Klamath National Forest, California, Eddy Gulch Late-Successional Reserve Fire/Habitat Protection Project, 17297-17300 [E8-6628]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
• Forest Service

[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 63 (Tuesday, April 1, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17297-17300]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-6628]


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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Forest Service


Klamath National Forest, California, Eddy Gulch Late-Successional 
Reserve Fire/Habitat Protection Project

AGENCY: Forest Service, USDA.

ACTION: Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement.

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SUMMARY: The Klamath National Forest will prepare an environmental 
impact statement (EIS) to document and publicly disclose the 
environmental effects of implementing mechanical, manual, and 
prescribed burn treatments in the Eddy Gulch Late-Successional Reserve 
(LSR).

DATES: Comments concerning the scope of the analysis must be received 
within 30 days of the publication of this notice in the Federal 
Register. The draft EIS is expected in late fall of 2008, and the final 
EIS and Forest Service Record of Decision are expected in spring of 
2009.

ADDRESSES: Send written comments to RED, Inc. Communications, the 
contractor hired by the Forest Service to conduct project planning and 
prepare the EIS. The mailing address is RED, Inc. Communications, P.O. 
Box 3067, Idaho Falls, ID, 83403, ATTN: Eddy Gulch LSR Project. The 
address for e-mailing comments is eddylsr@redinc.com. The project Web 
site is https://www.eddylsrproject.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Visit the project Web site at https://
www.eddylsrproject.com or contact Ray Haupt, Scott and Salmon River 
District Ranger, Klamath National Forest, 11263 N. Highway 3, Fort 
Jones, California 96032 or call 530-468-5351

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    On July 1, 2007, the Eddy Gulch LSR Project was included under the 
category of ``developing proposal'' in the Klamath National Forest's 
Schedule of Proposed Actions, which was posted on the Klamath National 
Forest's Web site. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act, Northwest Forest 
Plan (as incorporated in the Klamath National Forest Land and Resource 
Management Plan of 1995), and National Fire Plan direct agencies to 
conduct projects for habitat restoration and protection from 
catastrophic wildfire. Section 7(a)(1) of the Endangered Species Act 
directs federal agencies to carry out programs for the conservation of 
threatened and endangered species.
    The Eddy Gulch LSR is on the Scott-Salmon River Ranger District, 
Klamath National Forest, Siskiyou County, California. The LSR is 
located mostly west of Etna Summit, south of North Russian Creek and 
the town of Sawyers Bar, east of Forks of Salmon, and north of 
Cecilville. The LSR encompasses much of the area between the North and 
South Forks of the Salmon River, as well as headwaters of Etna Creek. 
Elevations range from 1,100 feet to about 8,000 feet. The LSR is about 
61,900 acres in size, making it one of the largest LSRs on the Klamath 
National Forest. The Assessment Area (37,239 acres) for the EIS is the 
Eddy Gulch LSR minus the portions in designated roadless areas and that 
portion of the LSR east of Etna Summit.
    The goal of the Eddy Gulch Late-Successional Reserve Fire/Habitat 
Protection Project (Eddy Gulch LSR Project) EIS is to present an 
ecosystem-based approach for ensuring the safety of persons and 
communities and maintaining, protecting, and improving conditions of 
late-successional forest ecosystems, which serve as habitat for late-
successional-associated species. This would be accomplished through 
fuels reduction and habitat development treatments using mechanical, 
manual, and prescribed fire treatment methods.
    The initial mailing list for the project contained entities and 
individuals who were interested in past Klamath National Forest 
projects. Names and addresses were added to the mailing list based on 
zip codes in the vicinity of the Eddy Gulch LSR and attendance records 
from citizen collaboration meetings. The current mailing contains 
approximately 1,200 names and addresses of potentially affected Native 
American tribes, individuals, agencies with special expertise, 
organizations, and businesses. The first project newsletter was mailed 
in October 2007 to members of the mailing list, and a Web page was 
developed to provide additional information on the project: https://
www.eddylsrproject.com.
    On December 3, 2003, President Bush signed into law the Healthy 
Forests Restoration Act to reduce the threat of destructive wildfires 
while upholding environmental standards and encouraging early public 
input during review and planning processes. The legislation is based on 
sound science and helps further the President's Healthy Forests 
Initiative pledge to care for America's forests and rangelands, reduce 
the risk of catastrophic fire to communities, help save the lives of 
firefighters and citizens, and protect threatened and endangered 
species. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act contains a variety of 
provisions to speed up hazardous fuels reduction and forest restoration 
projects on specific types of federal lands that are at risk of 
wildland fire and/or insect and disease epidemics. The Healthy Forests 
Restoration Act established important objectives to fulfill that 
pledge; a few of those objectives are to:
    1. Strengthen public participation in developing high-priority 
forest health projects by providing opportunities for earlier 
participation, thus accomplishing projects in a more timely fashion.
    2. Reduce dense undergrowth that fuels catastrophic [stand-
replacing] fires through thinning and prescribed burns.
    3. Select projects on a collaborative basis, involving local, 
tribal, state, and federal agencies and nongovernmental entities.
    4. Focus projects on federal lands that meet strict criteria for 
risk of wildfire.
    The potential for large, high-intensity fire is a primary concern 
in the Eddy Gulch LSR. Current management issues [needs] include the 
reduction of high fire hazard conditions, protection and/or development 
of late-successional habitat, and the protection of areas that may have 
watershed-related features at risk. Also of concern is the protection 
of private property and emergency access routes that pass through the 
LSR. The Proposed Action addresses these management needs.

