20130739 Ver 1_St Claire Comments_20160511

Strickland, Bev
From:Baker, Virginia
Sent:Tuesday, May 10, 2016 1:31 PM
To:'Tugwell, Todd SAW'
Cc:Hughes, Andrea W SAW; Wilson, Travis W.; Haupt, Mac
Subject:St. Claire Comments
Todd
Below are comments/recommendations compiled by Mac and myself for St. Claire. Let us know if you have questions.

Ginny

DWR comments on St. Claire, DMS ID 95015, DWR project number 20130739 – May 10, 2016

DWR visited St. Claire on December 3, 2015 and April 28, 2016.

December 3, 2015 site visit

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One of the primary reasons for the December 3 visit was to verify buffer assets with Katie Merritt of DWR. It was
during this visit that the peripheral ditching was noted in some areas (just outside of the easement, however, affecting
the wetland). In addition, DWR recommended the addition of several more gauges to get a better coverage of the site.
Vegetation vigor and density within the headwater valley was low.

April 28, 2016 site visit

A number of minor reporting issues were discussed concerning the monitoring report; photo points should be included
on a figure, past year’s hydrology results for the monitoring wells and flow gauges should be reported, differentiation
between passing and failing flow gauges (as well as monitoring wells) should be shown on CCPV figure.

Poor tree vigor and lack of stems in some areas was noted on site, this should be reported in the executive summary and
CCPV table/figure. The grating to create the headwater valley swale may have caused some soil compaction which could
be affecting vigor. DWR agrees with WRC that some supplemental planting of larger stock trees and additional rotating
transects or plots are recommended.

DWR believes that the additional wetland monitoring wells that Baker plans to install will provided useful hydrology data
for determining if success criteria has been obtained. DWR is concerned about flow gauges 3 and 4 located in the upper
half of UT2 not making success criteria 2 years in a row. DWR recommends adding an additional flow gauge between
gauges 2 and 3.

DWR recommends that the crossing that is causing a backwater flooding problem on UT3 be repaired.

According to the Mitigation plan, the lower part of UT3 was to be planted as well as the stream re-aligned through the
culvert (Preliminary Plan – Plansheet 11). This area was noted to have mature trees adjacent to the stream. Were there
understory plantings included? The as-built did not show what areas were planted. It was noted there were no veg plots
in this area in the monitoring report and DWR would recommend adding some.

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Ginny Baker
Transportation Permitting Unit
NCDEQ-Division of Water Resources
1650 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-1650
Phone-[phone], Fax-[phone]

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