EcoSystem Renewal, a Baton Rouge-based wetland mitigation bank consultant, expects to receive permitting approvals for two new wetland banks in Louisiana next year, as well as approval to begin work on a third near Lake Pontchartrain.
The company is providing technical and regulatory services for the Elm Hall Mitigation Bank, in Assumption Parish, and Willow Lake Mitigation Bank, in Cameron Parish. Elm Hall and Willow Lake are in the final permitting stage, the company announced this afternoon, with the company expecting to receive approvals for the projects in the first and third quarters of 2020, respectively.
Willow Lake will provide 375 acres of marsh and coastal prairie wetland credits in the Calcasieu Basin, while Elm Hall would provide 395 acres of forested wetland credits in the Terrebonne Basin area. Both are located within the state’s Coastal Zone.
A third wetland mitigation bank is planned near Lake Pontchartrain, which will provide more than 1,100 acres of credits. The Upper Comite Flats Umbrella Mitigation Bank, as it will be called, comprises nine parcels in the basin.
Glenn Curtis, manager of Inland Property, which is developing the three banks, says authorization for the Upper Comite Flats Umbrella Mitigation Bank is expected by the end of 2020 and that there is a special need for forested wetland credits in the Pontchartrain Basin.
“We intend to bring these credits to the market as quickly as possible.”
