[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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