Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
During a Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, May 19, two representatives of Confluence Environmental Company highlighted several updates to the Yelm Habitat Conservation Plan as the strategy nears its completion.
The two representatives of Confluence Environmental Company were Phil Block, project manager of the habitat conservation plan, and Eric Doyle, biologist. The two have been working on Yelm’s Habitat Conservation Plan over the last four years.
According to Block, the idea of a habitat conservation plan was first conceived by the City of Yelm somewhere in the 2018-2019 timeframe.
“We’ve been working on it in earnest since about 2021-2022,” Block said. “It got a little delayed by the pandemic. The funding came through at the beginning of the pandemic, which was not the optimal time to kick off a project.”
Block noted that, in the South Puget Sound region, there used to be “a lot more prairie” than there is today. He claimed that between 90-to-95% of all prairies in that region have been lost.
With the loss of prairieland, species native to that biome have become endangered. Specifically, the Vesper Sparrow and Yelm Pocket Gopher are two species in the region that are recognized as endangered.
“Those have been recognized by the Federal Government as endangered at this time, or threatened, which means impacts to them are protected,” Block said. “Those species are protected. We’re supposed to do no harm, basically, to those species.”
Additionally, Block noted that Yelm is located smack-dab in the middle of what used to be known as the Yelm Prairie.
“A lot of the historic habitat and species occurrence for both of those species is present here in Yelm,” Block said. “What the Habitat Conservation Plan does is… provide a clear path, a certain path, to be able to do development when endangered species may be present, provides a way to account for impacts and to mitigate for those impacts.”
Without a plan, Block said Yelm would be stuck if it ran into an endangered species. This is a way to ensure there’s regulatory certainly for plans and projects relating to Yelm’s growth and development over the next three decades.
Block noted that habitat conservation plans cover areas the city has control over — city limits specifically. He said Yelm’s Habitat Conservation Plan is expanding a bit to include the city’s urban growth area if Yelm expands into that region.
Additionally, it covers all development in Yelm — private or municipal, including schools. Any new development or expansion that results in impacts will also fall under the habitat conservation plan, along with maintenance of municipal operations like transportation, parks, utilities and managing vegetation.
“We’ve been in this process for a while,” Block said. “That’s kind of normal for a habitat conservation plan. We were fortunate that Thurston County did an HCP for the rest of the county. Cities within Thurston County that occur on prairies are now doing HCPs. Tumwater is working on one. Yelm is working on one. We’re using the Thurston County HCP as a forerunner or model.”
He said that habitat conservation planning began in 2022 and 2023, and noted the last two years have been spent working with services to get correct language into the draft of Yelm’s plan.
“We’re hopeful that sometime toward the end of the summer we will have a draft HCP, which is a version of a habitat conversation plan that is ready for public review,” Block said. “That will start what’s called the NEPA and SEIPA public commit process or formal review stage.”
Additionally, Block said that they’ve been working with the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He said that the Department of Fish and Wildlife is a technical advisor to the City of Yelm and comes along with the funding source.
He added that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is the county party and is responsible for enforcing the endangered species act. It will, at some point, approve the Yelm Habitat Conservation Plan to go into effect.
Ultimately, US Fish and Wildlife Service will sign the plan and issue an incidental take permit (ITP) to the City of Yelm that will span 30 years. Block projects the ITP to be issued to Yelm in early 2027.
Doyle, speaking about the endangered species, noted that local pocket gophers aren’t helpful as they live under the ground and away from visibility. He stated you’ll never see the species based on presence alone.
“Our knowledge of where gopher habitats are is based primarily on two factors,” Doyle said. “One is the type of soil that’s present. They’re dependent on very specific soil types. The second one is the suitability of the vegetation, which is native prairie-type vegetation. A lot of it is endemic to the Puget Sound, South Puget Sound prairie region.”
Doyle added that they’re not looking explicitly at where the gophers are, but rather looking at suitable types of soils and vegetation, along with land cover that hasn’t been developed yet.
Once that information has been received, Doyle said they’ll assess where impacts could occur, how many acres there are, what the zoning is and what types of activities are likely to occur — using that data as a basis to estimate the impacts that will occur over the next 30 years.
According to Doyle, the theoretical plan, as Yelm’s Habitat Conservation Plan continues to be built, is they’re trying to “read the crystal ball” and have a reasonable idea of how development will progress in the region.
“We gamed out an initial acquisition of about 80 acres of conservation lands that would be restored and collectively that would generate about 100 mitigation credits,” Doyle said. “That initial acquisition would be in the range of $1.5 million, including site restoration. That would start the process. You would have mitigation credits available to sell. Those credit sales then feed the bank account for additional mitigation purchases or conservation land purchases so you can stay ahead of your mitigation requirements.”
He added that the conservation group will be looking at early 2027 to complete the initial lands purchase. The land would then be acquired in chunks over the next 30 years as mitigation credit fees are acquired and lands are purchased and restored over time.
“We developed a hypothetical to game this out. 80 acre chunks or so every five years over the life of the HCP,” Doyle said. “In total, in 2025 dollars, we’re estimating that the land purchases would cost about $8.8 million in total, or about $355,000 a year over the next 25 years. The intent is to complete the land purchases five years before the end of the HCP term, which is 30 years.”
The primary space identified for conservation lands is within the Yelm Prairie region — as that’s the primary area for the endangered pocket gopher species to inhabit.
“Unfortunately, because it’s going to be developed and because of the development that’s occurred already, there aren’t a lot of good candidate conservation land purchases within the city,” Doyle said. “We’re looking outside of the city in the county at areas immediately south — kind of in the Four Corners area — as well as Tanalquat Prairie and areas closer to Ruth Prairie.”
Once the land has been purchased, Doyle said it will be restored and maintained to obtain the desired level of conservation value and mitigation credits.
“A lot of the prairie habitat in this region has been invaded by non-native plant species or it’s been managed for livestock and agriculture so the ideal mix of species isn’t there,” Doyle said. “You might have a perfect property that has the impromptu junk yard on it or leaky underground storage tanks or houses where illegal activities might’ve been going on. Those have to be addressed and mitigated and in line with code. That costs.”
Doyle added that initial site restoration cost is $2,400 per-acre estimated, based off Thurston County’s experience. He projected a total restoration cost of $192,000. Additionally, the annual management cost is $483 per acre, with an annual cost of $39,000.
The lifetime land restoration cost is estimated at $1.2 million, with the estimated lifetime management cost coming in at $4.1 million.
