A five-acre wetland was constructed at this site as compensatory mitigation for wetlands impacted by the I87 and Exit 126 interchange project in Chester, about three miles west, after site constraints prevented on-site mitigation adjacent to the affected wetlands. Built through the cooperation of the New York State Department of Transportation, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission Office of Parks and Recreation and Historic Preservation, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the off-site mitigation area and the impacted project site both lie within the Moodna Creek watershed. The mitigation area adjoins 108 acres of state-regulated wetlands that also serve as the floodplain for Seely Brook. Research during design indicated that this wetland system had once been part of a larger wetland system that was filled in at some time in the past. The new wetland system was designed primarily as an emergent wetland, typically with saturated soils or up to 18 inches of standing water for most of the time.