[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 221 (Friday, November 17, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 80270-80272]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-25427]


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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Forest Service


Stanislaus National Forest; California; Social and Ecological 
Resilience Across the Landscape 2.0 EIS

AGENCY: Forest Service, Agriculture (USDA).

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

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SUMMARY: The Forest Service (``Forest Service''), United States 
Department of Agriculture, is preparing an Environmental Impact 
Statement (EIS) for the Social and Ecological Resilience Across the 
Landscape 2.0 (SERAL 2.0) project. The project area is approximately 
160,000 acres in size, including approximately 119,000 acres of Forest 
Service lands. The project area includes the remainder of the 
Stanislaus Landscape--a Wildfire Crisis Strategy Priority Landscape 
identified in 2022. The project area also spans multiple High Risk 
Western Firesheds identified by the Secretary of Agriculture in January 
2023.

DATES: Comments concerning the scope of the analysis must be received 
by December 18, 2023. The draft environmental impact statement is 
expected in early February 2024, and the final environmental impact 
statement is expected in April 2024.

ADDRESSES: Scoping comments may be submitted electronically through 
https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public/commentInput?Project=63557. Written

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comments may be submitted via mail or by hand delivery to Stanislaus 
National Forest, Attn: SERAL 2.0, 19777 Greenley Road, Sonora, CA 
95370.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Benjamin Cossel (Stanislaus National 
Forest Public Affairs Officer) by email at [email protected]. 
Individuals who use telecommunication devices for the deaf and hard of 
hearing (TDD) may call the Federal Relay Service at 800-877-8339, 24 
hours a day, every day of the year, including holidays.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Purpose and Need for Action

    The purpose of SERAL 2.0 is to prepare the landscape for the safe 
reintroduction of fire as a key ecological process; increase the 
landscape's resilience and adaptive capacity to natural disturbances 
such as fire, drought, insects and disease; reduce the risk of fire 
spreading into communities or damaging critical infrastructure; and to 
manage the forest in a cost-effective manner, including making wood 
products available to local industries and businesses. The actions 
proposed in the SERAL 2.0 project are needed to minimize the potential 
for large-, high-severity fire and habitat loss; shift the landscape 
vegetation structure and composition towards conditions that are more 
in alignment with future desired conditions, control occurrences of 
invasive, non-native plants; and support prescribed fire and wildfire 
management operations.

Proposed Action

    The Stanislaus National Forest is proposing multiple actions to 
meet the purpose and need of the project. A combination of mechanical 
thinning and prescribed fire is proposed. Treatment objectives to 
create both late-open and mid-open forest structure will be achieved 
through mechanical thinning with strategically placed openings (gaps) 
and retained groups of trees (clumps) scattered throughout the treated 
landscape. Gaps and clumps will generally range in size between 0.1 and 
0.5 acres, each averaging approximately 0.25 acres in size and a gap 
frequency of approximately one every two acres. Thinning would 
primarily consist of timber harvesting but also includes non-commercial 
methods such as mastication and biomass removal. Multiple logging 
systems, road maintenance, temporary road construction, and landing 
development would be required for commercial timber harvest. A 
proportion of the proposed restoration treatments will occur within 
California spotted owl protected activity centers and territories 
designed to incorporate the management approaches and conservation 
measures specifications presented in the Conservation Strategy for the 
California Spotted Owl in the Sierra Nevada (USDA Forest Service 2019).
    The construction and maintenance of a shaded fuelbreak network is 
also proposed. The purpose of this proposed network is to break up 
large expanses of continuous fuels, support firefighter access and 
safety, increase suppression opportunities, and provide control points 
for the implementation of prescribed fire. To construct these 
fuelbreaks, trees may be thinned to shaded fuelbreak standards and 
continuous vegetation under 8'' DBH (the diameter of each tree is 
measured at ``breast height'') or 12 feet tall will be broken up into 
naturally appearing clumps or islands of varied size and shape. Salvage 
of insect-, disease-, drought-, and fire-killed trees is included as 
part of the proposed action. The area of potential salvage varies: for 
insect-, disease-, and drought-killed trees, the area of potential 
salvage is limited to within 0.25 miles of maintenance level 2, 3, 4, 
and 5 National Forest System (NFS) roads; not requiring a new temporary 
road greater than 500 feet within forested areas; outside of protected 
activity centers (PACs), and outside of wild and scenic river 
corridors. For fire-killed trees, the area of potential salvage is 
further limited to only 500 acres per Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) 6 
watershed.
    Non-native invasive weed control and eradication treatments are 
proposed for mapped known invasive weed locations, additional acres to 
account for a 20 percent rate of spread from those known locations, and 
a limited number of acres where future infestations are discovered 
after analysis.

