Coordination Act Reports ANNEX A1 U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE COORDINATION ACT REPORTS Annex A1 April 1999 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service Fish and Wildlife Service Everglades National Park South Florida Restoration Projects 4001 State Road 9336 P.O. Box 2676 Homestead, FL 33034 Vero Beach, FL 32962 March 1, 1999 Colonel Joe R. Miller District Commander, Jacksonville District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 400 West Bay Street Jacksonville, Florida 32232 Attention: Planning Division Re: Draft Integrated Feasibility Report and Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Central and Southern Florida Project Comprehensive Review Study (C&SF Restudy) Dear Colonel Miller: Thank you for your letter, dated February 19, 1999, clarifying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) description of the Comprehensive Plan that will be presented in the Final Integrated Feasibility Report and Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the Central and Southern Florida Project Comprehensive Review Study (C&SF Restudy). The C&SF Restudy was authorized by section 309(I) of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 1992 (P.L. 102-580). The Department of the Interior (Department) has prepared the enclosed final Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (FWCA) report. This fulfills the requirements of section 2(b) of the FWCA (48 Stat. 401, as amended; 16 U.S.C. 661 et seq.) and represents the Secretary of the Interior’s report to Congress on the C&SF Restudy. This report supplements the draft FWCA report we provided on August 7, 1998. The majority of our findings in the draft report remain in effect; the attached report serves as an update on the progress made in dealing with the most significant issues raised in the draft. We ask that the Corps include the draft report and this final report as the complete findings of the Secretary of the Interior in publishing the Final PEIS. We also provided a preliminary programmatic biological opinion on August 7, 1998. Your February 19, 1999, letter requested that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) confirm the preliminary biological opinion as the final biological opinion, based on the Corps’ retention of Alternative D13R (addressed in the preliminary biological opinion) as the preferred alternative in the Final PEIS. We concur with your request. Therefore, this concludes consultation at the programmatic level in accordance with section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.). Please refer to the closing statement of our preliminary biological opinion regarding circumstances that would trigger the need to re-initiate consultation. We look forward to assisting the Corps in fulfilling its responsibilities under the Endangered Species Act as we proceed into detailed planning of the components of the Comprehensive Plan. The enclosed final FWCA report includes brief reviews of our findings relative to effects on federally listed threatened and endangered species for the 2010 Case Study and the D13R4 scenario, which have been analyzed since issuance of our preliminary biological opinion. The Conceptual Plan you described in your February 19, 1999, letter creates the opportunity to provide enormous benefit to the South Florida Ecosystem. We commend your staff on their dedication and accomplishment. In particular, we wish to express gratitude to the technical staffs of the Corps and the South Florida Water Management District who worked tirelessly under extreme time constraints to address the most significant issues raised in the draft FWCA report. We are extremely encouraged by the progress made in addressing these issues, which is summarized in a table in the enclosed final FWCA report. Your February 19 letter included a number of commitments to approach future efforts in a manner consistent with the Department’s recommendations in the enclosed report, and we express the Department’s commitment to cooperate with you during detailed project design to translate those concepts to specific structural and operational features. We believe that the multi-agency Restudy Team displayed a strong commitment to fully resolve the issues we raised in the draft FWCA report. Sustaining this level of commitment as we proceed with implementation will ensure that the Comprehensive Plan serves as the foundation for restoration of the natural values of the South Florida Ecosystem. We look forward to working with you on these next steps in implementation of the Comprehensive Plan. Sincerely, Sincerely, Stephen W. Forsythe Richard G. Ring State Supervisor Superintendent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Everglades National Park Enclosure: Final FWCA report w/appendices 2 cc: Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, DOI, Washington, DC Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, DOI, Washington, DC Director, FWS, Washington, DC Director, NPS, Washington, DC Regional Director, FWS, Atlanta, GA Regional Director, NPS, Atlanta, GA Executive Director, South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, Miami, FL Executive Director, SFWMD, West Palm Beach, FL Executive Director, GFC, Tallahassee, FL Environmental Services, GFC, Vero