[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 137 (Thursday, July 16, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 43205-43206]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-15077]
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Notices
Federal Register
________________________________________________________________________
This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains documents other than rules
or proposed rules that are applicable to the public. Notices of hearings
and investigations, committee meetings, agency decisions and rulings,
delegations of authority, filing of petitions and applications and agency
statements of organization and functions are examples of documents
appearing in this section.
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Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 137 / Thursday, July 16, 2020 /
Notices
[[Page 43205]]
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Forest Service
Stanislaus National Forest; California; Social and Ecological
Resilience Across the Landscape EIS
AGENCY: Forest Service, Agriculture (USDA).
ACTION: Notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement.
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SUMMARY: The USDA Forest Service is preparing an Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) for the Social and Ecological Resilience Across the
Landscape (SERAL) project. The overall purpose of the project is to
increase the landscape's resilience to natural disturbances such as
fire, drought, insects, and disease by restoring the forest structure
and composition to its natural range of variation (NRV).
DATES: Comments concerning the scope of the analysis must be received
by August 17, 2020. The draft environmental impact statement is
expected February 2021 and the final environmental impact statement is
expected February 2022.
ADDRESSES: Scoping comments may also be submitted electronically
through https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public/commentInput?Project=56500. Written comments may be submitted via mail
or by hand delivery to Stanislaus National Forest, Attn: SERAL, 19777
Greenley Road, Sonora, CA 95370.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Katie Wilkinson (Environmental
Coordinator), 209-288-6321, or by email at [email protected].
Individuals who use telecommunication devices for the deaf (TDD)
may call the Federal Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339
between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Proposed forest restoration treatments
consist of prescribed fire, hand thinning, mastication, variable
density thinning, hand the limited salvage of insect-, disease-,
drought-, and fire-killed trees. Treatments will be strategically
located where the forest structure is departed from the natural range
of variation within a 116,000-acre project area. The proposed forest
restoration treatments have been designed to implement management
approaches provided in the Conservation Strategy for the California
Spotted Owl in the Sierra Nevada (USDA Forest Service 2019), which
require multiple forest plan amendments. Approximately 10,800 acres of
strategic fire management features (linear fuelbreaks, prepared
roadsides, and defensible space) are proposed within the project area
to break up large expanses of continuous fuels, provide for firefighter
access and safety, increase suppression opportunities, and provide
control points for the implementation of prescribed fire. A combination
of control and restoration treatments are also proposed to address
invasive plant infestations occurring on the Stanislaus National Forest
involving the use of herbicides with mechanical, manual, and cultural
control methods over several years.
Purpose and Need for Action
The purpose of the SERAL EIS is to prepare the landscape for the
safe reintroduction of fire as a key ecological process, increase the
landscape's resilience and adaptive capacity to natural disturbances
such as fire, drought, insects and disease, reduce the risk of fire
spreading into communities or damaging critical infrastructure, and to
manage the forest in a cost-effective manner, including making wood
products available to local industries and businesses. The actions
proposed in the SERAL project are needed to minimize the potential for
large-, high-severity fire and habitat loss; shift the landscape
vegetation structure and composition towards conditions that are more
in alignment with its historic NRV, abate hazard trees; control
occurrences of invasive, non-native plants; and assist wildfire
management operations., conserve and/or restore terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystems and protect these systems.
Proposed Action
The Stanislaus National Forest is proposing multiple actions to
meet the purpose and need of the project, as described below.
A combination of mechanical thinning and prescribed fire is
proposed for approximately 38,000 acres. The majority of the treatments
(approximately 28,000 acres) will be focused within mid-closed forested
areas and designed to create conditions favorable to allow forest
succession towards a late-open seral open forest. The other approximate
10,000 acres of treatments will be located across late-closed and mid-
closed seral forest areas designed to create a late-open and mid-open
seral forest structure.
Treatment objectives to create both late-open and mid-open forest
structure will be achieved through variable density thinning with
strategically placed openings (gaps) and retained groups of trees
(clumps) scattered throughout the treated landscape. Gaps and clumps
will generally range in size between 0.1 and 0.5 acres each averaging
approximately 0.25 acres in size and a gap frequency of approximately
one every two acres. Thinning would primarily consist of timber
harvesting but also includes non-commercial methods such as prescribed
fire and biomass removal. Multiple logging systems, road maintenance,
temporary road construction, and landing development would be required
for commercial harvest. A proportion of the proposed restoration
treatments will occur within California spotted owl protected activity
centers and territories adhering to specifications based on guidance
provided in the Conservation Strategy for the California Spotted Owl in
the Sierra Nevada (USDA Forest Service 2019) and located strategically
to ensure high quality habitat is maintained.
