[Federal Register: March 11, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 46)]
[Notices]
[Page 10529-10533]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr11mr09-31]
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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Forest Service
Big Grizzly Fuels Reduction and Forest Health Project, Eldorado
National Forest, Placer County, CA
AGENCY: Forest Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement.
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SUMMARY: The USDA, Forest Service, Eldorado National Forest will
prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposal to treat
approximately 6,200 acres of National Forest System land for fuels
reduction and forest health objectives. The project area is situated on
the Georgetown Ranger District approximately 15 air-miles northeast of
Georgetown, CA in the vicinity of Nevada Point Ridge, Devils Peak and
Bear Springs. The intent of this project is to reduce potential fire
hazard within the project area, to provide for increased resilience
when a wildfire occurs within the project area, to provide for improved
forest health, and to increase the rate of development of old forest
characteristics. The Proposed Action consists of commercial and
precommercial tree thinning with follow-up tractor piling or
mastication; mastication of select, existing plantations with a follow-
up treatment of herbicides to reduce brush competition and fuel
buildup; the planting of conifers in expanded canopy gaps with a
follow-up treatment of herbicide; and prescribed burning. Silvicultural
treatments for each stand were chosen for their ability to meet the
stated purpose and need. The focus of each treatment is based on the
desired quality of each treatment area after management rather than the
quantity or quality of the products removed from each area. In fact,
some treatments would not remove forest products. Approximately 15
miles of native surface road reconstruction and 1 mile of new road
construction are proposed in order to facilitate the treatment
activities. The land allocations within the treatment areas, as
identified in the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment Final
Supplemental EIS (SNFPA FSEIS), are general forest, spotted owl home
range core areas, old-forest, and riparian
[[Page 10530]]
conservation areas adjacent to perennial, seasonal, and ephemeral
streams.
The purpose of the project is: (1) To change existing forest
surface, ladder and crown fuel profiles in order to reduce potential
wildfire intensity and behavior to mitigate the consequences of large,
potentially damaging wildfires on selected forested areas; (2) to
improve stand vigor and resistance to disease and insect mortality; (3)
maintain and/or establish a composition of tree species and size
classes that are closer to the historic levels for the area, and
correspondingly sustainable into the future; and (4) to treat hazard
fuels in a cost-effective manner to maximize program effectiveness.
DATES: Comments concerning the scope of the analysis must be received
within 30 days of the publication of this Notice of Intent in the
Federal Register. The draft environmental impact statement is expected
in May 2009 and the final environmental impact statement is expected in
October 2009.
ADDRESSES: Send written comments to Ramiro Villalvazo, Forest
Supervisor, Eldorado National Forest, 7600 Wentworth Springs Rd.,
Georgetown, CA 95634 Attention: Big Grizzly Fuels Reduction and Forest
Health Project.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dana Walsh, Project Leader, Georgetown
Ranger District, 7600 Wentworth Springs Rd, Georgetown, CA 95634, or by
telephone at 530-333-4312.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Purpose and Need for Action
(1) The primary purpose of the project is to change existing forest
surface, ladder and crown fuel profiles in order to reduce potential
wildfire intensity and behavior to mitigate the consequences of large,
potentially damaging wildfires on selected forested areas.
There is a need to change potential fire behavior during weather
conditions that produce wildfire behavior with extreme fire intensity
and severity across a large portion of the landscape. The fuels
conditions within the project area make the area prone to the risk of a
stand-replacing catastrophic wildfire. The risk of losing key ecosystem
components in this area is high. Treatments are needed that would be
effective in terms reducing potential wildfire damage to intrinsic,
forest related resources. Within the vicinity of the Big Grizzly
project, lightning, dispersed recreation use, off-highway vehicle use,
and traffic on the Eleven Pines and Nevada Point Ridge Roads are
potential sources of wildfire ignition.
