The Farmington Valley Biodiversity Project A Model for Intermunicipal Biodiversity Planning in Connecticut Metropolitan Conservation Alliance a program of MCA Technical Paper Series: No. 11 The Farmington Valley Biodiversity Project: A Model for Intermunicipal Biodiversity Planning in Connecticut by Hank J. Gruner, BS Michael W. Klemens, PhD Alexander Persons, MS Metropolitan Conservation Alliance Wildlife Conservation Society Bronx, NY Cover photograph: Farmington Valley from Talcott Mountain State Park, Simsbury, CT ©Alex Persons, FRWA Suggested Citation: Gruner, H. J., M. W. Klemens, and A. Persons. 2006. The Farmington Valley Biodiversity Project: A Model for Intermunicipal Biodiversity Planning in Connecticut. MCA Technical Paper No. 11, Metropolitan Conservation Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York. This document is available online at: www.wcs.org/mca Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the vision and enthusiastic support of many officials, landowners and volunteers from the seven partnering municipalities: Avon, Canton, East Granby, Farmington, Granby, Simsbury and Suffield. We thank the Project Working Group and Special Town Volunteers: Fran Armentano, Howard Beach, Phil Chester, Elizabeth Dolphin, Carolyn Flint, Charlie Francis, Betsy Furtney, Joyce Kennedy Raymes, Steve Kushner, Eric Luckingbeal, Robert S. Melvin, Steve Paine, Sally Rieger, and Laurie Whitten. Several scientists played a key role in collecting biological and habitat-related data for use in the project; they include Greg Hanisek, Jay Kaplan, Bill Moorhead, Damon Oscarson, Ed Pawlak, Dennis Quinn, and Mark Santyr. We would like to extend special thanks to Aram Calhoun and the University of Maine for their support for vernal pool mapping and assessment, and Ken Metzler at the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection for his assistance with the ecoregion mapping. We would like to thank the volunteer vernal pool survey teams in Farmington, Simsbury, and Suffield: Amy Bauchiero, Howard Beach, Chris Beebe, Bob Borg, Barbara Chain, Barbara David, Tina and Mike Delaney, Elizabeth Dolphin, Sarah Faulkner, Betsy Furtney, Tom Heffernan, Shelly Jamison, Tina Laviana, Sue Mack, Regina Mahony, Carol Martin, Ken Mather, Jennifer Mattrick, Bob Melvin, Hunter Neal, Jeff Ollendorf, Larry Peters, Judy Radke, Sally Rieger, Barbara and George Rodgers, Carol Rollet, Richard Sawitzke, Mike Stanley, Cindy Stempf, Debra Sweeney, Guy and Peter VanBeckum, Laurie Whitten, Margery Winters, and Pamela Wolf. For generously sharing their advice and expertise, we would also like to thank Robert Askins of Connecticut College, and Michael Beauchene, Jenny Dickson, Dawn McKay, Nancy Murray, Paul Rego, and Karen Zyko of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. This project would not have been possible without the dedication of numerous staff members at the Farmington River Watershed Association (FRWA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Metropolitan Conservation Alliance (WCS/MCA). We extend special thanks to Danielle LaBruna and Kevin Ryan of WCS/MCA for editing, formatting, and assembling the manuscript. We also extend special thanks to Regina Mahony and Eric Hammerling of the FRWA and Jennifer Schmitz and Nick Miller of WCS/MCA. Finally, we extend our gratitude to Kevin Case for his vision in bringing this partnership together. Funding for this project was generously provided by the WCS/MCA, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Sweetwater Trust, Northeast Utilities Foundation/Connecticut Light & Power, the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation, the Aldo Leopold Stewardship Fund of the Sand County Foundation, Robinson & Cole, LLP, Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection/Special Environmental Project, and the towns of Avon, Canton, East Granby, Farmington, Granby, Simsbury and Suffield. ii Table of Contents Introduction 1 The importance of conserving biodiversity 2 Land use change and biodiversity 3 Planning at the landscape level 4 The Farmington River Valley 5 Building Awareness and Community Involvement 9 Methods 10 Phase I: Identifying biological data sets 10 Phase II: Mapping core habitats and fragmentation levels 15 Phase III: Integrating available natural resource layers to refine and prioritize areas for surveys 16 Phase IV: Conducting field surveys, vernal pool mapping and invasive species assessments 18 Phase V: Integrating survey data with habitat area maps and creating conservation overlays 21 Town Conservation Profiles 25 Utilizing the Maps and Data 48 Incorporation in the Plan of Conservation and Development 48 Moving from planning to action 48 Summary 51 Literature Cited 52 Tables Table 1: Biological diversity at multiple scales within the Farmington River Valley 2 Table 2: State-listed vertebrate, invertebrate and plant species used in FVBP Data Analysis 13 Table 3: Category I Conservation Focal Species (non-state-listed) used in FVBP Data Analysis 14 Table 4: List of Significant Natural Communities of Conservation Concern used in FVBP Data Analysis 14 Table 5: Summary of biological datasets used in FVBP data analysis 21 Figures Figure 1: Ecoregions of the Farmington River Valley 8 Figure 2: Land cover within the project area 15 Figure 3: Fragmentation of the landscape 16 Figure 4: Integrating biological data 17 Figure 5: Integrating wetland mapping 17 Figure 6: Prioritization of study sites 18 Figure 7: The biodiversity conservation area overlay 23 Figure 8: Protected parcels within the biodiversity conservation area overlay 24 Figure 9: Avon biodiversity map 27 Figure 10: Canton biodiversity map 30 Figure 11: East Granby biodiversity map 33 Figure 12: Farmington biodiversity map 36 Figure 13: Granby biodiversity map 39 Figure 14: Simsbury biodiversity map 43 Figure 15: Suffield biodiversity map 47 iii Introduction The Farmington Valley Biodiversity Project (FVBP) is an intermunicipal collaboration involving seven contiguous towns located within the Farmington River Valley of Connecticut: Avon, Canton, East Granby, Farmington, Granby, Simsbury and Suffield. The primary objectives of the project are to: 1) Collect and map comprehensive data on the biological resources within the seven-town area. 2) Identify and map priority conservation areas for incorporation within each town’s Plan of Conservation and Development to help guide municipal planning and decision making regarding land use. 3) Promote awareness of the region’s unique ecological communities, the importance of biodiversity, threats to biodiversity, and the role that various municipal commissions can take towards the conservation of biodiversity. The project is coordinated by the Metropolitan Conservation Alliance, a program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS/MCA), and the Farmington River Watershed Association (FRWA). The FVBP is an extension of several other conservation initiatives undertaken by the WCS/MCA in the tri-state region of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey including the Eastern Westchester Biotic Corridor (Miller & Klemens 2002), the Croton-to-Highlands Biodiversity Plan (Miller & Klemens 2004), and the Southern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan (Miller et al. 2005). Planning models such as these strategically link contiguous towns and provide the mechanism for individual municipalities to address their local conservation needs in a manner that also fosters regional conservation planning. The model also provides a significant scale of economic efficiency. By spreading costs among a group of towns, the cost for any single town to accomplish the same work is much reduced. Intermunicipal partnerships are also attractive to potential donors because they are both local and regional in scope. A formal FVBP working group was created to assist in administering and communicating locally about the project. The working group consists of representatives from each of the participating towns including town planning staff and commission members, land trust officials, environmental attorneys, professional ecologists, and WCS/MCA and FRWA staff. The project was officially launched in November 2001 with a workshop that brought together a broad array of experts including town planners and commission members from the seven participating towns, biologists from the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, WCS/MCA, The Nature Conservancy, and the Connecticut Museum of Natural History, an environmental attorney, land use managers from the McLean Game Refuge, the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), and the FRWA. This working session focused on obtaining input on the following areas to guide project staff in development and implementation of the project: - Knowledge of existing and available sources of biological data for the Farmington Valley that could be incorporated into the project. 1 - Strategies for managing the biological data set, including guidelines for sharing and distributing the data, as well as developing GIS data layers. - Approaches and methods to undertaking the field research component of the project. The Importance of Conserving Biodiversity Although small in land area, the Connecticut landscape is diverse for its size, featuring an impressive range of distinct ecological regions and within them, a rich diversity of animals and plants. Even within the seven-town area of the Farmington River valley covered by the FVBP this is evident. Biodiversity encompasses the richness of life at all levels, from the genetic level to the species and population, natural community, and ecoregion levels.