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ATTACHMENT 4 <br />Scope of Work <br />Eastern Alameda County Conservation Strategy <br />Phase 1 <br />Background <br />Since December 2006, Jones & Stokes has been assisting the Zone 7 Water Agency <br />(Zone 7) in discussions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the <br />California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) regarding the need for a <br />comprehensive blueprint for conservation in eastern Alameda County. Jones & Stokes <br />also assisted Zone 7 in bringing several local agencies to the table to form a partnership <br />that would prepare the blueprint. The local agencies involved to date are the Cities of <br />Livermore, Dublin, and Pleasanton, Alameda County, Alameda County Congestion <br />Management Agency, and the Alameda County Resource Conservation District. Jones & <br />Stokes worked with these parties to develop clear project goals and objectives, a clear <br />approach, and a rough budget and schedule for the effort. <br />The proposed approach is a regional conservation strategy. This solution would facilitate <br />coordination and acceleration of the many mitigation projects and conservation programs <br />currently underway in eastern Alameda County. The conservation strategy would not <br />result in permits to the local agencies or to private developers. Instead, the conservation <br />strategy would provide an approach to mitigation that could be used voluntarily by <br />project proponents in their project-by-project permitting process. Because the <br />conservation strategy will be developed in close collaboration with the regulatory <br />agencies, the result will be a strategy that the regulatory agencies formally approve. This <br />will provide local agencies and private developers with some assurance that if they <br />follow the strategy in their own permitting process, negotiations with the regulatory <br />agencies will be expedited and streamlined. Having an established approach also allows <br />public agencies and private developers to plan for the costs of mitigation much earlier in <br />the process because the approach is more certain. <br />Developing a conservation strategy is expected to take much less time than preparation of <br />other permit-based plans such as a habitat conservation plan (HCP). The current timeline <br />for the Eastern Alameda County Conservation Strategy is 18 months. <br />Eastern Alameda County Conservation Strategy August 2007 <br />Scope of Work ~ <br />