This proposal supports the creation of a public draft habitat conservation plan safe harbor agreement and administrative draft environmental assessment

The HCP SHA conservation plan will address impacts on both the endangered everglade snail kite rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus and the threatened eastern black rail laterallus jamaicensis SSP. Jamaicensis as well as other at risk species if as warranted. The applicant is the south florida water management district sfwmd.sfwmd is a regional governmental agency within southern florida that manages and protects water resources by improving water quality providing flood control managing natural systems and supplying water. Sfwmd operates and maintains a surface and ground water management system that includes covering 18000 square miles 2000 miles of canals and levees 900 water control structures serving 100 municiplaities and a population of over 9 million with constructed wetland areas comprised of 70000 acres of stormwater treatment areas and 20000 acres of flow equalization basins. These stas and febs were created to filter agricultural runoff and restore water quality to the florida everglades.sfwmd operations and maintenance activities addressed by the conservation plan are geographically extensive and require a careful balancing of interests and continual adjustments to achieve multiple management objectives. The covered species are known to occur throughout sfwmds service territory. Ongoing OM activities including vegetation management and water control operations have the potential to affect these species. In some areas sfwmd optimizes water levels for successful snail kite nesting conditions at the expense of other management objectives such as water filtration services for everglades restoration. In addition vegetation management that is essential for the control of invasive plants and the management of water flow utilizes no entry and limited activity buffers around nests to minimize effects of human disturbance. The extended snail kite nesting season large nest site buffers and district wide water management requirements significantly constrain OM activities and create conflicts between multiple management objectives. The cryptic eastern black rail is also known to occur in the service territory and utilizes densely vegetated habitats along wetland edges. Due to the difficulty in detecting the species there is concern that the species could affect sfwmd operations as much or more than the snail kite. The projects purpose is to address these conflicts comprehensively across the entirety of the service territory to balance species benefits and other environmental and human values. This work builds on a recently completed landowner agreement with USFWS specifically targeted at OM within stas and febs.work under this grant includes all steps to prepare draft chapters and administrative and public draft documents. These will ultimately result in an incidental take permit and enhancement of survival permit. This phase includes identification and compilation of best available data evaluation and determination of covered species review of covered activities impact analyses development of a conservation strategy funding and implementation planning and document preparation. Intended beneficiaries include sfwmd who will be able to more effectively manage water across the system the covered species that will benefit from comprehensive planning other native species that will benefit from optimized water management including everglades restoration and the people of southern florida who will receive streamlined and efficient long term endangered species act permitting for activities associated with their water delivery. Sfwmd will continue to collaborate with USFWS FWC key interested parties and the public and stakeholders during the preparation of the conservation plan.