Davenport Mine Listed Species Permits

Client: Cemex Construction Materials, Florida, LLC

Location: Polk County, FL

Summary:

Cardno ENTRIX assisted Cemex Construction Materials, Florida, LLC with obtaining permits to continue operations at a sand mine in Davenport, Florida, which also is the largest manufacturer of cement block in the state. This mine is located on the Lake Wales Ridge and had several listed species occupying the site, including the sand skink, blue-tail mole skink, gopher tortoise, Florida mouse, gopher frog, Eastern indigo snake, bald eagle, papery whitlow-wort and scrub plum. Cardno ENTRIX conducted the required wildlife surveys and obtained state and federal permits to address each of these listed species. The mitigation proposed by Cardno ENTRIX for this project was unique as it involved on-site protective measures, off-site land acquisition and management, and a $ 1.5 M research project in collaboration with the University of South Florida and the Smithsonian Institute to benefit the conservation of sand skinks.

Cardno ENTRIX used a GIS platform to identify and rank regionally significant off-site mitigation parcels, surveyed the priority sites to confirm the occurrence and density of critical scrub endemics, negotiated a conservation easement with the selected landowners, and developed a long-term restoration and management plan for the property. The collaborative research effort focused on five inter-related projects deemed critical by the USFWS for the recovery of the sand skink: 1) develop science-based, standardized survey techniques to determine presence/absence and density; 2) establish the relationship between burn history and abundance of the species to appropriately manage conservation lands; 3) determine the consequences of habitat fragmentation on skink metapopulation dynamics; 4) develop a remote sensing/GIS model to estimate the distribution and population size of skinks on public lands; and 5) forge a protocol for the translocation and management of sand skink populations.