Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits (2020) / Chapter Skim
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From page 5... ...
Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 2 2.0 SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW, SURVEY, AND PRACTITIONER INTERVIEW FINDINGS 2.1.1 Legal, Planning, and Policy Considerations To comply with federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) , Endangered Species Act (ESA)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 3 Mississippi; bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii) in New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania; copperbelly water snake (Nerodia erythrogaster neglecta)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 4 Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, which covers Caltrans' impacts on 146 covered state-listed, federally listed, and other special-status species (Riverside County Transportation and Land Management Agency 2003) ; and the San Joaquin County Multi‐Species Habitat Conservation and Open Space Plan, which covers Caltrans' impacts on 97 covered state-listed, federally listed, and other special-status species (San Joaquin Council of Governments 2000)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 5 unavoidable impacts could be mitigated by applying credits from in-kind or other out-of-kind wildlife connectivity mitigation. An advance mitigation crediting strategy to value wildlife connectivity would require a move away from a piecemeal, project-by-project wildlife connectivity mitigation approach toward a coordinated, statewide or regional approach.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 6 Such analyses of wildlife connectivity, as well as future human transportation requirements, are a requisite step of advance mitigation programs. Advance mitigation programs have been more effective at creating better environmental protection and alleviating transportation problems than performing mitigation for transportation projects on a project-byproject basis (Greer and Som 2010)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 7 Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015 (FAST Act; P.L.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 8 the number of credits based on an existing highway footprint for the Laurel Curve Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Project (Laurel Curve Project) on Highway 17 in Santa Cruz County (see section 5.1)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 9 of Montana, Ament et al.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 10 instream conditions, the riparian cover along the stream banks, and its interaction with the floodplain to calculate an overall score of habitat quality. That score is then multiplied by the habitat quantity (stream or watershed acres)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 11 Possible Performance Goal Possible Outcomes Long-term wildlife crossing use Maintain Number of Species with Improved Population Status Species counts Maintain Fish and Wildlife Connectivity Removal of X linear feet of barriers Improved habitat suitability index scores Maintained or increased of X acres or miles of adjacent habitat areas Improved access to X acres or miles of critical foraging areas Reduce WVCs Reduced number of WVCs Minimized maintenance costs (i.e., carcass collection) Improved Recreation Increased wildlife populations for viewing, hunting, and other activities (calculated based on state's market value of individual big game)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 12 7. Riparian corridors (with potential for retrofitting existing structures)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 13 populations, including dispersal from maternal ranges, movement in response to environmental change and disturbance, and the long-term maintenance of metapopulations and ecosystem processes, which could be documented by confirmed dispersal of young females that survive and reproduce. Model-Based Connectivity Metrics Researchers and wildlife managers in many states have employed computer models to identify wildlife concerns along highways, including big game migration routes (Sawyer et al.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 14 acreage of protected lands, species diversity, acreage of habitat for listed species, acreage of wetlands, and density of surrounding development. The Vermont Wildlife Linkage Habitat Analysis (Austin et al.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 15 concern, data collection for WVC carcasses and crashes is standardized to prioritize highway segments with high WVC rates. Carcass reporting by state agencies is becoming more efficient and accurate as a result of mobile devices (i.e., Utah, Idaho, Arizona)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 16 Willingness to pay valuation methods for natural resources have been used mostly for ecosystem services and land protection value estimates, but society may also be willing to pay more to conserve lands that provide vital linkages to wildlife across highways within a larger landscape context of protecting connections between areas of large, high-quality wildlife habitat. Thus, it stands to reason that wildlife connectivity mitigation credits could be greater for wildlife crossings or other connectivity enhancements located adjacent to, or between, protected lands because future development is limited in protected areas.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 17 (2008b) estimated that the average cost of WVCs involving deer in Utah was $3,470 per incident, which included the costs of human fatalities, human injuries, vehicle damage, and the loss of the deer killed.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 18 conservation bank acres required for purchase to mitigate the impacts of increased traffic from development projects on the Florida panther (see section 5.2)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 19 affected, USFWS is consulted. In several states, respondents said that wildlife advocacy groups were also included in planning efforts involving wildlife connectivity assessments or evaluations of mitigation needs related to specific transportation projects.
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From page 23... ...
Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 20 under specific conditions, including the availability of a CDFW-approved RCIS, wildlife crossing structures may qualify as enhancement actions for advance mitigation crediting. Few other examples were identified where mitigation credits have been generated from wildlife crossings and other connectivity enhancements, or where credits have been available to mitigate other kinds of transportation project impacts.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 21 Under specific conditions, fish passage and wildlife crossing structures may be eligible for advance mitigation crediting under new state regulations codified about the same time as Caltrans Advance Mitigation Program. The California legislature passed a law, effective in 2017, officially creating the CDFW RCIS program (Fish and Game Code §§ 1850–1861)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 22 would need to be replaced as part of the overall compensation. Likewise, issues with wildlife connectivity mitigation within the right-of-way could arise if a wildlife crossing structure needed to be replaced or repaired as a result of reduced function.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 23 Support for Function-Based Metrics Generally, planners and environmental managers at state DOTs support using function-based metrics to value mitigation credits for wildlife crossings and other connectivity enhancements and applying the generated credits (via debits) to the impacts of other transportation projects.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 24 reported five valuable recommendations that would apply to state DOTs seeking to apply mitigation credits for wildlife crossings that use a motorist safety metric as part of the credit calculation: (1) systematically collect and share WVC data; (2)
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 25 or wildlife injured by a vehicle (CDOT pers. comm.
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Valuing Wildlife Crossings and Enhancements for Mitigation Credits 26 waters, it includes metrics that value the ecological connectivity provided by drainage culverts and bridges associated with streams and wetlands. Further detail on this approach is provided in section 5.3.
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