Wetlands
Stokes Environmental has expertise in wetland delineation, land use feasibility determinations, wetland permitting, and mitigation site location, planning, construction and monitoring.
The staff has extensive experience in the difficult wetland delineations in Virginia's coastal plain. The unique ability to accurately discern the break point between wetland and upland within a sometimes very wide transition zone enables us to produce accurate wetland delineations that have a high approval rating with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the regulatory agency with final approval authority on wetland delineations.
Stokes Environmental has obtained numerous wetland permits throughout the area dealing with a variety of wetland issues including tidal wetland, non-tidal adjacent wetland, headwaters wetland, and isolated wetland impacts. The permitting actions we have shepherded through the agencies include all of these wetland categories, each of which has different challenges to the permitting process and presents different mitigation requirements.
Stokes Environmental has exhaustively searched and researched wetland mitigation options and availability within the coastal plain of Virginia to find the best mitigation alternatives for our clients. We design and negotiate for various on-site mitigation options. We work with area mitigation banks that provide service in the drainage basins the projects are in. We locate, where available, restoration and preservation sites for our clients' specific projects. We are in the process of establishing a mitigation bank to service the lower James River watershed, a watershed under served by existing mitigation banks.
Stokes Environmental also routinely delineates Chesapeake Bay Preservation Areas and Resource Protection Areas (RPA), which are regulated by each locality. The staff is experienced with each locality's specific requirements and determines the location of RPAs at project sites, enabling land owners to identify feasible building locations on their property.