADEP recently began requiring that permanent impacts to wetlands be offset by at least a 2:1 ratio (previously it was a 1:1 ratio). Since many natural gas-related permits already were submitted with a 1:1 ratio, and because an existing CEC-developed mitigation site was full, a creative solution to quickly and effectively address the new regulatory requirements without slowing the permit approval process was needed.
CEC Approach
CEC facilitated an agreement between AMS and PADEP to meet the new requirements by enhancement of low-quality wetlands/wetland complexes previously impacted by AMS natural gas pipeline projects. Two sites in Wilmot Township, Pa., were chosen. The sites were dominated by typical disturbance-tolerant plant species and some planted pasture grasses and historically were heavily used for agricultural activities, including crop production, pasture, and livestock yards.
CEC developed a site plan that introduced native, woody vegetation (shrubs) as plantings in two low-quality wetlands at these challenging remote sites. Because the regulatory parties requested to see a visual representation of the project acreage on each site in the respective permit applications, CEC’s CADD staff collaborated with CEC ecologists to develop figures that would illustrate the gas projects broken up over the enhancement sites.
The project, which was completed on time and under budget, received permit approval, and the site has seen improvement of the natural habitat.
