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

The Forest Service, as the lead Federal agency, previously published in the Federal Register (66 FR 46992-46994, September 10, 2001) a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to disclose the environmental effects of the Idaho Cobalt Project. The Idaho Cobalt Project is a proposed plan of operations to develop an underground cobalt-copper-gold mine on the Salmon/Cobalt Ranger District of the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Lemhi County, Idaho. The Forest Service Handbook 1909.15, Chapter 21.2, requires this revised notice in the Federal Register to inform the public of a major change to the applicant's plan and provide revised dates of when the draft and final EIS will be completed. The major plan change is described in the following paragraph. The revised dates of when the draft and final EIS will be available can be found in the DATES section of this notice. The project proponent, Formation Capital Corporation U.S. (Formation), submitted its proposed plan of operation (Plan) to the Forest Service in January 2001. That Plan described the major components of the project, including production adits and declines, waste rock disposal areas, processing plant, process water and tailings disposal methods, haul roads, and ancillary support facilities on National Forest System Lands. Since 2001, Formation has provided the Forest Service with a number of clarifications and minor revisions to their Plan, which, for the most part, did not alter the basic project description contained in the initial Federal Register notice. However, one proposed revision to the Plan's handling of mine and process water constituted a major change, which necessitated publishing this revised notice. Instead of land-applying the water as originally proposed, Formation plans to install a water treatment system and discharge the mine/process water into Big Deer Creek under a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. This change would reduce the surface area affected by mining operations from 251 acres to 149 acres. Formation submitted an NPDES permit application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on May 25, 2006 to discharge treated water into Big Deer Creek. The permit is a new source subject to the requirements of 40 CFR Part 440. As described in 40 CFR Part 122.29 and EPA's NEPA implementing regulations in 40 CFR Part 6, a new source is subject to compliance with NEPA prior to taking a final action on the NPDES permit. EPA entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Forest Service on August 8, 2006 as a cooperating agency in the EIS process. The MOU describes the roles, responsibilities, and NEPA coordination amongst the two agencies. Given the public scoping that has already been conducted for this project, the extensive list of significant issues generated as a result of that scoping, and the impending completion of the Draft EIS, the Forest Service will not initiate additional public scoping for this notice. Public comments will be accepted and considered following publication of the Draft EIS.