Ecological Benefits Process-based restoration plan addresses key limiting factors affecting the recovery of threatened and endangered species and provides critical flood storage and flood conveyance capacity during peak flows to provide flood relief to neighboring agricultural lands. Establishes mitigation in advance of unavoidable project impacts to avoid temporal loss of aquatic function Provides an opportunity to achieve large, "landscape-scale" restoration through providing an economic incentive to SHMB sponsor Avoids problems associated with project-specific mitigation sites that often fail Allows for larger restoration sites that accommodate increased habitat diversity and substantially higher ecological lift Provides protection and management of the site in perpetuity through a Conservation Easement