2020-08-10-minutes-public-works-study-session

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agency approval (restrictive covenant, deed restriction, conservation easement, etc.). Include financial assurances and/or long-term management and maintenance plan as required by the regulatory agencies. 9. Propose an adequate record-keeping method, ledgers to be used, and methods for tracking of the site's credits and area used. Once credits are approved for use by the regulatory agencies, a ledger will be required and will include the documentation of all projects using credits from the site to date and which agency(s) required the credit for mitigation, how much credit is used for each project (based on a specific geographic area and/or function), and date of use. Prior to authorizing the use of any advance compensatory mitigation, the Corps, Ecology, and WDFW if applicable, will be required to approve the mechanisms for tracking the credit use of the site. For tracking purposes, any time a site's credit is used, the permittee will be required to send a copy of an updated ledger within 30 days of the credit use to the assigned project manager for the Corps, Ecology and WDFW even if these agencies did not require the credit for a federal or state authorization. At the time a credit is used and debited from the ledger, the regulatory agencies will identify if the mitigation requires a specific geographic area or function to be deducted from use on the site plan, or if just a general credit deduction is necessary. This will allow the expenditure of advance credits to be accurately tracked. It will also provide direct linkage between activities causing loss of aquatic resources and the corresponding specific compensatory mitigation, for compliance and enforcement purposes. If only a portion of the advance mitigation site is used as mitigation, adequate buffers will be required to protect the mitigation area from adjacent land uses. As previously stated, once the first credits generated by the mitigation site are approved for use in accordance with a Use Plan, and once those credits are applied to an impacting project as compensatory credits, the released credits and the opportunity to generate any further credits from that site cannot be sold or otherwise transferred to another party. If it is determined the mitigation and the generated advance credits are not needed by the permittee, they should coordinate possible options with the regulatory agencies. There is no guarantee of any opportunity to transfer any released credits, either prior to or after use as compensatory mitigation for an impacting project, nor any guarantee that the right to use any potential credits, that may be generated by the mitigation site following the first use of credits, may be sold or transferred to another party. The permittec bears the risk of possible inability to utilize all the credits that could potentially be generated on a mitigation site. Regardless of any options for disposition of unused and unneeded potential credits, once credits generated by the advance mitigation have been authorized for use, the mitigation site constitutes permittee -responsible mitigation and the permittee of the impacting project retains legal responsibility for the success, sustainability, and monitoring of the advance mitigation site. The permittee is also responsible for funding and implementation of the site protection mechanism and any long-term management and maintenance plan as described in #8 above.