About this Collection

Washington County, Utah applied for an incidental take permit for Mojave desert tortoise, a listed entity under the Endangered Species Act, for human activities and development in the County. As required under the Endangered Species Act, the County prepared a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) to mitigate and minimize impacts to the Mojave desert tortoise.

The scope of this action is limited to issuance of an Incidental Take Permit for the Mojave desert tortoise on 62,960 acres within the County. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued an incidental take permit to the County on January 13, 2021. Final documents are provided below.

  • Final Environmental Impact Statement to Consider a Highway Right-of-Way, Amended Habitat Conservation Plan and Issuance of an Incidental Take Permit for the Mojave Desert Tortoise, and Proposed Resource Management Plan Amendments, Washington County, UT. U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Canyon Country District Office, and Fish and Wildlife Service.
  • The Northern Corridor is a proposed highway right-of-way that would cross the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve and impact the HCP conservation program. Thus, the highway was included in the HCP as a changed circumstance but was evaluated in a separate ESA section 7 consultation with the Bureau of Land Management.
  • The other Federal actions associated with the Amended Washington County HCP and Northern Corridor highway are available at https://go.usa.gov/xw8TX.
  • We recently reviewed the status of the Mojave desert tortoise in the Upper Virgin River Recovery Unit in our 2021 Biological Report.

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