PERMFILE125161 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

•1 • • r ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~ 999 14 August 1993 Mr. Rob Helmick Land Use Department Boulder County P.O. Box 471 Boulder, CO 80306 RE: Errors on Wetland Occurrences, Acreage, and Locations in Southwestern Portland Cement Plant's Dowe Flats Permit Applications (Dockets SU-93-I4 -Mining and Reclamation Project; SU-93-15 -Reservoir Project; V-93-8 - Vacation/Relocation of County Road 47 Dear Mr. Helmick: The permit applications referenced above from Southwestern Portland Cement Company (Southwestern) for the proposed quarry has misinterpreted the definition of wetlands and therefore did not report wetlands on site that are protected by the Clean Water Act (CWA), Section 404. The delineation was completed in 1987 under different field conditions and with inappropriate assumptions on criteria for classification of wetlands. Wetlands usually must have approved wetland characteristics for (1) plant species, (2) soil types, and (3) hydrology. !n unusual circumstances, such as when wetlands have received insults from impacts to the vegetation (grazing, cultivation), or soils (canal construction), or hydrology (capture of upgradient surface and groundwater by canal diversion ditches) fewer than three criteria should be used to delineate wetland boundaries. At Dowe Flats all three examples of "unusual circumstances" occur, therefore, the permit applications have significantly under-reported the locations, boundaries, and acreage ofjurisdictional wetlands that will be destroyed or degraded as a result of the quarry project. Southwestern's applications gave erroneous information to regulatory agencies and the public that cannot be corrected without extensive data collections on wetlands and revisions of documents used to assess potential impacts. Field identification of the wetlands cannot be conducted accurately except during the active growing season for the area, mid-May through end of August. Impacts from the projects to the wetlands that were excluded from the project map will be a violation of the CWA, Section 404. Moreover, Southwestern's wetlands permit will be invalid because of intentionally excluding jurisdictional wetlands and failing to assess the value of these waters of the United States at Dowe Flats and to the surrounding areas. Southwestern's decision to exclude wetlands that are affected by cultivation, livestock grazing and the St. Vrain Canal, as well as erroneous facts on the genesis of existing wetlands created by groundwater discharges from the Dakota sandstone aquifer near the St. Vrain Canal is unfortunate. This may not have been an intentional action to misrepresent facts on the project's impacts, however, Boulder County's Land Use Department would be prudent to require field validation (quality assurance) measures for the revised wetland maps. Please note that the document called "Appendix -Dowe Flats Project Wetlands" submitted by Southwestern shows they were fully aware of the definition of wetlands and still they excluded existing wetlands on the project site. The erroneous facts supplied by the applicant to support