[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 65 (Tuesday, April 4, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17624-17625]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-8208]



[[Page 17624]]

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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Forest Service

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR

Bureau of Land Management

[ID-918-00-1610-DE-UCRB]


Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, Northern, 
Intermountain, and Pacific Northwest Regions and States of Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho, Montana

AGENCIES: Forest Service, USDA; Bureau of Land Management, USDI.

ACTION: Notice of availability of a supplemental draft environmental 
impact statement (EIS).

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SUMMARY: The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are 
developing a scientifically sound, ecosystem-based management strategy 
for certain lands under their jurisdiction east of the Cascade crest in 
Oregon and Washington and in the Columbia River Basin in Idaho and 
Montana. Comments following review of the Eastside Draft Environmental 
Impact Statement and the Upper Columbia River Basin Draft Environmental 
Impact Statement have led the agencies to revisit and refine the 
management direction described and analyzed in the draft EISs. The 
refined management direction addresses those issues which need 
resolution at the basin-wide scale. The geographic scope of the effort 
has been narrowed. The agencies have prepared one supplemental draft 
EIS to analyze the refined strategy, addressing what had been covered 
by the two draft EISs in one document. The supplemental draft EIS 
includes a summary of the comments received on the two draft EISs and 
response to those comments.

DATES: The supplemental draft EIS is now available for public review 
and comment. A 90-day public comment period is provided. Public 
outreach to explain the supplemental draft EIS and to assist the public 
with commenting on it will be conducted throughout the Project area 
during the comment period. Notice of dates and locations of these 
efforts will be given through mailings and local media. Comments on the 
supplemental draft EIS must be submitted in writing by July 6, 2000. 
The Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP) 
interdisciplinary team will then analyze the comments and respond to 
them in a final EIS. The final EIS is expected to be available in late 
fall, 2000, and the record of decision (ROD) will be signed shortly 
thereafter.

ADDRESSES: Copies of the supplemental draft EIS may be obtained from 
ICBEMP, 304 N. 8th Street, Room 250, Boise, ID 83702 or by calling 
(208) 334-1770, ext. 120. The supplemental draft EIS is also available 
via the internet (http://www.icbemp.gov). Comments on the supplemental 
draft EIS should be submitted in writing to SDEIS, P.O. Box 420, Boise, 
Idaho 83701-0420. Comments may be submitted electronically at the 
Project's home page (http://www.icbemp.gov), where a comment form is 
available. Comments, including names and street addresses of 
respondents, will be available for public review at the Boise office 
during regular business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 
except holidays), and may be published as part of the final 
environmental impact statement. Individual respondents may request 
confidentiality. If you wish to withhold your name or street address 
from public review or from disclosure under the Freedom of Information 
Act, you must state this prominently at the beginning of your written 
comment. Such requests will be honored to the extent allowed by law. 
All submissions from organizations or businesses, and from individuals 
identifying themselves as representatives or officials of organizations 
or businesses, will be made available for public inspection in their 
entirety. Comments submitted anonymously will be accepted and 
considered; however, those who submit anonymous comments may not have 
standing to appeal the decision under 36 CFR 217 (Forest Service) or 
standing to protest the proposed decision under 43 CFR 1610.5-2 (Bureau 
of Land Management).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Susan Giannettino, Project Manager, 
304 North 8th St., Room 250, Boise, Idaho 83702, phone (208) 334-1770; 
or Geoff Middaugh, Deputy Project Manager, P.O. Box 2344, Walla Walla, 
Washington 99362, phone (509) 522-4030.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On February 1, 1994, the Forest Service and 
Bureau of Land Management published, in the Federal Register, a notice 
of intent to prepare an EIS (the Eastside Environmental Impact 
Statement) to develop a scientifically sound, ecosystem-based 
management strategy for the lands managed by those two agencies and 
located east of the Cascade crest in Oregon and Washington. On December 
7, 1994, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management published a 
notice of intent to prepare an EIS (the Upper Columbia River Basin 
Environmental Impact Statement) and conduct planning activity to 
develop a scientifically sound, ecosystem-based management strategy for 
lands administered by those two agencies within the Columbia River 
basin in the states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. On 
August 7, 1995, the two agencies published an amended notice of intent 
excluding the Forest Service-administered lands within the Greater 
Yellowstone Ecosystem from the Upper Columbia River Basin planning 
effort.
    On June 6, 1997, the Environmental Protection Agency published its 
notice of availability of the two draft EISs--Eastside draft EIS and 
Upper Columbia River Basin draft EIS--and informed the public of a 120-
day public review period. The review period was ultimately extended to 
eleven months. During the public review period, over 83,000 responses, 
commenting on the two draft EISs, were received.
    To simplify further public review, to clarify the fact that one 
broad-scale strategy is being developed, and to save time and money in 
preparation, printing, and distribution of additional documents, the 
Executive Steering Committee (the responsible officials for this 
project) has decided that future environmental analysis of alternative 
management strategies will be documented in one EIS, rather than two. 
(This unified effort is referred to as the Interior Columbia Basin 
Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP)). Further, alternative management 
strategies will focus on issues that are best addressed at the basin-
wide scale. Those issues that are limited to smaller geographic units 
(individual or small groupings of administrative units) will be 
resolved at that level through local public involvement and the land 
management agencies' existing planning and decision-making processes.
    The Executive Steering Committee decided to refine the management 
direction being developed in response to public comment. They 
determined that the refined management direction could include 
substantial changes in the proposed action that would be relevant to 
environmental concerns, and that the purposes of the National 
Environmental Policy Act would be furthered by preparing a supplemental 
draft EIS.
    The supplemental draft EIS is responsive to the basin-wide issues 
identified during the initial public scoping and described in the two 
draft EISs, the public comments received on the two draft EISs, and the 
findings of the Science Integration Team, described in An Assessment of 
Ecosystem Components in the Interior Columbia Basin and Portions of the 
Klamath and