The effects of the Eldorado National Forest's Cleveland Fire
(23,000 acres), Icehouse Fire (18,000 acres), Wrights Fire (8,000
acres), Star Fire (17,000 acres) Fred Fire (7,700 acres), Power Fire
(16,800 acres), and numerous other large, wetland fires in California
and across the western United States emphasize the desirability and the
urgency of managing forest stands to reduce the likelihood of
catastrophic wildfire. In the absence of fuel reductions it is likely
that wildfire would determine the future landscape, threatening lives
and property.
Forests in this area were historically subject to frequent low
intensity fires that resulted in open, fire-resistant stands of trees.
Multiple decades of fire exclusion, grazing by domestic livestock,
previous stand replacing wildfire, mining, and historic logging
practices, including selective logging of large pines and lack of
follow-up slash treatment, have contributed to altered fire regimes,
heavy fuel loadings, and changed vegetation composition and structure.
As a result, the number, size, and intensity of wildfires have been
altered from their historical range.
By itself prescribed fire would be difficult to apply in the
majority of the project area due to the fuel accumulation, changes in
stand structure, and operation limitations in its use. Mechanical
treatments can be effective tools to modify stand structure and
influence subsequent fire severity and extent. In many stands
mechanical thinning followed by prescribed fire is necessary to achieve
forest resilience much faster than with prescribed fire alone.
Fire behavior is strongly influenced by stand structure as it
relates to live and dead fuel loading and ladder fuels. Reducing crown
density and both ladder fuels and surface fuels is essential to
effectively change fire behavior. Reducing surface fuels and ladder
fuels reduces the likelihood of crown scorch and crown ignition. The
theoretical basis for changing fuel structure to reduce fire hazard is
well established.
The theoretical benefits of fuel manipulation are supported by real
world reviews of wildfires and their interaction with fuel treatment
areas. Fuel treatments similar to those proposed on this project have
also been demonstrated to be effective in recent research conducted on
post-fire vegetation on the Angora and Cone Fires completed by the U.S.
Forest Service. Results from a recent study on the effectiveness of
pre-fire fuel treatments for several wildfires that burned in 2003 and
2004, including the Power Fire on the Eldorado National Forest further
validate the use of a combination of canopy thinning and surface fuel
treatments. Studies have demonstrated that the treatment of surface
fuels alone is generally effective in altering fire severity; however,
treatments that included canopy thinning followed by surface fuel
treatment were found to be the most effective at reducing canopy scorch
and tree mortality. Additionally, the effectiveness of treatments that
reduced both canopy and surface fuels were found to increase with
weather severity, i.e., the more extreme the fire conditions, the more
valuable fuels treatments proved to be.
Reviews have pointed out that thinning treatments that are followed
by reduction of surface fuels can significantly limit fire spread under
wildfire conditions. Current research demonstrates the potential of
fuel treatments to reduce large fire growth. Fuel treatments are most
effective when the spatial arrangement of the treatment units is
considered and planned for. The Big Grizzly project has been developed
on the basis of anticipated treatment effectiveness and spatial
arrangement of proposed treatment areas. Treatments within
Strategically Placed Landscape Treatment Areas (SPLATs) can increase
the effectiveness of fire suppression efforts, and substantially
decrease the risk to life and property. This project would directly
reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire to multiple resources within
and adjacent to the project area. In addition to implementing a spatial
design for the project that might be optimal for reducing fire spread,
the Big Grizzly Project has also been developed based on the historical
ecological processes and landscape patterns within the project area.
Treatments are not intended to specifically facilitate fire
suppression efforts. The focus of fuels treatments is to improve the
ability of treated stands to withstand the adverse effects of future
fires. However, safe and effective initial attack by hand crews and
engine modules, the initial attack forces of the Georgetown Ranger
District, is imperative due to current wildfire policy for the project
area and air quality restrictions within the state which require
continued fire suppression.
