Fairy Shrimp Surveys Lead to Easier Permitting Conditions

Fairy Shrimp Surveys at the Gilbert Property

The 140-acre Gilbert site is located in Oakley in northeast Contra Costa County.  The site was predominantly the level plain of a formerly irrigated pasture with a vegetated sand hill that rose in the center of the site, a remnant of the sand dunes that once occupied this region. The primary purpose of these surveys was to determine if special status invertebrate species that inhabit temporary pools were present on the site. Pools with adequate habitat were sampled at two-week intervals until they had dried following USFWS protocols.  No special status vernal pool Branchiopods or other invertebrates were found on the site, leading to much more manageable and inexpensive permitting conditions.

Streamlined Monitoring of Multiple Projects

Multi-Project monitoring for Contra Costa County

Zentner Planning and Ecology completed monitoring for ten different restoration and mitigation sites for Contra Costa County Public Works.   The projects included a variety of wetland and woodland habitats in different stages of monitoring with a mixture of performance standards.  We were able to combine the monitoring into a single yearly report that was submitted to Federal and State regulatory agencies, thereby streamlining the monitoring process appreciably.

Permitting On-Site Mitigation within the new Corps Regulations

Mitigation Planning at the O’Neil/Mullin Site

The 20.2-acre O’Neill/Mullin site is a commercial development in the southern end of Napa County. Though the relatively new Corps regulations lean heavily towards mitigating project impacts at mitigation banks, on-site restoration can still work under certain circumstances.  However, the Corps may look at these projects with increased scrutiny compared to the past. We developed a mitigation plan for the site and worked with the Corps staff to eliminate any potential concerns as a result of that increased scrutiny.  The resulting plan was one that both the client and Corps staff approved and resulted in a smooth permitting process. 

Prompt Wetland Delineation Approvals

Wetland Delineation Approvals for the Queen of Heaven Project site

The Queen of Heaven site is an existing cemetery in unincorporated Contra Costa County near the City of Pleasant Hill.  The Catholic Church’s final design for the expansion of the existing cemetery was slowed by other issues yet the Church needed to process its applications rapidly for a project that would impact wetlands. Because Zentner Planning and Ecology has completed so many delineations, especially complicated ones, we have developed methodologies to get smaller delineation through the process relatively quickly, using comprehensive field analyses, GPS and CAD. The Corps subsequently approved the delineation as submitted without a site visit

Regular Maintenance Eliminates Issues

Maintenance at the Bayside Business Park Salt Marsh Restoration Site.

Bayside Business Park is an approximately 145-acre site in Fremont that contained a mix of non-tidal salt marsh and uplands and also hosted the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris raviventris; SMHM).  The site was restored to microtidal conditions to benefit SMHM and the constructed and preserved areas were protected.  We completed annual maintenance and performance reviews of the site for the developer (King & Lyons) and the City of Fremont to track hydrology, vegetation and other important changes.  The microtidal conditions required continual adjustment of the flap/slide gates that fed water into the site to provide optimal conditions for pickleweed.  We also developed a mowing and spraying regime that stopped a highly invasive species, perennial pepperweed, from spreading when it colonized a small part of the site.