The Wahoo Creek Mitigation Site is located in Coweta County, Georgia approximately 5.3 miles north of Newnan, Georgia on Georgia Highway 70 along Wahoo Creek and 5.7 miles upstream of the confluence of Wahoo Creek and the Chattahoochee River. The Wahoo Creek Mitigation Site was created to provide compensatory wetland mitigation for a private developer within the Chattahoochee River watershed. The mitigation site is a 6.77-acre portion of a ± 21.09-acre property and was designed to restore bottomland hardwood forest wetlands by mechanically eliminating man-made impediments to natural hydrology (e.g. drainage ditches), by eradicating exotic and nuisance vegetation, and by achieving a diversity of wetland habitats. This was accomplished at the Wahoo Creek Mitigation Site by restoring areas where an elevation gradient existed to provide a foundation for the diverse habitats to develop.

The mitigation actions taken at the Wahoo Creek Mitigation Site included plugging and backfilling the drainage ditches that bisect the property, mechanically eliminating exotic and nuisance species, and planting proper vegetation according to the Landscape Ecosystem Classification (LEC) model for the Piedmont floodplain. The LEC model, developed by Dr. Steve Jones of ESI, integrates various environmental factors; i.e. existing land use, geology, soils, hydrology, and vegetation, to predict what type of ecological community will develop. The tree species that were planted included overcup oak (Quercus lyrata), willow oak (Quercus phellos), and swamp chestnut oak (Quercus michauxii). The exotic Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) was removed by mechanical means followed by herbicide spraying one month, six months, and one year post restoration.

ESI has been responsible for all phases of the Wahoo Creek Mitigation Site including developing a conceptual and detailed design of the mitigation actions, successfully permitting the mitigation site, performing and overseeing the restoration construction, and monitoring the success of the restoration. Preliminary data collection included delineating the property for jurisdictional wetlands, surveying the property for threatened and endangered species, surveying the property for cultural resources, and applying the Landscape Ecosystem Classification Model (LEC) to determine the proper vegetation community.