BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal A flower decorates a fence at the Steinheimer Trust and Stanton Park Development Wetland Expansion Project east of Lompa Lane.
A plan to create a 50-acre park featuring trails, educational exhibits and wildlife habitat is moving forward.
Supervisors are expected to approve a surveyor's report of the site during their meeting today. Design work on the park is expected to begin soon.
The city already owns 17 acres of the Lompa wetlands, near the center of town. They hope to combine that with another 35 acres of privately owned land to create the park.
Charles Raffety, a developer, donated $130,000 to improve the wetlands. In exchange, he received the right to build at College Parkway and Goni Road on a site known as Hot Creek.
"When you disturb wetlands, you have to mitigate it," said Juan Guzman, the city's open-space manager. The payment is the mitigation.
The city's Open Space Advisory Committee is overseeing creation of a plan that would improve the wetlands, using Raffety's money, that also provides pedestrian trails, permanent educational signs, and improved parking and offers at least one access point for visitors, Guzman said.
The site to be enhanced is west of Lompa Lane and north of Northridge Drive. The 17-acres owned by the city is west of St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church. Private parties own the other 35 acres of wetland between the freeway, Lompa Lane and Northridge Drive.
Water rerouting is being considered as a way to make the wetland more hospitable to plants and wildlife, and enlarge it, said Leslie Burnside, environmental program manager at Wood Rodgers Environmental and Engineering Services.
Whether this would work at the location, however, would need to be studied further, she said.
"We wouldn't want to make the situation worse," Burnside said.
She expects to complete the design within the next two years. The city can then begin "tying down funding and engaging volunteers and nonprofits to help with the project," she said.
Other important pieces of information needed in the plan: Precise mapping of the area, possible ways to reduce the amount of noxious weeds, and inventories of plants and animals that call the area home, according to Burnside.
Animals already known to reside there include quail, geese, mallards, jack rabbits and at least one coyote, she added.
At today's meeting, supervisors are expected to approve a surveyor's report asked for by the escrow company, Northern Nevada Title Co. It better describes the characteristics of the 13-acre site than was the case soon after an agreement for use of the land was created in January 2005.
• Contact reporter Terri Harber at tharber @nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111, ext. 215.
If you go
What: Carson City Board of Supervisors meeting
When: 8:30 a.m. today
Where: Sierra Room, Community Center, 851 E. William St.