Modification of Wetlands Letter of Interpretation
Southampton Sod Farm
Township of Southampton, Burlington County, New Jersey
Marathon was asked to modify a Wetlands Letter of Interpretation (LOI) that was issued by the NJDEP for approximately 200 acres of modified agricultural land in Southampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. The Client was of the opinion that the prior consultant that obtained the LOI, grossly underestimated the extent of uplands within the site because they did not perform their wetlands evaluation in accordance with Section 7:7A-3.1(d) of the New Jersey Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act Rules (the Rules). They also did not advise the Client that a groundwater monitoring program could be performed in accordance with the Rules that could possibly document that the groundwater hydrology criteria was not being satisfied within portions of the Site and this could yield a greater area of uplands.
Marathon met with representatives of the NJDEP to present our justification for modifying the LOI and ultimately presented a Memorandum of Understanding to the NJDEP that outlined the protocol that Marathon would use to justify the modification. Through a continuous dialogue with the NJDEP, Marathon decommissioned drainage ditches and tile fields within the site that NJDEP thought were influential in lowering the groundwater table. In accordance with the MOU, Marathon monitored hydrologic conditions (i.e., surface water and groundwater levels) at the site during the growing seasons of 2012, 2013, and 2014 at agreed upon locations by the NJDEP. The monitoring program involved the installation of over 70 monitoring wells equipped with auto-recording data loggers. The auto-recording wells were installed in accordance with United States Army Corps of Engineers guidelines (USACE 2005b) and programmed to measure and record water-level elevations every six hours (four readings per day). Marathon would download the groundwater data on a weekly basis and would inspect each of the wells to insure that their integrity was being upheld.
Marathon presented a technical report to the NJDEP that documented our findings and ultimately prepared a modification to the existing LOI that resulted in an additional 100 acres of uplands for our Client. Marathon then assisted the Client in litigation against the prior consultant for damages that were incurred due to lost opportunities to develop the property. A favorable settlement was ultimately negotiated between the Client and the prior consultant.
