Elk Horn Slough Early Mitigation Pilot Project

ELKHORN SLOUGH EARLY MITIGATION PILOT PROJECT

Photo: Greg Hofmann

The Elkhorn Slough Early Mitigation Pilot Project focuses on the Elkhorn Slough watershed in northern Monterey County where sensitive upland areas surround the slough that drains into the Pacific Ocean at Monterey Bay. Within the Elkhorn Slough watershed, there are major capacity increasing and operational improvement projects planned on four state highways and three local roads over the next 20 years.

The pilot project builds on the California Department of Transportation’s efforts, currently underway at a statewide level, to consider mitigation on a regional or watershed level. The purpose of the pilot project is to develop funding strategies and conservation agreements that will provide for regional-scale mitigation for multiple transportation projects that can be implemented ahead of the traditional project-by-project milestones. The tools developed with the pilot project will facilitate the integration of regional ecosystem based conservation strategies into early mitigation planning and transportation decisions, while promoting good stewardship at the watershed level. The conservation agreements and management plans developed with the pilot project could then serve as a model for similar programs in other ecosystem regions around the state to support transportation decisions.

The focus is on landscape-scale resource opportunities that provide potential for ecological connectivity, restoration, enhancement and protection for many natural resources including:

• Wetlands that include both freshwater and saltwater marshes and riparian corridors • Oak woodland, maritime chaparral, and coastal prairie grassland • Federally listed species including Santa Cruz long-toed salamander, California red-legged frog, California tiger salamander, southern sea otter, Monterey spineflower, and Yadon’s rein orchid.

Other important issues that can be addressed with early mitigation within the watershed are the water quality and the visual qualities that are impacted by development.

Initial efforts have included pooling resource databases from partners and regional stakeholders to develop a baseline Geographical Information System (GIS) tool with mapping overlays that identify Special-Status Species, habitat types, plant communities, habitat connectivity, and development pressures within the Elkhorn Slough watershed. This tool, developed by the Information Center for the Environment (ICE) at U.C. Davis, has already been used to identify the areas that provide the best mitigation opportunities for several transportation projects while advancing regional conservation goals.

Early mitigation planning for the pilot project is based on a collaborative effort between regional stakeholders that include Conservation Organizations, the Resource/Regulatory Agencies, the Federal Highway Administration, California Department of Transportation, and the Regional Transportation Planning Agencies. As regional mitigation/adaptive management strategies are developed, decision-makers will take advantage of the technical expertise and best available science for the natural environment to meet the transportation mitigation needs and the resource conservation needs within the watershed.

Delivery of future projects would benefit from this early work by providing a more cost-effective method for meeting compensatory mitigation requirements. The pilot project promotes a more efficient expenditure of public funds for transportation projects by making investments early in the planning stages to compensate for unavoidable future impacts to sensitive natural resources.

The project also has the potential to leverage private funding for early purchase and mitigation agreements that may be matched with public funds when the capital improvements are constructed. The overriding benefit is to achieve transportation objectives and preserve natural habitat values of important conservation areas within the region.