[[Page 17298]]

    The proposed treatment locations and treatments were developed in 
response to protection targets identified in the Salmon River Community 
Wildfire Protection Plan, Black Bear Ranch Cooperative Fire Safe Plan, 
Rainbow Cooperative Fire Safe Plan, the Stewardship Fireshed Analysis 
that was conducted for the Eddy Gulch LSR Project, citizen 
collaboration workshops for the Fireshed Analysis and Eddy Gulch LSR 
Project, and direction provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
in Yreka, California. Numerous Forest Service documents guided 
development of the Proposed Action: The Klamath National Forest Forest-
wide Late-Successional Reserve Assessment, Klamath National Forest Land 
and Resource Management Plan, Upper South Fork Ecosystem Analysis, 
North Fork Ecosystem Analysis, and Callahan (Main Salmon) Ecosystem 
Analysis.

Purpose of and Need for Action

    Three primary objectives (purposes) for the Eddy Gulch LSR Project 
were developed based on differences between existing and desired 
resource and social conditions (need for the project) in the Eddy Gulch 
LSR, pertinent laws, and Forest Service direction.
    1. Community Protection--to reduce wildfire threat to communities 
and municipal water supplies and increase public and firefighter 
safety. There is a need, consistent with objectives set forth in the 
Healthy Forests Restoration Act, to protect wildland-urban interface 
(WUI) structures, and related improvements and community access routes, 
from the threat of high-intensity wildfire outside, or emanating from, 
the Eddy Gulch LSR. Current and developing conditions in the LSR and 
along sections of all access roads will likely lead to moderate- and 
high-intensity fires caused by weather-related events (such as 
lightening) that will threaten structures, improvements, water sources, 
and travel routes.
    2. Habitat Protection--to protect existing and future late-
successional habitat from threats (of habitat loss) that occur inside 
and outside the Eddy Gulch LSR. There is a need to reduce fuel loading 
and develop a control strategy to reduce the size and severity of 
future wildfires in the Eddy Gulch LSR in order to continue to meet LSR 
and Key Watershed objectives for late-successional habitat and the 
delivery of high-quality cold water. The Eddy Gulch LSR is also within 
the Salmon River Key Watershed identified under the Northwest Forest 
Plan as critical for at-risk fish species--the watersheds provide high-
quality water and fish habitat. Current risks to forest health 
throughout the Key Watersheds include vegetative stocking density, 
insects, and diseases. The exclusion of fire, combined with climatic 
conditions, has created overstocked stands. Due to fire exclusion and 
other policies that required the control of all fires, there have been 
changes in stand structures, including higher densities of ground and 
ladders fuels such as brush, small trees, and shade-tolerant tree 
species. Past fire suppression policies of controlling all fires have 
interrupted the historic role of fire as a thinning agent and for 
maintaining the volume of ground fuels. This has increased accumulation 
of dead and down woody material and organic debris (duff and litter) 
and has led to larger and more intense wildfires in the Klamath 
Mountains. These intense wildfires can permanently damage soil, degrade 
watersheds, and remove a high proportion of all vegetation over large 
areas, thereby slowing natural recovery and increasing impacts. Fire 
modeling, using current conditions, indicates that under 90th 
percentile weather (a hot dry August day), 50 percent of the LSR would 
experience active or passive crown fire. These models indicate the LSR 
would benefit from treatments to reduce the potential for lethal fire 
behavior to a level that would be more consistent with LSR, Key 
Watershed, and community protection objectives.
    3. Habitat Development--to promote the continued development of 
late-successional characteristics. There is a need to accelerate the 
development of late-successional forest characteristics in some 
existing mid-successional forest stands. Approximately 45,220 acres of 
the 61,900-acre Eddy Gulch LSR (73 percent) are capable of producing 
late-successional habitat. Currently, 18,780 acres (or about 42 percent 
of the 45,220 acres) are currently vegetated by late-successional 
habitat. The combined acres vegetated by late- and mid-successional 
forest total 35,710 acres (or about 79 percent of the 45,220 acres). 
Based on interpretation of stand conditions, past management, expected 
fire losses, early photos, and an understanding of the disturbance 
regimes, it has been estimated that the amount of late-successional 
forest reasonably sustainable in the Eddy Gulch LSR is 45-65 percent of 
the capable area at any one time. The LSR would be considered 
functioning if it falls within this identified range. The Klamath 
National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan specifies that LSRs 
are to be managed to maximize the amount of late-successional forest to 
a level reasonably sustainable because surrounding areas of Matrix and 
private lands are expected to contain relatively little late-
successional forest habitat.
    The above three objectives helped guide the development of the 
proposed treatments and activities designed to maintain or establish a 
trend towards desired resource and social conditions.

