[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 127 (Friday, June 30, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 40687-40689]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-16440]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Bureau of Land Management

[WY-040-1610]


Notice of Availability of the Draft Environmental Impact 
Statement (EIS) for the Jack Morrow Hills Coordinated Activity Plan 
(JMHCAP), Sweetwater, Fremont, and Sublette Counties, WY

AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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SUMMARY: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has prepared a draft EIS 
for the JMHCAP. This is an integrated activity planning effort to 
provide more specific management direction for the BLM-administered 
public lands in the Jack Morrow Hills area, located in Sweetwater, 
Fremont, and Sublette Counties, Wyoming. The draft EIS documents the 
analysis of four alternatives, including BLM's preferred alterative, 
for managing the BLM-administered lands in the Jack Morrow Hills 
planning area. When completed, the JMHCAP will provide a framework for 
managing the BLM-administered public lands and resources and allocating 
some of these uses in the planning area. Specifically, this CAP is 
focused on resolving three resource management issues: Minerals 
Resource Management and related rights-of-way and the effects of 
associated surface disturbing and disruptive activities on wildlife, 
wildlife habitat, and other sensitive resources; Resource Uses 
Affecting Vegetation, Soils, Air, and Watershed Values, and Recreation; 
and Cultural Resource Management. The CAP will include land and 
resource management decisions for fluid mineral leasing and some for 
mineral location in the core area and related affected areas. These 
decisions were not ready for inclusion in the Green River Resource 
Management Plan (RMP), prepared in 1997, and were deferred to the CAP. 
In addition, this planning effort proposes to determine the appropriate 
levels and timing of leasing and development of energy resources, while 
sustaining the other important land and resource uses in the area, and 
is expected to result in modifying some existing RMP decisions. These 
deferred and modified RMP decisions will result in amending the Green 
River RMP. Other actions resulting from this planning effort would 
include some refinement of management prescriptions for road use and 
off-highway-vehicular use designations, grazing practices, recreational 
activities and facilities, identification of rights-of-way windows and 
concentration areas, and prescriptions for managing wildlife habitat.
    When completed, the CAP will provide more specific management 
direction to address potential conflicts among potential development of 
energy resources, recreational activities and facilities, livestock 
grazing, important wildlife habitat, cultural resources, and other 
important resource and land uses in the planning area. The planning 
area encompasses approximately 574,800 acres of public land surface and 
Federal

[[Page 40688]]

mineral estate administered by the BLM through the Rock Springs Field 
Office in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The objective of this activity 
planning effort is to determine the appropriate level and methods of 
all the possible combinations of land and resource uses that are 
mutually compatible and that provide for the important resource 
concerns in the area, such as sustainability of crucial big game 
habitat, air and water quality, scenic quality, vegetative cover and 
soil stability, recreational activities, livestock grazing and range 
improvement activities, mineral development, and other important 
resource concerns. The CAP also provides more specific management 
direction for the planning area toward preventing or addressing 
potential conflicts among or resulting from the various uses. Other 
actions that may result from this planning effort include: Determining 
the appropriate level and timing of leasing and development of energy 
resources within the JMHCAP area, transportation and access planning, 
designation of off-highway-vehicular use, livestock grazing practices, 
etc.
    The JMHCAP planning area encompasses the Steamboat Mountain, 
Greater Sand Dunes, White Mountain Petroglyphs, and Oregon Buttes Areas 
of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC); a portion of the South Pass 
Historic Landscape ACEC; the Oregon Buttes, Honeycomb Buttes, Greater 
Sand Dunes, Buffalo Hump, Whitehorse Creek, South Pinnacles, and Alkali 
Draw Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs); and three special recreation 
management areas: Greater Sand Dunes, Continental Divide National 
Scenic Trail, and the Oregon/Mormon Pioneer/Pony Express/California 
National Historic Trails.
    Notice is hereby given that public meetings will be held to seek 
public comment on the draft EIS.

DATES: Written comments will be accepted for 90 days following the date 
the Environmental Protection Agency publishes the notice of filing of 
the draft EIS for the JMHCAP in the Federal Register. That notice is 
expected to be published on July 7, 2000. Two public open houses to 
discuss the draft EIS will be held in Lander, Wyoming, at the Best 
Western Inn, on July 18, 2000, from 4-8 p.m., and in Rock Springs, 
Wyoming at the BLM Office on July 20, 2000, from 4-8 p.m. A field tour 
will be conducted on July 21, 2000. A public hearing will be held at 7 
p.m. on August 23, 2000, at the Western Wyoming Community College, Room 
1302, in Rock Springs. These meetings will be conducted to obtain 
public input and comment on the draft EIS. Future meetings or hearings 
and any other public involvement activities will be scheduled as 
needed. Notification will be through the Federal Register, other public 
notices, media news releases, or mailings.

