Natural Systems Design, Inc. 3/24/2025

CITY OF EVERETT PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT  SMITH ISLAND ESTUARY RESTORATION ADVANCE MITIGATION SITE: YEAR 7 MONITORING Page 2 | February 18, 2025 INTRODUCTION City of Everett Public Works Department (EPWD) has requested Natural Systems Design, Inc. (NSD) support the EPWD by completing an expanded Year 7 monitoring effort for the Smith Island Estuary Restoration Advance Mitigation Site (the project). The project was constructed as advance compensatory mitigation for EPWD anticipated future unavoidable impacts to wetlands and waters, as specified in Table 1-1 of the Advance Mitigation Plan (ICF 2016) within the project’s defined geographic area. The Advance Mitigation Plan specifies performance monitoring across a 10-year monitoring period, or until the performance standards are met. The performance standards were met at Year 5 and EPWD has requested early termination of the quantitative monitoring. Coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers occurred in late 2024 and January 2025 and concluded with the request that EPWD complete all elements of the monitoring required in Year 10 to verify standards are being met and to essentially replicate the Year 5 monitoring and thus produce data from two consecutive monitoring years. At the request of EPWD, NSD will complete an expanded Year 7 performance monitoring and reporting consistent with the monitoring tasks required for Year 7, as well as the expanded suite required at Year 10. NSD will replicate the elements and methods specified in the Advance Mitigation Plan, consistent where applicable with the methods and approach utilized for Years 1 through 6 monitoring. Year 1 was completed by ICF in 2019 and NSD completed Years 2, 3, and 4 in 2020 through 2022 and Years 5 and 6 in 2023 and 2024. Work to be completed by NSD has been divided into the following list of tasks and linked to specific project deliverables:  Task 1: Estuarine Habitat Area Delineation, Hydrology, and Salinity  Task 2: Wetland Vegetation Development  Task 3: Fish Use Monitoring Support  Task 4: Wildlife Use Monitoring  Task 5: Monitoring Report  Task 6: Agency Coordination & Meetings  Task 7: Client Coordination & Project Management  Task 8: Additional Unanticipated Services For this project, NSD’s core team consists of Steve Winter, PWS, Principal In-Charge overseeing the project team and supporting Project Manager and lead wetland biologist Torrey Luiting, PWS, Associate Principal Ecologist. Task 1. Estuarine Habitat Area Delineation, Hydrology, And Salinity Per Tables 6-1 and 6-2 of the Advance Mitigation Plan, a verification of the Year 1 extent of estuarine habitat based on Mean Higher High Water (MHHW) and verification that the site meets U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Regulatory standards under the Clean Water Act as an estuarine wetland are required at Year 10 and thus needs to be repeated as part of the expanded Year 7 monitoring. Subtask 1.1 Verification of Estuarine Hydrology and Salinity Part of the verification of estuarine habitat is the reverification that a natural diurnal tidal regime with estuarine water salinity has been restored/is still present within the site comparable to that observed in