BANKS

The Fort Myers Mitigation Bank is a 160.48-acre conservation area being established to provide compensatory mitigation for wetland impacts located in the Caloosahatchee River Basin. The Bank consists of a mixture of degraded natural forested and emergent wetlands. The Bank is currently degraded by exempt agricultural clearing for pasture establishment; fallow row crops that have turned into a Brazilian pepper forest; threat of exotic species invasion from Melaleuca trees and torpedo grass; lack of fire in the freshwater marsh, wet prairie, and wet pine flatwoods; overgrown trees and shrubs in the wet pine flatwoods; and hydrologic variation due to ditching throughout the site.

The restoration of the Bank will consist of the cessation of all agricultural and silvicultural activities; re-establishment of emergent wetlands and forested wetlands through the removal of spoil side-cast fill into adjacent excavated cattle ponds and ditches; rehabilitation of emergent wetlands through nuisance exotic treatment and management; rehabilitation of forested wetlands through nuisance exotic vegetation removal, pine and oak tree thinning, shrub thinning, and the reintroduction of prescribed fire.

The Fort Myers Mitigation Bank will have palustrine forested and palustrine emergent credits available approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). The Fort Myers Mitigation Bank will also have freshwater forested and freshwater herbaceous credits available approved by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).