United States Department of the Interior FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE Ecological Services Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office 6010 Hidden Valley Road, Suite 101 Carlsbad, California 92011 In Reply Refer To: FWS-ERIV-08B0789-11F0041 JUL 0 6 2.0t1 MEMORANDUM To: Field Manager, Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office, Bureau of Land Management Palm Springs, California From: Field Supervisor, Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office, \(),/l Carlsbad, California \._. l Subject: Biological Opinion on the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project, Riverside County, California [CACA 48649] This memorandum transmits the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (Service) biological opinion on the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) proposed issuance of a right -of-way (ROW) grant that would authorize the construction,operation, and maintenance of the proposed Desert Sunlight Solar Farm project (project or Solar Farm); the BLM also proposes to issue a ROW grant for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the Southern California Edison (SCE) Red Bluff Substation and associated component. Both project components are located in Riverside County, California. This biological opinion analyzes the effects of the project on the threatened desert tortoise ( Gopherus agassizii) and its designated critical habitat in accordance with section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Act), as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.). Your request for formal consultation, dated October 15, 2010, was received on October 20, 2010. Additional documents and revisions to the biological assessment were submitted on December 23, 2010. This biological opinion is primarily based on information provided in the following documents and communications: 1) BLM's Draft Environmental Impact Statement and California Desert Conservation Area Plan Amendment for the Proposed Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (DEIS; BLM 2010); 2) Biological Assessment for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (Ironwood Consulting 2010a); 3) Biological Resources Technical Report for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (Ironwood Consulting 2010b); 4) draft revised Desert Tortoise Translocation Plan for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (Ironwood Consulting and Woodard 2010); 5) draft revised Common Raven Management Plan for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (Ironwood Consulting 2010c); 6) draft Habitat Compensation Plan for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (First Solar 2011); 7) draft Integrated Weed Management Plan for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project (Ironwood Consulting 2010d); 8) BLM's Desert Sunlight Solar Farm Project California Desert Conservation Area Plan Amendment and Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS; BLM 2011); 9) consolidated list of conservation Field Manager, Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office (FWS-ERIV-08B0789-11F0041) 2 measures provided by the BLM; 10) supplemental materials provided during the consultation process; 11) electronic transmissions from BLM, First Solar, Ironwood Consulting, and SCE; and 12) pertinent literature contained in our files. The project file for this consultation is located at the Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office (CFWO). CONSULTATION HISTORY Desert Sunlight Holdings, LLC (Sunlight), a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Solar Development, Inc. initiated early coordination on this project in 2007; their consultant on the project, Ironwood Consulting, contacted the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) and Service to discuss wildlife survey protocols for the proposed project. Between 2007 and 2010, the consultant performed various biological surveys within the proposed project boundaries. During this time, the Service coordinated with the BLM, CDFG, and Sunlight and SCE (applicants) on the development of the measures contained in the biological assessment and BLM’s DEIS to avoid, minimize, and offset impacts to the desert tortoise. Between April and December 2010, when consultation was initiated, regularly scheduled conference calls between the applicants, Service, BLM, and CDFG were held to discuss issues related to potential impacts to desert tortoises and measures to avoid, minimize, and offset those impacts, translocation, schedules for consultation and project construction, and other topics, including changes to the proposed action. We also conducted several visits to the project site with these agencies and Ironwood Consulting. Prior to the release of the FEIS, the BLM and California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) worked together to develop additional protective measures for various resources, including the desert tortoise, to be implemented as part of the proposed action. In preparing this biological opinion, we provided a draft biological opinion to the BLM for review and comment on June 17, 2011. BLM provided a copy of the draft to the CDFG and applicants, and provided us with the combined comments from those entities