Best Practices

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If your site does contain sensitive areas, be sure to provide a site map that delineates these areas. Ensure that any maintenance and grounds keeping does not infringe on these areas, and be sure to exclude them from any future building or development, even if not part of a LEED project. 

Verify that sensitive areas are being protected throughout construction.

Include detailed site drawings and terms in contracts to ensure that any sensitive areas will be adequately protected during construction.

Development by a park authority for park purposes is acceptable and does not preclude your project from earning this credit (subject to other criteria). For example, an educational center built on the park grounds by the park authority is still eligible for the credit. 

It should be easy to determine whether the land purchased for the project was previously parkland. If you’re not sure, check with the owner, developer, the relevant park authority, or the title history.

“Waters of the United States,” as defined by the Clean Water Act, are “all waters which are currently used, were used in the past, or may be susceptible to use in interstate or foreign commerce, including all waters which are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide; all interstate waters, including interstate ‘wetlands’; all other waters, such as intrastate lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, ‘wetlands,’ sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, or natural ponds, the use, degradation, or destruction of which would affect

As defined in EPA Regulation 40CFR230: “Wetlands consist of areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.” 

The list of endangered and threatened species will not provide you with any data specific to your site. The next likely place to start more detailed research is your city or county website, or a local conservancy or environmental group.

According to the Endangered Species Act, “Endangered species means any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range other than a species of the Class Insecta determined by the Secretary (of the Interior) to constitute a pest whose protection under the provisions of this Act would present an overwhelming and overriding risk to man…Threatened species means any species which is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range.”