Biodiversity of the Moodna Creek Watershed - Orange County Water ...

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Moodna Biodiversity L. Heady, 19 June 2008 DRAFT • Southern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan. Recommendations in the Southern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan (Miller et al. 2005) should be reviewed and implemented by all appropriate stakeholders. The Hudson River Estuary Program can provide technical assistance to facilitate implementation. Similar studies in other portions of the watershed should be considered. • Land trust partners. The Orange County Land Trust is a likely partner to implement the Moodna Creek Watershed Plan recommendations to develop a strategy for establishing a biodiversity network. They can assist with determining key parcels, exploring landowner incentive programs, and considering voluntary protection measures to maintain important cores and connections. • Local and intermunicipal action. Local municipalities can incorporate biodiversity recommendations of the Moodna Creek Watershed Plan into their comprehensive plans, and explore intermunicipal agreements to promote a more landscape-level vision for the future of the watershed. • Planning board education. Due to intense development pressure and the sheer volume of applications before planning boards, the standard “planning” process at the municipal level focuses less on actual planning and more on decision-making. Planning boards in the watershed should be offered training to understand the recommendations of the watershed plan, how the plan fits into their role as land-use decisionmakers, and how they can be partners in plan implementation. In addition, planning board members should be offered training on local biodiversity resources, planning considerations, and how the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process can be used most effectively to support conservation-oriented planning. • Environmental commissions and NRIs. More local-scale information is needed to elucidate both the landscape and local core and connection priorities (see discussion above). Where they are not already engaged, watershed municipalities can empower environmental commissions to become effective partners in the planning process. Environmental commissions should be charged with developing municipal NRIs and/or open space plans, as set forth in the State of New York General Municipal Law, Article 12-F Section 239-x and 239-y, and should serve as important advisory bodies to town boards, planning boards, and zoning boards of appeals and contribute substantially to environmental reviews. They too should be offered training to facilitate their conservation work. • Habitat assessment guidelines. Considering biodiversity early in the planning process can be beneficial to all stakeholders. Municipalities can use “Habitat Assessment Guidelines” to supplement larger-scale maps and inventories with site-specific information. Habitat Assessment Guidelines are being used by several planning boards in Ulster and Dutchess County to identify important resources early in the planning process, and to have preliminary discussions on conservation priorities before serious site planning begins. This has been found to save time and resources for both the decisionmaking boards and the applicants, and often eliminates the need for a ‘positive declaration’ during the SEQR process. Moodna Creek watershed municipalities should explore similar guidelines. 26
Moodna Biodiversity L. Heady, 19 June 2008 DRAFT Conclusions Whatever the scale, from making decisions at a site-plan review, to developing a town open space plan, or setting watershed protection goals, the key steps to conserving biodiversity resources are as follows: 1) identify resources 2) prioritize resources 3) plan, protect, and manage resources. The Moodna Creek Watershed Plan is a tool that residents, municipalities, conservation groups, county agencies, and other stakeholders can use to learn about the rich diversity of plants and animals that live in the watershed, and set priorities so that implementation efforts are effective and efficient, and reflect community values. It also can be used to identify gaps in information and set goals for future study and research. Finally, it can provide a planning framework to protect the biodiversity of the Moodna watershed, so that future generations will be able to live in healthy, quality communities and enjoy their natural heritage for a long time to come. Many of the recommendations outlined here reflect general conservation principles for protecting biodiversity. They include (adapted from Kiviat and Stevens 2001): • Consider habitat and biodiversity concerns early in the planning process. • Direct human uses toward the least sensitive areas, and minimize alteration of natural features, including vegetation, soils, bedrock, and waterways. • Protect large, contiguous, and unaltered tracts of habitats wherever possible. • Protect contiguous habitat areas in large, circular or broadly-shaped configurations within the larger landscape. • Preserve links between habitats on adjacent properties via broad connections, not narrow corridors. • Create, restore, and maintain broad buffer zones of natural vegetation along streams, along shores of other water bodies and wetlands, and at the perimeter of other sensitive habitats. • Maintain buffer zones between development and land intended for habitat. • Prioritize higher-quality habitats for protection, as degraded habitats decrease the biological value of the larger ecological landscape. • Preserve natural processes such as forest fires, floodplain flooding, and beaver flooding to maintain the diversity of habitats and species dependent on such processes. • Preserve farmland potential. 27
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Page 9 and 10: Figure 1. Ecological Communities of
Page 15 and 16: Figure 3. Analysis of Riparian Buff
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Page 37 and 38: Appendix A. Flagship Species of the
Page 43 and 44: Appendix B. Birds of Conservation C
Page 45: Appendix C. Reptiles and Amphibians

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