Golden Eagles; Programmatic Take Permit Decision; Finding of No Significant Impact for Final Environmental Assessment; Alta East Wind Project, Kern County, California, 76380-76381 [2016-25746]

Agencies

• Fish and Wildlife Service
• DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 212 (Wednesday, November 2, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 76380-76381]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-25746]



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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Fish and Wildlife Service

[FWS-R8-MB-2016-N160; FF08M00000-FXMB12310800000-167]


Golden Eagles; Programmatic Take Permit Decision; Finding of No 
Significant Impact for Final Environmental Assessment; Alta East Wind 
Project, Kern County, California

AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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SUMMARY: We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announce the 
availability of a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the 
final Environmental Assessment (FEA) under the National Environmental 
Policy Act (NEPA) for the issuance of a take permit for golden eagles 
pursuant to the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (Eagle Act), in 
association with the operation of the Alta East Wind Project (Alta 
East) in Kern County, California. The FEA was prepared in response to 
an application from Alta Wind X, LLC (applicant), an affiliate of NRG 
Yield, Inc., for a 5-year programmatic take permit for golden eagles 
(Aquila chrysaetos) under the Eagle Act. The applicant will implement a 
conservation program to avoid, minimize, and compensate for the 
project's impacts to eagles, as described in the applicant's Eagle 
Conservation Plan (ECP). We solicited comments on the draft 
Environmental Assessment (Draft EA) and have reviewed those comments in 
the course of preparing our findings for this project. Based on the 
FEA, the Service concludes that a Finding of No Significant Impact 
(FONSI) is appropriate. Based on the FONSI and findings we prepared 
associated with the permit application, we intend to issue the permit 
after 30 days.

ADDRESSES: Obtaining Documents: You may download copies of the FONSI, 
FEA, our Response to Comments on the Draft EA and the Final ECP for the 
Alta East Wind Project on the Internet at: https://www.fws.gov/cno/conservation/MigratoryBirds/EaglePermits.html. Alternatively, you may 
use one of the methods below to request a CD-ROM of the document.
     Email: fw8_eagle_nepa@fws.gov. Include ``Alta East Eagle 
Permit draft EA Comments'' in the subject line of the message.
     U.S. Mail: Heather Beeler, Migratory Bird Program, U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service, Pacific Southwest Regional Office, 2800 
Cottage Way, W-2605, Sacramento, CA 95825.
     Fax: Heather Beeler, Migratory Bird Program, 916-414-6486; 
Attn: Alta East Wind Project DEA Comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Heather Beeler, Migratory Bird 
Program, at the address shown in ADDRESSES or at (916) 414-6651 
(telephone).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Introduction

    We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, evaluated an application 
under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 668a-d; Eagle 
Act) for a 5-year programmatic golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) take 
permit from the Alta Wind X, LLC (applicant), affiliate of NRG Yield, 
Inc. The applicant's Alta East Wind Project is an existing, operational 
wind facility in the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area (WRA) within Kern 
County, California. The application includes an Eagle Conservation Plan 
(ECP) as the foundation of the applicant's permit application. The ECP 
and the project's Bird and Bat Conservation Strategy describe actions 
taken and proposed future actions to avoid, minimize, and mitigate 
adverse effects on eagles, birds, and bats.
    We prepared the FEA and FONSI to evaluate the impacts to the human 
environment of several alternatives associated with this permit 
application and evaluated compliance with our Eagle Act permitting 
regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) at 50 CFR 22.26, 
as well as impacts of implementation of the supporting ECP, which was 
included as an appendix to the DEA. The applicant has revised the ECP, 
and the Final ECP is an attachment to our FONSI (Attachment 3).

