Application of Geospatial Ecological Tools and Data in the Planning and Programming Phases of Delivering New Highway Capacity: Proof of Concept—US-101, California (2014)

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CHAPTER 1 Introduction One of the areas of research supported by the Transportation Research Board through the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) is the development of tools and methods that can advance the goals of the Eco-Logical program (Brown 2006), which are called for in past and current transportation bills. To that end, the SHRP 2 C40A and C40B programs are focused on developing techniques for assessing regional environmental impacts from transportation projects and a website that could function as a tool for that purpose, called Eco-Plan. This report relays the progress of one of three C40B pilot projects that were meant to develop or improve existing impact assessment methods and to provide review and testing of the national tool as it is developed by the C40A team. This pilot project was conducted by the University of California, Davis and was located along 450 miles of US-101 in California. The project used the impact assessment methods previously developed as part of an initiative within California called regional advance mitigation planning (RAMP), which is an approach to mitigating unavoidable biological resource impacts from transportation or other infrastructure projects well in advance of the actual construction of the projects. The RAMP framework covers the advance mitigation process; the work conducted in this study targets the impact assessment component of RAMP, which lays the foundation for conducting advance mitigation. The next section provides background on the RAMP framework in California and is followed by the objectives, methods, results, and discussion of the study. RAMP Framework and Mitigation Planning in California RAMP is an innovative methodology that can incorporate regional planning principles and environmental impact assessments early in the development of transportation infrastructure and other construction plans and projects. It provides a way to assess impacts from multiple transportation projects and to direct funds required by those projects for environmental mitigation to fund more ecologically effective land acquisitions and restoration. If the funding associated with multiple infrastructure projects is bundled, larger parcels may possibly be acquired. In addition, it also becomes possible to coordinate the mitigation actions with regional open space and conservation plans, thereby integrating the mitigation into larger, regional-level sustainability designs. Under a RAMP, transportation infrastructure agencies work with resource agencies to consider the environmental impacts of several planned projects at once. They bundle the mitigation needs of those projects and use the recognized needs to protect habitat at a larger, more ecologically effective scale and to link mitigation actions with conservation priorities as identified by a “regional greenprint” (Figure 1.1). This approach addresses a 3

known inefficiency in the way transportation and other infrastructure projects are typically implemented. Infrastructure agencies often engage in project-by-project mitigation, usually at the end of a project’s timeline, thereby losing valuable dollars to real estate appreciation and speculation and also losing potential habitat acquisition opportunities to encroaching development and speculation. In addition, project-by-project mitigation often overlooks regional- and ecosystem-scale impacts to species and critical habitats, thereby missing opportunities for efficient, reliable, and effective environmental mitigation. RAMP is a win-win for conservation and infrastructure agencies: it can expedite project delivery and yield better conservation outcomes. Under RAMP, mitigation for infrastructure projects can be more proactive; more systematic; multifunctional rather than single purpose; and better integrated with other planning efforts, resulting in more meaningful and cost-effective conservation that advances statewide and regional environmental goals. Source: Thorne et al. 2014. Figure 1.1. Conceptual graphic outlining the overall RAMP process. This pilot project addressed the first three boxes within the mitigation assessment (red box). 4

In California, several advance mitigation programs are ongoing at the county level. These programs, in San Diego and Orange Counties, have been authorized as environmental mitigation programs through their respective transportation sales tax measures, meaning that the funding for assessments, planning, acquisition, and so forth, is derived from county-level financing. At higher levels of government, agencies such as Caltrans, the California Department of Water Resources, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as other state and federal agencies and organizations such as UC Davis and The Nature Conservancy, have been participating in a roundtable working group, formed in 2008, to identify a statewide approach to advance mitigation. Some of these institutions have also signed a memorandum of understanding to support the RAMP effort and “build state–federal agency partnerships to advance the RAMP process” (Appendix A). However, one of the large bottlenecks for Caltrans lies beyond the impact assessment capacity, in that no clear vehicle to enable the funding of advance mitigation implementation has been identified. This issue is mentioned in passing in this report, which is focused on the further development of impact assessment capacity and methods. RAMP Working Group In 2012, the RAMP working group presented a draft RAMP statewide framework (Figure 1.2), which is a document that describes the vision for RAMP and the process for implementing this approach at the regional level. The framework illustrates the basic methodology, from creating a map of planned infrastructure projects to selecting mitigation sites within a conservation greenprint. Figure 1.2. The draft Regional Advance Mitigation Planning framework is a publicly available document. Part of the methodology has been implemented in a pilot project of the RAMP working group for a 1,500-square-mile area in the central Sacramento Valley (Figure 1.3). 5

