[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 74 (Tuesday, April 17, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19792-19794]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-9454]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Fish and Wildlife Service


Availability of a Draft Combined Environmental Assessment and 
Habitat Conservation Plan, Preliminary Finding of No Significant 
Impact, and Notice of Receipt of an Application for an Incidental Take 
Permit by Plum Creek Timber Company for Forest Management and Timber 
Harvest on Plum Creek Lands in Arkansas and Louisiana

AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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    Plum Creek Timber Company, Inc. and its associated companies (Plum 
Creek or Applicant) seeks an incidental take permit (ITP) from the Fish 
and Wildlife Service (Service) pursuant to section 10(a)(1)(B) of the 
Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). The proposed take 
would be incidental to otherwise lawful activities, including forest 
management and related activities on private land owned by Plum Creek. 
The proposed action would involve approval of the Applicant's Habitat 
Conservation Plan (HCP), as required by section 10(a)(2)(B) of the Act, 
to minimize and mitigate for the incidental take of the Federally 
endangered red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis). The subject 
permit would authorize take of RCWs on approximately 261,000 acres of 
the Applicant's lands in Union County, Arkansas, and Union and Ouachita 
Parishes, Louisiana. The minimization and mitigation measures outlined 
in the Applicant's HCP to address effects of the proposed action to 
protected species are described further in the SUPPLEMENTARY 
INFORMATION section below.
    A more detailed description of the mitigation and minimization 
measures to address the effects of the Project to the red-cockaded 
woodpecker is provided in the Applicant's HCP, the Service's draft 
Environmental Assessment (EA), and in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION 
section below.
    The Service announces the availability of a combined draft 
Environmental Assessment (EA) and Habitat Conservation Plan/Application 
for Incidental Take. The permit application incorporates the 
Applicant's HCP as the proposed action for evaluation in the Service's 
EA. Copies of the draft EA and HCP may be obtained by making a request 
to the Regional Office (see ADDRESSES). Requests must be in writing to 
be processed. This notice also advises the public that the Service has 
made a preliminary determination that issuing the ITP is not a major 
Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human 
environment within the meaning of Section 102(2)(C) of the National 
Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA). The preliminary 
Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is based on information 
contained in the draft EA and HCP. The final determination will be made 
no sooner than 60 days from the date of this notice. This notice is 
provided pursuant to section 10 of the Act and NEPA regulations (40 CFR 
1506.6).
    The Service specifically requests information, views, and opinions 
from the public via this Notice on the federal action, including the 
identification of any other aspects of the human environment not 
already identified in the Service's draft EA. Further, the Service 
specifically solicits information regarding the adequacy of the HCP as 
measured against the Service's ITP issuance criteria found in 50 CFR 
parts 13 and 17.
    If you wish to comment, you may submit comments by any one of 
several methods. Please reference permit number TE034255-0 in such 
comments. You may mail comments to the Service's Regional Office (see 
ADDRESSES). You may also comment via

[[Page 19793]]

the internet to ``[email protected]''. Please submit comments over the 
internet as an ASCII file avoiding the use of special characters and 
any form of encryption. Please also include your name and return 
address in your internet message. If you do not receive a confirmation 
from the Service that we have received your internet message, contact 
us directly at either telephone number listed below (see FURTHER 
INFORMATION). Finally, you may hand deliver comments to either Service 
office listed below (see ADDRESSES). Our practice is to make comments, 
including names and home addresses of respondents, available for public 
review during regular business hours. Individual respondents may 
request that we withhold their home address from the administrative 
record. We will honor such requests to the extent allowable by law. 
There may also be other circumstances in which we would withhold from 
the administrative record a respondent's identity, as allowable by law. 
If you wish us to withhold your name and address, you must state this 
prominently at the beginning of your comments. We will not; however, 
consider anonymous comments. We will make all submissions from 
organizations or businesses, and from individuals identifying 
themselves as representatives or officials of organizations or 
businesses, available for public inspection in their entirety.

DATES: Written comments on the ITP application, draft EA, and HCP 
should be sent to the Service's Regional Office (see ADDRESSES) and 
should be received on or before June 18, 2001.

