Department of Agriculture August 1, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has prepared a Draft Areawide Environmental Impact Statement consistent with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, to disclose potential effects to the human environment. The Watershed Plan and Areawide Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Cape Cod Water Resources Restoration Project are combined into a single document. The purposes of the Project are to restore degraded salt marshes, restore anadromous fish passages, and improve water quality for shellfishing areas. Specifically, sponsors wish to: 1. Improve tidal flushing in salt marshes where man-made obstructions (i.e., road culverts) have restricted tidal flow. This will help restore native plant and animal communities in salt marshes, and improve biotic integrity. 2. Restore fish ladders and other fish passages that have deteriorated. This will allow greater numbers of anadromous fish (which spend most of their adult lives in salt water and migrate to freshwater streams, rivers, and lakes to reproduce; for example, alewife, blueback herring) to gain access to spawning areas, and support greater populations of other species (for example, striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, largemouth bass, chain pickerel) that depend on them for food. 3. Maintain and improve water quality affecting shellfish beds by treating stormwater runoff. This will help ensure that shellfish beds which are threatened with closure remain open, and maintain or extend the current shellfishing season for beds whose use is restricted during certain times of year. This Project is needed because human activity on Cape Cod has degraded its natural resources, including salt marshes, anadromous fish runs, and water quality over shellfish beds. The development of Cape Cod has required the construction of extensive road and railroad networks. Along the coast, culverts or bridges were needed for these networks to cross tidal marshes, and many of the openings through these structures are not large enough to allow adequate tidal flushing. When the culverts or bridges constrict flow, the tidal regime changes, which results in vegetation changes over time; what was once a thriving salt marsh can become a brackish or fresh water wetland dominated by invasive species. Together with funding from the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM), the Cape Cod Commission and the Buzzards Bay Project National Estuary Program identified over 182 sites where salt marshes have been altered by human activity. Human activity on Cape Cod has also resulted in damming or diverting streams, causing anadromous fish to lose access to spawning grounds. In addition, water flow may have been altered by cranberry growers and other farmers. Fish ladders and other fish passage facilities have been built to help ensure that fish get access to spawning areas, but these structures deteriorate over time (end of design life), or they may be of obsolete design and need replacement to function properly. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) identified 93 fish passage obstructions on Cape Cod. Cape Cod's economy depends on good water quality. Shellfishing, a multi-million dollar industry on the Cape, is only allowed in areas with excellent water quality. As land is developed, and more areas are paved, stormwater runoff may become contaminated with nutrients, metals, fertilizers, bacteria, etc. This runoff may carry enough fecal coliform bacteria to affect water quality in shellfishing areas, thus leading to closure of shellfishing areas, or restrictions on the periods when the beds can remain open. DMF and town officials identified over 160 stormwater discharge points into shellfishing areas. By controlling sources of runoff, separating clean water from contamination sources, and capturing and treating the most heavily contaminated runoff through a variety of measures (e.g., infiltration, constructed wetlands). Two alternatives were considered: Proposed Action/Recommended Plan and the No action alternative. No Action would continue the declining trend of water quality of shellfish waters, impaired anadromous fish runs and degraded salt marshes. The recommended plan is the Proposed Action (Cape Cod Water Resources Restoration Project) because it maximizes ecological benefits and is the National Ecosystem Restoration (NER) Plan. The Recommended Plan achieves the desired level of improvement for the least cost. For each project type (shellfish, fish passage, and salt marsh), the Restoration Project would provide a greater number of habitat units and greater other environmental benefits than the No Action Alternative. NRCS has developed a list of 76 projects that will meet the sponsors' objectives. All of these projects have received a planning-level analysis to ensure that they appear feasible and capable of providing the habitat benefits sought through this areawide Project. When the Project is authorized and funded, the sponsors will propose specific projects to NRCS. NRCS will review each project in more detail to determine the most cost-effective practice for that site and to verify that the habitat objectives will be achieved. The recommended plan would help to maintain or improve water quality in up to 26 shellfish areas affecting 7,300 acres of shellfish beds. Current laws and regulations require stormwater management for all new developments, which prevents or minimizes new development from causing the same water quality impairments that occurred in the past. The Project is expected to improve tidal flushing at 26 sites enhancing 1,500 acres of salt marsh. Current design guidelines prevent or minimize road or railroad construction from causing the same hydrological restrictions that occurred in the past. And through this Project it is expected that 24 fish passages on Cape Cod would be restored to full function improving access to 4,200 acres of spawning habitat. Written comments regarding this Draft Areawide EIS should be mailed to: Cecil B. Currin, Cape Cod Water Resources Restoration Project EIS, USDA-NRCS, 451 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002. Comments may also be submitted by sending a facsimile to (413) 253-4395 or by e-mail to cecil.currin@ma.usda.gov. Please include CCWRRP in the subject line. Project information is also available on the Internet at https:// www.ma.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/CCWRRP.

