[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 151 (Monday, August 7, 1995)]
[Notices]
[Pages 40154-40155]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-19378]
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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Augusta Timber Sale, Willamette National Forest, Lane County,
Oregon
AGENCY: Forest Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice; intent to prepare environmental impact statement.
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SUMMARY: The Forest Service will prepare an environmental impact
statement on a proposal to harvest trees and build roads in the Augusta
drainage of the Blue River Ranger District. Approximately 200 acres of
trees will be harvested and approximately 0.5 miles of road will be
constructed. The proposal results from an extensive landscape design
and watershed analysis conducted in the Augusta area. The dominant
theme for that design was to base landscape and watershed objectives,
designs, and prescriptions on an interpreted range of ``natural''
variability of disturbance processes.
DATES: Comments concerning the scope of the analysis should be received
in writing by September 10, 1995.
ADDRESSES: Send written comments to Lynn Burditt, District Ranger, Blue
River Range Station, P.O. Box 199, Blue River, Oregon, 97413.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Karen Geary, Resource Planning Assistant, (503) 822-3317.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Augusta Creek timber sale proposal is
one result of the Augusta Creek Project, a natural disturbance-based
landscape ``design'' for a managed forest. The landscape design was
projected for 200 years into the future using 20 year time steps. This
specific timber sale proposal includes writing prescriptions for the
nine blocks that would be in early seral conditions at the end of the
first 20-year time step. This will result in harvesting approximately
200 acres of trees in the first timber sale entry and building
approximately 0.5 miles of roads to access the trees. The nine blocks
are located in T19S, R5E, Section 1; T19S, R51/2E, Sections 9 and 16;
T18S, R5E, Sections 35 and 36; T18S, R51/2E, Sections 31, 32, and 33
(Lat 43 deg.56'00'', Long 122 deg.7'30'').
Detailed ground review and alternative development will be
concentrated on these nine landscape blocks. Decisions will include
identification of the timing and location of timber harvests,
silvicultural prescriptions, levels of green and dead tree retention,
and the spatial patterns of retention trees.
The Augusta Creek Landscape Design Project was initiated to
establish and integrate landscape and watershed objectives into a
landscape design to guide management activities within a 19,000 acre
planning area in western Oregon. The objectives were to maintain native
species, ecosystem processes and structures, and long-term ecosystem
productivity in a Federally owned and managed landscape with
substantial acreage allocated to timber harvest. A dominant theme has
been to base landscape and watershed objectives, designs, and
prescriptions on an interpreted range of ``natural'' variability of
disturbance processes. A fire history study characterized fire patterns
and regimes over the last 500 years. Changes in the existing and
surrounding landscape due to past intensive human uses were also
factored into the landscape design. Landscape prescriptions include a
small-watershed based aquatic reserve system and major valley bottom
corridor reserves. Where timber harvest is allocated, four landscape
management areas prescribe varying rotation ages (100-300 years), green
tree retention levels (15-50%), and spatial patterns as derived from
interpretations of fire regimes. These prescriptions were linked to
specific blocks of land, which provides an efficient transition to
site-level planning and project implementation.
The EIS will tier to the Willamette National Forest Land and
Resource Management Plan (1990) as amended by the Record of Decision
and Standards and Guidelines for Management of Habitat For Late
Successional and Old-Growth Forest Related Species within the Range of
the Northern Spotted Owl (1994).
Scoping will include public meetings and potentially visits to the
site. The first public meeting is scheduled for August 3, 1995 and will
be held at the Lane Transit District office in Eugene, Oregon.
Additional public meetings will be held in August and September.
Preliminary scoping identified a few issues. One of the issues is
the location of some of the units and possible road construction in the
Chucksney inventoried roadless area. This is the reason the Forest
Service is preparing an EIS. Other issues identified at this point
include water quality in Augusta Creek
[[Page 40155]]
and in the South Fork of the McKenzie River and the Wild and Scenic
Study River values of the South Fork McKenzie river.
The lead agency for this proposal is the Forest Service. The
responsible official is Lynn Burditt, District Ranger. The Forest
Service invites your comments or ideas on this proposal and asks that
they please be sent in writing to the above address.
The draft EIS is expected to be filed with the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and to be available for public review by
October 1995. 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 it is important to give reviewers
notice at this early stage 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. versus NRDC, 435 U.S.
519, 553 (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 environmental impact statement may
be waived or dismissed by the courts. City of Angoon versus Hodel, 803
f. 2d 1016, 1022 (9th Cir. 1986) and Wisconsin Heritages, Inc. versus
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.)
The final EIS is scheduled to be completed by December 1995. In the
final EIS, the Forest Service is required to respond to comments and
responses received during the comment period that pertain to the
environmental consequences discussed in the draft EIS and applicable
laws, regulations, and policies considered in making the decision and
rationale for the decisions in the Record of Decision. That decision
will be subject to Forest Service Appeal Regulations (36 CFR 217).
Dated: July 27, 1995.
Marsha Scutvick,
Acting Forest Supervisor.
[FR Doc. 95-19378 Filed 8-4-95; 8:45 am]
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