California Streets and Highways Code 158.4 – (a) The Transportation Wildlife Connectivity Remediation Program …
(a) The Transportation Wildlife Connectivity Remediation Program is hereby established to be administered by the department, in consultation with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, for the purposes of improving wildlife connectivity across transportation systems in connectivity areas.
(b) Upon appropriation of funds by the Legislature, the department shall develop a program of projects that support the remediation and improvement of wildlife connectivity across transportation systems, including the state highway system, in accordance with this section.
Terms Used In California Streets and Highways Code 158.4
- Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
- Construction: includes :
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- Department: means the Department of Transportation of this state. See California Streets and Highways Code 20
- highway: includes bridges, culverts, curbs, drains, and all works incidental to highway construction, improvement, and maintenance. See California Streets and Highways Code 23
- maintenance: includes any of the following:
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- State highway: means any highway which is acquired, laid out, constructed, improved or maintained as a State highway pursuant to constitutional or legislative authorization. See California Streets and Highways Code 24
(c) (1) The department, in concurrence with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, shall develop guidelines for the implementation of the program, following one or more public workshops and an opportunity for the public to provide written comments. The guidelines for the program are exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code).
(2) The guidelines for the program shall establish selection criteria including the factors set forth in subdivision (b) of Section 158.1 with consideration given to funding wildlife connectivity improvements as standalone projects or funding those improvements on the department’s planned projects, including, but not limited to, maintenance and operations projects, to achieve efficiencies in addressing wildlife connectivity needs identified pursuant to subdivision (d).
(d) A project funded by the program shall address a wildlife connectivity need identified in the inventory of connectivity needs for the state highway system established pursuant to Section 158.1 or another documented wildlife connectivity need across transportation infrastructure in a connectivity area.
(e) A project funded by this program may include, but is not limited to, any of the following:
(1) The placement of exclusion and directional fencing.
(2) The use of advanced technology to improve the safety of wildlife crossing transportation infrastructure.
(3) The construction of wildlife-friendly underpasses, overpasses, culverts, and elevated sections of road in key wildlife connectivity areas.
(f) The department may receive compensatory mitigation credits pursuant to § 1957 of the Fish and Game Code for the implementation of a project in this program if the Department of Fish and Wildlife concurs with the creation of those credits.
(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 964, Sec. 2. (AB 2344) Effective January 1, 2023.)