The Whitewood Farm Mitigation Bank is located in Fauquier County near The Plains, Va. This large Bank is part of a 1,620-acre working farm that has been in agriculture more than 100 years.
The highest areas of the rolling property form most of the headwaters of Little River, which is a tributary to historic Goose Creek. The Geographic Service Area (GSA) for the Bank is that part of the Middle Potomac – Catoctin HUC 8 watershed that falls within the Commonwealth of Virginia and that part of the immediately adjacent 8-digit HUC in the Potomac River Basin, Middle Potomac-Anacostia-Occoquan (HUC 02070010), within the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The GSA includes portions of Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax Counties in Virginia.
The Bank has created stream and wetland compensation credits through the restoration, enhancement and preservation of the following aquatic ecosystems: streams, wetlands, riparian areas and upland buffers over more than 365 acres.
More than 60,000 stream and riparian credits and nearly 20 palustrine emergent wetland credits, scrub/shrub wetland credits, and forested wetland credits will be created by site-wide ecological restoration and preservation in perpetuity.
Whitewood Farm is considered particularly suitable as a mitigation bank for its potential to:
- Support a number of rare plant and animal species in need of specialized habitats;
- Maintain it’s rural character, which has not been subject to intensive land modification;
- Establish a conservation easement over the substantial Bank site to prevent serious future threats and to support the ecological resource functions that contribute to the Bank site’s ecological value;
- Re-establish a large block of contiguous forest that will provide quality forest structure, continuity and connectivity of habitat and diversity.
Residential and industrial growth in the GSA near Washington, D.C. has increased demand for wetland and stream mitigation credits to compensate for impacts to similar resources. In addition, impacts associated with ongoing utility development, highway infrastructure improvements and expansion will require adequate mitigation. The Bank expects to satisfy existing and future demand for compensatory mitigation with the establishment of a self-sustaining, functional aquatic ecosystem.
The Bank provides environmentally responsible compensation for the loss of aquatic functions and services of stream and wetland resources through authorized impacts under Section 401 and 404 of the Clean Water Act, Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbor Act, and Section 62.1-44.15:20-23 of the Code of Virginia provided such impacts have met all applicable requirements and are approved by the respective permitting agencies.
> Please contact us today to discuss your project needs or to reserve stream or wetland credits.