Northampton continues to grapple with mitigation projects

Northampton County is continuing to wrestle with the various forces surrounding mitigation projects that have landed in the County.

At Tuesday night’s regularly schedule board meeting, speakers on both sides of the issue took to the public comment section of the meeting.

Ken Dufty of Exmore addressed the board and asked how could no one, elected officials or the public, have known what was going on before the equipment showed up on the property. He laid the blame for this at the feet of the Planning Department and the Nature Conservancy.

“Once this becomes wetlands, no house will be on it, no barn will be on it, no accessory dwelling will be on it, no one will pay taxes on tractors, on their farm equipment, on their cars,” he said. “We, the taxpayers, will have to pick up the tab for this, because we are losing, not only our prime farmland, we’re losing tax revenue. Yet the Nature Conservancy, who I respect and everybody I’ve talked to respects for the work they do in the County, they’ll be selling this land, in fact they’ll make $1.8 million off this property they bought for $240,000.”

Jill Bieri, an employee of the Nature Conservancy, the billion dollar non-profit at the head of the project, spoke about the project and how it helps fund the Conservancy’s “wetlands trust fund.”

For example, Wal-Mart in Onley disrupted less than an acre of non-tidal wetlands. Wal-Mart buys a credit from the Nature Conservancy for the disruption for $100,000 and the Nature Conservancy puts that money into their trust fund for new projects and minor administrative costs.

According to Bieri, the site chosen was historically low lying flooded woodland that was converted to agricultural use, but it was never a good producing field.

Bieri admitted the process should have been more transparent, but also noted the Nature Conservancy fully supports agriculture, owning 500 acres of land on Northampton that is leased out to farmers.

“We don’t have any plans to turn any more farms into wetlands,” said Bieri, but when pressed by Supervisor Oliver Bennett she did admit it could happen again.

She also clarified the Hare Valley project was not a deal involving the Nature Conservancy, but a private land owner working with the US Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Conservation Service. She also said a tree bank that was planted approximately five years ago in Weirwood was not affiliated with the Conservancy.

Ralph Dodd, a farmer and real estate agent, said he understood why the Nature Conservancy chose the Exmore piece for what they did, but the tree bank in Weirwood was much more concerning, which was done for carbon credits.

“I warned the board during the purchase of that piece what was coming,” said Dodd. “A lot of these land bank guys want to convert very productive farm land and they gain more carbon credits that way than wetlands mitigation. So there’s more than one tiger we have to fight… They are looking at all bojack(soil) farms… and converting them for credits to be sold elsewhere… What they have to pay for our land here is miniscule compared to what they’re trying to recoup somewhere else.”

The Northampton Zoning Ordinance allows the conversion of agriculture land by right as a ‘recreational use,’ which Dufty addressed in the second public comment period. He asked the board to remove this from the zoning ordinance.

The County Attorney is still studying the issue and determining the options available to the County. No action was taken by the Board Tuesday night.