Selected plantations currently exhibit a buildup of woody brush
species such as green leaf manzanita, deerbrush, whitethorn, and bitter
cherry. The existing conditions of the plantations include an average
brush component 4-10 feet in height with brush cover levels of 30 to
100%. Currently, flame lengths
[[Page 10531]]
from a wildland fire burning under the 90th percentile weather
conditions could easily make the transition from surface fire into the
crowns of the trees, causing high mortality within plantations and
continued fire spread into the surrounding forest stands.
The National Fire Plan and the Cohesive Strategy, developed after
the severe wildfire season in 2000, provides direction to the Forest
Service to reduce the amount of fuel in fire-prone forests to protect
people and sustain resources. Additionally, the Record of Decision
(ROD) for the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment (SNFPA) sets
priorities for management activities that would restore natural
ecosystem processes while minimizing the threat fire poses to lives,
structures, and resources through site specific prescriptions designed
to modify fire intensity and spread in treated areas.
(2) The second fundamental purpose of this project is to also
improve stand vigor and resistance to disease and insect mortality.
There is a need to improve the health of trees within the project
area by removing unhealthy trees and reducing stand density. Over-dense
stands are experiencing inter-tree competition for resources and are at
risk for high levels of mortality in the near future. Some stands
within the project area are already experiencing high levels of
mortality due to disease and insect activity. Although some of the
stands in the project have been thinned and salvage logged in the past,
the predominantly white fir stands are expected to continue to decrease
in health and vigor over time due to insects, annosus root rot, and
other disease pathogens. These stands will continue moving farther from
their desired future condition as high levels of mortality decrease
canopy cover, stocking, and growth at a stand level.
The project area is currently at risk due to insect and disease
related mortality. Increased densities of trees, higher levels of
disease and insect attack, and an accumulation of ground and ladder
fuels within stands indicate unhealthy conditions. Denser stands, such
as those that have developed in the project area, demand more water and
other limited resources. As a result, over-dense stands are less
resistant to insect and disease-related attack, especially during
periods of extended drought, which then increases the potential for
extreme fire behavior in the area. Large areas of the landscape are
dominated by shade-tolerant, drought-and/or fire-intolerant species
(white fir, incense-cedar, and Douglas-fir). The structure of the
current forested landscape represents an unstable, unsustainable, and
therefore undesirable departure from the historic landscape for this
area.
The SNFPA directs that prescriptions for treatment areas address
identified needs to increase stand resistance to mortality from insect
and disease by thinning densely stocked stands to reduce competition
and improve tree vigor. Forest health specialists have reviewed
treatment areas and have confirmed that insect and disease pathogen
activities within stands have increased the risk of mortality due to
high stand density and current species composition.
(3) A purpose of this project is also to maintain and/or establish
a composition of tree species and size classes that are closer to the
historic conditions for the area and correspondingly sustainable into
the future.
There is a need to apply the necessary silvicultural and fuels
reduction treatments to accelerate the development of key habitat and
old forest characteristics, increase stand heterogeneity, restore pine,
and to promote hardwoods. The project area is characteristic of much of
the mixed-conifer zone of the Sierra Nevada with few or no stands
remaining that can be described as natural. To various degrees the
forest has been changed from one dominated by large, old, widely spaced
trees to one with dense, fairly even-aged stands with most of the
larger trees between 80 and 100 years old. This is an unstable,
unsustainable forest that is susceptible to drought-induced mortality,
bark beetle infestation, and severe wildfire.
Many of the stands within the Big Grizzly project area have been
type converted from pine to white fir through natural mortality and the
selective logging of pine. Rather than attempt to restore the stands to
a specific point in history, there is a need to restore a forest
structure that is more resilient to drought, insect and disease
pathogens, and wildfire. As discussed above, as a result of the current
species composition and risk from fire, insect and disease pathogens,
these stands are not sustainable. Proposed treatments would promote
shade intolerant pines and hardwoods while decreasing the amount of
shade tolerant white fir and incense cedar, thereby moving stands
closer to a more sustainable species composition.