Public Comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment (EA)

    We invited public comment on the Draft EA. In response, we received 
ten submissions; two submissions from Native American tribes, three 
from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), three from the public, one 
from the electric utility industry and one from the applicant. One of 
the NGO comment letter combined comments from three different 
environmental organizations. Our responses to the comments on the Draft 
EA are presented in Attachment 2 of the FONSI.
    In total, the comment letters contained approximately 36 individual 
comments. These comments generally fell under one of five main 
categories: (1) Effects to the species (including number of fatalities, 
local and cumulative effects, other sources of fatalities, and overall 
population numbers); (2) advanced conservation practices (ACPs), 
Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) role, transparency of the process 
and future ACPs, project siting, and curtailment); (3) mitigation 
(addressing scientific basis for electric utility retrofits and 
location of retrofits); (4) monitoring and reporting (addressing 
project reporting and Tehachapi Wind Resource Area eagle mortality 
reporting); and (5) general comments about the permitting program 
(including comments opposing the issuance of an eagle take permit).
    Overall, the comments raised issues regarding the opportunities and 
challenges associated with issuing eagle take permits. We made changes 
to three topic areas of the FEA based on these comments. First, we 
added information on our risk evaluation under the curtailment program. 
We added more detailed information on the science behind the electric 
utility pole retrofit process for mitigation. We also expanded our 
discussion about our National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Eagle 
Mitigation Account.
    We made some additional minor changes to the final EA to improve 
clarity. After considering all the comments, and in light of the 
record, we determined that neither substantial revisions nor a new 
analysis are required for the FEA. Detailed responses to specific 
comments are included in the FONSI (Attachment 2).

Background

    The Eagle Act allows us to authorize bald eagle and golden eagle 
programmatic take (take that is recurring, is not caused solely by 
indirect effects, and that occurs over the long term in a location or 
locations that cannot be specifically identified). Such take must be 
incidental to actions that are otherwise lawful. The Eagle Act's 
implementing regulations define ``take'' as to ``pursue, shoot, shoot 
at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, destroy, molest, or 
disturb'' individuals, their nests and eggs (50 CFR 22.3); and 
``disturb'' is further defined as ``to agitate or bother a bald or 
golden eagle to a degree that causes . . . (1) injury to an eagle, . . 
. (2) a decrease in its productivity, . . . or (3) nest abandonment'' 
(50 CFR 22.3). The Alta East Wind Project will result in recurring 
eagle mortalities over the life of the project, so the appropriate type 
of take permit is the programmatic permit under 50 CFR 22.26.
    We may consider issuance of programmatic eagle take permits if (1) 
the incidental take is necessary to protect legitimate interests; (2) 
the take is compatible with the preservation

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standard of the Eagle Act--providing for stable or increasing breeding 
populations; (3) the take has been avoided and minimized to the degree 
achievable through implementation of Advanced Conservation Practices, 
and the remaining take is unavoidable; and (4) compensatory mitigation 
will be provided for any remaining take. The Service must determine 
that the direct and indirect effects of the take and required 
mitigation, together with the cumulative effects of other permitted 
take and additional factors affecting eagle populations, are compatible 
with the preservation of bald eagles and golden eagles.

Decision

    The Service's Selected Alternative for our issuance of a 
programmatic eagle take permit to Alta East contains elements of 
Alternatives 3, 4 and 5 of the EA. Under the Selected Alternative 
described in our FONSI, we will issue a 5-year programmatic eagle take 
permit to Alta X Wind, LLC for take of up to 3 golden eagles requiring 
implementation of the ECP, curtailment when eagles are detected and 
additional monitoring and mitigation. The Service has determined that a 
Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate for this 
action. Based on the FONSI and findings prepared associated with the 
permit application, we intend to issue a permit after 30 days.

Authority

    We provide this notice under Section 668a of the Eagle Act (16 
U.S.C. 668-668c) and NEPA regulations (40 CFR 1506.6).

    Dated: October 14, 2016.
Alexandra Pitts,
Deputy Regional Director, Pacific Southwest, Sacramento, California.
[FR Doc. 2016-25746 Filed 11-1-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4310-55-P