20110645 Ver 1_USACE eDisapproval Letter_20140908

Strickland, Bev
From: Kulz, Eric
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2014 9:33 AM
To: Strickland, Bev
Subject: FW: East Fork Pigeon River Mitigation Project / Haywood County / SAW - 2010 -01783
(UNCLASSIFIED)
Attachments: eDisapproval Letter-East Fork Pigeon Rive r_SAW- 2010- 01783.pdf
11 -0645
- - - -- Original Message---- -
From: Tugwell, Todd SAW [ mailto :Todd.Tugwell @usace.army.mil]
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2014 10:35 AM
To: Baumgartner, Tim
Cc: Fritz Rohde (Fritz. Rohde @noaa.gov); Chapman, Amy; Baker, Virginia; bowers.todd @epa.gov; Crumbley, Tyler SAW;
Karoly, Cyndi; Cox, David R.; Emily Jernigan @fws.gov; Kulz, Eric; Jones, Scott SAW; Higgins, Karen;
Kathryn Matthews @fws.gov; Marella Buncick ( Marella [e-mail]); McLendon, Scott C SAW; Wilson, Travis W.;
Wicker, Henry M JR SAW; Wiesner, Paul; Brown, David W SAW; Beckwith, Loretta A SAW; Cranford, Chuck
Subject: East Fork Pigeon River Mitigation Project/ Haywood County/ SAW- 2010 -01783 (UNCLASSIFIED)
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Mr. Baumgartner,
Please see the attached letter regarding the District's review of the Draft Mitigation Plan for the East Fork Pigeon River
Mitigation Project. The letter also contains all the comments that were generated during the IRT's review of the project
on the Mitigation Plan Review Portal. Please note that this letter does not approve the plan, but instead identifies
several outstanding concerns with the project. Should you choose to move forward with the project, please address
these concerns in a revised mitigation plan and resubmit the project for IRT review on the EEP portal.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the process or the attached letter.
Thank you,
Todd Tugwell
Special Projects Manager
Regulatory Division
Wilmington District
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
11405 Falls of Neuse Road
Wake Forest, NC 27587
(919) 846 -2564
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WILMINGTON DISTRICT, CORPS OF ENGINEERS
69 DARLINGTON AVENUE
WILMINGTON. NORTH CAROLINA 28403 -1343
REPLY TO
ATTENTION OF: September 5, 2014
Regulatory Division
Re: Review of the East Fork Pigeon River Mitigation Plan; SAW 2010 - 01783; NCEEP Project # 94203
Mr. Tim Baumgartner
North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program
1652 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699 -1652
Dear Mr. Baumgartner:
The purpose of this letter is to provide the North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program
( NCEEP) with all comments generated by the North Carolina Interagency Review Team ( NCIRT)
during the 30 -day comment period for the East Fork Pigeon River Mitigation Plan, which closed on July
19, 2014. These comments are attached for your review.
Based on our review of the Draft Mitigation Plan and comments provided by the NCIRT, we
have determined that there are several concerns with the proposed plan that must be addressed prior to
our approval. In particular, we have concerns related to provisions in the mitigation plan addendum
regarding the proposed crediting methodology for the site, which requested enhancement credit at a 3:1
ratio for portions of the site with mature vegetation where invasives treatment was the only proposed
activity. Neither the addendum nor the original mitigation plan provided any discussion of the functional
uplift to be provided through the invasives control. Additionally, no performance standards were
established for the invasives control, and the monitoring proposal was inadequate to demonstrate
successful eradication. Lastly, there was no discussion regarding the long -term maintenance of the site
and if and how invasives would be continually treated.
The mitigation plan needs to be modified to address these issues and explain why treating
invasives on the site justifies the requested credit and how the uplift will be documented. Alternatively,
please modify the addendum to treat these areas according to the credit structure proposed in the original
mitigation plan (i.e., preservation at a 5:1 ratio).
Due to these concerns, we have concluded that we cannot approve the Draft Mitigation Plan as
submitted. We recommend that the plan be revised to address the concerns listed in the attached memo,
at which point the revised plan must be reposted on NCEEP's Mitigation Plan Review Portal for NCIRT
review.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter, and if you have any questions regarding this
letter, the mitigation plan review process, or the requirements of the Mitigation Rule, please call me at
919- 846 -2564.
Sincerelv.
Todd Tugwell
Special Projects Manager
Enclosures
Electronic Copies Furnished:
NCIRT Distribution List
CESAW- RG- A/Brown
Paul Wiesner, NCEEP
TUGWELL.TODD.JASON.1048429293
2014.09.05 10:22:51 - 04'00'