The Office of the Under Secretary for Food Safety, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) are sponsoring a public meeting on September 7, 2006 to provide draft U.S. positions and receive public comments on agenda items that will be discussed at the 23rd Session of the Codex Committee on Processed Fruits and Vegetables (CCPFV) of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), which will be held in Arlington, VA, on October 16- 21, 2006. The Under Secretary and AMS recognize the importance of providing interested parties the opportunity to comment on the agenda items that will be debated at this forthcoming Session of the CCPFV.

We are amending the citrus canker regulations to list the entire State of Florida as a quarantined area for citrus canker and to amend the requirements for the movement of regulated articles from Florida now that the eradication of citrus canker in Florida is no longer being carried out as an objective. We are also amending the regulations to allow regulated articles that would not otherwise be eligible for interstate movement to be moved to a port for immediate export. These changes are necessary in light of the Department's determination that the established eradication program was no longer a scientifically feasible option to address citrus canker.

This provides notice of the Federal Subsistence Board's in- season management actions to protect Chinook salmon escapement in the Unalakleet River, and to provide additional subsistence harvest opportunities for Chinook salmon in the Yukon River and for sockeye salmon in the Copper River. The revised fishing schedule for the Chitina Subdistrict of the Copper River, the additional fishing time on the Yukon River, and the closure of the Unalakleet River provide exceptions to the Subsistence Management Regulations for Public Lands in Alaska, published in the Federal Register on March 29, 2006. Those regulations established seasons, harvest limits, methods, and means relating to the taking of fish and shellfish for subsistence uses during the 2006 regulatory year.

Pursuant to the authorities in the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463) and under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (Pub. L. 106-393), the Boise and Payette National Forests' Southwest Idaho Resource Advisory Committee will conduct a business meeting, which is open to the public.

This rule proposes to amend regulations for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) by adding three requirements mandated by the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 concerning retail vendors authorized by WIC State agencies to provide supplemental food to WIC participants in exchange for WIC food instruments. This rulemaking would require WIC State agencies to notify WIC-authorized retail vendors of an initial violation in writing, for violations requiring a pattern of occurrences in order to impose a sanction, before documenting a subsequent violation, unless notification would compromise an investigation. In addition, State agencies would be required to maintain a list of State- licensed wholesalers, distributors, and retailers, and infant formula manufacturers registered with the Food and Drug Administration, and would require WIC-authorized retail vendors to purchase infant formula only from sources on the list. Further, State agencies would be required to prohibit the authorization of or payments to WIC-authorized vendors that derive more than 50 percent of their annual food sales revenue from WIC food instruments (``above-50-percent vendors'') and which provide incentive items or other free merchandise, except food or merchandise of nominal value, to program participants or customers unless the vendor provides the State agency with proof that the vendor obtained the incentive items or merchandise at no cost. The intent of these provisions is to, respectively, enhance due process for vendors; prevent defective infant formula from being consumed by infant WIC participants; and ensure that the WIC Program does not pay the cost of incentive items provided by above-50-percent vendors in the form of high food prices. Finally, this rule also proposes to adjust the vendor civil money penalty (CMP) levels to reflect inflation.