San Luis Valley Regional Habitat Conservation Plan Draft for Public Review

5.7Additional Conservation Measures

County Land Use Policies

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  Reduce the impacts of development on overall riparian habitat.
  
• 
  Provide the Counties with the guidance to help landowners voluntarily avoid impacts to riparian areas and minimize regulatory uncertainties during the development process.
  
• 
  Help maintain habitat quality on HCP mitigation acres by reducing the potential for degradation or fragmentation of nearby habitat areas (and thereby reducing the need for enhancement of mitigation acres).
  
• 
  Provide policies and guidance for developers and landowners that discourage impacts to riparian habitat and reduce the need for individual Section 7 consultations.
  

Conservation Support and Coordination

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  Improved partnerships between willing landowners and habitat enhancement efforts by the NRCS, Partners for Fish and Wildlife, and other programs.
  
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  Improved partnerships between willing landowners and land trusts to complete additional conservation easements that protect riparian habitat.
  
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  Coordination with the establishment of the Rio Grande Natural Area, including planning and implementation, and potentially integrating the Natural Area into HCP implementation.
  
• 
  Additional Federal and State grant programs to facilitate ongoing riparian conservation (including ESA Section 6 grants, North American Wetlands Conservation Act, and GOCO grants).
  
  

Conservation Focus Areas

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  Rio Grande corridor between Alamosa and Del Norte,
  
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  Rio Grande/Conejos River confluence area,
  
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  Conejos River and Rio San Antonio south of Antonito,
  
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  Rio Grande south of Alamosa,
  
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  Saguache Creek west of Saguache,
  
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  Sangre de Cristo Creek east of Fort Garland, and
  
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  Culebra/Ventero Creeks between Sanchez Reservoir and Highway 142.
  

5.8Summary of Implementation Responsibilities

Rio Grande Water Conservation District

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  Oversee HCP implementation
  
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  Provide staff support for HCP implementation
  
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  Identify and develop mitigation acres
  
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  Negotiate and secure landowner cooperative agreements, management agreements, or HCP-specific easement language
  
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  Track impacts and mitigation credits
  
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  Coordinate habitat quality monitoring on private mitigation lands
  
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  Repeat Valley-wide habitat mapping (every 10 years)
  
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  Coordinate habitat enhancement resources as needed for adaptive management
  
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  Coordinate the HCP steering committee
  
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  Coordinate education and outreach efforts
  
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  Work with the Applicants, Federal agencies, and other partners to coordinate additional conservation efforts and secure supplemental funding
  

State of Colorado Department of Natural Resources

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  Ongoing covered species surveys on State lands
  
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  Habitat quality monitoring on State lands
  

Counties (Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Mineral, Rio Grande, and Saguache)

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  Adopt and enforce land use ordinance language
  
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  Compile and mail landowner notification letters (every 10 years)
  
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  Report County-permitted activities with permanent impacts
  
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  Provide HCP information and guidance to landowners
  

Municipalities (Alamosa, Monte Vista, Del Norte, and South Fork)

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  Report municipal activities with permanent impacts
  
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  Report floodway clearing in excess of 4 acres/year
  

Landowners

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  No requirements
  

6.0Monitoring and Adaptive Management

6.1Monitoring

1. 
   Compliance monitoring – Monitoring and reporting necessary to demonstrate that HCP requirements are being carried out.
   
2. 
   Effectiveness monitoring – Monitoring and reporting requirements necessary to evaluate whether the HCP measures are achieving the biological goals and objectives. Effectiveness monitoring also provides information to support adaptive management decisions.
   

For regional and other large-scale HCPs, monitoring programs should include periodic accountings of take, surveys to determine species status in project areas or mitigation habitats, and progress reports on fulfillment of mitigation requirements (e.g., habitat acres enrolled in mitigation lands) (p. 3-26).

Monitoring Approach

The monitoring approach for this HCP will achieve the goals stated above by focusing on three general parameters:

1. 
   Valley-wide (macro) habitat quantity mapping
   
2. 
   Parcel-specific (micro) habitat quality evaluation
   
3. 
   Species occurrence monitoring
   

Habitat-Based Monitoring

Habitat-based monitoring will be conducted at two scales; Valley-wide (or macro-habitat scale), and mitigation parcel-specific (or microhabitat scale).

