BOARD AGENDA MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT:
Title
Amendment No. 4 to Consultant Agreement No. A3716G, with HDR Engineering, Inc., to add $1,844,986 for Environmental Services to Support the Fish and Aquatic Habitat Collaborative Effort.
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RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Authorize the Chief Executive Officer to execute Amendment No. 4 to Consultant Agreement No. A3716G with HDR Engineering, Inc., to add $1,844,986, resulting in a total not-to-exceed fee of $4,016,157, and to extend the term of the Agreement to June 30, 2020.
Body
SUMMARY:
The Santa Clara Valley Water District retained HDR Engineering, Inc. to prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and a fish habitat restoration plan for Coyote Creek, Guadalupe River and Stevens Creek watersheds (Three Creeks). This work supports implementation of the settlement agreement for the Fish and Aquatic Habitat Collaborative Effort.
As part of the work required to support CEQA documentation and the EIR, the District has been developing a new analytical approach to assess the potential benefits and impacts to aquatic habitat. The new approach combines three modeling elements: water supply distribution, flow characteristics (hydraulics), and aquatic habitat availability; and simulates daily flow release from 21 years of historical data for the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek, and Stevens Creek, and tributaries. With 37 million results per model run, error-checking and validating the complicated model has required more time and resources than expected, and additional funds are requested to support the EIR and fish habitat restoration plan development.
Specifically, Amendment No. 4 (Amendment) will enable the evaluation of two CEQA baselines (pre-and post-seismic retrofit), multiple alternatives, and an assessment of cumulative impacts; refine the biological model and enable analysis of additional scenarios; provide for technical analysis and documentation in support of the water right change petitions; allow additi...
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