River Parks Authority will contract out mitigation work required to renovate Zink Dam.
Through a fee-in-lieu-of program, the authority will pay The Terra Foundation nearly $250,800 to create wetlands equal in area to what the renovations will disturb. Consultant Gaylon Pinc said the foundation was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a set amount of credits, with one credit equivalent to one acre.
"It's a very good program. We're very fortunate we got in on it early, while the credits were available," Pinc said. "They started with 10 credits, and for the Zink project, we took 4.56 of that."
"The alternative is you find your land, you plant your plants, you maintain them, you replace them if they should die. It's very expensive, and for an agency that that's not their forte," Pinc said. "So, it's much better to go to a foundation that has that experience and a track record and that the Corps has approved."
River Parks Authority should be able to use Vision 2025 funds for shoreline beautification to pay for the mitigation credits.
