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Peregrine Falcon - Photo from USDA Forest Service |
Once a project need has been identified, WSDOT or the lead agency will compile a team of project engineers, environmental permit coordinators and designers to develop the project. This internal team will begin generating project concepts and designs and identifying the environmental permitting issues pertaining to the project. Generally, once the project team has 30-percent designs complete, the environmental permitting process, including ESA consultation, begins. The environmental permitting process may begin earlier or later in the project design process depending upon the specific project.
Ideally, a project biologist will be assigned to the project team early on in the design process to provide input to the design process. The project biologist can work with project designers and engineers to identify species of concern in the vicinity of the project, whether surveys for wildlife or plants will be required, in-water work windows, timing restrictions based on wildlife sensitive periods, and other environmental considerations and issues of special concern.
Assignment of project biologist
To begin the ESA consultation process, the project team contacts the WSDOT regional environmental office to determine the level of ESA review that may be required. The environmental office will assign a biologist to the project. This may be the WSDOT regional biologist, a consultant biologist, or a biologist from ESO in Olympia. Assignment will depend on the project and the workload. The following subsection outlines considerations for working as part of the WSDOT team.
Working as Part of the WSDOT Team
In order to implement its extensive highway construction program, WSDOT often contracts consultant biologists to help complete the ESA Section 7 analysis. These biologists may be contracted directly by WSDOT to work on WSDOT projects, or indirectly by Local Agencies to work on projects funded by WSDOT's Highways and Local Programs division.
For most of WSDOT's projects, FHWA serves as the federal nexus. If federal funding is lacking, often a federal permit, usually from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), will be required, resulting in the Corps serving as the federal nexus. Occasionally a project involves more than one federal agency because it occurs on federally owned lands (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, etc.), which can result in joint lead agencies for a given project. For all informal FHWA and Corps consultations, WSDOT serves as the federal action agencies' non-federal designee and completes ESA Section 7 consultations with the Services on their behalf.
Though consultant biologists are hired based upon their individual qualifications and expertise, the biological assessments they are contracted to produce are agency documents that must be consistent with both WSDOT and FHWA policies and practices. To this end, consultants preparing biological assessments on behalf of these agencies should think of themselves as part of the WSDOT project delivery team , striving to produce documents that are internally consistent, that accurately reflect agency policies, practices and publication styles, and that have been fully coordinated with other team members.
Some basic steps for consultants to ensure the documents they produce reflect WSDOT standards are provided below:
- Coordinate early and often with the WSDOT project manager.
- An initial meeting, preferably in the field, with the WSDOT project manager and relevant project team members should be organized to review the project.
- WSDOT project managers review biological assessments for consistency with the agency's policies, practices, and the proposed project description.
- Coordinate early and often with the WSDOT project engineer.
- WSDOT project engineers review biological assessments for consistency with the agency's policies, practices, and the proposed project description.
- Recognize that it is WSDOT's responsibility to define the action upon which it wishes to consult.
- It is the consultant's responsibility to assess the impacts associated with the action as defined by WSDOT.
- Do not revise the project description, change the project timeline, add project elements, introduce mitigation requirements, suggest design changes etc. without coordinating with the project manager.
- Do not coordinate directly with the resource agencies (NOAA Fisheries and USFWS). Always contact the project manager and WSDOT regional environmental staff for assistance.
- Do not add minimization measures, BMPs or design changes to the project without coordinating with the project engineer.
- Coordinate early and often with the WSDOT regional biologist.
- As the action agency, it is the responsibility of WSDOT, acting on behalf of FHWA, to provide an effect determination for each listed or proposed species or designated critical habitat potentially affected by a project. The consulting biologist provides a tentative effect determination for their approval.
- It is the consultant's responsibility to coordinate the effect determinations contained in a biological assessment with the WSDOT regional biologist to ensure the analysis and conclusions of the BA are consistent with other projects in the region and with current agency policies.
- It is the consultants responsibility to coordinate early and often with the internal or external project team producing the biological assessment and or NEPA/SEPA discipline reports, to ensure clarity and internal consistency in the document (style, logic, analytical approach, terminology, etc.).
- It is the Senior biologist's responsibility to ensure the BA analysis and conclusions of the report are consistent with WSDOT standards.
- Biological assessments that are not consistent with agency policies and practices and do not meet WSDOT's quality standards for biological assessments, will be considered deficient and referred to WSDOT Headquarters' Environmental Services Office for secondary review (see WSDOT BA Review to Ensure FHWA Standards).