Panama City-Bay County International Airport
Master Development Services

PBS&J team member leads field reviewers through a titi thicket.

PBS&J is responsible for the overall environmental planning and permitting, mitigation plan development, and preliminary engineering for the Panama City-Bay County International Airport relocation project. Efforts have included conducting public forums, preparing a sector overlay plan, documenting land uses, and analyzing impacts. In preparing a detailed specific area plan for the airport site, PBS&J has assisted The St. Joe Company in defining the West Bay Conservation Area, 40,000 acres of preservation land use for the protection of West Bay.

This project also includes a land use planning effort for the surrounding 75,000-acre West Bay Area Vision, for which PBS&J is performing ecological assessments and regulatory permitting for the airport relocation. An ecosystem team permitting (ETP) process has been followed, in which state permits and approvals pertaining to wetlands, stormwater management, water supply, wastewater, air quality, threatened and endangered species, and air permits are addressed in a holistic manner, rather than as individual permits. The ETP approach involves a coordinated process whereby the project design and conditions of approval are presented, discussed, and negotiated in an open public forum, resulting in net ecosystem benefits and allowing greater flexibility in project design, issue resolution, and permit issuance.

PBS&J has also been responsible for wetland mitigation planning and design, and the restoration of nearly 10,000 acres of industrial pine plantation to the wet pine savanna and flatwoods habitat of the late 1940s and early 1950s. An ecological functional assessment of the mitigation plan has demonstrated a significant net gain in wetland function relative to the proposed wetland impacts.