ADDRESSES: Persons wishing to review the application, HCP, and EA may 
obtain a copy by writing the Service's Southeast Regional Office, 
Atlanta, Georgia. Documents will also be available for public 
inspection by appointment during normal business hours at the Regional 
Office, 1875 Century Boulevard, Suite 200, Atlanta, Georgia 30345 
(Attn: Endangered Species Permits), or Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, Ecological Services Field Office, 646 Cajundome 
Boulevard, Suite 400, Lafayette, Louisiana 70506. Written data or 
comments concerning the application, or HCP should be submitted to the 
Regional Office. Please reference permit number TE034255-0 in requests 
for the documents discussed herein.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. David Dell, Regional HCP 
Coordinator, (see ADDRESSES above), telephone: 404/679-7313, facsimile: 
404/679-7081; or Ms. Deborah Fuller, Fish and Wildlife Biologist, 
Lafayette Field Office, Louisiana (see ADDRESSES above), telephone: 
337/291-3100.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The red-cockaded woodpecker is a 
territorial, non-migratory species once common in the southern Coastal 
Plain from east Texas to Florida and north to Maryland, Missouri, and 
Kentucky. Red-cockaded woodpeckers roost and nest in cavities excavated 
in large, living pine trees 60 years old or older. The Red-cockaded 
woodpecker is a cooperative breeder that lives in family groups of one 
to nine birds, with each bird nesting in a separate cavity; the 
aggregate of cavity trees used by a group is called a cluster. Red-
cockaded woodpeckers prefer mature longleaf pine forests, but also 
inhabit loblolly, pond, slash, shortleaf, and Virginia pine stands. 
Without periodic fire to control hardwoods, Red-cockaded woodpeckers 
abandon clusters as other cavity competitors and predators typical of 
hardwood habitats move in. The decline of the Red-cockaded woodpecker 
is due primarily to loss of the old-growth, fire-maintained southern 
pine ecosystem as a result of logging, fire suppression, and conversion 
to non-forest land uses.
    Recovery activities for the Red-cockaded woodpecker are focused on 
Federal lands. Private lands are also important in the Service's 
recovery strategy to supplement habitat where the Federal land base is 
insufficient to support recovery, to establish and maintain 
connectivity with populations on public lands, and to provide a donor 
source of juvenile Red-cockaded woodpeckers for translocation into 
designated recovery populations. Red-cockaded woodpeckers on private 
lands have generally declined owing to the reluctance of landowners to 
manage their lands as Red-cockaded woodpecker habitat, given the Act's 
take restrictions on timber harvesting and development where the 
species is present. The Service considers that Red-cockaded woodpeckers 
geographically isolated on private lands will eventually cease to exist 
unless private landowners are encouraged to manage their lands for the 
species.
    The Applicant, by implementing the HCP, proposes to sustain Red-
cockaded woodpeckers on Plum Creek lands through the designation and 
management of a 3,069-acre Conservation Area (CA) in four sub-units on 
Plum Creek property. The geographic scope of the HCP is Plum Creek 
landholdings in Union County, Arkansas, and Union and Ouachita 
Parishes, Louisiana. Approximately 40 percent of those landholdings are 
located in Arkansas, and most of the Red-cockaded woodpeckers on Plum 
Creek lands are in Arkansas. Three CA sub-units are located in Union 
County, Arkansas, adjacent to Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge 
(NWR), and one sub-unit is located in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, 
adjacent to D'Arbonne NWR. The Applicant will manage the CA as high-
quality Red-cockaded woodpecker habitat to support up to 30 Red-
cockaded woodpecker groups over the 30-year ITP duration. Currently, 
there exist 15 active Red-cockaded woodpecker clusters in the CA and 11 
active clusters outside the CA, for a total of 26 known active Red-
cockaded woodpecker clusters on Plum Creek lands. The Applicant 
proposes to consolidate those clusters by translocating juvenile Red-
cockaded woodpeckers into the CA to replace groups taken incidental to 
timber harvest outside the CA, and by intensively managing habitat 
within the CA to further increase the Red-cockaded woodpecker 
population there. Under the HCP, the Applicant proposes 22 conservation 
commitments addressing mitigation of incidental take (by population 
consolidation, habitat management, and demographic support within the 
CA), mitigation banking, monitoring, changed circumstances, adaptive 
management, and administration and training. The Applicant and the 
Service believe the biological goal of the HCP to consolidate a more 
stable Red-cockaded woodpecker population within the CA would benefit 
the species on Plum Creek lands, and on Felsenthal NWR and D'Arbonne 
NWR by providing demographic support.
    The duration of the ITP is for 30 years and would authorize take of 
up to 11 Red-cockaded woodpecker groups outside the CA incidental to 
timber management activities, plus incidental take of any clusters in 
excess of conservation obligation within the CA. Maintenance of habitat 
and establishment of Red-cockaded woodpecker groups in excess of that 
required to mitigate for take under this ITP will provide the Applicant 
the ability to sell mitigation credits to third parties. Among the 
minimization and mitigation measures proposed by the Applicant are no 
take of Red-cockaded woodpeckers during the breeding season, 
consolidation of isolated groups to areas within the CA, and intensive 
management of the CA to provide current and potential Red-cockaded 
woodpecker habitat.
    The Service evaluated the environmental consequences of three 
alternatives to the proposed action in the combined draft EA/HCP. The 
no-