[[Page 17625]]

Great Basins (Quigley, and Arbelbide, eds 1997) and Integrated 
Scientific Assessment for ecosystem management in the interior Columbia 
basin and portions of the Klamath and Great Basins (Quigley, Haynes and 
Graham, eds) 1996.
    The characteristics of the refined management direction described 
and analyzed in the supplemental draft EIS are as follows:
    1. It addresses the limited number of issues that must be resolved 
at the Basin level.
    2. It describes an aquatic conservation strategy to replace interim 
strategies, PacFish and InFish. Also, the biological opinion (pursuant 
to formal consultation under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act) 
on the ICBEMP selected alternative will replace the three biological 
opinions recently completed on the Land and Resource Management Plans 
as amended by PacFish and InFish (National Marine Fisheries Service 
(NMFS), 1995, NMFS 1998, US Fish and Wildlife Service, 1998). The 
aquatic conservation strategy is also to provide adequate habitat and 
water quality to result in long-term viability for steelhead, salmon, 
cutthroat, bull trout and other aquatic species; and to address Basin-
wide Clean Water Act responsibilities.
    3. The refined direction describes a terrestrial habitat strategy 
to provide habitat for wide-ranging species. Species that have limited 
ranges and require site-specific information (e.g., woodland caribou) 
will be addressed at the scale most appropriate to their needs rather 
than in the ICBEMP planning.
    4. Landscape health issues will be addressed through objectives and 
standards to provide a common set of desired outcomes and to coordinate 
budgeting, priority setting, and on-the-ground activities. (Specific 
design of activities will be addressed at the local level, rather than 
in this basin-wide supplemental draft EIS.) Issues addressed include 
the spread of noxious weeds, and the potential for unnaturally large 
and dangerous wild fires.
    5. The supplemental draft EIS includes objectives and standards 
designed to ensure land management considers and, to the extent 
possible, supports economic and/or social needs of people, cultures, 
and communities through more sustainable and predictable levels of 
goods and services from National Forest System and Bureau of Land 
Management lands. The objectives and standards will respond to the need 
to contribute to the vitality and resiliency of human communities and 
to provide for human uses and values of natural resources consistent 
with maintaining healthy, diverse ecosystems.
    Regarding the decisions recorded in the Record of Decision for 
Amendments to Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management Planning 
Documents Within the Range of the Northern Spotted Owl, (also referred 
to as the Northwest Forest Plan) approved April 13, 1994, the Eastside 
draft EIS said, ``While the alternatives and corresponding analysis in 
the EIS include this overlap area [i.e., that portion of the range of 
the northern spotted owl found east of the Cascade crest], decisions in 
the Northwest Forest Plan would not be superseded by Eastside EIS 
decisions unless subsequent amendments were made per Northwest Forest 
Plan direction.'' Many readers were not certain what this meant. To 
reduce confusion, the Executive Steering Committee for ICBEMP has 
eliminated this overlap area from the ICBEMP decision space. The record 
of decision for the ICBEMP will not apply to any area already being 
managed under the Northwest Forest Plan.
