Wildwood completes the biggest feat in Texas mitigation history! When tasked with the challenge to take on Pineywoods Mitigation Bank, what did Wildwood do? We put our “big boy” pants on and went to work! A few years later… here we are.
Pineywoods Mitigation Bank is celebrating its tenth anniversary and with Wildwood at the helm the completion of its site development plan. What’s the big deal? Pineywoods is one of the largest mitigation banks in the country at over 19,000 acres, so when you reach the finish line on a project this big it comes with some pride. Looking back at the last ten years of Pineywoods, what do we see?
- Conversion of commercial pine planation back to bottomland hardwood
- Planted over 500,000 trees
- Restoration of over 15,000 acres of wetlands all at one site
- Riparian buffer work to help stabilize over 50 miles (that’s 264,000 linear feet!) of the Neches river and surrounding tributaries
- Sponsorship of multiple master’s candidates at Stephen F. Austin advancing the understanding of how to treat invasive species
- Providing mitigation for hundreds of public and private development projects
- Zero compliance violations
Before you hand us the keys to the city, Wildwood didn’t do this alone. Pineywoods provides a significant amount of public benefit from cleaner water to floodwater retention and this couldn’t have been accomplished without public partnerships. The Fort Worth and Galveston USACE Districts helped shape what Pineywoods has become and will be an essential partner in its future success.
What’s after the finish line? Mitigation banks and the protections they put on the land are forever! So with restricted future uses, the money to manage properties like Pineywoods have to come from credit sales. In exchange for all the work Wildwood has administered on site, Pineywoods now has thousands of emergent (PEM) and forest (PFO) credits to sell for future adverse impacts, and with an inventory like that, we plan to provide below market pricing making us the best bang for the buck in the primary and secondary service areas.
For more about Wildwood, our team, and our projects visit our website at wildwoodcredits.com.