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action alternative would likely result in the natural extirpation of 
all Red-cockaded woodpecker groups within 20 years because of habitat 
fragmentation, geographic isolation, and lack of intensive management 
(especially prescribed fire or other hardwood control actions). A 
second alternative involves the Applicant's implementation of the 
Service's ``Draft Red-cockaded Woodpecker Procedures Manual for Private 
Lands'' (Private Lands Manual), without creation of a Conservation 
Area. This would delay, but is not enough to prevent, the eventual 
extirpation of Red-cockaded woodpeckers on the Applicant's lands. This 
would occur because maintenance of habitat will retain woodpecker 
groups (unlike the no-action alternative), but those groups would not 
persist due to their small size (often comprising a single bird) and 
demographic isolation from potential mates in other groups. The third 
alternative to the proposed action involves mitigation efforts on lands 
recently sold by the Applicant to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for 
eventual transfer to the Service as part of Upper Ouachita NWR. 
Mitigation on the TNC tract would result in a greater contribution to 
Red-cockaded woodpecker persistence in the affected environment than 
either the no-action alternative or the Private Lands Manual 
alternative, but less than the proposed alternative. Moreover, the 
applicant does not own the property, and once it is transferred to the 
Upper Ouachita NWR, the applicant would no longer retain the option of 
managing for excess woodpecker groups to sell as mitigation credits to 
third parties. The Applicant's HCP was developed in an adaptive 
management framework to allow changes in the program based on new 
scientific information including, but not limited to, biological needs 
and management actions proven to benefit the species or its habitat.
    Under section 9 of the Act and its implementing regulations, 
``taking'' of endangered and threatened wildlife is prohibited. 
However, the Service, under limited circumstances, may issue permits to 
take such wildlife if the taking is incidental to and not the purpose 
of otherwise lawful activities. The Applicant has prepared an HCP as 
required for the incidental take permit application.
    As stated above, the Service has made a preliminary determination 
that the issuance of the ITP is not a major Federal action 
significantly affecting the quality of the human environment within the 
meaning of section 102(2)(C) of NEPA. This preliminary information may 
be revised due to public comment received in response to this notice 
and is based on information contained in the draft EA and HCP.
    The Service will also evaluate whether the issuance of a section 
10(a)(1)(B) ITP complies with section 7 of the Act by conducting an 
intra-Service section 7 consultation. The results of the biological 
opinion, in combination with the above findings, will be used in the 
final analysis to determine whether or not to issue the ITP.

    Dated: March 26, 2001.
H. Dale Hall,
Acting Regional Director.
[FR Doc. 01-9454 Filed 4-16-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-55-P