SCHOOL WETLAND AREA SMALLER THAN THOUGHT

The Cape Girardeau School District will be able to begin work at the site of a planned vocational-technical school and high-school campus in about 30 days, thanks to findings of a land survey.

The district had planned to begin construction at the vocational-technical school site this year. Those plans appeared to be in jeopardy after the Army Corps of Engineers and Missouri Department of Natural Resources declared part of the area a natural wetland last month.

The agencies originally thought the wetland occupied about three and one-quarter acres of the 72-acre site, which is situated west of Kingshighway and Southern Expressway on a gravel portion of Silver Springs Road. However, a survey received by the district Wednesday outlines a much smaller area.

"It appears about 2.8 acres are in the wetlands area, which means there's a 30-day period for this to be taken care of," said Dr. Ferrell Ervin, Board of Education president. "It will also permit the district to mitigate the same number of acres."

Mitigation is the process a landowner enters to receive a permit to continue development of a wetland area. If a land survey shows the wetland exceeds three acres, a formula is used to determine a land trade-off ratio. The process can take as long as six months.

If the wetland is smaller than three acres, as in the school district's case, the trade-off ratio is 1-to-1, and the process takes about 30 days.

Mitigation allows property owners to offer substitute property "with wetland characteristics." Ervin said the district doesn't own any land of that type, but patrons have volunteered to mitigate on the district's behalf.

"It appears that there are a number of individuals in the district that are willing to assist us in mitigating this property," he said.

Ervin said district officials are happy with the survey results. Neither they nor the property owner were aware of the wetlands' existence, and everyone is pleased the situation will be so easily resolved, he said.

"This is a situation where I think the district may have won one," he said.