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Home My WebLink About20140332 Ver 1_NCIRT Mitigation Plan Review Process for NCDMS Projects_20150616Strickland, Bev From: Baker, Virginia Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 6:40 PM To: Strickland, Bev; Montalvo, Sheri A Subject: FW: Notice of NCDMS Draft Mitigation Plan Portal Review / Browns Summit Mitigation Project / Guilford County / SAW - 2014 -01642 (UNCLASSIFIED) Attachments: NCIRT Mitigation Plan Review Process for NCDMS Projects 20150616.pdf Browns Summit Creek 20140332 should be coming in soon. I can download this project and put in LF or can put it in the shared drive if you prefer when I am back on Friday. No need to scan - - - -- Original Message---- - From: Tugwell, Todd SAW fmailto :Todd.Tugwell @usace.armv.mill Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 10:26 AM To: Fritz Rohde (Fritz. Rohde @noaa.gov); Chapman, Amy; Baker, Virginia; bowers.todd @epa.gov; Karoly, Cyndi; Cox, David R.; Hall, Dolores; Emilv Jernigan @fws.gov; Gibby, Jean B SAW; Homewood, Sue; Hughes, Andrea W SAW; Bailey, David E SAW; Higgins, Karen; Kathrvn Matthews @fws.izov; McLendon, Scott C SAW; Poupart, Jeff; Gledhill - earley, Renee; Wilson, Travis W.; Wicker, Henry MJRSAW Cc: Schaffer, Jeff; Baumgartner, Tim; Vanstell, Kayne; Hunt, Scott Subject: Notice of NCDMS Draft Mitigation Plan Portal Review / Browns Summit Mitigation Project / Guilford County / SAW -2014- 01642 (UNCLASSIFIED) Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE MM The below referenced Draft Mitigation Plan has been posted by NCDMS on the Mitigation Plan Review Portal. Per Section 332.8(g) of the 2008 Mitigation Rule, this review period will remain open for 30 calendar days from this email notification. Please post comments by 5 PM on the 30 -day comment deadline shown below. When posting comments please indicate if your concerns are great enough that you intend to initiate the Dispute Resolution Process described in Section 332.8(3) of the Mitigation Rule. Comments posted after the 30 -day comment deadline (shown below) may not be considered. This comment period may be extended at the request of NCDMS if they determine that additional time is necessary to make changes to the Draft Mitigation Plan. Please note that NCDMS may post responses to the comments on the portal as well. At the conclusion of this comment period, notification will be provided to NCDMS and the NCIRT of the District Engineer's intent to approve or disapprove this project. More information, including instructions to access and use the portal, and a flow chart detailing the process are included in the document attached to this email notice. NCDMS Mitigation Plan Review Portal Address: http: // portal. ncdenr.org /group /eep -irt /mitigation -plan- review Project Name: Browns Summit Mitigation Site USACE Action ID #: SAW- 2014 -01642 NCDMS Project #: 96313 County: Guilford River Basin: Cape Fear H U C: 03030002 Assets: 5,194 SMUs (3,846 If R; 1,450633 If El; 1,084 If Ell) and 2.69 RWMU (4.44 ac R including 0.72 re- establishment and 3.72 rehabilitation) Provider: Michael Baker Engineering, Inc. NCDMS Project Manager: Jeff Schaffer, email: ieff.schaffer @ncdenr.gov 30 -Day Comment Start Date: June 16, 2015 30 -Day Comment Deadline: July 16, 2015 60 -Day Intent to Approve Deadline: August 15, 2015 Questions may be addressed to Todd Tugwell with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the address and number below. Todd Tugwell Special Projects Manager Wilmington District, US Army Corps of Engineers 11405 Falls of the Neuse Road Wake Forest, NC 27587 Office: 919 - 846 -2564 Mobile: 919 - 710 -0240 Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE REPLY TO ATTENTION OF: DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY WILMINGTON DISTRICT, CORPS OF ENGINEERS 69 DARLINGTON AVENUE WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA 28403 -1343 CESAW -RG /Tugwell June 16, 2015 SUBJECT: NCIRT Mitigation Plan Review Process for NCDMS Projects From: Todd Tugwell, USACE Wilmington District NCIRT Chair To: North Carolina Interagency Review Team and North Carolina Division of Mitigation Services As the chair of the North Carolina Interagency Review Team ( NCIRT), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District (District) is required by the 2008 Final Mitigation Rule to provide the NCIRT with an opportunity to comment on proposed mitigation plans. In order to achieve this review for all North Carolina Division of Mitigation Services ( NCDMS) projects instituted after the approval of their new instrument (July 28, 