EPA's Vessel General Permit and Small Vessel General

Table 1. Species Listed as Threatened, Endangered, and Proposed for Listing and their
Designated Critical Habitat (Denoted by Asterisk) in the Action Area. Double Asterisks
Denote Proposed Critical Habitat.
Common Name
Scientific Name
Status
Atlantic sturgeon (Carolina) Endangered
Atlantic sturgeon (South Atlantic) Endangered
Green sturgeon (Southern*) Acipenser medirostris Threatened
Gulf sturgeon* Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi Threatened
Shortnose sturgeon Acipenser brevirostrum Endangered
Smalltooth sawfish* Pristis pectinata Endangered
Marine Invertebrates
Black abalone* Haliotis cracherodii Endangered
White abalone Haliotis sorenseni Endangered
Elkhorn coral* Acropora palmata Threatened
Staghorn coral* Acropora cervicornis Threatened
Marine Plant
Johnson’s seagrass* Halophila johnsonii Threatened
NMFS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have joint jurisdiction over sea turtles, gulf
sturgeon and Atlantic salmon. To avoid redundancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is
generally responsible for endangered and threatened sea turtles above mean higher high water
(when they are on their nesting beaches as opposed to when they are in or beyond the surf zone)
and for Gulf sturgeon and Atlantic salmon when they are in fresh water (as opposed to when they
are in estuarine or marine water).
Species and Critical Habitat Not Likely to be Adversely Affected by the Proposed
Action
As described in the Approach to the Assessment, NMFS uses two criteria to identify those
endangered or threatened species or critical habitat that are not likely to be adversely affected by
the discharges that would be authorized by the proposed VGPs. The first criterion is exposure or
some reasonable expectation of a co-occurrence between direct and indirect effects of the
discharges authorized by the proposed permits and a particular listed species or designated
critical habitat: if we conclude that a listed species or designated critical habitat is not likely to be
exposed to those discharges or the resultant stressors, we must also conclude that the critical
habitat is not likely to be adversely affected by those activities. The second criterion is the
probability of a response given exposure, which considers susceptibility: species that may be
exposed to a discharge, but are likely to be unaffected by the discharge (at levels they are likely
to be exposed to) are also not likely to be adversely affected by that discharge. We applied these
criteria to the species listed in Table 2; this subsection summarizes the results of those
evaluations.
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