that BLM wished to be considered in our preparation of the final biological opinion. We have incorporated all comments received from the BLM, CDFG, and applicants into this biological opinion, as appropriate. BIOLOGICAL OPINION DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED ACTION The following description of the proposed action is a summary of the biological assessment (Ironwood Consulting 2010a), DEIS (BLM 2010), FEIS (BLM 2011), other supporting documents listed above (see pp. 1 and 2), subsequent language clarification via email, and further modifications based on comments received from the BLM on the draft biological opinion. Field Manager, Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office (FWS-ERIV-08B0789-11F0041) 3 Introduction The proposed action is the BLM’s issuance of two ROW grants that would authorize construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of a commercial solar power generating facility and substation on approximately 7,600 hectares (ha) [19,000 acres (ac)] and 69.6 ha (172 ac) of BLM-managed lands, respectively. The proposed project is located in Riverside County approximately 9.7 kilometers (km) [6 miles (mi)] north of the rural community of Desert Center and approximately 10.3 km (6.5 mi) north of the Interstate 10 (I-10) corridor. The BLM’s authorization of the ROW grants for the proposed project would require a resource management land use plan amendment to the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) plan, as amended (BLM 1999). Appendix 1 contains all of the figures referenced herein and the tables not included in the body of this biological opinion. Project components generally include phased construction, operation, and maintenance of the Solar Farm site and the associated generation-tie transmission line (gen-tie) and construction, operation, and maintenance of the SCE Red Bluff Substation and related components (Figure 2 in Ironwood Consulting 2010a). The Service analyzes two gen-tie alignments (A-1 and A-2) in this biological opinion to allow for approval and construction of either alignment. The final alignment will be dependent upon the ability of the applicants to obtain necessary permissions to access private lands through which gen-tie A-2 would pass. Sunlight will construct, own, operate, and maintain the Solar Farm and gen-tie line, while SCE will construct, own, operate, and maintain the Red Bluff Substation and its associated elements. As a result, both Sunlight and SCE are considered the applicants under this biological opinion. The proposed project will permanently disturb up to 1,690 ha (4,176 ac) (Table 1), all of which is desert tortoise habitat on lands administered by the BLM, with the exception of approximately 1.8 km (1.1 mi) along Kaiser Road held by Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California 1 km (0.6 mi) and Riverside County 0.8 km (0.5 mi); this assumes that the gen-tie alignment would follow Kaiser Road (gen-tie A-1). Gen-tie alignment A-2 reduces project impacts by approximately 2.4 ha (6 ac); this alignment passes through abandoned agricultural fields on private lands. Any non-emergency expansion of construction, operation, or maintenance activities into locations outside of the areas considered in this biological opinion will require BLM approval and desert tortoise clearance surveys, and may require reinitiation of consultation with the Service. Construction: Sunlight and SCE Construction of the proposed Solar Farm and gen-tie is expected to be completed in phases over a period of at least 26 months. Construction of the proposed Red Bluff Substation is expected to take approximately 24 months. The Red Bluff Substation would be constructed on a schedule that allows interconnection and partial energization of the Solar Farm before overall project construction is complete. Field Manager, Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office (FWS-ERIV-08B0789-11F0041) 4 Table 1. Disturbance acreage for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm and SCE project components Area Gen-tie A-1 Gen-tie A-2 Sunlight Components 1,620.4 ha (4,004 ac) 1,618 ha (3,998 ac) Solar Farm site 1,583.1 ha (3,912 ac) 1,583.1 ha (3,912 ac) Total Gen-tie line 37.2 ha (92 ac)* 34.8 ha (86 ac)* Transmission erection and structure areas 17 ha (42 ac) 14.2 ha (35 ac) Access roads 9 ha (22 ac) 6.3 ha (15.5 ac) Splicing areas 2.4 ha (6 ac) 2 ha (5 ac) Stringing areas 12.5 ha (31 ac) 15.4 ha (38 ac) Guard structure areas 0.8 ha (2 ac) 0.8 ha (2 ac) SCE Components 69.6 ha (172 ac) Red Bluff Substation and staging areas 30.8 ha (76 ac) Drainage/side slopes 5.7 ha (14 ac) Access road 12.6 ha (31 ac) Same as gen-tie A-1 Transmission loop-in 13.4 ha (33 ac) Distribution line 3.2 ha (8 ac) Telecommunications site 0.4 ha (<1 ac) Laydown yard (temporary use area) 3.6 ha (9 ac) Total Project 1,690 ha (4,176 ac) 1,687.5 ha (4,170 ac) *The sum total does not account for 11 ac of overlap of features for gen-tie A-1 and 9.5 ac of overlap for gen-tie A-2. Solar Farm and Support Facilities: Sunlight The proposed project includes phased construction of a 550-megawatt (MW) commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) power-generating facility using First Solar’s technology for thin film cadmium telluride PV modules.