Impact/Purpose:

A bay-wide effort to ensure remedial actions result in ecological gains to Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed salmonid species.

Description:

Commencement Bay is a large Washington Superfund site with widespread sediment contamination. Under the ESA, all federal agencies are directed to utilize their authorities to support the conservation and recovery of endangered or threatened species. EPA uses a comprehensive and bay-wide approach to assess and implement affirmative conservation opportunities, in contrast to considering solely the specific habitat impact components associated with an individual remedial action. The Commencement Bay-wide programmatic strategy is a scientifically-based, systematic approach to aquatic ecosystem restoration on a near-watershed scale that integrates requirements of CERCLA, the CWA, and ESA. In developing this programmatic strategy, EPA, the City of Tacoma and Washington Department of Natural Resources funded the Commencement Bay Aquatic Ecosystem Assessment: Ecosystem-Scale Restoration for Juvenile Salmon Recovery report by the University of Washington School of Fisheries (Simenstad, 2000). This report identified broad landscape attributes and ecosystem processes that promote juvenile salmon utilization of existing and potential Puyallup River delta and Commencement Bay habitats. EPA has also developed specific performance criteria that Commencement Bay remedial actions and their associated compensatory mitigation actions must address. While EPA-driven actions are expected to provide the principle aquatic and wetlands habitat opportunities for restoration work and monitoring, coordination and consultation with other federal and state agencies and stakeholders is expected to increasingly influence and focus other regulatory and restoration actions in the Commencement Bay/Puyallup River watershed. This strategy is also being used at other large-scale EPA-directed Superfund remediations just beginning in Region 10.

Record Details: