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Public Draft, Bay Delta Conservation Plan: Executive Summary

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Public Draft, Bay Delta Conservation Plan: Executive Summary BDCP Bay Delta Conservation Plan Executive Summary Table of Contents Overview .............................................................................. 1 Geographic Scope of Plan ................................................... 4 Covered Species ................................................................... 5 Covered Activities and Associated Federal Actions ........... 6 Conservation Strategy ......................................................... 7 Adaptive Management and Monitoring Program .............. 13 Effects Analysis .................................................................... 15 Plan Implementation .......................................................... 17 Regulatory Assurances ........................................................ 24 Cost and Funding ................................................................ 26 Natural Community Summaries......................................... 31 Species Summaries .............................................................. 41 References Cited .................................................................. 107 Overview he Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP or State Water Project is the state-authorized and Plan) provides a comprehensive conservation strategy for the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta operated water storage and delivery system T(Delta). The Plan has been designed to restore and of reservoirs, aqueducts, power plants and protect ecosystem health, water supply, and water quality within a stable regulatory framework. As a pumping plants that provides and distributes habitat conservation plan and natural community water to urban and agricultural water suppliers conservation plan, the BDCP is a regional conservation plan meant to conserve ecosystems in a sustainable in northern California, the San Francisco Bay manner and contribute to the recovery of threatened Area, the San Joaquin Valley, the central coast, and endangered species. The BDCP reflects the outcome of a multiyear collaboration among public and southern California. water agencies, state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, nongovernment organizations, agricultural Central Valley Project is the federally interests, local governments, and the public. authorized and operated water management The BDCP will support the issuance of permits authorizing take of covered species from the California and conveyance system that provides water Department of Fish and Wildlife under Section 2835 of to agriculture, urban, and industrial users in the Natural Community Conservation Planning Act, and permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service California. and the National Marine Fisheries Service1 pursuant to Section 10 of the federal Endangered Species Act (Chapter 1, Introduction). Authorized Entities are the parties seeking The Plan will also provide the basis for a biological take authorizations pursuant to the BDCP and assessment that supports new federal Endangered the associated biological assessments. They Species Act Section 7 consultations between the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation; include the California Department of Water U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and National Marine Resources, Bureau of Reclamation, and certain Fisheries Service on effects of the operations of the Central Valley Project and consultations on federal and state water contractors. 1 The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Marine Fisheries Service are collectively referred to as the fish and wildlife agencies. 1 Overview Regulatory Framework their permitting decisions. The parties seeking take Federal Endangered Species Act provides a means for authorizations for actions pursuant to the BDCP and conserving endangered and threatened species and the associated biological assessments are referred to the ecosystems on which they depend. Under the act, as the Authorized Entities. The Authorized Entities take of endangered or threatened wildlife is prohibited include the California Department of Water Resources, without a permit. Take is defined broadly to mean Bureau of Reclamation, and certain state and federal harass, harm, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or attempt to engage in any such conduct (16 water contractors listed below. USC 1532 [1988]). • Kern County Water Agency • Section 7 requires that federal agencies use their • Metropolitan Water District of Southern California authorities for conservation of endangered and threatened species and ensure, in consultation with • San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority the federal fish and wildlife agencies, that their actions • Santa Clara Valley Water District are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence • State and Federal Water Contractors Agency of species or result in modification or destruction of critical habitat. • Westlands Water District • Section 9 prohibits the taking of listed species. • Alameda County Flood Control and Water • Section 10 allows for permits for incidental taking of Conservation District (Zone 7 Water Agency) threatened or endangered species. The BDCP provides a comprehensive conservation Habitat conservation plan is a mandatory component of strategy to meet a series of broad planning goals and an incidental take permit application. a range of specific biological goals and objectives. The conservation strategy was informed by the California Endangered Species Act “declares that it is collective experiences of professionals working in the policy of the state to conserve, protect, restore, and the Delta for four decades, monitoring results and enhance any endangered species or any threatened conceptual models developed over time through species and its habitat and that it is the intent of the Legislature, consistent with conserving the species, prior scientific efforts, and supplemented by data to acquire lands for habitat for these species” (Fish & and analysis developed through the BDCP process. Game Code Section 2052). The act prohibits the take The conservation strategy is based on the best of wildlife or plant species designated as threatened available science and was founded on an array of or endangered by the California Fish and Game broad conservation goals adopted and agreed to by Commission (Fish & Game Code 2080). Take under the stakeholders in 2006. act is defined as any action or attempt “to hunt, pursue, catch, capture, or kill” (Fish & Game Code 86). The Plan is built on and reflects the extensive body of scientific investigation, study, and analysis of the Delta Natural Community Conservation Planning compiled over several decades. The body of knowledge Act provides a mechanism for compliance with includes the results and findings of numerous studies state endangered species regulations through the development and implementation of comprehensive, initiated under the California Bay-Delta Authority broad-scale conservation plans that focus on the needs Science Program and Ecosystem Restoration Program, of natural communities and the range of species that the long-term monitoring programs conducted by inhabit them. The act considers overall ecosystem the Interagency Ecological Program, research and sustainability, based on the principles of landscape monitoring conducted by state and federal resource ecology and conservation biology, while allowing for agencies, and research contributions of academic appropriate development and growth in California (Fish investigators. In addition, the Steering Committee2 & Game Code 2800 et seq.). considered several other reports on the Delta, National Community Conservation Plan is a planning including reports of the Governor’s Delta Vision document that supports an application for an incidental Blue Ribbon Task Force (2008), reports from the take permit issued under Section 2835 of the Natural Public Policy Institute of California (Lund et al. 2007, Community Conservation Planning Act, while allowing 2008), and Delta flow criteria recommended by the for landscape-, natural community- and species-level California State Water Resources Control Board and conservation to take place in an adaptive management framework. 2 The Steering Committee, composed of permit applicants, government agency representatives, and other concerned parties, directed BDCP development from 2006 to 2010. 2 Overview the California Environmental Policy Council (2010). and commercial fishing organizations. Public Development of the BDCP also has been informed by presentations were made throughout the reviews of water management and of the BDCP itself state, and information about the BDCP was published by the National Research Council (2010, regularly distributed, including updated 2011); and by reviews of the Plan’s effects analysis fact sheets explaining the purpose of the performed by the Delta Science Panel (Parker et al. Plan and describing its various components. 2011, 2012). Project documents were posted on the To ensure that the BDCP would be based on the BDCP website. Additional public outreach best scientific and commercial data available, the and involvement activities were conducted Steering Committee sought input and advice from around major milestones in the planning independent scientists on key elements of the Plan process, and in compliance with National (Chapter 10, Integration of Independent Science in Environmental Policy Act and California BDCP Development). Early in the planning process, Environmental Quality Act environmental the Steering Committee retained the services of review
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