Environmental

Identified as a potential wetland mitigation bank in the WRIA 8 Chinook Recovery plan, the City of Redmond, WA purchased the 83 acre Keller Farm property for the purpose of creating a wetland mitigation bank. Sponsored by Habitat Bank LLC, 75 acres of the 83 acre farm were designed and transformed into a wetland, stream and river bank habitat restoration project at the confluence of Bear, Evans, and Perrigo Creeks. The wetland now provides compensatory mitigation credits in advance of unavoidable impacts to wetlands or other aquatic resources nearby.

Transforming the property to a wetland required working within in-water work windows to perform over 60,500 cubic yards of excavation and 2.4 million square feet of grading; re-establishing off-channel rearing areas, refuge areas, floodplain areas, and establishing buffers in the process. Re-establishment of these areas also required the removal of culverts, constructing 35 floodplain stream riffles, erecting 14 perch poles, placing 50 habitat logs, and building 10 Large Woody Debris (LWD) structures.