ADMINISTRATION - Dan Schluender, City Engineer
Title
AUTHORIZE CITY MANAGER TO ENTER INTO A SCOPE OF SERVICES CONTRACT WITH CRITICAL CONNECTIONS ECOLOGICAL SERVICES, INC. TO COMPLETE THE PROSPECTUS FOR PIONEER PARK WETLAND BANK
Background
At the August 2 and November 8, 2018, City Council Workshop, staff presented the concept of creating a wetland bank at Pioneer Park and the adjacent property to the west owned by Jason Husveth, Critical Connections Ecological Services, Inc. (CCES). The site has the potential of creating a 66.90 acre wetland mitigation banking site. The Council supported the idea of completing the first of a three phase application process.
The first step in the application process was to submit a Draft Prospectus to the regulatory agencies to see if the project would be viable. This step was taken on August 30, 2018 and in October 2018, the regulatory agencies, who are the Technical Evaluation Panel (made up of staff from the Coon Creek Watershed District, Board of Water and Soil Resources, Anoka Conservation District and Department of Natural Resources) and Army Corps of Engineers supported the project and recommended proceeding to the next step of the application process.
CCES has provided the city with a Scope of Services Contract to complete the second step of the application process which is to complete a Prospectus document for the Pioneer Park Wetland Bank and adjacent property owned by CCES. This step requires more technical detail (field data collection, analysis, engineering and modeling) as compared to the Draft Prospectus phase. Completing this phase does not obligate the city or CCES to move forward in the application or project implementation process. The costs for the preparation of the Prospectus will be shared between the city and CCES.
The timeline for the second phase of this project is estimated to take about one year and costs are projected not to exceed $20,000 unless the city chooses to hire CCES to complete the wetland delineation for the project which is estimated to cost $5,000. Staff has requested quotes for this service from other wetland delineators and the costs are comparable. Staff recommends including the wetland delineation services as part of the contract for the project.
Completion and submittal of this next step does not obligate the City to move forward to the third step of the process which would be the development of a wetland mitigation banking project and wetland restoration implementation work.
Recommendation
Motion to authorize City Manager to enter into a Scope of Services contract with Critical Connections Ecological Services, Inc. to complete the Prospectus for Pioneer Park Wetland Bank. Costs not to exceed $25,000.