Beach, FL Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida, Coral Gables, FL Biscayne National Park, Homestead, FL Big Cypress National Preserve, Ochopee, FL Loxahatchee NWR, Boynton Beach, FL Ding Darling NWR, Sanibel Island, FL Florida Panther NWR, Naples, FL Biological Resources Division, USGS, Miami, FL Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, Miami, FL Seminole Tribe of Florida, Hollywood, FL 3 FINAL FISH AND WILDLIFE COORDINATION ACT REPORT March 1999 CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN FLORIDA COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW STUDY Prepared by: South Florida Restoration Office Vero Beach, Florida U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Submitted to: Jacksonville District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Table of Contents I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..1 II. Progress Report on Key Issues Raised by the Department…………………..…..1 III. Review of the Performance of the D13R4 Scenario……………………………...4 IV. Water Quality Concerns Raised By The D13R4 Scenario…………………….…9 V. Threatened and Endangered Species………………………………….………….10 VI. The Need for Further Multi-Agency Review of the Other Project Elements (OPEs)…………………………………………………………………14 VII. Science/Research/Peer Review………………………………………………….14 VIII. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………15 IX. Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms………………………………………17 i I. Introduction This final Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (FWCA) report supplements the August 7, 1998, draft FWCA report, providing an update of the progress in addressing the outstanding issues raised in the draft report. Both the draft and final FWCA reports should be included as attachments to the Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) final Programmatic EIS, and the coupled FWCA reports, constitute the report of the Secretary of the Interior in accordance with section 2(b) of the FWCA. The Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (GFC) is providing a separate FWCA report, which will constitute the views and recommendations of the State wildlife agency. Development of the Implementation Plan and the associated modeling of the 2010 Case Study are among the more significant accomplishments since delivery of the draft FWCA report. The Department of the Interior’s (Department) comments on these efforts were addressed in a Planning Aid Letter (PAL), dated February 18, 1999, which is incorporated into this report as Appendix E. This final FWCA report supplements the discussion of the 2010 Case Study in the PAL with a discussion of its potential effects on federally listed threatened and endangered species. This report highlights selected recommendations provided in the PAL. This report includes important analyses of recent modeling scenarios (D13R1-4) and the preparation of issue papers on the most significant outstanding issues raised in the draft FWCA report. The purpose, scope, and authority for the C&SF Restudy are described in the draft report. That report also provided brief summaries of the evolution of project designs and the evaluation methodology, which can be reviewed in more detail on the Restudy website: http://141.232.1.11/org/pld/restudy/hpm/index.html. II. Progress Report on Key Issues Raised by the Department The list of 14 issues in Table 1 was derived from the draft FWCA report (August 1998). This table is provided to summarize any progress in addressing these issues between September 1998 and January 1999. The Department understands that the issues raised in the draft FWCA will require long-term efforts to resolve. The additional modeling of the D13R1 through D13R4 scenarios was largely in response to the most prominent of the issues raised in the draft FWCA report. Members of the Restudy Team held a series of multi-agency meetings, to deal with the highest priority issues, which were directly related to identified inadequacies in the performance of Alternative D13R. The participants decided that issue papers were needed for the first four items listed in Table 1. The intent was to circulate these issue papers for discussion and approval by the full membership of the Alternative Evaluation Team (AET). Issue papers on the St. Lucie Estuary, Biscayne Bay ecological restoration, and Biscayne Bay reuse followed that procedure. The original plan called for separate issue papers for the southern Everglades and Florida Bay, and for the northern and central Everglades. However, 1 issues in these two areas were combined into a single issue paper for the Everglades, and this is attached as Appendix A. An issue paper has also been prepared on water quality, but it is being revised to include the proposed features of the D13R4 scenario, and it is not available to be included as an appendix to this report. The issue papers included as appendices to this report are the following: Appendix A – Everglades Issue Paper Appendix B – Issue Paper on Freshwater Flow to Biscayne Bay Appendix C – Issue Paper on Flows to Biscayne National Park Utilizing Reuse Appendix D – St. Lucie Estuary Issue Paper Table 1. Summary of Progress on the Fourteen Issues in the Draft FWCA Report ISSUE PROGRESS 1) Increase total overland The D13R4 scenario was developed and evaluated by the AET.