i
REPLY T
O
ATTENTION OF:
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WILMINGTON DISTRICT, CORPS OF ENGINEERS
69 DARLINGTON AVENUE
WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA 28403 -1343
CESAW -RG /Tugwell August 13, 2014
MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD
SUBJECT: East Fork Pigeon River Wetlands - NCIRT Comments During 30 -day Mitigation Plan
Review
PURPOSE: The comments listed below were posted to the NCEEP Mitigation Plan Review Portal
during the 30 -day comment period in accordance with Section 332.8(8) of the 2008 Mitigation
Rule.
NCEEP Project Name: East Fork of the Pigeon River Wetlands, Haywood County, NC
USACE AID #: SAW- 2010 -01783
NCEEP #: 94203
30 -Day Comment Deadline: 19 July, 2014
1. Eric Kulz, NCDWR, 18 July, 2014:
• It is unclear how much of the wetlands had either planting or treatment (or both) and
how much of the site was strictly preservation. Technically areas where no activity took
place should be credited a 5:1, while the planting and invasives treatment would be at
2:1. Crediting the entire site at 3:1 may be the easiest way of determining the credits,
and the overall credit would probably not be much different than if the individual
acreages were credited differently.
• Does EEP have stream and wetland restoration assets in this HUC? It would not be ideal
if the majority of the mitigation EEP provides in this HUC would be in the form of stream
preservation and WL enhancement /preservation, as neither replace all aquatic function
lost to impacts.
1. Travis Wilson, NCWRC, 18 July, 2014:
• WRC does not have any specific concerns with the addendum to East Fork Pigeon River
Mitigation Site.
2. Todd Tugwell, USACE, 13 Aug, 2014: The original mitigation plan for the site was
prepared in 2011 following email correspondence with our office about the best
approach for the site. In that earlier correspondence, I indicated that I had concerns

with invasive removals as the main form of functional uplift and requested that the
mitigation plan adequately document the functional benefit provided by the treatment.
I also indicated that monitoring activities and performance standards needed to be
included to demonstrate that invasives have been removed, and that we would like to
review the mitigation plan even though no permits are required for the project. I am
not aware that we were provided with a copy of the March 2011 mitigation plan until
we received the addendum — the review of the addendum was our first opportunity to
review of the original mitigation plan that I know of. Based on this review, I have the
following concerns:
• Neither the addendum nor the original mitigation plan provides any discussion
related to the functional uplift that will be provided by conducting the invasives
removal. How will this treatment provide an uplift to the aquatic functions provided
by the existing wetlands on the site (hydrology, water quality, and habitat) and how
is that uplift tied to the proposed credit?
• No performance standards have been provided for the enhancement activity. What
are the metrics by which we are to determine that the site has been successfully
treated? Is there a proposed standard for how many invasives and what species
may be present to consider the site successful? Normally, this may not be required,
but because the removal of invasives is one of the primary activities proposed to
generate credit, it should be supported by some performance standard.
• What are the long -term management plans to ensure that the functional uplift
remains? Will the site continue to be treated once it is determined to be successful?
This relates to the temporal uplift of function that is to be provided by the treatment
— if invasives are back on the site 5 years after closeout, what is the point of
providing credit for invasive treatment? Again, this is normally not a requirement of
mitigation plans, but other sites do not identify invasive treatment as the primary
means of function uplift.
• The original mitigation plan asset table separated areas to be planted from those
only to be treated. The plan stated that 5.64 acres were to be planted, and the total
credit generated by the site was proposed to be 4.5 WMUs. Based on the
addendum, only 2.26 acres of the site was actually planted, yet the addendum now
requests more WMUs than the original mitigation plan (4.65). If the original
crediting structure was used, the site should produce less credit that originally
proposed, not more. What accounts for the proposed increase?
• The plan proposes to include 3 vegetation plots using CVS protocols, which would
cover approx. 0.5% of the 13.95 acres of the site (assuming 10 m X 10 m plots). The
2011 mitigation plan indicates that the plots will be used to monitor both the
survival of the planted stems as well as the success of the invasives treatment, but it
does not seem that a 0.5% coverage would be adequate to achieve this. The

mitigation plan also states that the monitoring period will run for 7 years, but the
addendum indicates there are an additional 5 years of monitoring proposed. Have 2
years of post- treatment monitoring already been conducted? If so, please post the
monitoring reports to the NCEEP website.
/s/
Todd Tugwell
Special Projects Manager
Regulatory Division