Proposed Action

    The Proposed Action has been designed to meet the purpose 
(objectives) of the Eddy LSR Project and satisfy the need for action by 
using mechanical, manual, and prescribed burn treatments.
    The proposed treatment acres across the Eddy Gulch LSR Assessment 
Area are summarized below. The various treatment areas overlap, so the 
total area proposed for treatment is less than the sum of the acreages 
shown below:
    1,999 acres in 69 mechanical treatment areas in the 20 proposed 
Fuel Reduction Zones (FRZs).
    8,583 acres of underburning in the 20 FRZs.
    17,808 acres of underburning in the 11 prescribed burn areas (areas 
other than in FRZs).
    2,251 acres in 6 mechanical treatment areas in the 11 prescribed 
burn areas.
    102 acres in 6 mechanical treatment areas not in an FRZ or 
prescribed burn area.
    70 miles of mechanical treatments along roads.
    4.5 miles of temporary road construction to access 885 acres in 14 
of the mechanical treatment areas.
    Twenty Fuel Reduction Zones. An FRZ is a strategically located and 
designed strip of land on which a portion of the surface fuels (both 
living and dead), ladder fuels, and canopy fuels are treated (removed, 
burned, or masticated) in order to limit the potential size of and loss 
of resources (including homes) from large, high-intensity wildfire. 
FRZs are wide enough to capture most short-range spot fires within the 
treated areas and are designed to bring crown fires into surface 
(ground) fire conditions, as well as to provide safe locations for 
fire-suppression personnel to take fire-suppression actions during 90th 
percentile weather conditions.
    Eighty-one Mechanical Treatment Areas. Thinning to reduce density--
mechanical treatments would be used to remove or rearrange fuels to 
reduce crown, ladder, and ground fuels and to shorten the time to reach 
the desired future conditions compared to the use of prescribed fire 
alone. Stands would be thinned to reduce stand densities,

[[Page 17299]]