Figure 1.3. A map of the central Sacramento Valley pilot project area. The methodology (Figure 1.4), while giving an overall structure for analyzing impacts, does not provide a detailed and systematic approach for calculating areas of impact. Figure 1.4. The different components of the methodology are shown with maps of the pilot area. The basic approach for assessing the environmental impacts from planned transportation projects is the development of an inventory of projects for which compensatory mitigation has not been finalized, the digitization of those projects, and the accounting of projected mitigation needs through geographic information system (GIS) analysis of the locations of multiple projects in a region with regional natural resource data of various types. This process typically identifies projects within a 10- to 20-year planning horizon and is essential for beginning an assessment (see, for example, Figure 6

1.5). These inventories need to be conducted each time a regional impacts assessment is conducted. Figure 1.5. Planned transportation projects for California in 2008. SHOPP = State Highway Operation and Protection Plan; STIP = State Transportation Improvement Program; FTIP = Federal Transportation Improvement Program. The overall process also demands the assembly of important biological and ecological information (Thorne et al. 2009b). In parallel, the best-developed conservation targets from agency plans, habitat conservation plans (county-level planning), and nongovernmental organizations (e.g., The Nature Conservancy), together with occurrence and connectivity data and models, are assembled to create a greenprint for the study area. Once the recognized conservation priorities are constructed in a map, mitigation sites only from within those areas can be selected to coordinate the compensatory, off-site mitigation. Portfolios of sites around the region can be identified that could be satisfactory in a replicable manner by using the reserve selection algorithm Marxan (Ball et al. 2009). Marxan can identify areas that meet the mitigation need and rank all parcels for their irreplaceability in meeting those needs in suitable locations so that a suite of 7

areas, each comprising many parcels, is identified. These portfolios then become areas in which mitigation acquisitions could be identified that would meet multiple construction mitigation needs while contributing to regional sustainability objectives. U.S. Highway 101: The C40B1 Study Area A major focus of this project was to assess the impacts from planned infrastructure projects across a large section of highway to demonstrate that the methods used in a RAMP impact assessment are replicable. The SHRP 2 C40B1 pilot project covered a 450-mile span of US-101, including Mendocino County in the north coast region down through Santa Barbara County in the central coast region. The area spans three Caltrans districts: District 1, District 4, and District 5 (Figure 1.6). The potential impacts from programmed transportation projects were assessed across the full study area, as provided by each Caltrans district. Figure 1.6. Map of pilot region for the SHRP 2 C40B project along U.S. Highway 101. Each Caltrans district had distinct attributes that informed the study and analysis. District 1 (Mendocino County on the north coast) is occupied by large extents of conifer and hardwood–conifer woodlands and has many streams used by anadromous fish; the latter potentially influence stream-crossing structure construction. Wetland and stream mitigation can be an especially challenging obstacle for water quality and social equity, as seen in other areas in North America and around the world (BenDor and Stewart 2011; BenDor et al. 2009; Meriano et al. 2009). Compared with the other 8

Caltrans districts, there are relatively few listed species requiring mitigation in this district. District 4, which includes the San Francisco Bay Area (Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties), is highly urbanized, has a high number of listed species, and has a large number of anadromous fish streams. Transportation projects in urban settings can usually expect less compensatory environmental mitigation, but they often have more issues with increased congestion and air quality management, as well as potential mitigation for impacts to personal property (Thorne et al. 2006). District 5 on the central coast (San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara Counties) includes large expanses of oak woodlands, grasslands, and agriculture. This region has a number of threatened and endangered species, as well as many habitat corridors that can be affected by transportation projects, creating additional complications (Thorne et al. 2005; Huber et al. 2010; Caliskan 2013). Various actions have been employed by Caltrans in District 5 to reduce wildlife mortality at transportation intersections (Figure 1.7). Extensive farmland in the Salinas Valley will potentially be affected by planned Caltrans projects in this district. (a) (b) 9

(c) (d) Figure 1.7. Methods used by Caltrans to avoid wildlife mortality at the transportation–wildlife interface include (a) wildlife fencing, (b) escape ramps, (c) crossing passages at culverts and bridges, and (d) electric wildlife crossing deterrent mats at unfenced intersections. 10