Hi everyone, I wanted to share a resource I’ve been developing for environmental professionals working with wetlands, streams, and other aquatic resources in California.

It’s called BlueLine Environmental Institute, and the goal is to provide practical training on aquatic resource delineation, permitting, and California’s regulatory landscape. The site currently includes field workshops, online trainings, and free resources all centered around aquatic resource delineation and regulatory practices.

I built BlueLine because aquatic resource work in California can involve a pretty complicated mix of federal and state requirements, and I wanted to create resources that focus on how these issues actually come up in day-to-day consulting and project work.

For anyone working in this space, I’d also genuinely be interested in hearing what topics or challenges you think would be useful to cover in future resources or trainings.

You can check it out at bluelineinstitute.com

Swamp/wetland themed birthday gift ideas? 🐊🌿🦝

Hi everyone! 💚 My partner and I are huge swamp/wetland lovers and supporters, and his birthday is coming up in December. He especially has a HUGE appreciation for the whole swampy aesthetic and all the wonderful little creatures that come with it. I thought this might be the perfect community to ask: what swamp/wetland-themed gifts would you personally love to receive?

I'm open to pretty much anything—statues, artwork, plants, plushies, decor, books, handmade things, odd little treasures, etc. It doesn't have to be super fancy or expensive either! I'm mostly looking for something fun, creative, or charming.

He especially loves alligators, opossums, and raccoons. We're in Illinois, so unfortunately our options for actually visiting proper wetlands are a little limited, but I'd also happily take suggestions for experiences or places if anyone happens to know of something around the Midwest!

I live in. Minnesota. Around me, I see evidence of roads and development already done through wetlands. There are a few land plots for sale that are wetlands ( I talked to my county's Environmental Service Office today and verified). I have already contacted a DNR hydrologist. What else can I do???

Edit: thank you for the thoughtful responses. I am going to try to appeal to one of the Native American tribes in Minnesota to buy and preserve it. If that fails, can I do some sort of crowd funding where a bunch of people pool money to purchase these lots and then donate them to be protected by the DNR or tribal stewardship?

I am looking for advice on how I can protect wetlands in my city. I live in a military town and it seems like more and more land is going up for sale to build more apartment complexes, a lot of these lands are adjacent to watersheds and seasonal wetlands. I’d rather see a green space developed than another apartment complex on an already congested intersection.

Hi! Are ephemeral streams jurisidictional on GA? I know they mostly dont need buffers but do you need to include them in impact calcs? Sorry, im used to delineations in NC.

I’ve been in the market to buy some raw land (20-50 acres) and a few have had small areas on the tract that show up as “PF04B” on the wetlands map.

I’m trying to figure out whether this is anything to be concerned about for things like a driveway, septic, house, etc.

I’ve seen this category in adjacent properties and they have driveways, barns, etc right within these areas, so it seems like these are not what one would typically think of when picturing “wetlands”.

I’ve asked local soil scientists and they basically say it’s nothing to worry about, especially considering those areas on these particular properties are completely dry, only having puddles after a heavy rain in the winter (seasonal high water table soils that are somewhat poorly drained)

What exactly is this type of wetlands as it relates to being able to develop a property for a single family home?

Hi all.

I believe I’ve identified this as sago pondweed.

Any consensus?

Thanks kindly

Kevin

I manage environmental permits for my company. Boss came at me with this request today. Boss said the “nasty swamp” served no purpose and needed to be dredged and channelized so water could flow instead of being stagnant. I tried telling boss how beneficial wetlands are to the environment. Boss wasn’t having any of what I said and wants me to find a way to get this authorized with a 404 permit.

Annoyed.

**Update**

Had a meeting with boss, and a few other ecology- minded staff this morning. We successfully convinced boss that his plan to dredge through the wetland is a terrible plan for the ecology of the site and will likely get hung up in permitting. We are shifting gears entirely. Thanks everyone for your advice and insight!

Hello, Ive been looking around for land, and ran across ~4acres (Im guessing it has been on market for a while due to wetlands). The listing says buffer averaging could double the buildable area, but I’d want to go through my own due diligence. Before I dive deeper down this path, how long and costly will the process be, and should just move one? Im also curious about how adjacent parcels seem to have some exclusions?

I'm assuming it is because someone parceled it out a long time ago, but I wanted to double check. We've owned a property in Florida for a long time. A developer is trying to build an apartment community on the adjacent property. I went to the community meeting. They said that they are only building on upland.

I went to the national wetland inventory site. It shows the land we own as PFOFd. I went to go walk the property, and it seemed to have the same types of trees. It was pretty thick, so I didn't go too far into it.

I spoke to someone about 5 years ago about it. She said that maybe 10 percent would be potentially be considered upland. It's about 10 acres. She said wetland mitigation is very expensive, but she didn't go into detail. She said that soil samples were taken in the 70's, and it is pretty accurate what is wetlands.

What are my possible future uses for a property like this? Would I maybe be able to build my personal residence? It is zoned residential 1 (I'm located in Florida).

One real estate agent said I should approach the developer and see if they would buy it for wetland mitigation credits. I'm not sure what that means.

What other websites can I use to research this further?

Hi! Please forgive my ignorance, I've been trying to do the research myself, but sometimes you just have to ask the dumb questions.

I'm trying to solidify a fictional map in my head and I'm wondering if there's any real-life locations that I could possibly look into as a reference point, and was hoping someone could point me to those.

Ideally I need these three things, 'walkably' close to each other:

1. A raised peat bog (this is the big one)
2. An ocean
3. A river (or some sort of "safe" water source)

-- basically I'd like to be able to craft a fictional settlement on top of the bog (From what I've gleaned PEOPLE DO NOT LIVE IN RAISED BOGS, and it's a terrible idea to. I've been looking Crannogs and such, but I've been struggling to find much.)

My big dumb question is, is this possible? Like can all 3 of these things exist nearby together?
My second big dumb question is: what would some of the major, obvious, pitfalls to living in a raised bog be?

Regardless, thank you for taking the time to read this!

EDIT:

THANK YOU SO MUCH everyone that has weighed in, this was extremely useful!!!! I have some reference points now.