2010), a Mitigation Plan Review page has been established on NCDMS's portal. This process has been set up to comply with the timeframes established in 33 CFR Section 332.8(g)(2) of the Mitigation Rule, which explains the Streamlined Review Process. Review of proposed mitigation plans will now precede NCDMS's submittal of permit applications, which will allow the District and NCIRT to comment on and, if necessary, modify mitigation plans before permits are issued. This process will be routinely updated to include improvements and comply with changes in the regulations. (Please note that an additional review may be conducted by the NC Division of Water Resources ( NCDWR), who is the lead agency and NCIRT co -chair for all projects that also propose mitigation for state buffer or nutrient rules or mitigation related solely to Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.) For all Draft and Final Mitigation Plan and PCN submittals, NCDMS will submit a paper copy of the mitigation plan and PCN, and a digital copy (disc containing PDF files of all materials) to the Wilmington District Mitigation Office (Attn: Todd Tugwell) and the appropriate District Field Office county representative (available on the Wilmington District website at http: / /www. saw .usace.army.mil /Contact.aspx). Paper and electronic copies should also be provided to the appropriate NCDWR Office, as specified by NCDWR. The following procedure has been set up for NCIRT review and comment for proposed NCDMS Mitigation Plans: 1. Obtain an NCID - If you do not already have an NCID, you will be required to get one in order to review the plans. Process for obtaining an NCID: A. Go to NCID registration website - httr)s:// ncido .nc.gov /r)mf /Registration.html B. Under User Type, select Individual User C. Under Account Type, select Individual Account D. Complete Registration 2. Once you have obtained an NCID to get access to the Mitigation Plan Review Portal, you will need to contact Debbie Davis with NCDMS (Debbie.davis @ncdenr.gov) with your NCID so that you can be added to the list of approved portal users. Please note that this step is necessary for external users (including District and other Federal employees) as well as any state employee who already has an NCID. This step will provide access control to the Mitigation Plan Review Portal. If there are other members of your agency who may be designated to comment on mitigation plans, they must also provide their information to NCDMS so that they can gain access to the site. Please provide us with these names also, as we have established email distribution lists for different regions /counties. Lastly, if you do not want to continue to receive these emails, please let us know and we will remove your name from the distribution lists. 3. Once NCDMS is ready to begin the review of a Draft Mitigation Plan, they will email the District Mitigation Office that a plan has been posted for review, and send a paper copy and a digital copy (pdf) of the plan to the mitigation office. Once the paper copy has been received, we will send out an email to all NCIRT members (using regional distribution lists) that a plan is available for download from the portal, with instructions and timeframes for conducting the review. A flow chart detailing this process is attached. 4. The address for the review portal is: httD:// portal. ncdenr.org /group /eep -irt /mitigation -plan- review A. Draft Mitigation Plans will be posted on the left side of this page, and a may be searched by name. Clicking on the name of the plan will open the plan for viewing or printing. The plan may also be downloaded and saved. B. Once the plan is reviewed, post comments on the right side of the page by choosing the project name from the drop -down box, enter your agency name, and your name in the reviewer box. After entering comments in the comment area, click on the submit button to submit the comments to the site. C. Comments from other NCIRT members are shown at the bottom of the page and may be sorted according to the headers shown. Please note that comments all are posted in one box, so you may have to scroll the page to the right to see the entire comments. Alternatively, you may click on Excel View to download an excel file containing all the posted comments. D. NCDMS is expected to post responses to comments on this page as well, so if you post a comment you may want to check back for a response from NCDMS. The responses from NCDMS that get posted on the portal will be coordinated so that only certain individuals will post response (e.g., NCDMS Project Mangers). This is necessary to provide consistency and reduce the number of posts for a given project. E. This portal will list multiple Draft Mitigation Plans at any given time, but plans will be removed once the comment period is complete or a plan has been withdrawn. Final Mitigation Plans will be posted on NCDMS's portal on the documents page. A link, entitled "Project Documents" has been added to the Mitigation Plan Review page for convenience. 