What this permitting pathway covers

The USFWS Statewide Restoration Programmatic Biological Opinion (PBO) was developed as part of Sustainable Conservation’s Statewide Permitting Initiative and was issued in 2022.

All projects must meet the definition of a restoration project and be consistent with USFWS recovery plans or recovery-related documentation for Covered Species. 

A restoration project is defined as “…an eligible project type and relevant protection measures that will result in a net increase in aquatic, riparian, floodplain, wetland, or coastal dune resource functions and/or services through implementation of the eligible project types, relevant protection measures, and design guidelines.”

Protection measures, including species work windows for state/federal listed species, were coordinated with CDFW for consistency with state requirements. Contact CDFW at restorationpermitting@wildlife.ca.gov about eligibility for a Restoration Consistency Determination or other restoration permit to save time an expense when getting approval from CDFW.

How to use this tool for the USFWS Statewide Restoration PBO

• Click the “Filter for your needs” button below to see the list of questions and use them to filter the list of GPMs from Attachment to Appendix A: Protection Measures of the PBO based on the attributes of your project. Also, use the USFWS PBO Species Protection Measures page to generate a list of applicable measures based on the guilds/species that will be affected by the project.
• Once downloaded, closely review the list of general and species protection measures to ensure the measures are appropriate to your project-specific conditions. Take these species work windows into consideration when planning your project.
• In coordination with your Lead Agency, initiate Technical Assistance with the appropriate USFWS Ecological Services (ES) Field Office as necessary, to discuss project-specific needs and/or identify the applicable General and Species Protection Measures or modified measures. USFWS Field Offices have the discretion to approve projects with variations to the conservation requirements based on site and project-specific conditions.
• In the ESA Section 7(a)(2) Review Form for your project, select which measures will be implemented, are not applicable, or if a modified measure has been proposed.
• Include any modified measures in the project description. All required plans (e.g. herbicide use plan, capture and relocation plan, monitoring plan) should also be included as a part of the project description.