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Conservation Habitat Assessment and Mitigation Prioritization for the Hanford Site: Proposed Methodology

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Conservation Habitat Assessment and Mitigation Prioritization for the Hanford Site: Proposed Methodology HNF-62388 Revision 0 Conservation Habitat Assessment and Mitigation Prioritization for the Hanford Site: Proposed Methodology Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC06-09RL14728 P.O. Box 650 Richland, Washington 99352 Approved for Public Release Further Dissemination Unlimited HNF-62388, REV. 0 TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof or its contractors or subcontractors. This report has been reproduced from the best available copy. Printed in the United States of America HNF-62388, REV. 0 Conservation Habitat Assessment and Mitigation Prioritization for the Hanford Site: Proposed Methodology Sonia A. Hall SAH Ecologia LLC Date Published August 2018 Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC06-09RL14728 P.O. Box 650 Richland, Washington 99352 By Mary P. Curry at 3:55 pm, Aug 22, 2018 Release Approval Date Approved for Public Release Further Dissemination Unlimited HNF-62388, REV. 0 This Page Intentionally Left Blank Approved for Public Release Further Dissemination Unlimited HNF-62388, REV. 0 CONTENTS 1.0 The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site ......................................................................................... 1 2.0 Ecological Monitoring Program .......................................................................................................... 1 3.0 Purpose of the Habitat Assessment ...................................................................................................... 2 3.1 Relevant Landscape Scale Efforts ............................................................................................. 4 4.0 Purpose of This Report ......................................................................................................................... 5 5.0 Plan for the Habitat Assessment of the Hanford Site ........................................................................ 5 5.1 Purpose and Goals of the Habitat Assessment .......................................................................... 5 5.2 Selected Approach for the Habitat Assessment ......................................................................... 5 5.3 Principles to Guide the Habitat Assessment ............................................................................ 13 5.4 Work Plan for the Habitat Assessment .................................................................................... 14 5.5 Additional Considerations and Concerns to be Addressed ...................................................... 19 6.0 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 20 7.0 References ............................................................................................................................................ 21 APPENDICES A DESCRIPTION OF FOCAL HABITATS AND SPECIES ........................................... A-1 B VIABILITY ASSESSMENT FOR FOCAL HABITATS AND SPECIES .....................B-1 C DATA AVAILABILITY AND DATA GAPS ................................................................C-1 FIGURES Figure 1. The U.S. Department of Energy managed lands and their relationship to the Hanford Reach National Monument. Map copied, with permission, from DOE/RL-96-32, Hanford Site Biological Resources Management Plan. ............................................................................................. 3 Figure 2. Arid Lands Initiative and Washington Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Working Group Project Background. ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Figure 3. Draft Map Showing the Phase I MARXAN Analysis Boundary. The Hanford Site is in red; a preliminary boundary for a potential Phase II analysis is in yellow. The yellow boundary could include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-managed portion of the Hanford Reach National Monument (boundary not shown) and the Yakima Training Center (in purple). ................ 10 TABLES Table 1. Preliminary Lists of Species and Communities That the Project Considered Could be Nested Under the Four Focal Habitats and Species Selected. .......................................................................... 8 Table 2. Timeline of Target Due Dates for Completion of Key Tasks and Milestones. ..................................... 18 i HNF-62388, REV. 0 This Page Intentionally Left Blank ii HNF-62388, REV. 0 1.0 THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S HANFORD SITE The central Hanford Site extends over 312 mi2 in south-central Washington State, with State Route 240 providing the main boundary to the south and west and the Columbia River bounding it on the north and east. The Hanford Site is within the largest remaining area of contiguous native shrub-steppe and grasslands in Washington State. It also contains some of the most extensive dune systems in the region and is home to hundreds of plant and wildlife species. The natural resources on the Hanford Site are of notable value, both locally and regionally. This area has been home to several Native American Tribes. Remnants, artifacts, and burial sites associated with historical Tribal activity are found throughout the Hanford Site, highlighting that this area is also culturally significant and important to the Tribes today. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) currently manages the Hanford Site. In 1989 DOE entered into the Tri-Party Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology. Since then DOE has invested in cleanup of the Hanford Site to address the nuclear waste and pollution remaining from the nuclear reactors constructed to produce plutonium during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War Era. As described on DOE’s website (https://www.energy.gov/em/hanford-site), “after more than two decades of cleanup, considerable progress has been made at Hanford, reducing the risk the site poses to the health and safety of workers, the public, and the environment.” 2.0 ECOLOGICAL MONITORING PROGRAM The DOE/RL-96-32, Hanford Site Biological Resources Management Plan, (BRMP) is the DOE’s primary implementation plan for managing natural resources under DOE/EIS-0222-F, Hanford Comprehensive Land-Use Plan. The BRMP details the following three overarching objectives that guide the management of natural resources on the Hanford Site: • Foster preservation of important biological resources. • Minimize adverse impacts to biological resources from Hanford Site development and other management activities. • Balance the Hanford Site cleanup mission with resource stewardship obligations. Implementation of much of this management plan is assigned to the Ecological Monitoring (EM) program, currently managed by Mission Support Alliance (MSA). MSA’s implementation responsibilities include, among other actions, ecological monitoring, compliance reviews, resource monitoring reporting, implementing protective measures or administrative controls, and determining mitigation requirements. Since May 2011, MSA’s ecological monitoring program has fulfilled these objectives by monitoring and reporting on the status of species of interest (mainly state, federal, and Tribal species of concern), mapping vegetation, and tracking and evaluating trends in species occurrences and other natural resources of interest. These data are used to support environmental cleanup and restoration activities, mitigation actions, land-use planning, and compliance reviews to maintain compliance with ecological resource laws. 1 HNF-62388, REV. 0 As the cleanup of the remaining war legacy facilities along the Columbia River corridor is completed on the Hanford Site (Figure 1), and as ongoing activities are consolidated onto the 200 Areas Plateau, the infrastructure in the area north of Route 11 is being removed, areas restored, and impacted habitat is slowly recovering. As cleanup progresses, larger portions of the Hanford Site are becoming less impacted by the day-to-day operations of the Hanford mission, allowing additional opportunities to arise for mitigating impacts on biological resources. 3.0 PURPOSE OF THE HABITAT ASSESSMENT The MSA Ecological Monitoring Program has established a goal for 2018 of taking a holistic look at the area of the DOE-managed portion of the Hanford Site in order to assess habitat quality. The plan is to carry out a spatially explicit habitat assessment and prioritization that will allow MSA to analyze the vegetation and species-specific data compiled through monitoring and mapping efforts in the Hanford Site Ecological Monitoring Program. In addition to the historical ecological resource data, MSA will use the plan to achieve the following purpose: • To identify, on the Hanford Site landscape, areas of high habitat value and areas for restoration of habitat that meet the conservations goals and objectives of the Hanford Site. Such a habitat assessment and prioritization would allow Hanford Site staff and and contractors implementing the BRMP (DOE/RL-96-32) at the Hanford Site to: • Develop a
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