thereby reducing canopy cover (and the potential for passive and active 
crown fires. The resulting fuels from thinning would be removed or 
piled and burned. Thinning activities would also provide an opportunity 
for biomass utilization of the material. Thinning to reduce ladder 
fuels--thinning smaller diameter trees would increase the distance 
between the lower limbs of residual trees and brush or ground fuels. 
Ladder fuels consist of denser conifer vegetation and brush near the 
forest floor that can extend into residual trees. Ladder fuels increase 
the likelihood of a ground fire creating enough heat to ignite the 
ladder fuels (torching), with the subsequent fire reaching the crowns 
of the largest trees. Crown fires are more intense, harder for 
firefighters to suppress, and result in more devastating effects. In an 
effort to reduce the potential for crown fires, ladder fuels would be 
mechanically treated. After mechanical treatments, the fuels would be 
removed and treated with prescribed fire or masticated. Thinning to 
develop habitat--Overstocked mid-successional stands experience inter-
tree competition that slows the stand's development into late-
successional habitat. Thinning these stands from below would maintain 
or increase growth on the residual trees, thus accelerating the stand's 
development into late-successional habitat. In an LSR, stands would be 
considered for treatment only where thinning would increase, by 30 
years, the stand's development into late-successional habitat, when 
compared to the stand's projected natural (unthinned) development.
    Eleven Prescribed Burn Treatment Areas. Prescribed fire would be 
used to reduce hazardous fuels and interrupt the horizontal, and 
sometimes vertical, continuity of flammable materials on the forest 
floor. Pile burning--naturally occurring fuels and thinning residues 
(branches and limbs) would be piled and burned. Underburning--a 
prescribed burn under an existing canopy of trees (hardwoods or 
conifers) would be designed to reduce excess live and dead vegetation 
and scorch to kill vegetation to reduce ladder fuel conditions. 
Firelines would be constructed by mechanical or manual treatment 
methods.
    The mechanical, manual, and prescribed burn treatments are proposed 
for the following locations:
    1. Along ridges--these are the FRZs, which contain plantations, 
Riparian Reserves, roads, and habitat development areas.
    2. Along roads--emergency access routes, open National Forest 
System roads, and county roads (roads occur inside and outside FRZs). 
Treatments would occur 200 feet above and 200 feet below roads; some 
areas along roads could be less than 200 feet due to variability in 
fuel types (such as brush, grass, or barren areas).
    3. CWPP and other fire plan/community protection areas, FWS 
priority areas, and northern spotted owl activity centers.
    4. Areas outside FRZs--includes the underburn areas, which contain 
plantations; Riparian Reserves; mechanical treatment areas and roads; 
and owl habitat development areas.

Responsible Official

    Patricia Grantham, Acting Forest Supervisor, USDA Forest Service, 
1312 Fairlane Road, Yreka, California 96097, will prepare and sign the 
Record of Decision at the conclusion of the NEPA review.

Nature of Decision To Be Made

    The Forest Service is the lead agency for the Project. Based on the 
results of the NEPA analysis, the Forest Supervisor's Record of 
Decision regarding the Eddy Gulch LSR Project will recommend 
implementation of one of the following: (1) The proposed action and 
mitigation necessary to minimize or avoid adverse impacts; (2) an 
alternative to the proposed action and mitigation necessary to minimize 
or avoid adverse impacts, or (3) the no-action alternative. The Record 
of Decision will also document the consistency of the proposed action 
with the Klamath National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan 
(Forest Plan) (1995, as amended).

Collaboration Process

    The Forest Service and contractor facilitated 14 collaboration 
meetings during the planning phase (September 2007-March 2008) for the 
Proposed Action. The meetings were held in the communities of Sawyers 
Bar, Forks of Salmon, Orleans, Fort Jones, and Yreka, California. 
Numerous collaboration meetings were also held with the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service in Yreka, California. Comments and suggestions 
provided at the collaboration meetings were used, in part, to design 
the Proposed Action. Scoping comments will be used to refine the 
Proposed Action, as will additional data collected during extensive 
field reconnaissance during the spring and early summer of 2008.

Scoping Process--Comments Requested

    Publication of this Notice of Intent initiates the scoping process 
for the Eddy Gulch LSR Project. The public is encouraged to take part 
in the process by reading the scoping information that was distributed 
by mail, with additional information and maps available on the project 
website (https://www.eddylsrproject.com). Comments are welcome 
throughout the environmental analysis process, but to be most useful 
for refining the Proposed Action, comments should be post-marked by 
April 28, 2008.

Early Notice of Importance of Public Participation in Subsequent 
Environmental Review

    Following the 30-day scoping period announced in this notice, the 
Forest Service and Contractor will begin preparation of the draft EIS. 
The comment period on the draft EIS 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 EISs 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. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 533 (1978). Also, 
environmental objections that could be raised at the draft 
environmental impact statement stage but that are not raised until 
after completion of the final EIS 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 EIS.
    To assist the Forest Service in identifying and considering issues 
and concerns on the proposed action, comments on the draft EIS should 
be as specific as possible. It is also helpful if comments refer to 
specific line and page numbers of the draft statement.
    Comments may also address the adequacy of the draft EIS 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

[[Page 17300]]

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.

    Dated: March 25, 2008.
Patricia A. Grantham,
Deputy Forest Supervisor, Klamath National Forest.
 [FR Doc. E8-6628 Filed 3-31-08; 8:45 am]
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