Razorback Mitigation Bank

Razorback Mitigation Bank

The Razorback Mitigation Bank is a 381.60 acre restoration project within the Little Manatee River Basin. The Mitigation Bank is located in Hillsborough County, Florida. The property consists of riverine floodplain palustrine forested wetlands at the lowest elevations with wet prairie herbaceous wetlands and pine-mesic oak forest fragments in the higher areas: most areas of these habitats have been converted into improved pasture or citrus grove. The property was degraded through a combination of ditching, filling (sidecast from the ditches), habitat conversion, intensive agricultural practices, selective logging, herbaceous removal, exotic, nuisance, and cultivar species invasion, prolonged fire suppression, and adjacent habitat conversion. The restoration of the property will consist of the cessation of agricultural activities and removal of cattle, excavating the citrus grove and pasture areas to create new herbaceous and forested wetlands as well as restore historic herbaceous and forested wetland habitats, backfilling ditches, treatment of agricultural runoff, oak tree thinning, exotic species eradication, supplemental planting, and reintroduction of prescribed fire to restore all the wetland and upland buffer habitats to their optimal condition.

The Razorback Mitigation Bank has freshwater forested and freshwater herbaceous credits available approved by the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD); and will service the Little Manatee River Basin.