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Superior Court of San Joaquin County upheld the certification of the 1994 Master EIR and upheld the validity of the Mountain House HMP. Therefore, the comments raised to the environmental review and the Mountain House HMP are raised against an environmental review and an HMP that have been twice upheld by the courts. Once again the Planning Department and the independent consultant each concluded that the comments received do not amount to new evidence that the 1994 Master EIR is inadequate. The County finds that it is reasonable to rely on the professional opinion of their Planning Department and the opinion of the independent consultant, as well as the testimony of other experts, that the comments do not amount to new information as that term is used in CEQA Guideline Section 15162. In response to comments by California Legal Advocates for Wildlife ("CLAW") that the Neighborhood F Project will reduce the number and restrict the range of several special status species, the County finds as follows: a)A number of mitigation measures have already been adopted, and continue to apply to the Neighborhood F Project, as part of the 1994 Master EIR, and these mitigation measures still apply to the project. These mitigation measures are discussed at pages 106 and 107 of the Initial Study. b)The fact that the 1994 Master Plan EIR contains more than one mitigation alternative does not negate the effectiveness of the adopted mitigation measures. In this case, the applicant may either participate in the SJMSCP, or implement the Mountain House HMP. c)If the applicant participates in the SJMSCP prior to its formal adoption, the applicant will pay a fee of approximately $2,600 per acre prior to issuance of SJMSCP permits. After issuance of SJMSCP permits, the fee will be $1500 per acre. The difference between the two fees is attributed to the fact that under the SJMSCP, significant revenues will be generated from alternate funding sources, including state and federal agencies, income from mitigation banking credits, hunting revenues, private donations, license plate revenues, and other such sources. (Draft SJMSCP Section 1.2.16.2) This fee was determined by County Staff, in consultation with SJCOG,to adequately compensate for the loss of on- site habitat, and has been applied in the past to other projects within Mountain House, such as the large lot preliminary map for Neighborhood F. The County further finds that this approach has been used by other jurisdictions, including the City of Stockton's Flood Control Project. The County further notes that contrary to assertions in the CLAW letter dated August 25,2000, the SJMSCP includes coverage for Federal Endangered Species Act, California Endangered Species Act, and the California Environmental Quality Act. Thus, the recommended $2,600 fee is adequate to cover all biological impacts of the Neighborhood F Project prior to the issuance of SJMSCP permits. d)As to the Mountain House HMP,the County finds that the legal validity of the HMP has been confirmed through the aforementioned litigation by the Department of Fish and Game. CLAW's letter fails to raise any new information of significant environmental effects that were not evaluated and mitigated in the 1994 Master EIR, the Mountain House HMP, or the 1999 Initial Study and 25