When the San Lorenzo Valley Water district presented its Bloom and Acacia eradication plan for the Olympia watershed, it used portions of two documents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that supported the district’s claim that it could begin work on the plan immediately, with no required permits.
The first document was a year old, referred to an earlier draft of the plan in May 2016, and was outdated by new information reported to the district in a March 31, 2017 email.
The second document was an excerpt from that March 31 email, but with no indication that a major portion of the email had been deleted. The deleted portion included 1) information that the endangered beetle’s larvae could be disturbed if as little as two inches of soil were disturbed, and 2) that because of this, Fish and Wildlife was requesting that the district obtain a “recovery permit” in connection with its plan.
The first Fish and Wildlife quote, from the district’s May 3 presentation:
“I took a look at the management plan, with a focus on the permitting aspect. The biggest change in it would be that we wouldn’t require a permit to chemically treat stumps (no treatment prior to rain events). Also, it is speculated that you would not encounter MHJB larvae at depths less than 6 inches so uprooting any vegetation with roots systems around that depth would be fine.” – USFWS May 2016
The second Fish and Wildlife quote (from a March 31, 2017 From Chad Mitcham, Fish and Wildlife, to Susanne Schettler (who later withdrew from the project), with the sections deleted by the water district in boldface:
“I completed a quick review of the plan. I can tell that you put a lot of effort into it! Nothing really stands out that raised any big red flags, but as you know, working in the sandhills (from a regulatory point of view) is tricky. FYI – It has generally been the education opinion that MJHB larvae inhabit areas at a depth of at least 6 inches, well this year several larvae were unearthed at a deptch of about 2 inches within mulch.
“I just had a conversation with our recovery permit coordinator and brought forth the idea that the District apply for a recovery permit. The covered activities would consist of: if a MHJB larvae is unearthed it would be reburied at the appropriate depth.
“He thought it was a good idea and added that information should also be proposed to be gathered in these instances such as depth encountered, vegetation association, exact location, etc. This would improve chances of approval of the permit since there is a research component. You (to Suzanne Schettler) would apply to be to the permitted biologist, and I’m not sure if there are others that the District may want to include? If the District would like to go this path, please go ahead and fill out the permit and send it to me for review. I think we could get this expedited and may get it processed in six months to a year. Here is the link to our permits page:
https://www.fws.gov/endangered/permits/how-to-apply.html
“Here’s the link to the actual permit: https://www.fws.gov/forms/3-200-55.pdf
“In the mean/me, I do not want to provide any roadblocks for the district to conduct this great work, so the one thing that I think should be in the plan is the requirement that “If a MHJB larvae is unearthed the Service will be immediately notified.” This measure would provide the district an avenue if the species is encountered (as we go through getting the recovery permit issued).”
The revelation that the larvae area had changed from 6 inches below the soil surface to 2 inches prompted the district to state on April 13 that a permit would in fact be needed, and to pull the item from the April 20 meeting agenda. Several board members chose to discuss the issue anyway, in the face of a storm of community protest, which led to a May 3 meeting, and to the May 8 meeting.
