Contact Information

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Wildlife Division
Wildlife Habitat Assessment Program
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744

Staff Directory

 

Wildlife Habitat Assessment Program: Project Review Requests

The project developer or sponsor should gather natural resource information about the proposed project site (see Pre-project Planning) and use that information to design the project to minimize the impacts on those natural resources. Once that information has been collected, the project should be submitted to the Wildlife Habitat Assessment (WHAB) Program. The WHAB program will review the project and provide comments and recommendations to assist in minimizing the impacts. The WHAB Program response will provide an evaluation of your project for impacts to fish and wildlife and their habitats, including rare, threatened, and endangered species, and other significant resources presently known or potentially occurring in the vicinity of your project. The WHAB program will make recommendations for avoidance, minimization and mitigation of impacts to natural resources on projects. Please note that WHAB Program responses generally take approximately 45 days to complete, and project schedules should accommodate the review timeline. Responses may be delayed due to workload and lack of staff.

If environmental documentation has been prepared for the project to satisfy the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other state or federal laws, that documentation should be submitted to the WHAB Program for review. The documentation should include sufficient information to determine the expected impacts to natural resources including rare, threatened, and endangered species. To ensure the documentation provides sufficient information, please see the TPWD Suggested Guidelines for Preparation of Environmental Assessment Documents. These guidelines are based on elements of environmental documentation required under NEPA. The WHAB Program follows this template for evaluation of impacts to natural resources.

If environmental documentation has not been prepared to assess project impacts or if it is unclear whether the documentation provides enough information to evaluate impacts to natural resources, complete and submit the WHAB Review Request form found at: WHAB Review Request Form. This form can also be used as an outline of information to include with your request for review.

The potential for adverse impacts to natural resources from project activities varies based on the type and location of activity, season, vegetation present, physical features (both natural and man-made), degree of disturbance, species-specific tolerance levels, and planned avoidance, minimization, mitigation, enhancement, and restoration measures. Providing as much pertinent information as possible on the review request form or environmental document will help facilitate project review.

Review requests submitted without adequate project detail may cause a delay in the response as staff will need to contact the applicant and wait for supplemental information. Complete information allows the WHAB program to more accurately assess the potential for project impacts. An accurate map of site boundaries, current color photographs, and aerial photographs of the site facilitate the review process.

The TPWD WHAB Program now accepts projects through electronic submittal. Project review requests can be submitted to WHAB@tpwd.texas.gov. If submitting requests electronically, please include geographic location files when available (e.g. GIS shape file, .kmz, etc.). Please mail hard copy requests to the following address:

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Wildlife Division: Wildlife Habitat Assessment Program
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, Texas 78744-3291