The conditional salvage of trees to respond to future insect and
disease, drought (I&D, D) or fire mortality is included as part of the
proposed action. When I&D, D mortality affects more than 30% of the
overstory canopy, salvage is limited to areas within 0.25 miles of an
existing road prism and not needing greater than 500 feet of temporary
road to access the salvage unit. When less than 30% of the overstory
canopy is affected by I&D, D mortality salvage may occur within
restoration treatment areas
[[Page 43206]]
but will be incorporated into the variable density thinning treatments
to establish the desired gaps. Salvage of fire-killed trees would be
authorized for abating hazard trees along high use roads (level 3,4, 5
and some level 2), and up to 500 acres per two HUC-6 watersheds, and a
maximum of 1,000 acres per single fire event.
Additional treatments are proposed for approximately 10,800 acres
within the project area to create a network of strategic fire
management features (linear fuelbreaks, prepared roadsides, and
defensible space). These features are proposed to break up large
expanses of continuous fuels, provide for firefighter access and
safety, increase suppression opportunities, and provide control points
for the implementation of prescribed fire. To create these features,
trees may be thinned to shaded fuelbreak standards and continuous
vegetation under 8'' DBH or 12 feet tall will be broken up into
naturally appearing clumps or islands of varied size and shape.
Non-native invasive weed control and eradication treatments are
proposed for mapped known invasive weed locations; additional acres to
account for a 20% rate of spread from those known locations; and a
limited number of acres where future infestations are discovered
subsequent to the analysis.
Forest Plan Amendment
For more than a quarter of a century, the Forest Service has been
engaging in proactive California spotted owl (CSO) conservation
focusing on retaining suitable habitat and minimizing disturbance to
breeding owls. However, new science indicates threats to spotted owls
are shifting and evolving, environmental conditions are changing, and
owl populations are declining in some areas of the species' range. The
proposed forest plan amendments would allow the SERAL proposed
landscape restoration treatments to best meet the purpose and need of
the project and implement the guiding principles of the Conservation
Strategy for the California Spotted Owl in the Sierra Nevada (USDA
forest Service 2019), hereafter referred to as the ``Conservation
Strategy''. The Conservation Strategy provides conservation measures
that provide some immediate stability for individual owls that allow
landscape treatments to occur to better align the landscape with its
NRV. The Conservation Strategy concludes that restoring landscape
structure and function to be within the NRV can help develop resilient
habitat conditions that provide CSO conservation in the long term.
The amendments are specific to the 116,000-acre project area and
proposed NRV restoration treatments and are consistent with the 2012
Planning Rule. The substantive provisions of 36 CFR 219.8 through
219.11 that directly apply to the proposed amendments are 36 CFR 219.9
Diversity of Plant and Animal Communities, (a) Ecosystem plan
components, (1) Ecosystem integrity (36 CFR 219.9(a)(1)); 36 CFR 219.9
Diversity of Plant and Animal Communities, (a) Ecosystem plan
components, (2) Ecosystem diversity, (i) key characteristics associated
with the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem types (36 CFR
219.9(a)(2)(i)); 36 CFR 219.9 Diversity of Plant and Animal
Communities, (a) Ecosystem plan components, (2) Ecosystem diversity,
(ii) rare aquatic and terrestrial plant and animal communities (36 CFR
219.9(a)(2)(ii)); and 36 CFR 219.8 Sustainability, (b) Social and
Economic Sustainability, (1) Social, cultural, and economic conditions
relevant to the area influenced by the plan (36 CFR 219.8(b)(1)).
Responsible Official
The responsible official will be Jason Kuiken, Forest Supervisor,
Stanislaus National Forest.
Nature of Decision To Be Made
Given the purpose and need, the responsible official will determine
whether the proposed actions comply with all applicable laws governing
Forest Service actions and with the applicable standards and guidelines
found in the Stanislaus National Forest Forest Plan; whether the EIS
has sufficient environmental analysis to make an informed decision; and
whether the proposed action meets the purpose and need for action. With
this information, the responsible official must decide whether to
select the proposed action or one of any other potential alternatives
that may be developed, and what, if any, additional actions should be
required.
Scoping Process
This notice of intent initiates the scoping process, which guides
the development of the EIS. Public comments regarding this proposal are
requested in order to assist in identifying issues and opportunities
associated with the proposal, how to best manage resources, and to
focus the analysis. The SERAL project is subject to pre-decisional
administrative review consistent with the Consolidated Appropriations
Act of 2012 (Pub. L. 112-74) as implemented by subparts A and B of 36
CFR part 218. In addition, the proposed forest plan amendments are
subject to pre-decisional administrative review, pursuant to subpart B
of the Planning Rule (36 CFR part 219).
It is important that reviewers provide their comments at such times
and in such manner that they are useful to the agency's preparation of
the environmental impact statement. Therefore, comments should be
provided prior to the close of the comment period and should clearly
articulate the reviewer's concerns and contentions.
Comments received in response to this solicitation, including names
and addresses of those who comment, will be part of the public record
for this proposed action. Comments submitted anonymously will be
accepted and considered; however, anonymous comments will not provide
the respondent eligibility to participate in subsequent administrative
review.
Allen Rowley,
Associate Deputy Chief, National Forest System.
[FR Doc. 2020-15077 Filed 7-15-20; 8:45 am]
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