[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 177 (Wednesday, September 14, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54350-54352]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-18204]


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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Forest Service


Plumas National Forest, Beckwourth Ranger District; Plumas 
County, California Lake Davis Northern Pike Eradication Project

AGENCY: Forest Service, USDA.

ACTION: Notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement.

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SUMMARY: The USDA Forest Service, Plumas National Forest, gives notice 
of the Agency's intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement 
(EIS) in cooperation with the California Department of Fish and Game 
(CDFG) issuing a joint Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The EIS will 
consider Federal and State actions associated with CDFG's proposal to 
eradicate northern pike, Esox lucius, from Lake Davis and its 
tributaries. Northern pike are restricted in California and it is 
unlawful to import, transport, or possess live animals. This proposed 
project is designed to help protect the fishery resources of the state 
by eradicating pike from Lake Davis and its upstream tributaries. CDFG 
has proposed to treat the reservoir and its tributaries with rotenone, 
at a concentration sufficient to eradicate northern pike and to restock 
the reservoir with trout. The associated actions are: (1) the Forest 
Service issuing CDFG a special use permit for access through, and use 
of National Forest lands adjacent to Lake Davis and its tributaries for 
implementing the proposed project. (2) a Forest order to close the 
entire area to the public during implementation of the proposed project 
and to close access to the lake bed as the lake level is lowered.

DATES: Comments concerning the scope of the analysis must be postmarked 
no later than October 31, 2005. The draft EIS is expected March 2006 
and the final EIS is expected November 2006.

ADDRESSES: Send written comments to Julie Cunningham, P.O. Box 1858, 
Portola CA 96122. Email comments may

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be submitted to: [email protected]. Comments may also be 
submitted at the Web site: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/northernpike.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: California Department of Fish and 
Game, Portola Field Office, P.O. Box 1858, Portola, CA 96122, (530) 
832-4068. U.S. Forest Service, Plumas National Forest Supervisors 
Office, Angela Dillingham, 159 Lawrence Street, P.O. Box 11500, Quincy 
CA 95971, (530) 283-2050.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Lake Davis is located in Plumas County, 
California, at an elevation of 5,775 feet above sea level. Included in 
the project area are Lake Davis, all the tributaries in the watershed 
to Lake Davis and Big Grizzly Creek below Lake Davis. These all occur 
in the upper reaches of the Middle Fork Feather River watershed in the 
Sierra Nevada Mountains. Lake Davis is a State Water Project reservoir 
that was first impounded in 1966-68 by the construction of Grizzly 
Valley Dam on Big Grizzly Creek. Three main tributaries, Big Grizzly, 
Freeman and Cow Creeks, feed the reservoir. The total drainage area is 
about 44 square miles. Lake Davis has a surface area of 4,025 acres 
when full, a capacity of 84,371 acre-feet and an average depth of 21 
feet. The deepest point of the reservoir is 108 feet, just upstream of 
Big Grizzly Dam. The reservoir is operated by the California Department 
of Water Resources (CDWR), and lies within the U.S. Forest Service, 
Plumas National Forest.
    Lake Davis water is used for recreation, irrigation, and for the 
benefit of fish and wildlife. It supports a trout fishery managed by 
CDFG. Lake Davis has been developed as a source of domestic water for 
the City of Portola and the Grizzly Lake Resort Improvement District. 
The Plumas County water treatment plant, which treats Lake Davis water, 
was taken offline, as it did not meet regulatory standards, and remains 
offline pending improvements to the water treatment plant. Currently 
neither entity uses Lake Davis as a water supply. Nearby residences 
depend on ground water from private wells.
    Pike were first discovered in Lake Davis in 1994. In 1997, a 
chemical treatment was conducted to remove pike from Lake Davis and its 
tributary streams. Pike were rediscovered in Lake Davis in May 1999, 
about eighteen months following what appeared to be a successful 
rotenone treatment of the reservoir. In 2000 CDFG and the Lake Davis 
Steering Committee developed a management plan to suppress the pike 
population, contain it within Lake Davis and to remove as many pike as 
possible from the reservoir (to date approximately 50,000). In 
September 2003 CDFG evaluated the previous 3\1/2\ years of pike 
removal, which can be viewed on the Web at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/northenpike/summary_report.pdf. Data indicated pike numbers continued 
to increase in spite of the concerted control efforts.

Purpose and Need for Action

    Pike are a nonnative invasive fish species illegally introduced to 
California. Pike can seriously impact aquatic ecosystems by heavy 
predation on other fish species, where habitat conditions are 
favorable. Introduced pike have the potential to become the dominant 
fish species, often to the near total exclusion of native fish species. 
Portions of the Feather River, Sacramento River, and the Sacramento-San 
Joaquin Delta, as well as many aquatic environments in other California 
watersheds, match the preferred habitat of the pike in terms of 
temperature, aquatic vegetation, current speed and other features. The 
geographical extent of pike in California is thought to be limited to 
Lake Davis and its upstream tributary streams. Lake Davis flows into 
the Middle Fork Feather River, which flows into Lake Oroville and then 
into the Sacramento River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Within 
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta system, a number of fish species have 
life history stages and habitat preferences, that make them vulnerable 
to pike predation. These include the state and federally listed out 
migrating juveniles of winter and spring run Chinook salmon, steelhead 
and delta smelt. Other species of concern are splittail, Sacramento 
perch and a variety of fish species including stocked trout.
    Based upon current knowledge of the physical and biological 
processes that influence the spread and impact of pike on aquatic 
ecosystems, the pike population in Lake Davis appears poised to have a 
serious and widespread environmental impact on California's aquatic 
ecosystems. If the pike population is not eradicated, biological and 
physical processes or physical movement by humans will eventually 
result in the spread of the pike population to downstream locations. 
The risk of such a spread has steadily increased since 1999 as the pike 
population in Lake Davis has increased in numbers. Due to the pike 
containment in just the Lake Davis area, a window of opportunity exists 
to eliminate the species from the state.

