SITE INFORMATION AND CORRESPONDENCE_CASE 2

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Attachment A Vierra Unit Restoration: Levee Planting San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge River Partners Background This Scope of Work describes the tasks related to restoring wildlife habitat on approximately 2,000 linear feet on the river-side of an abandoned Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) levee on the Vierra Unit of the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge (Refuge), owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). This would build on a Supplemental Environmental Project restoring 11,000 linear feet on the land side of the same levee, funded by the City of Manteca as part of an Administrative Civil Liability Order from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. The Refuge is located in Stanislaus County, approximately 10 miles west of Modesto, California. The goal of this project is to restore dense, shrubby habitat for the endangered riparian brush rabbit and provide suitable long, linear refugia during times of flooding. The Endangered Species Recovery Program is reintroducing this endangered species on the Refuge. Approximately 1,500 acres of riparian brush rabbit habitat burned on the Refuge in July 2004 and several rabbits perished during flooding in spring 2005 due to lack of suitable, elevated habitat, making habitat restoration even more critical to this species. This project also compliments a large riparian and wetland habitat restoration project, funded by the Department of Water Resources Flood Protection Corridor Program, starting Fall 2005 on the Vierra Unit. The goals of the Vierra Flood Protection and Environmental Enhancement Project include restoring 311 acres of riparian vegetation and creating 200 acres of wetland habitat for a variety of threatened and endangered species, reducing risks of fish entrapment, and enhancing the flood corridor. The Vierra Flood Protection and Environmental Enhancement Project is an integral, but separate part of an overall project that will restore flood flows and natural fluvial processes across the floodplain and prevent future flood damage. The Vierra Unit is located within a Corps nonstructural flood protection demonstration project, which calls for abandoning/breaching Corps flood control levees damaged by the 1997 floods, purchasing flowage easements, and constructing a ring levee around residences owned by the USFWS and an old dairy complex that houses the Refuge field headquarters. An environmental assessment (for National Environmental Policy Act) completed by the Corps in 1997 found the nonstructural alternative project posed no significant adverse impacts to soils, air quality, water quality, socioeconomic conditions, land use, recreation, river hydrology, or cultural resources. Vierra Unit—Levee Planting Pagel City of Tracy