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DIVISION 3. <br />BUFFER AREAS <br />See. 78-160S WctlaMd Baffer Areai. <br />(a) This subsection establishes requirements for wetland buffer areas around <br />protected wetlands. Buffer areas are necessary and beneficial to maintain the health of <br />wetlands. Buffer areas protect the edge of wetlands from erosion while filtering sediment, <br />chemicals and other nutrients from runoff that drains into wetlands. Buffer areas can <br />improve the biological diversity and health of a wetland environment while reducing the <br />adverse impacts of human activities. <br />(b) Buffer areas regulated by this section are areas of vegetative cover that are <br />upland of the wetland edge, and ttuit occur in a natural condition or through restoration. <br />Buffer arms consist of dirabbery and trees, native grasses and/or forbs that are not <br />mowed, fertilized or manicured in any manner. Mowing, fertilizing, manicuring, or <br />vegetation removal within a buffer area is not allowed unless the City has issued a permit <br />for such activity in conjunction with an qyproved buffer management plan. <br />(1) Accq>table buffer areas shall have the following qualities: <br />A continuous dense layer of perennial grasses that have been <br />uncultivated or unbroken for at least ten (10) consecutive years, or <br />b.An over story of trees and/or shrubs with at least eighty (80%) <br />percent canopy closure that have been uncultivated or unbroken for <br />at least ten (10) consecutive years, or <br />c.A mixture of the plant communities described in a. and b. above, <br />which have been uncultivated or unbroken for at least ten (10) <br />consecutive years. <br />(2) Unacceptable buffer areas have the following qualities, including but not <br />limited to: <br />Undesinfole plant qiecies (including but not limited to reed canary <br />grass, common buckthorn, purple loosestrife, leafy q)urge and <br />noxious weeds), or <br />li-.- <br />b. <br />c. <br />Lacking a layer of organic thatch or duff, or <br />Topography which tends to channelize the flow of surface runoff, <br />or <br />&m d. b characteristically unlikely to retain nutrients and sediment.