Reduced competition would enable trees to grow larger more quickly,
thereby providing greater numbers of large trees and snags for the
future. Treatment would also reduce the risk of fire related mortality
to large trees that are currently within the units, maintaining the
valuable structure they provide within the stand.
There is a need to control spacing and species composition in the
plantations to accelerate the development of old forest
characteristics. While the plantations do not currently have the
structure that would allow them to function as old forest habitat,
since they consist primarily of young ponderosa pine, they provide
important reservoirs of pine within the landscape. Thinning in
plantations and natural stands would facilitate tree growth allowing
stands to more rapidly develop large trees, and increase the
probability that these stands would survive into the future. These
stands could then be managed to ensure the development of additional
components of structure for old forest dependent species.
(4) A purpose of the project is to treat hazard fuels in a cost-
effective manner to maximize program effectiveness.
There is a need for this project to be cost effective so that the
maximum benefit can be achieved through the work performed. The SNFPA
provides direction to design area treatments that are economically
efficient where consistent with desired conditions, using wood by-
products from over-dense stands to offset the cost of fuels treatments.
The removal of commercial sized trees would partially offset the
substantial costs associated with the expensive investment components
of this project, including the treatment of surface fuels, cutting and
removal of the non-commercial ladder fuels, mastication and herbicide
treatments.
Proposed Action
To move stands toward the Desired Future Condition for the various
land allocations as described in the Record of Decision for the Final
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Sierra Nevada
Forest Plan Amendment dated 1/21/2004, the Proposed Action includes a
combination of fuels reduction and forest health improvement actions.
Silvicultural treatments for each stand were chosen for their ability
to meet the stated purpose and need. The focus of each treatment is
based on the desired quality of each treatment area after management
rather than the quantity or quality of the products removed from each
area. In fact, some treatment would not remove forest products.
Approximately 3,200 acres are proposed to be treated using
understory thinning involving the cutting and removal of both
commercial and non-commercial size trees. Follow-up mastication or
tractor piling and pile
[[Page 10532]]
burning would occur shortly after the thinning is completed. Follow up
prescribed burning would occur approximately 2-7 years after the pile
burning is completed.
Approximately 900 additional acres are proposed for stand
improvement cutting for forest health through the removal of suppressed
and dying trees. In order to facilitate the restoration of pine species
to stands, the creation of gaps of up to 3 acres in size is proposed
within these 900 acres of stand treatments. Gap establishment would be
accomplished through the harvesting of white fir trees and conifer
trees of other species that are within; and immediately adjacent to
selected, existing canopy gaps that are currently greater than 1/2 acre
in size and that are expanding due to root rot. Healthy pine trees
would be specifically retained within the selected gaps. The selected
gaps would have the slash tractor piled and then the gaps would be
planted with ponderosa pine, sugar pine and Douglas-fir at a 12x12 foot
spacing. At the time of planting, the planted seedlings would be
released from competing vegetation by hand scalping. A follow-up ground
based application of herbicide would occur within the gaps within 1-5
years to control competing vegetation. Gaps would be established on 10-
30% of the acres in any given stand. Planting of pine within these gaps
would move the stands toward their desired future, thereby moving the
stand structure and composition to a more resilient condition.
Units 3 18-1, 320-43, 320-67, and 320-7 1, approximately
900 acres, would require a non-significant forest plan amendment
because the proposed activities would reduce the canopy cover below 40
percent. The amendment is necessary to meet forest health objectives of
minimizing the impact of Heterobasidion annosum, the most important
disease found in the project area.
The proposal also includes precommercial thinning and
mastication of approximately 120 acres of <50-year old plantations,
mastication with follow-up ground based application of herbicide on
approximately 1,100 acres of 15-30 year old plantations, and
mastication with follow-up ground based application of herbicide on
approximately 75 acres of 47 year old plantation currently located
within the project area. These treatments would reduce future fuel
loading, alter the vegetative structure to reduce the risk of loss to
wildland fire, improve forest health by reducing susceptibility to
insect and disease pathogens, and create conditions that accelerate the
development of old forest characteristics.
