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In 1997, the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) purchased the remaining portions of Bair Island in private ownership and turned it over to the NWRS as a part of the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. The Bair Island complex is the last and one of the most import pieces of salt marsh habitat remaining unrestored on the San Francisco Bay. Inner Bair Island, which on all NWRS alternatives serves at the location of human use, is over 323 acres. Rehabilitation of Inner and Middle Bair, breaching the levees to allow tidal flow and restoring Inner Bair to accommodate that flow, will cost the federal government millions of dollars. Redwood Shores has been developed into a high quality residential development on the San Francisco Bay. The housing development is protected from flooding by a levee wall. At the top of the levee wall a pedestrian path allowed foot and bicycle traffic in conformance with the recommendations of the Bay Trail Committee for San Francisco Bay access and transportation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) determined that a levee height increase was necessary to protect the existing Redwood shores development from inter -tidal San Francisco Bay inundation. The Corps, as the designated action agency on the project, determined that the levee height increase "may affect" the habitat of the California clapper rail and the salt marsh harvest mouse pursuant to the Endangered Species Act (ESA or "the Act "). The Corps sought informal consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) under Section 7 of the ESA. At issue was the protection of endangered California clapper rails and the salt marsh harvest mouse on Bird Island which lies off of the shores of Redwood Shores. Bird Island is a salt marsh habitat for clapper rails. During a period of high tide, the rail seeks refuge in elevations above high tide. The rail forages on Bird Island but nests on pickleweed, a native plant, elevated on a platform of stems without a canopy. The fear of the FWS was that as a result of the raised elevations Bud Island at Redwood Shores. of the levees there would be less usable habitat available for refugia. Without sufficient institutional controls one of the main predators of the clapper rail, domestic pets, would be able to access and extirpate the rails foraging on Bird Island. After a period of failed negotiations with the City, all pedestrian access to the levee trail at the eastern border of Redwood Shores was prohibited as a condition of a biological opinion issued by the FWS to the Corps. No similar restrictions had been 24