Forest Plan Amendments

    The proposed project-specific forest plan amendments are designed 
to implement the management approaches and conservation measures 
presented in the Conservation Strategy for the California Spotted Owl 
in the Sierra Nevada (``The CSO Strategy''; USDA Forest Service 2019). 
The amendments are specific to the approximate 160,000-acre project 
area and proposed actions. The proposed amendments incorporate CSO 
Strategy conservation measures that provide some immediate stability 
for individual owls while implementing actions to better increase 
landscape resilience. The CSO Strategy concludes that short term 
impacts are a trade-off that is warranted to best develop resilient 
habitat conditions that will provide long term stability and future CSO 
habitat.

Expected Impacts

    This project is expected to significantly increase landscape 
resilience to natural disturbances which is the primary objective of 
SERAL 2.0. The treatments proposed to meet the desired landscape 
conditions may cause short term impacts to sensitive resources, 
including California spotted owl PACs. SERAL 2.0 is the second project 
on the Stanislaus National Forest to fully adopt and implement the CSO 
Strategy's management approaches and conservation measures (SERAL 1.0 
in 2022 was the first). Although the long-term benefits are expected to 
far outweigh the risks to resources from applying these new approaches, 
a measure of uncertainty is also present. The proposed actions have 
been designed based on best available science and are well supported. 
However, at present, there are not any documented post-treatment case-
studies of the outcomes of the treatments to directly inform the 
analysis, and thus the uncertainty.

Responsible Official

    The Responsible Official will be Jason Kuiken, Forest Supervisor, 
Stanislaus National Forest.

Scoping Comments

    This notice of intent initiates the scoping process which guides 
the development of the EIS. In this process, the Forest Service is 
requesting comments on potential impacts, and identification of any 
relevant information, studies, or analyses of any kind concerning 
impacts affecting the quality of the human environment. Public comments 
regarding this proposal will assist the Forest Service in identifying 
issues and opportunities associated with the proposal, how to best 
manage resources, and to focus the analysis. The SERAL 2.0 project was 
authorized to use the Western Firesheds Emergency Action Declaration 
(Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Section 40807) on April 14, 2023. Under 
this emergency authority, the SERAL 2.0 EIS will be developed to 
consider only a proposed action and no action alternative in detail, 
and the EIS and draft decision will not be subject to pre-decisional 
administrative review (Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 (Pub. L. 
112-74) as implemented by Subparts A and B of 36 CFR part 218 or part 
219).
    It is important that reviewers provide their comments at such times 
and in such manner that they are useful to the

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agency's preparation of the environmental impact statement. Therefore, 
comments should be provided prior to the close of the comment period 
and should clearly articulate the reviewers' concerns and contentions. 
The Forest Service will use the scoping comments to help identify 
potential significant issues related to the proposed action while 
preparing the draft EIS (DEIS). The DEIS is expected to be available 
for a 45-day opportunity to comment in early February 2024.
    Comments received in response to this solicitation, including names 
and addresses of those who comment, will be part of the public record 
for this proposed action. Comments submitted anonymously will be 
accepted and considered.

Nature of Decision To Be Made

    Given the purpose and need, the Responsible Official will determine 
whether the proposed actions comply with all applicable laws governing 
Forest Service actions and with the applicable standards and guidelines 
found in the Forest Plan of the Stanislaus National Forest; whether the 
EIS has sufficient environmental analysis to make an informed decision; 
and whether the proposed action meets the purpose and need for action. 
With this information, the Responsible Official must decide whether to 
select the proposed action and what, if any, additional actions should 
be required.

Substantive Provisions

    The substantive provisions of 36 CFR 219.8 through 219.11 that 
directly apply to the proposed amendments are 36 CFR 219.9 Diversity of 
Plant and Animal Communities, (a) Ecosystem plan components, (1) 
Ecosystem integrity (36 CFR 219(a)(1)); 36 CFR 219.9 Diversity of Plant 
and Animal Communities, (a) Ecosystem plan components, (2) Ecosystem 
diversity, (i) key characteristics associated with the terrestrial and 
aquatic ecosystem types (36 CFR 219(a)(2)(i)); 36 CFR 219.9 Diversity 
of Plant and Animal Communities, (a) Ecosystem plan components, (2) 
Ecosystem diversity, (ii) rare aquatic and terrestrial plant and animal 
communities (36 CFR 219(a)(2)(ii)); and 36 CFR 219.8 Sustainability, 
(b) Social and Economic Sustainability, (1) Social, cultural, and 
economic conditions relevant to the area influenced by the plan (36 CFR 
219.8(b)(1)).

    Dated: November 1, 2023.
Troy Heithecker,
Associate Deputy Chief, National Forest System.
[FR Doc. 2023-25427 Filed 11-16-23; 8:45 am]
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