BOARD02067

• Board Meeting Date: 3/29/1999
• Description: South Platte Director's Report - Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse Status Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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In September 1998, the PM1M Collaborative Planning Project held a series of five public meetings
in the Boulder, Douglas/Elbert, E1 Paso, Jefferson, and Larimer/Weld Subareas. Those meetings
completed the third round of public "stakeholder" meetings held in each subarea since the start of
the PMJM Project in January 1998. At each subregional public meeting held last September, we
reviewed a draft analysis for the area prepared by the PMJM Science Team that ranked activities
thought to pose some risk to the PMJM into "high," "medium," and "low" categories. We also
reviewed some preliminary ideas developed by the project planning consultants, Clarion Associates,
on ways to address these risks. At the September meetings, public comment was requested on the
work to date of the Science Team and Clarion Associates.

Since that time, we have not convened any additional public meetings, but PM1M planning work has
been actively moving forward on a variety of fronts. The work of the PM1M Steering Committee,
subarea representatives, the consulting team, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is
summarized below.

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1.

In November, the USFWS issued its draft "4(d) Rule" and requested public comment on it.
The Rule would establish how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) will be implemented for
the PM1M during an 18 month period after the rule is finalized, The PM1M project provided
mailing lists so that the USFWS could notify all interested parties about the Rule, and the
USFWS held a series of public meetings to present and discuss the Rule in mid-December.
After reviewing public comments, USFWS will move to finalize the rule, at which point the
18 month Rule period will begin. The draft rule specifies geographic areas along the Front
Range thought to be important to the mouse and also lists numerous activities that may occur
within these areas that would be exempt from the Endangered Species Act As such, the 4( d)
rule is intended to "bridge" the time period from the adoption of the 4(d) to the date when
more comprehensive Habitat Conservation Plans are complete, which is now expected in late
1999 or early 2000.

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2, Also in November, Clarion Associates prepared preliminary draft strategy documents for
initial review by the local governments in each of the subareas. Those strategy documents
(1) summarize the draft analyses of the Science Team for each subarea, (2) summarize public
comments received at public meetings in each subarea, and (3) suggest possible strategies
to address impacts to PM1M identified by the Science Team in ways that are responsive to
public comments. Small groups of sub-area representatives - mainly from potentially
affected local governments - are now reviewing and revising those strategy documents for
discussion at future public meetings. We call these groups "subarea core groups." Because

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