[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 47 (Friday, March 9, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14195-14196]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-6065]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Bureau of Land Management

[CA-190-1610-DM-024B]


Notice of Intent To Participate in a Multi-Jurisdictional Land-
Use Planning Effort, With Environmental Impact Analysis, for the Coast 
Dairies Property, Santa Cruz County, CA, and Prepare an Amendment to 
the Hollister Resource Management Plan

AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management.

ACTION: Notice of intent to participate in a multi-jurisdictional land-
use planning effort, with environmental impact analysis, for the Coast 
Dairies Property, Santa Cruz County, California, and prepare an 
amendment to the Hollister Resource Management Plan.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land 
Management (BLM) provides formal notice that it will participate in a 
multi-jurisdictional land-use planning effort with the California 
Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) and the Trust for Public Land 
(TPL), a California non-profit public corporation. The planning effort 
is being conducted by the TPL for the Coast Dairies Property located in 
northern Santa Cruz County, California. As part of this planning 
effort, the BLM will prepare an amendment to the Hollister Resource 
Management Plan (RMP). The RMP amendment will be conducted in order to 
assess the feasibility of transferring part or all of the property to 
BLM, or BLM and DPR, for joint management between BLM and DPR, and to 
include the implementation of the final planning decision, if 
appropriate, under the Hollister RMP. This planning effort will include 
the preparation of a companion environmental impact analysis. This 
notice also announces the first public scoping meeting associated with 
the planning effort and that subsequent meetings will be held.

DATES: A scoping meeting will be held beginning at 10 a.m., on March 
10, 2001, at the Loudon Nelson Community Center Auditorium, 301 Center 
Street, Santa Cruz, California. Written comments will be accepted on 
topics related the scoping meeting until April 10, 2001. Subsequent 
meetings will be announced in regional and local news media and the 
webpages listed below, as these dates are established. At this time, 
the draft plan and the BLM's draft Hollister RMP amendment are 
anticipated to be available for public review and comment in summer 
2002, and the final plan and proposed Hollister RMP amendment will be 
completed by winter 2002. It is anticipated that notice of a Record of 
Decision and the final Hollister RMP amendment will be published in the 
Federal Register in winter 2002/2003.

ADDRESSES: Comments should be sent to the Field Manager, USDI Bureau of 
Land Management, 20 Hamilton Court, Hollister, CA 95023, ATTN: Coast 
Dairies Planning Project

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Rick Hanks, BLM, at (831) 630-5036.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Bureau of Land Management and the 
California Department of Parks and Recreation intend to cooperate and 
collaborate with the Trust for Public Land in a land-use planning 
effort that will result in the development of the Long-Term Resource 
Protection and Use Plan (plan) for the Coast Dairies Property. The 
Coast Dairies Property (property) is approximately 7,000 acres located 
in northern Santa Cruz County, California. The property is currently 
held by the Coast Dairies & Land Co. (CDLC)., which in turn is owned by 
TPL. The purpose of the plan is to assess the value of the natural, 
cultural, and social resource attributes and develop management 
strategies that can best balance and protect the identified values.
    TPL is now developing a Long-Term Resource Protection and Use Plan 
for the Coast Dairies property. It is the intent of this planning 
effort that, upon successful completion of the plan and the planning 
process, the property would be transferred to BLM and DPR for joint 
long-term stewardship for the benefit of the American people, provided 
that the completed plan is consistent with the laws and authorities of 
each of the two public agencies. This cooperative undertaking provides 
the opportunity for the two public agencies, BLM and DPR, to be 
involved from the beginning with the planning effort associated with a 
unique parcel of private land. BLM will prepare an amendment to the 
Hollister RMP in order to ensure that the Long-Term Resource Protection 
and Use Plan

[[Page 14196]]

process is consistent with BLM's statutory and regulatory requirements.
    The plan will include information necessary for the planning 
documents of each of the two public agencies. This information will 
assist the agencies' preparation of environmental documents that meet 
the requirements of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) 
and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to support a final 
decision of whether or not to accept the property and adoption of the 
agencies' respective management plans. The BLM and DPR will each serve 
as the lead agency in their respective NEPA/CEQA processes.
    TPL and CDLC have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), 
completed in August 8, 2000, with BLM and DPR that commits these 
agencies to engage in the Coast Dairies planning process. The MOU also 
indicates that if BLM and DPR were to take the property, the plan would 
be accepted by the agencies as conditions or restrictions that would 
protect the land and guide the agencies' long-term policy for the 
property.
    The plan will be prepared consistent with the following vision 
statement:

    It is the purpose of the Coast Dairies Steering Committee to 
protect and preserve in perpetuity those intrinsic natural and 
pastoral qualities that make this 7,000-acre coastal 
area important to the people of the region, the local community, the 
state, and the nation.
    Sound long-term stewardship of this land will be achieved 
through cost-effective, adaptive management of the property designed 
to conserve and enhance its biological, open space and agricultural 
values, restore wetland riparian, native grassland, forested and 
other sensitive habitats, and provide compatible recreation.
    Adaptive management--continual monitoring of the property's 
resources as the basis for decisions related to the land's use--will 
allow for responsible stewardship of the natural and economic 
resources of the property. It will also create valuable 
opportunities for education in the field of integrating traditional 
economic and recreational activities, including sustainable coastal 
agriculture, with programs designed to protect native biodiversity 
and other natural landscape values.

    In addition to adherence to this vision statement, the plan will 
generally be designed in accordance with the following conservation 
objectives:
     Conserve and enhance the biological and open space values 
afforded by the resources, size, and connectivity of the property;
     Restore key resources such as stream, riparian, and 
watershed habitats and coastal prairies;
     Protect natural forested areas from commercial harvest, 
except to the extent determined necessary or desirable for public 
safety or the health of the forest;
     Create opportunities for public access for recreation and 
enjoyment that maximize the potential for linkages with nearby lands 
and are compatible with protection of existing uses and natural 
resource values;
     Maintain and enhance the feasibility of continued 
agricultural use in ways that are consistent with protection of natural 
resource values; and,
     Allow for other economic uses of the land, provided they 
are consistent with overriding biological and open space conservation 
needs and objectives.
    During the planning process, alternatives will be developed that 
will identify a reasonable range of options for protecting resources 
while allowing certain specified sustainable uses. BLM and DPR will 
identify/cooperating agencies for the environmental analysis portion of 
the planning effort. In addition, the public will be invited to 
participate in the scoping process, review of the draft and proposed 
plans, and attend public comment meetings.

Herrick E. Hanks,
Assistant Field Manager, Hollister Field Office.
[FR Doc. 01-6065 Filed 3-8-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3710-FS-M