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1 agencies ®riser tg;viy to restore wetlands • By DAVID THOMPSON Ferschweiler says. News Staff Writer The city recently had taken ownership of the t Millrace — which was donated by Georgia- The state and the federal government have Pacific Corp. — and was anxious to please ordered Springfield to restore a wetlands area adjacent land owners, says Ferschweiler, who that a city crew destroyed seven years ago. had yet to start working for the city. : The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the "The city had a `good - neighbor' policy at the 3 , , c , , ..: Division of State Lands told the city this year to time because we had just taken over the Mill- remove the fill that it dumped in 1987 onto race and we were trying to make everybody about half an acre of wetlands next to Gory happy," Ferschweiler says. "So we filled in the Creek and the Springfield Millrace. The area is mosquito pond." outside the city on private property along 28th The Division of State Lands was alerted to Street. the illegal landfill in November 1993 by an- Greg Ferschweiler, maintenance supervisor other nearby property owner. But the state .j for the Public Works Department, says city turned the problem over to the Army Corps of workers were unaware of state and federal Engineers, with which it shares wetlands juris- wetlands rules when the area was filled. diction. A public works crew initially was dispatched The corps has worked with the city to devise to fill in a low spot on a bank of the Millrace to a plan to restore the wetlands to a state approxi- improvea maintenance road there , Ferschweiler mating its original condition. says. Because of the city's cooperation, the corps : A nearby resident noticed the work and asked has had no reason to levy a fine for the violation, the city to fill in the wetland area on his property which could have been as much as 530,000, as well. says Brian Lightcap, a wetlands ecologist for _ The resident complained that the area bred mosquitos and blamed the problem on the city, Turn to Wetlands, Page 3A. \f(et 1 a fl d s Continued from page 1A. the agency. can build the culverts. The illegal fill has caused flooding The cost of restoring the area will be upstream from the destroyed wetlands, about 53,500, Ferschweiler says. Lightcap says. He says the effort has taught the city The city recently removed much of a lot about wetlands and the permit- the fill, and it plans to install culverts ting process for filling them. in the bank to allow water from the "At that time, we were not in tune Millrace to enter the area. about wetland issues," he says. Now : ; : But the city must wait until the wa- we are. It only takes one like this and ter level of the Millrace drops before it you're in tune with them." f / 7 , . 4 . , , , 4 • / 4, e /fr / /XX .