In June, Rock Island District Regulatory Division employees and other regulators from the Chicago, Louisville, Detroit, Memphis and Omaha Districts attended a USACE Regulatory Development Program Wetland Delineation Class held at Nahant Marsh in Davenport, Iowa. In addition to the USACE staff, employees from the Iowa Department of Transportation and Nahant Marsh attended. This was the first in-person wetland delineation class held since 2019.
Wetland delineation is the process of identifying the wetland/upland boundary and is required as part of a complete application for a Department of Army 404 Permit. This skill is key to building a better regulator. The class, which lasted four days, was designed to teach regulators how to identify hydric soils, interpret the landscape for wetland hydrology and determine whether the plant community is hydrophytic or not. While not a plant identification class, there were several excellent botanists who attended and were willing to extend their knowledge to the class.
Each day built on the skills learned on the previous day and afternoon field trips provided the opportunity to practice skills discussed in the classroom. The first day began with basic information about the process and why it is done. This was followed by a field trip to discuss the basics of digging soil observation holes and plant sampling. Day two is often described as the meat of the class and includes learning about all of the wetland indicators, soils, hydrology and vegetation. By day two, the class was broken into teams of four or five people and it was rewarding to see these groups working together discussing what they see. Days three and four get progressively more difficult and the field trips offered more diversity in soils and vegetation.
This year’s field trips were held at Nahant Marsh, Pigeon Creek Park in Bettendorf, Sherman Park near Calamus and Ikes Fen near Geneseo, Illinois. The Quad Cities is a great location to teach this class. Wetlands near the Mississippi River and associated marshes are full of wetland indicators and this year’s class discovered them all. In addition to the sites close to home, Sherman Park near Calamus offered examples of sandy soils and other hard-to-identify soil indicators. Ikes Fen in Geneseo also never disappoints. This location is rich in unique plant life and has hydric soil indicators present such as loamy mucky mineral and potential histic epipedon (this is highly organic soils for those who don’t know what this means).
The Rock Island District has been offering this class for years. Prior to his retirement, former Project Manager Neal Johnson taught the class twice a year to USACE employees and other agency staff. In 2012, I began teaching the class to “make sure I knew my stuff.” In 10 years of teaching, I’ve taught over 300 students with an excellent team of other instructors from across the Corps. This team of instructors includes Chad Lamontange from St. Louis, Don Reinke from Detroit, Andrew Blackburn from Chicago and Shawn Blohm from Buffalo. This class is a team effort and without the others, the class wouldn’t work.
USACE Regulatory Development Program Wetland Delineation Class is typically offered annually in a different location each year, depending on funding and demand. The class was paused for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic because it cannot be offered virtually. If the demand for the class this year is any indication of the need moving forward, the group of instructors will be busy for a few more years as there have been many new hires across the USACE Regulatory Program.
| Date Taken: |
08.04.2022 |
| Date Posted: |
08.11.2022 11:45 |
| Story ID: |
426808 |
| Location: |
ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: |
90 |
| Downloads: |
0 |
PUBLIC DOMAIN
This work, Building Wetland Regulators, by Samantha Heilig, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
