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<br />/ <br /> <br />002536 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Mr. Walcher as one of Colorado's Basin States representatives, A copy of the letter <br />notifying the states of this change is included in the Board folder. <br /> <br />Colorado River Environmental Activities <br /> <br />Status of the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program (LCR MSCP) <br /> <br />The Technical Contractors are moving forward with completion of the public <br />review drafts of the LCR MSCP Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), Biological <br />Assessment (BA), and EISIR. Prior to release of the documents to the public, these <br />documents will be the focus of an intensive three-day workshop in mid-March to ensure <br />consistency in language in the three documents. <br /> <br />A small ad hoc group of stakeholder interests continue :-to work on the <br />development of the proposed LCR MSCP Implementation Agreement (IA). This ad hoc <br />group has included legal represent3tives from many of the LCR MSCP participating <br />agencies, including representatives from the. Department of the Interior's Solicitor's <br />Office, The draft IA needs to be largely completed prior to release of the public review <br />drafts of the LCR MSCP documents. <br /> <br />The LCR MSCP Steering Committee has removed the burrowing owl from the <br />list of LCR MSCP Covered Species. As the species is not yet listed as endangered or <br />threatened by the federal government or California, it was determined that the potential <br />mitigation, monitoring and avoidance measures that would be required through the LCR <br />MSCP were too onerous for the agricultural districts in Arizona and California to <br />implement. Implementation of the proposed avoidance and minimization measures <br />would have severely curtailed the ability ofthe districts to conduct routine operations and <br />maintenance activities within the areas currently occupied by the burrowing owl. <br /> <br />The LCR MSCP Steering Committee has approved a process for receiving <br />mitigation benefit and credit for actions taken associated with species conservation and <br />habitat restoration prior to formal implementation of the LCR MSCP in early-2005, LCR <br />MSCP participating entities may submit any projects or activities undertaken by them for <br />mitigation credit to the Steering Committee for review and approval. A subcommittee <br />will review the project or activity and the expected species or habitat benefits and then <br />prepare a recommendation to the Steering Committee and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife <br />Service, If the Steering Committee and the USFWS concur, the habitat restoration or <br />species conservation project would be credited toward the mitigation obligation identified <br />in the Conservation Plan, <br /> <br />The non-federal LCR MSCP stakeholders continue to work on the development <br />of an appropriate program implementation cost-sharing relationship with the federal <br />parties, The government continues to advocate that the cost-sharing relationship must be <br />50-50, while the non-federal parties continue to advocate a much lower non-federal cost- <br />share, Currently, the States are preparing a more detailed position paper outlining the <br />rationale for the lower cost-share approach. For the discussions to reach resolution, it <br /> <br />7 <br />