Observed effects of development adjacent to bog

[Randy Zerr]

Others may have observed this and may not be surprising but Sarracenia in particular seem to be the most effected. From firsthand observations of a once pristine Sarracenia flava stand in a rapidly developing community:

Road and parking lot water runoff into a bog has devastating effects. No big surprise, but I noticed especially near where the drain water is entering the bog, oil and possibly other petroleum substances from the asphalt floating on the surface seemed to "burn" the base of pitchers causing them to rapidly rot and fall over. New pitchers quickly rise and also succumb to the same demise. Each new pitcher smaller and smaller until the entire rhizome mass is exhausted and dies. Sarracenia psittacina also disappeared but not as rapidly. Drosera capillaris and tracyi seemed to tolerate the trace amounts of oil longer. I observed this at the Miramar Beach, FL bog which is now gone. Earlier this year I stopped by the bog and found very few plants of any species surviving in the toxic muck. St. John's Wort seemed to tolerate this condition but barely. It is not clear to me if this is due to just oil from auto engine drippings or from the fresh asphalt of the parking lot and possibly other substances. I rarely see pitcher plants growing along heavily traveled roads adjacent to bogs.

[DroseraBug]

Randy brings up a great point in my opinion and a great topic of discussion.

I've thought about similar topics for years. To make it as short as possible. Developers have to obtain all sorts of building permits to impact wetlands. As a part of the permitting process they need to show attempts at avoidance and minimization of wetland impacts. However, when wetlands are impacted such as those shown on Randy's website, they are required to invest in compensatory mitigation. To my knowledge compensatory mitigation is a process that now allows developers to justify their actions. I'm not bashing this process. At least attempts are being made to offset impacts but most know that we could never really restore a wetland of any type to its original function or state.

I know this may sound far fetched but why not in addition to general wetland delineations conduct carnivorous plant habitat delineations and/or provide buffer regulations on carnivorous plant habitat?-this relates to Randy's topic. Buffer offsets at least would provide a filter for nutrient rich or polluted water moving into and depleting CPs of appropriate environmental conditions. Some CPs could probably even be used as indicators of pollution in some cases.

These systems are quickly vanishing in the southeast and many other places in world. Though many of the more common CP species in the southeast may not currently be on a T&E list why let human activity allow them to get there in the first place?

Again, these are ideas for a team of folks including myself to petition and write to local officials about.

There are regulations on freshwater and saltwater wetlands including stream buffer regulations for unwanted nutrients/pollutants entering drinking water supplies why not have stricter regulations on nutrient poor bog community wetlands? I understand that bog communities may be given a higher mitigation ratio if impacted by development but this does not mean that a CP savannah will be recreated.

[ICPS-bob]

Stupid censored word algorithm. I fixed it so the word saltwater can now be used in its entirety.