5. Reviewers will have 30 days to review the Draft Mitigation Plan and post comments on portal. An extension to this timeframe may be requested by NCDMS if they or their providers need more time to accommodate necessary changes to the Draft Mitigation Plan based on comments they have received. Additionally, NCIRT members may also request an extension to this timeframe, but NCIRT extension requests must be approved by the District Mitigation Office in consultation with NCDMS. The review period may be extended to accommodate office or on -site meetings necessary to address concerns of NCIRT members. Time extensions will generally be limited in an effort to ensure that delays in reviewing Draft Mitigation Plans are minimized. Posted comments will be immediately available on the portal to both the NCDMS and all NCIRT members. We will attempt to resolve minor issues within the 30 -day process if at all possible. NCDMS may also post comments on the portal to address certain concerns /comments or to commit to addressing concerns in the Final Mitigation Plan. NCDMS may choose to withdraw Draft Mitigation Plans from the portal based on comments received during the 30 -day comment period. Any withdrawn mitigation plans must restart the review process from the beginning. If plans are withdrawn by NCDMS, we will notify the NCIRT that the mitigation plan is no longer available for comment. Please note that the posted Draft Mitigation Plan will not necessarily be updated to reflect changes based on the comments, so be sure to review comments made by other NCIRT members and by NCDMS to see if an issue has already been addressed. Also, if you have a concern regarding a project that is serious enough that you would consider initiating the Dispute Resolution Process described in Section 332.8(e) of the Mitigation Rule, please be sure to state this in your comment. Comments should be made only by specific individuals identified by the NCIRT members to conduct these reviews on behalf of their agency. This is critical to keep the process moving and to keep agency comments consistent. If there are others who you would like to comment on a particular plan, please let us know. PLEASE DO NOT SEND THESE EMAILS OUT TO OTHERS IN YOUR AGENCY FOR THEM TO MAKE COMMENT WITHOUT FIRST DISCUSSING THIS WITH US. COMMENTS COMING FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT DESIGNATED AS THE NCIRT REPRESENTATIVE FOR THEIR AGENCY MAY NOT BE CONSIDERED. 6. At the end of the 30 -day comment process (or the end of the extension) and within 60 days of sending out the initial email beginning the review, we will review the comments and provide the NCIRT members with a notice of our intent to approve or disapprove the mitigation plan. NCDMS will be copied with this notice. Once we have notified the NCIRT of our intent to approve or disapprove a project, NCDMS may not withdraw plans from this process without starting the review from the beginning. 7. If the NCIRT reviewing agencies choose to do so, they may notify us (District Mitigation Office) that they are initiating the dispute resolution process. We must receive this notification within 15 days from the date of our notice of intent to approve or disapprove a project. This process is intended to address major concerns with mitigation plans, and can only be initiated by a letter from senior official of the agency. Please do not initiate this process without trying to resolve concerns during the 30 -day comment period first — this is not intended to be procedure used to extend the review process or address minor concerns. If the dispute resolution process is initiated during this step, we will follow the procedures outlined in Section 332.8(e) of the Mitigation Rule, in which case the following steps will be delayed until the resolution of this process. 