[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 120 (Wednesday, June 23, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Page 33502]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-15912]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service


Notice of Availability; Final Environmental Impact Statement for 
the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park Final General 
Management Plan

AGENCY: National Park Service.

ACTION: Availability for 30 days of Final Environmental Impact 
Statement (FEIS) for Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical 
Park Final General Management Plan.

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SUMMARY: Pursuant to section 102(2)(c) of the National Environmental 
Policy Act of 1969, the National Park Service announces the 
availability of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Marsh-
Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park Final General Management 
Plan.
    The Final Environmental Impact Statement is presented in an 
abbreviated format. It must be integrated with the Marsh-Billings 
National Historical Park Draft General Management Plan/Draft 
Environmental Impact Statement issued in April 1998, to be considered a 
complete document reflecting the full proposal and alternative, and all 
significant environmental impacts. The two documents together compose 
the complete Final Environmental Impact Statement.
    Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park is the only 
national park to focus on conservation history and the evolving nature 
of land stewardship in America. Opened in June of 1998, Vermont's first 
national park preserves and interprets the historic Marsh-Billings-
Rockefeller property in Woodstock. The park is named for George Perkins 
Marsh, Frederick Billings, and Laurance S. Rockefeller. George Perkins 
Marsh was one of the nation's first global environmental thinkers (who 
grew up on the property). Frederick Billings was an early 
conservationist who established a progressive dairy farm and 
professionally managed forest on the former Marsh farm. Frederick 
Billing's granddaughter, Mary French Rockefeller, and her husband, 
conservationist Laurance S. Rockefeller came to own the property in the 
1950s. They sustained Billings's mindful practices in forestry and 
farming on the property over the latter half of the twentieth century. 
In 1983, they established the Billings Farm & Museum to continue the 
farm's working dairy and to interpret rural Vermont life and 
agricultural history. The Billings Farm & Museum is operated by the 
Woodstock Foundation, Inc. as a private nonprofit educational 
institution.
    Marsh-Billing-Rockefeller National Historical Park was created in 
1992 when the Rockefellers' gave the estate's residential and forest 
lands to the people of the United States. Today, the park interprets 
the history of conservation with tours of the Marsh-Billings-
Rockefeller mansion and the surrounding 550-acre forest--one of the 
oldest planned and continuously managed woodlands in America. Working 
in partnership, the park and the museum present historic and 
contemporary examples of conservation stewardship and interpret the 
lives and contributions of George Perkins Marsh, Frederick Billings and 
his descendants, and Mary and Laurance S. Rockefeller.
    The National Park began to plan for the management of Marsh-
Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in 1993. Park planners 
conducted a conservation stewardship workshop, a community study, 
visitor and community surveys, a transportation analysis, neighborhood 
meetings, and other resource inventories and assessments. In a Draft-
General Management Plan/Draft Environmental Impact Statement that 
underwent 60 days of public review, the National Park Service presented 
and evaluated two management scenarios (the Proposal and the 
Alternative) and described five management options that were 
considered, but rejected by the planning team. After considering public 
and agency comment, the National Park Service adopted the draft plan's 
Proposal as the final plan.

Availability

    The FEIS is available for a period for thirty days, beginning on 
the date of the Environmental Protection Agency publication in the 
Federal Register. The National Park Service will take no action for the 
thirty-day period of availability, after which time a Record of 
Decision will be prepared and made available.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Public reading copies of the FEIS will be 
available for review at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical 
Park, 54 Elm Street, Woodstock, Vermont. For further information, 
please contact the Superintendent, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National 
Historical Park, P.O. Box 178, Woodstock, Vermont 05091; voice at (802) 
457-3368; fax at (802) 457-3405.

    Dated: May 25, 1999.
Terry W. Savage,
Superintendent, Boston Support Office.
[FR Doc. 99-15912 Filed 6-22-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-70-M