Agmt 2008 California State Coastal Conservancy

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Proiect Description for 2008 Control Program The success of Spartina treatment from 2005-2007 has enabled the ISP to shift into the next phase of the project. The majority of sites have been reduced significantly to a more scattered distribution over the previous footprint of the infestation. This progress necessitates for each year a heightened focus on both identifying and subsequently treating remaining patches and then each and every plant of invasive Spartina throughout the Estuary to bring the project closer to the ultimate goal of eradication. In 2008, a higher percentage of treatment will be conducted by spot applications and manual control, replacing the large, mostly aerial broadcast applications that were appropriate at the start of the project when some site complexes had hundreds of contiguous acres of non-native Spartina. As a result, there will be a significant increase in labor costs, both for ISP monitoring crews and for the grantees' treatment contractors. ISP management of the Control Program includes completing three-year updates of 24 treatment plans covering 156 sub-areas, including one new site plan (North San Pablo Bay), and submitting these documents to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for an amended Biological Opinion to authorize treatment. Other ongoing ISP responsibilities include making presentations to regional stakeholders, obtaining necessary permits, preparing and implementing I5P's Water Quality Monitoring Plan and reports, continuing the inventory monitoring and California clapper rail monitoring, continuing the telemetry study examining Clapper rail movement, coordinating replanting in Corte Madera Creek watershed and some East Bay Regional Park District sites, and continuing to seek landowner permissions to work on sites where work has not previously been done. Treatment will also extend over a longer season in 2008. Clapper rail monitoring over the past three years has shown an increase in the number of rails at treated sites rather than the decrease that was expected. As a result, FWS is expected to approve eazlier access to some clapper rail sites to increase efficacy and expand the potential treatment window to accommodate the increased work load of ground-based treatment and spot control that will replace broadcast applications. The ISP also conducted a drift card study which found that simulated seeds in drift cazd form can travel from heavily infested sites to Point Reyes National Seashore, Stinson Beach, and other areas of the outer coast. Cards also released from infested sites in the Central Bay turned up in the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge and in areas of the South Bay Salt Ponds that are scheduled to be opened to tidal exchange in the neaz future. These findings add a sense of immediacy to the goal of eradication which will be facilitated by approval of a longer treatment window with earlier access to clapper rail sites. As would be expected given the results of the drift card study, small infestations of invasive Spartina, likely originating from seeds from the San Francisco Estuary, are found along the Marin coastline at Tomales Bay, Drakes Estero, Limantour Estero, and Bolinas Lagoon. (See Exhibit 4, Map of Coastal Marin Infestations.) Altogether these plants cover less than one acre. For the past few years ISP assisted the National Pazk