8. At the end of the 15 -day dispute resolution notification period (or following the completion of the dispute resolution process), we will provide NCDMS with notice of approval or disapproval of the mitigation plan, with a copy provided to all NCIRT members. This notice will include all comments generated during the 30- day comment period, and it will identify all issues that must be addressed in the Final Mitigation Plan. Any major issues that were not resolved during the comment process may lead to disapproval. If a project is disapproved, the issues or concerns will have to be addressed and the project must be resubmitted for review, starting the process over. 9. NCDMS coordinates with the mitigation provider to finalize the mitigation plan and incorporate the comments /concerns. 10. NCDMS submits the Nationwide Permit (NWP) 27 Preconstruction Notification Application (PCN) application along with the Final Mitigation Plan to the District mitigation office and NCDWR (and DCM if appropriate) for 404 /401 /CAMA approval. If it is determined that the project does not require a Department of the Army permit, NCDMS must still provide a copy of the Final Mitigation Plan, along with a copy of the approval letter, to the District mitigation office at least 30 days in advance of beginning construction of the project. The following apply to permit applications submitted for NCDMS projects: A. NCDMS must be listed as the permit applicant. B. Full- delivery providers or contracted design firms may be listed as authorized agents. C. The application and mitigation plan will be submitted by NCDMS, not the providers. D. The permit application must include a copy of the Final Mitigation Plan and a copy of the mitigation plan approval letter identifying all the required modifications to the mitigation plan, including references to where the comment responses are addressed in the mitigation plan (page number and paragraph or figure). Failure to include the approval letter will result in the permit application being returned to NCDMS. E. District review will focus primarily on the applicability of NWP 27. This review will also verify that any comments provided in the approval letter are addressed in the Final Mitigation Plan, which is why it is critical to identify the location that comments are addressed in the mitigation plan. Failure to adequately address concerns included in the approval letter may result in a delay in the issuance of the NWP 27 until those concerns are adequately addressed, or the inclusion of permit conditions in the permit authorization to address the stated concerns. 11. NWP 27 authorization is verified; project construction can begin. NCDMS is responsible for ensuring compliance with the permit conditions, including returning the Post - Construction Compliance Form (attached to the permit) at the completion of the authorized work. Approval of the project and /or issuance of the permit authorization does not guarantee that the project will generate the requested amount of mitigation credit. Unforeseen issues may arise during construction or monitoring of the project may require maintenance and may lead to changes in the credit amounts proposed in the mitigation plan. For questions regarding this process, please contact the District Mitigation Office at 919 - 846 -2564, or by email at todd.tuRwell6Dusace.armv.mil. Mitigation Comment & Approval Streamlined Review Process, 33 CFR 332.8(g)(2, DMS withdraws project from review process to address comments Yes Do IRT members identify serious concerns with mitigation plan? START T DMS posts mitigation plan on web portal, provides paper copy to USACE /DWR Process V DMS emails notification to District Start of 60 days Engineer and provides link for review DE forwards email to IRT and USACE county PMs IRT reviews mitigation plan and post comments on portal comment system DMS modifies project to address comments Within 30 days of receipt of email from DE DE reviews comments and attempts to resolve concerns with DMS DE may extend timeline per DMS or OJWAP IRT request DE notifies IRT & DMS of Intent to Approve or Disapprove Within M days of email Yes notification to DE, unless i extension is granted Within 15 days of DE notification of intent to approve /disapprove Do Proceed with dispute tT members initiate Yes ► resolution process per 33 dispute resolution ------ CFR 332.8(e)' / DMS decides Does DE _ whether to No Approve? No- revise and resubmit project Yes V Does DE DMS Completes Mitigation Plan Approve? Yes Comment Process & Sends Permit No Application to USACE and /or DWR - — - No liune'I o, Lu'I z) r<evlslonso, Lu'I z) Kevlslons V Mitigation Plan Comment Process End of Process ID No. IMP.PRO.01.01.01 Page 1 of 1 * DE must be notified by letter from a senior official of the agency represented on the Owner: 06/29/2011 IRT within 15 days of receipt of DE's notification of intent to approve the modification Jurek, Jeff Rev. 0 per 33 CFR 332.8(e)