20090858 Ver 2_Year 4 Monitoring Report Review_20131001

Merritt, Katie
From:Merritt, Katie
Sent:Tuesday, October 01, 2013 4:07 PM
To:Tommy Cousins
Cc:'Buchholz, George'
Subject:Carl Lloyd - Year 4 Report Comments
Hey Tommy,
I received the Year 4 Monitoring Report for the Carl Lloyd bank parcel on September 24, 2013. I have the following
questions/comments:

1.Section 2.0 first paragraph: Discrepancy noted on how success criteria is measured for this bank (which has

been overlooked in the past). Here are the various statements about density for success criteria:
-Cape Fear UMBI – says based on “320 desirable trees/acre”
-Carl Lloyd BPDP & AsBuilt – says based on “320 shrubs and trees/acre”
-Monitoring Report – says “320 trees/acres” (which is how we are handling banks today)

The discrepancies allowed between the Cape Fear UMBI, BPDP, and AsBuilt are due to DWR oversight, therefore
DWR will continue to allow EBX to use “shrubs and desirable trees” towards their 320 stems/acre requirement
only for this bank especially since the stems of shrubs have been included in the vegetation data each year.
Please make sure you are collecting the appropriate data and using the correct success criteria language in
future reports.

Actions Needed:
a.Provide a corrected statement in your response to the comments for success criteria.

2.Section 2.0 first paragraph & Table 2 Discrepancies: your density of 3,588 “trees” per acre should be corrected

to state, “3,588 trees and shrubs per acre” according to the data shown in Table 2 and on the data sheets and in
previous reports and documents.

According to Table 2 and the Vegetation Data Sheets, shrubs were counted as part of the 3,588. Wax Myrtle
and Red Chokecherry were included in the planting plans for both the approved BPDP and approved AsBuilt
report. Therefore, DWR expects EBX to record the shrubs they planted (Wax Myrtle and Red Chokecherry) and
use that towards their success criteria. Winged Sumac is a volunteer.

Also included in the 3,588 “trees” per acre according to the Table 2 are the “undesirable trees” mentioned in the
Year 3 Monitoring Report, which includes Sweet Gum and Red Maple. As mentioned in a response to DWR
comments on the Year 3 Monitoring Report, neither Sweet Gum nor Red Maple were recorded in Table 2 and
used towards the “trees” per acre since they were not deemed “desirable” to plant in the buffer. Method of
data collected each year should be reported consistently so as to provide for accurate annual comparisons of
the vegetation data for five years.

Actions Needed:
a.Provide a corrected statement for the 3,588 stems (which will be a different number after you exclude

the stems requested) in your response to the comments.
b.Correct Table 2 (include #’s for Wax Myrtle & Red Chokeberry, but exclude #s for Sweet Gum & Red

Maple) and resubmit via .pdf

3.Data Sheets: Comments provided by DWR on the Year 2 & Year 3 Monitoring Reports requested that trees

<10cm not be counted since the Level II protocol for reporting vegetation says that trees <10 cm should be
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ignored. Eco Engineering’s response stated that they would not use 0-50cm as a Height Class when recording
vegetation and that they would change the Height Class to 10-50 cm on all future monitoring reports.

Actions Needed:
a.Please change the height class from 0-50cm to 10-50cm on all future reports

b.Please modify all of the data accordingly (DWR is unable to approve of the data without knowing how

many of the trees counted in this height class were <10 cm). Any trees <10 cm shall be removed from
the data and all numbers recalculated and provided to DWR.

2.Discrepancies were noted between Table 2 and the Vegetation Monitoring Data sheets for the following plots:

2, 3, 6 DWR will discuss discrepancies in detail with McAdams to determine the issues.

Please send responses to the comments above to me via .pdf. A complete resubmission of the entire Year 4 Monitoring
Report is not necessary. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks,
Katie

Katie Merritt
Nutrient Offset Banking Coordinator
NCDENR-Division of Water Resources
Work: 919-807-6371

Website: http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wq/swp/ws/webscape

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