Prescribed burning as the only treatment is proposed on
approximately 800 acres of the project area to reduce the amount of
ground fuels between thinning units thereby making the proposed
thinning treatments more effective.
Approximately 1 mile of road construction and
approximately 15 miles of road reconstruction is estimated to be
necessary to facilitate accessibility to perform proposed fuel and
forest health treatments.
Nature of Decision To Be Made
The decision to be made is whether to adopt and implement the
proposed action, an alternative to the proposed action, or take no
action to improve forest health, and to reduce fuels.
Other alternatives would be developed if significant issues are
identified during the scoping process for the environmental impact
statement. All alternatives will need to respond to the specific
condition of providing benefits equal to or better than the current
condition.
Scoping Process
Public participation will be especially important at several points
during the analysis. The Forest Service will be seeking information,
comments, and assistance from Federal, State, and local agencies and
other individuals or organizations that may be interested in or
affected by the proposed action. To facilitate public participation,
information about the proposed action will be mailed to all who express
interest in the Proposed Action.
Comments submitted during the scoping process should be in writing
and should be specific to the Proposed Action. The comments should
describe as clearly and completely as possible any issues the commenter
has with the proposal.
Comment Requested
This notice of intent initiates the scoping process which guides
the development of the environmental impact statement.
Early Notice of Importance of Public Participation in Subsequent
Environmental Review: A draft environmental impact statement will be
prepared for comment. The comment period on the draft environmental
impact statement will be 45 days from the date the Environmental
Protection Agency publishes the notice of availability in the Federal
Register.
The Forest Service believes, at this early stage, it is important
to give reviewers notice of several court rulings related to public
participation in the environmental review process. First, reviewers of
draft environmental impact statements must structure their
participation in the environmental review of the proposal so that it is
meaningful and alerts an agency to the reviewer's position and
contentions. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NIRDC, 435 U.S. 519,
553 (1978). Also, environmental objections that could be raised at the
draft environmental impact statement stage, but that axe not raised
until after completion of the final environmental impact statement may
be waived or dismissed by the courts. City of Angoon v. Hodel, 803 F.2d
1016, 1022 (9th Cir. 1986) and Wisconsin Heritages, Inc. v. Harris, 490
F. Supp. 1334, 1338 (E.D. Wis. 1980). Because of these court rulings,
it is very important that those interested in this proposed action
participate by the close of the 45 day comment period so that
substantive comments and objections are made available to the Forest
Service at a time when it can meaningfully consider them and respond to
them in the final environmental impact statement.
To assist the Forest Service in identifying and considering issues
and concerns on the proposed action, comments on the draft
environmental impact statement should be as specific as possible. It is
also helpful if comments refer to specific pages or chapters of the
draft statement. Comments may also address the adequacy of the draft
environmental impact statement or the merits of the alternatives
formulated and discussed in the statement. Reviewers may wish to refer
to the Council on Environmental Quality Regulations for implementing
the procedural provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act at
40 CFR 1503.3 in addressing these points.
Comments received, including the names and addresses of those who
comment, will be considered part of the public record on this proposal
and will be available for public inspection.
(Authority: 40 CFR 1501.7 and 1508.22; Forest Service Handbook
1909.15, Section 21.)
Ramiro Villalvazo, Forest Supervisor, Eldorado National Forest is
the responsible official. As the responsible official he will document
the decision and reasons for the decision in the Record of Decision.
That decision will be subject to Forest Service appeal regulations (36
CFR part 215).
[[Page 10533]]
Dated: January 27, 2009.
Ramiro Villalvazo,
Forest Supervisor.
[FR Doc. E9-5019 Filed 3-10-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410-11-M