116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Restoration of Clear Creek underway in Coralville
$4.1 million project to be funded with sale of stream mitigation credits
- The City of Coralville is undertaking a project that will lengthen Clear Creek and make it curvier.
- Over decades, the creek was straightened to make room for infrastructure and agriculture.
- The project will improve water quality and add recreational elements.
- The work is being funded through the sale "credits" from the Army Corps of Engineers.
- The credits are bought by entities like the Iowa DOT that need a construction permit for another project.
CORALVILLE — The city of Coralville is launching a $4.1 million project to restore Clear Creek to its natural state, improve its water quality and add recreational elements.
The project came about during creation of a master plan to improve the water quality of the Iowa River, which Clear Creek flows into, according to Coralville Parks and Recreation Director Sherri Proud.
“We started looking at the Clear Creek Trail or the Clear Creek stream, and we own almost the majority of the land (beside it), from Interstate 380 all the way to Highway 6,” she said. “So it was an easier discussion about how we could get started and improvements you can make there.”
Proud said the idea for the project came from Judy Joyce, director of community building at Impact7G, a Johnston-based consulting firm that focuses on environmental projects and helped design the Clear Creek project.
Joyce said she did wetland mitigation work in the late 1990s and the 2000s in Coralville and was thinking even then of ways to improve Clear Creek.
“It's always been in the back of my mind that it would be great to have enough money to modify (and) restore Clear Creek so that it could not only improve water quality, flooding, fish habitat but also provide a recreational component so that people could get on the creek, they could stomp around, they could float it and kayak and basically make this into a water trail,” Joyce said.
The stream, which was straightened over the years to make room for infrastructure and agriculture, would be lengthened. Oxbows and bends would be added, creating flood storage and improving water quality, Joyce said.
Downed trees would be removed, with native trees planted to stabilize the stream’s banks. Trails, signage and access points for canoes and kayaks will be added.
People can watch
Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said the city thought residents would be interested in following the project’s progress.
Because the creek is hard to access, the city will install cameras along the creek so people can watch the work.
“We just thought this would be a good way for people to be able to follow along and see what's actually going on there,” Hayworth said. “It also helps us, you know, that we can monitor ourselves on a daily basis.”
The livestream can be accessed from the city’s website. When the project is complete, the city plans to create a time lapse video of the project.
“It's very important to me that we have these natural areas where people live, so that they can go out and have the same connection that I had when I was a kid,” Joyce said.
‘Credits’ to pay for it
The creek project, estimated to cost $4.1 million, will be funded using stream mitigation credits from the Army Corps of Engineers.
Coralville is acting as the “bank” for the credits. The city negotiates with regulatory agencies — mainly the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency — to create a restoration plan, which determines how many credits the project will create.
The Coralville project will generate 75,231 stream mitigation credits, which are sold to entities that need a construction permit, serving as an alternative to the permits.
“Mitigation credits are effectively one party doing something that provides a benefit to the environment and those are then sold to another party who requires a permit,” Matt Zehr, chief of the regulatory division for Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island Division, wrote in an email to The Gazette.
The credits, he said, are a form of currency. Once a stream plan is approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, the credits are sold on the open market.
Proud said using credits was a win-win for Coralville because it allowed the city to fund the Clear Creek project and do something good for the environment.
Joyce said a similar credit system has existed for years for wetland marshes. The stream mitigation credits, she said, were created in 2017 by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers to restore streams.
“So if you impacted (a stream), you have negative credits, and if you restore it, you have positive credits,” Joyce said. “With this new assessment in place, that opened up the potential to do what's called a mitigation bank.”
Joyce said credits for the project will be released in batches, with 11,284.65 sold for the first phase. The Iowa Department of Transportation bought over 9,700 credits from that first batch and Coralville bought the remainder.
Proud said the first batch of credits raised $1,128,465 for the project, with Coralville paying $157,720 for its credits.
Credits will be released over the next few years, also in batches, providing a steady stream of income for the project. Proud said the money from these future sales will be used to complete future phases of the project and also maintain the creek.
This first phase of the project — designed by Impact7G and Bolton & Menk — is slated to finish in September. The plan is posted on the city’s website.
The work will mean the temporary closing of the Coralville Creekside Cross and Flow trails, the Altmaier Family Park and Disc Golf Course, and the Clear Creek Trail Creekside Ballpark. The I-380 underpass also will be closed, with the city creating a detour.
Comments: alejandro.rojas@thegazette.com
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