ADDRESSES: Written comments should be sent to: JMHCAP Team Leader, 
Bureau of Land Management, Rock Springs Field Office, 280 Highway 191 
North, Rock Springs, Wyoming 82901, telephone number 307-352-0256. 
Comments submitted by electronic mail should be sent to: 
[email protected]. If you wish to withhold your name and/or 
street address, and private telephone number 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 representing, or who 
are officials of organizations or businesses, will be made available 
for public inspection in their entirety.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ted Murphy, Assistant Field Manager or 
Andy Tenney, Recreation Specialist, Rock Springs Field Office, Bureau 
of Land Management, office address and telephone number above.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Based upon concerns raised by the public 
during preparation of the Green River RMP, the BLM is preparing the 
JMHCAP. When completed, the CAP will provide management direction for 
the protection of important resources (e.g., desert elk and other big 
game habitat, unique sand dune-mountain shrub habitat, unstabilized-
stabilized sand dunes) while allowing for appropriate levels of leasing 
and development of energy resources, recreational activities, grazing 
practices, and other activities. The JMHCAP planning area has many 
pristine locations and encompasses Steamboat Mountain, the Greater Sand 
Dunes, Oregon Buttes and White Mountain Petroglyphs Areas of Critical 
Environmental Concern (ACEC), seven WSAs, and part of the South Pass 
Historic Landscape ACEC.
    The entire JMHCAP area contains about 622,330 acres of Federal, 
State, and private lands. The core area, where fluid leasing and 
mineral location RMP decisions have been deferred, contains 
approximately 80,410 acres. This planning effort also addresses other 
concerns found within the JMHCAP area including appropriate level and 
timing of leasing and development of energy resources, while sustaining 
other important land uses and resources such as big game habitat, 
recreation, and grazing. Other actions considered in this planning 
effort include transportation planning, off-highway-vehicular use 
designations and designation of roads for use, identifying grazing 
practices, and recreational activities and associated facilities.
    Public participation has been sought through scoping, public 
meetings, and field trips to ensure that this planning effort addresses 
all issues and concerns from those interested in the management of 
public lands within the CAP planning area.
    The Draft EIS for the Jack Morrow Hills CAP describes and evaluates 
four alternative coordinated activity plans, including BLM's preferred 
alternative, for providing management direction for the BLM-
administered public lands in the CAP planning area. Each alternative 
analyzed in detail provides a complete and reasonable plan that could 
be used to guide the management of the planning area.
    The preferred alternative consists of management actions derived 
from the other alternatives analyzed in detail, and a few management 
actions that are unique to the Preferred Alternative. Development of 
the preferred alternative was based on the analysis of the other 
alternatives and was formulated to represent the BLM's preference of 
the best mix and balance of multiple-use land and resource management 
for the BLM-administered public lands in the planning area.
    There are five ACECs in the planning area and the designations on 
these ACECs were retained in the Green River RMP. However, one 
alternative considers expanding two of the ACECs, one of which is not 
currently within the planning area. The Special Status Plant Species 
ACEC (located outside the planning area) would be expanded to include 
lands within the CAP planning area that are occupied by populations of 
Lesquerella macrocarpa, and the Steamboat Mountain ACEC would be 
considered for expansion to include overlapping crucial big game 
habitats surrounding and adjacent to the Steamboat Mountain ACEC. The 
management actions for the expanded ACECs include restrictions on 
surface-disturbing activities and other land uses, such as, limitations 
on oil and gas, coal and sodium exploration and development activities, 
geophysical exploration, right-of-way construction, and off-road 
vehicular travel. Portions of these ACECs may be closed to future 
locatable mineral exploration and

[[Page 40689]]

development, subject to valid existing rights. The level of these 
various kinds of restrictions and types of land uses affected would be 
different in each expanded area.
    There are seven WSAs within the planning area: Oregon Buttes, 
Honeycomb Buttes, Greater Sand Dunes, Buffalo Hump, Whitehorse Creek, 
South Pinnacles, and Alkali Draw WSAs. Management of these WSAs has 
been addressed in other Wilderness EIS documents, therefore, wilderness 
management is not addressed in the JMHCAP EIS. When Congress makes 
decisions on the designation of Wilderness areas in the Jack Morrow 
Hills planning area, those decisions will be incorporated into the CAP 
and the Green River RMP and, if necessary, the RMP would be amended 
accordingly. Until Congress acts, the WSAs will be managed under the 
Wilderness Interim Management Policy.
    Copies of the draft EIS for the JMHCAP are available in the Rock 
Springs Field Office at the above address, the Bureau of Land 
Management, Lander Field Office, 1335 Main Street, Lander, Wyoming 
82520, and the Bureau of Land Management Wyoming State Office, 5353 
Yellowstone Road, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82009. Anyone wishing to be placed 
on the mailing list for the Jack Morrow Hills Coordinated Activity Plan 
effort should contact the Rock Springs Field Office at the above 
address.

    Dated: June 22, 2000.
Alan L. Kesterke,
Associate State Director.
[FR Doc. 00-16440 Filed 6-29-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4320-22-P