    As noted above, the refined management direction is being developed 
to address issues that are best resolved at the basin-wide scale. The 
Executive Steering Committee has determined that current issues on 
Forest Service- and Bureau of Land Management-administered lands within 
the States of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada do not need to be resolved at 
the basin level and will be more efficiently addressed through existing 
planning processes at the local (National Forest or BLM District/Field 
Office) level. (The approximate acreage of Forest Service-and Bureau of 
Land Management-administered lands within the Columbia River Basin 
within each of these three states is as follows: Wyoming, 23,000; Utah, 
111,500; and Nevada, 2.6 million, for a total of 2.7 million acres, or 
about 4% of the Forest Service- and Bureau of Land Management-
administered lands within the ICBEMP area.) No basin-wide issues have 
been identified on the lands within the Columbia River Basin 
administered by BLM in Wyoming. In Utah, the Forest Service will 
replace its interim InFish strategy (which applies to native fish 
within the planning area) through the Sawtooth National Forest plan 
revision, scheduled for completion by the end of the year 2000. In 
Nevada, the Forest Service will replace the interim InFish strategy 
through the plan amendment process.
    Therefore, no Bureau of Land Management- or Forest Service-
administered lands in Wyoming, Utah, or Nevada will be included in the 
supplemental draft EIS, final EIS, or the record of decision for the 
Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project.
    The Supplemental draft EIS describes and analyzes three 
alternatives: a no action alternative, updated from the version 
presented in the two draft EISs; and two alternatives that share the 
characteristics of the refined management direction described earlier 
in this notice. One of these two alternatives describes a relatively 
conservative approach to decreasing long-term risk. The other explores 
the potential to decrease long-term risk faster by accepting greater 
short-term risk. This latter alternative requires less analysis before 
restoration is undertaken.
    The selected alternative may result in amendment to the Forest 
Service Regional Guides for the Northern, Intermountain, and Pacific 
Northwest Regions and will amend land use plans for the administrative 
units of the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management within the 
ICBEMP area as follows:
    Forest Service: Boise, Payette, Salmon-Challis, and Sawtooth 
National Forests and the portion of the Caribou National Forest outside 
the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in the Intermountain Region; 
Panhandle, Clearwater, Nez Perce, Kootenai, Lolo, Flathead, Helena, 
Deerlodge, and Bitterroot National Forests in the Northern Region; and 
Ochoco, Winema, Malheur, Deschutes, Fremont, Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla, 
Okanogan, and Colville National Forests in the Pacific Northwest 
Region. Bureau of Land Management: Lower Snake River District, Upper 
Snake River District, and the Upper Columbia-Salmon Clearwater District 
in Idaho; Missoula Field Office in Montana; and Prineville, Lakeview, 
Burns, Vale, and Spokane Districts in Oregon/Washington.

    Dated: March 22, 2000.
Martha Hahn,
State Director, Bureau of Land Management.

    Dated: March 23, 2000.
Dale Bosworth,
Regional Forester, U.S. Forest Service.
[FR Doc. 00-8208 Filed 4-3-00; 8:45 am]
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