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Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Environment - Kentucky partners fined $70,000 in wetlands banl case
The Louisville Courier Journal reports today, in a story by James Bruggers:
Two partners who failed to restore Nelson County farmland to a wetland have agreed to pay a $70,000 fine, federal authorities said yesterday.The Army Corps of Engineers, which enforces wetlands protections under the Clean Water Act, and the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a January lawsuit that the two men had "failed in almost every aspect to actually establish an acceptable wetland as required."
At issue is something called a wetlands bank, where wetlands are restored and protected to offset wetlands losses from development elsewhere. Developers are sometimes allowed to buy credits in a wetlands bank instead of protecting or creating wetlands on their own.
In this case, the Wetland Bank of Kentucky, its parent Highview Engineering Inc., company president Darroll Hawkins, and the landowner of the Nelson County site, Jeffrey Henderman, had collected $100,000 from four commercial and industrial developments in southwestern Jefferson County, said Amy Babey, a corps manager.
The partners had agreed to restore bottomland hardwood forest on 11 acres along the Rolling Fork River near Boston to offset the loss of four acres in Jefferson County, she said.
Inspectors found the company didn't plant any oak, hickory or other trees, failed to finish soil grading, and did not submit data on ground and surface water levels as required, she said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 28, 2006 09:24 AM
Posted to Environment