Ever wonder how they build new wetlands to replace those lost to development? Here’s a peek at how its done.
An excerpt.
Daniel Weintraub: A one-stop shop for nurturing new wetlands
By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist Published 12:01 am PDT Thursday, July 13, 2006
Julie Vandermost once made her living helping builders put up houses, offices and factories. Now she does it by helping them make up for the damage they do to the environment.
A former manager with the Building Industry Association of Orange County, Vandermost is part of a growing cottage industry that has sprung up in response to the labyrinth of government regulations developers must navigate to build just about anything in California.
Business advocates often complain that environmental rules are job-killers. But Vandermost and the 14 people she employs owe their jobs to those very rules.
Her company -- San Juan Capistrano-based VCS Consulting Services -- specializes in preserving wetlands, or creating them from scratch when wetlands are destroyed by new construction.
The firm walks builders through the often-convoluted permitting process controlled by local, state and federal regulators. If the rules require that wetlands be created, her firm will baby-sit the reworked terrain until it can survive on its own. The company even sells the plants that regulators routinely require be grown to compensate for native vegetation the builders scrape away with their bulldozers.