Proposed Action

    The EIS proposed action is to issue the required Forest Service 
Special Use Permit needed to carry out CDFG's proposed project. This 
would include a Forest Closure in the immediate area surrounding Lake 
Davis for public safety and to protect archaeological sites. The CDFG 
proposed project involves the draw down of Lake Davis to a volume of 
about 10,000-20,000 acre-feet. A liquid rotenone formulation would then 
be applied to eliminate pike. The remaining water held in Lake Davis 
and any ponded water, and waters flowing into Lake Davis, potentially 
from the headwaters of the three main tributaries, Big Grizzly, Freeman 
and Cow Creeks, to the reservoir, or wetland areas, ponds etc., 
adjacent to the flowing waters that are tributary to Lake Davis within 
its watershed would be treated with liquid rotenone at concentrations 
sufficient to eradicate the pike. It is anticipated at this time that 
the concentration of rotenone used would be 2 ppm.

Possible Alternatives

    To date, the following alternatives have been preliminarily 
identified: (1) Proposed Action (preferred alternative); (2) No action 
alternative that would continue the current management plan; (3) Draw 
down the reservoir to minimum pool (approximate surface area of 25 
acres, remaining volume about 90 acre feet) and use liquid rotenone; 
(4) Draw reservoir down to 48,000 acre-feet and eradicate with liquid 
rotenone; (5) Completely dewater reservoir and tributaries.

Lead and Cooperating Agencies

    The Forest Service is the lead agency in the preparation of the 
EIS. CDFG is the lead agency for the preparation of the EIR. Both 
agencies are cooperating to prepare a joint EIR/EIS.

Responsible Official

    Angela L. Dillingham, District Ranger, Beckwourth Ranger District, 
P.O. Box 7, Blairsden, CA 96103.

Nature of Decision To Be Made

    Whether to issue a special use permit to CDFG for access through, 
and use of, National Forest lands to Lake Davis for implementing the 
proposed northern pike eradication project. Whether to implement a 
Forest Closure during implementation of the proposed project.

Scoping Process

    Public scoping meetings are scheduled as follows:
    September 26, 2005, there will be two sessions, 1-3 pm and 6:30-9 
pm, at the Easterm Plumas Health Care Education

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Center, 500 1st Avenue, Portola, California;
    September 28, 2005, there will be two sessions, 1-3 pm and 6:30-9 
pm, at the Radisson Hotel, 500 Leisure Lane, Sacramento, California.

Permits or Licenses Required

    Approval from the following Agencies is required: U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service; U.S. Forest Service; Central Valley Regional Water 
Quality Control Board; California Department of Water Resources; 
California Department of Health Services; Northern Sierra Air Quality 
Management District; California Department of Pesticide Regulation; 
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Environmental Protection Agency.

Comment Requested

    This notice of intent initiates the scoping process which guides 
the development of the EIS. Comments submitted during the scoping 
process should be in writing or e-mail, and should be specific to the 
proposed action. The comments should describe as clearly and completely 
as possible any point of dispute, debate or disagreement the 
commentater has with the proposed action. Once scoping letters are 
received, all potential issues will be identified to analyze in depth, 
and a reasonable range of alternatives will be developed to address 
those significant issues. Potential environmental effects of the 
proposed action as well as alternatives will be analyzed in the EIS.
    Early Notice of Importance of Public Participation in Subsequent 
Environmental Review: A draft environmental impact statement (as part 
of a joint EIR/EIS) will be prepared for comment. The comment period on 
the draft EIS will be 45 days from the date the Environmental 
Protection Agency publishes the notice of availability in the Federal 
Register.The Forest Service believes, at this early stage, it is 
important to give reviewers notice of several court rulings related to 
public participation in the environmental review process. First, 
reviewers of draft environmental impact statements must structure their 
participation in the environmental review of the proposal so that it is 
meaningful and alerts an agency to the reviewer's position and 
contentions. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 
553 (1978). Also, environmental objections that could be raised at the 
draft environmental impact statement stage but that are not raised 
until after completion of the final environmental impact statement may 
be waived or dismissed by the courts. City of Angoon v. Hodel, 803 F.2d 
1016, 1022 (9th Cir. 1986) and Wisconsin Heritages, Inc. v. Harris, 490 
F. Supp. 1334, 1338 (E.D. Wis. 1980). Because of these court rulings, 
it is very important that those interested in this proposed action 
participate by the close of the 45-day comment period for the draft EIS 
so that substantive comments and objections are made available to the 
Forest Service at a time when it can meaningfully consider them and 
respond to them in the final environmental impact statement.
    To assist the Forest Service in identifying and considering issues 
and concerns on the proposed action, comments on the draft 
environmental impact statement should be as specific as possible. It is 
also helpful if comments refer to specific pages or chapters of the 
draft statement. Comments may also address the adequacy of the draft 
environmental impact statement or the merits of the alternatives 
formulated and discussed in the statement. Reviewers may wish to refer 
to the Council on Environmental Quality Regulations for implementing 
the procedural provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act at 
40 CFR 1503.3 in addressing these points.
    Comments received, including the names and addresses of those who 
comment, will be considered part of the public record on this proposal 
and will be available for public inspection.

(Authority: 40 CFR 1501.7 and 1508.22; Forest Service Handbook 
1909.15, Section 21).

    Dated: September 7, 2005.
Angela L. Dillingham,
District Ranger.
[FR Doc. 05-18204 Filed 9-13-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410-11-P