Rose Creek Mitigation Bank Seeking Stream Buffer Variance To Work On Restoration Project

Rose Creek Mitigation Bank, one of two such banks operating in the county, is awaiting a state permit to be able to violate the 25-foot stream buffer so it can modify restoration work done in initially setting up the bank.

James Parker, manager of Falling Springs, an environmental resource company in Richmond, Va., told me in a telephone conversation on Feb. 5 that his company is being “proactive” in asking the Georgia Environmental Protection Division for permission to modify the existing restoration structures.

“We want to tweak some things,” Parker said. “We want to fix what seem to be minor problems.”

A second bank operating in the county is on a tributary of the Apalachee River just southeast of where the river is crossed by U.S. 78 and is called Goat Farm Mitigation Bank.

Both are in competition with a mitigation bank being operated by Frank Bishop, developer of Epps Bridge Centre. That bank is in Greene County.

For more on this story, go to Oconee County Observations.