At its April 20 meeting, Commissioners unanimously voted to enter a partnership with the Highway and Transportation Department to include 850 acres of the Glaise Creek Mitigation Bank into Departee Creek WMA in White County.
The land was purchased by the Highway and Transportation Department as part of the requirement under the Clean Water Act to mitigate any wetland disturbances.
“Basically, any time a government agency, corporation or nonprofit agency does an activity that impacts the aquatic resources in one section of a watershed, their compliance with the Clean Water Act requires them to preserve, enhance or protect an equal amount of land in another portion of that same watershed,” said Jennifer Sheehan, chief of federal regulatory program. “That left the highway department with a lot of wetlands. These lands belong to the people of Arkansas, so we got together to figure out a way to put them into use.”
The Glaise Creek property is a trial run for the partnership,” according to Josh Seagraves, Special Studies section head for the AHTD Environmental Division, but he hopes to see many more in the future.
“Glaise Creek Mitigation Bank is one of our largest mitigation properties, but there are many others throughout the state close to WMAs which could fit this course of action as well,” he said. “Every year, the AHTD gets calls from hunters who want to be able to hunt some of these properties, but we are not in a position to manage that sort of use. This partnership will let people use these lands that belong to the state.”