A county wetland project in Chili's Black Creek Park continues to struggle.

The 13-acre project is meant to make up for nine acres of wetland that county workers disturbed during an airport runway expansion. It's part of a federal enforcement action against the county.

But environmentalists and watershed advocates have criticized the project. And the Army Corp of Engineers says the wetland is not performing as it should.

"At this point there is more work to do in order to resolve that violation," says Tim Crockett, a biologist with the Corps of Engineers' Buffalo office.

It's a matter of developing the kind of foliage, ground cover, moisture levels, and wildlife habitat that reflect what the Corps and the state DEC deem appropriate, says Jason Kennedy, the county's chief of engineering and facilities management.

Dorothy Borgus of Chili is a member of the Black Creek Watershed Coalition, a planning and advocacy group. She says that the county tore up a beautiful and widely used meadow to create the wetland, which she describes as "a scar on the face of the earth."

"Wetlands are where they are because that's where Mother Nature wants them to be," Borgus says.

The county has been cooperative, Crockett says, and officials are working to improve the wetland's performance.

County parks director Larry Staub says the wetland is "a great addition" to the park, and that it has brought in a variety of wildlife.

The county is also searching for a site in the Black Creek watershed to build mitigation wetlands. That site could be used as a wetland mitigation bank, where wetlands are established and used as credits against future losses. But officials could instead use the site to build wetlands as needed.

County officials have a "site of interest," Kennedy says. It's private farmland within the watershed, he says, and a portion of it is wetland.

The county had considered another site in Black Creek Park, but DEC officials recommended it look elsewhere, says agency biologist Scott Jones.