Monitoring Goals

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  Document compliance with this HCP, and the terms and conditions of the ITP and Implementing Agreement (compliance monitoring);
  
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  Detect and quantify positive and negative changes to woody riparian vegetation communities within the HCP boundary, and corresponding impact assumptions (macro-habitat scale) (effectiveness monitoring);
  
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  Detect and quantify positive and negative changes to woody riparian habitat for the covered species on mitigation lands (micro-habitat scale) (effectiveness monitoring);
  
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  Detect and quantify changes in the presence or abundance of the covered species on Federal and State core habitat areas (effectiveness monitoring);
  
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  Determine if the biological goals (species and habitat conservation) and sufficient habitat quality standards are being achieved on mitigation lands (effectiveness monitoring); and
  
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  Assess the need and set criteria for adaptive management.
  

Valley-Wide Habitat Mapping

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  Quantity of woody riparian habitat with the HCP boundary
  
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  Quantity of woody riparian habitat on mitigation parcels
  
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  Ratio of tree/shrub habitat
  

Every 10 years, this revised habitat mapping will be used to track landscape-scale habitat changes and trends, revisit impact assumptions and calculations for the covered activities, and revise subsequent mitigation requirements (as needed). This revised habitat mapping is described further under Adaptive Management.

Core Habitat Monitoring

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  Establish a baseline of habitat condition on lands that are managed to support native wildlife, including the covered species, and have been documented to provide habitat;
  
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  Track long-term changes in habitat composition in core habitat areas on Federal and State lands;
  
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  Track the effectiveness of habitat management and restoration efforts on Federal and State lands;
  
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  Facilitate implementation of micro-habitat monitoring protocol consistently across Federal, State, and mitigation lands; and
  
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  Provide a point of reference from which to compare habitat quality on mitigation lands.
  

Reference sites will be established in different parts of the Valley to account for variation in hydrological and habitat characteristics in different geographic areas (e.g., Rio Grande, Conejos River, and Closed Basin); and to ensure that mitigation lands in any part of the Valley have a “local” reference point with similar characteristics.

General locations for potential reference sites include:

1. 
   Rio Grande corridor west of Alamosa (State Wildlife Area)
   
2. 
   Rio Grande corridor south of Alamosa (Alamosa NWR)
   
3. 
   Conejos River (BLM land and/or State Wildlife Area)
   
4. 
   Saguache County (location to be determined)
   
5. 
   Costilla County (location to be determined)
   

Parcel-Specific Habitat Monitoring

Microhabitat monitoring will be conducted on mitigation lands to quantify and evaluate if the quantity and quality of habitat is improving or degrading. Microhabitat monitoring will consist of the following:

1. 
   Parcel- or area-specific vegetation mapping based on the National Vegetation Classification System or other comparable system
   
2. 
   Habitat sampling to determine stand structure, cover, density, and species composition
   
3. 
   Encroachment of invasive plant species
   
4. 
   Photo documentation of typical habitat conditions from defined locations
   

An initial HQI worksheet, based on similar systems used to evaluate riparian habitat values by NRCS and CPW in the Valley, is provided in Appendix G. The HQI will be evaluated after the initial monitoring of mitigation and reference lands (within five years), and will be revised as necessary by the steering committee to ensure its effectiveness (see Adaptive Management below).

Restoration Monitoring

Species Occurrence Monitoring

Southwestern Willow Flycatcher

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  General surveys within core habitat areas will be conducted by Federal and State agencies responsible for managing those public lands following the most current flycatcher survey protocol approved by the Service. Commitment to this survey effort will be ratified in the IA. Under the 2010 survey protocol (Sogge et al. 2010), general surveys would consist of three surveys—one in each of three survey periods: May 15 – 31; June 1 – 24; and June 25 – July 17.
  
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  Surveys on private mitigation lands will consist of a single callback survey conducted by the District in June or July during habitat monitoring.
  

Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo