Voided permit#2012-00878 and all associated paperwork

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Mark Perry has discussed the issue of wetland classification with Catherine Bach at the Watershed District (MCWD). Here is my analysis of the situation: Your wetland is currently classified as a Preserve management category, which requires a 50- foot buffer. Because your proposed construction activity meets all the Code criteria that triggers establishment of a buffer, the 50-foot buffer is required to be established. Those criteria are: 1) the area of the pool construction drains toward the wetland; 2) the amount of grading activity associated with the pool exceeds 50 cubic yards (it's actually more than 100 cubic yards); and 3) the pool results in a net increase in the square footage of impervious surface that drains toward the wetland. Unfortunately there is no provision in the Code that would negate any of these factors just because the pool is 350 feet from the wetland. Your wetland delineatar, Wayne Jacobsen, staked out the edge of the wetland approximately 16 feet south of the rock wall. The City's consultant wetland expert, Mark Perry of Bolton & Menk, was on the site and he agrees with Wayne's staked location of the wetland boundary. We discussed the possibility that the current classification of the wetland as a Preserve category might be incorrect. The only way to get it changed to some lower category would be to perform a"MnRAM Assessment" which must be performed by a wetland expert. Catherine Bach indicated MCWD will not perform the MnRAM assessment, but would review an assessment performed by someone else. You would have to have your wetland delineator do the MnRAM assessment. Your goal in having that MnRAM assessment completed would be to have the wetland reclassified to a lesser management category than Preserve, such as Manage l, Manage 2, or Manage 3. Manage 3 would be your best result, because it only requires a 16.5-foot buffer, and you already have that in place behind the rock wa1L If it turned out to be Manage 1 or Manage 2, the buffer required would be 35' or 25' respectively from the edge of wetland. Mark tells me he is fairly confident it would be reclassified to a lower category than Preserve, but until the assessment was done we would not know exactly which category. I understand that Melanie has offered to assist you in choosing the right plantings to establish a buffer if you decide to go ahead with the buffer establishment based on the current Preserve classification. However, if you want to spend the money to have a MnRAM assessment done in the hopes that a lesser or no additional buffer will be required, that is up to you. As I see it, your options for dealing with the buffer issue are as follows: Option 1. Have your wetland person do a MNRAM Assessment. If the MNRAM Assessment indicates that the classification should be Manage 1, 2 or 3 instead of"Preserve", then have him submit it to the MCWD far approval. Once they approve it, you would then proceed with submitting to us a buffer plan to have the appropriate buffer established in the case of Manage 1 or Manage 2; or if it's a Manage 3 no added buffer is necessary and we could issue the pool permit once you re-apply. If the MnRAM Assessment concludes that it's still a Preserve category, in order to move forward you would have to do the required 50-foot buffer as noted previously. 2