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Augusta Timber Sale, Willamette National Forest, Lane County, Oregon
Augusta Timber Sale, Willamette National Forest, Lane County
[Federal Register: August 7, 1995 (Volume 60, Number 151)] [Notices]
[Page 40154-40155]
>From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Augusta Timber Sale, Willamette National Forest, Lane County, Oregon
AGENCY: Forest Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice; intent to prepare environmental impact statement.
SUMMARY: The Forest Service will prepare an environmental impact statement on a proposal to harvest trees and build roads in the Augusta drainage of the Blue River Ranger District. Approximately 200 acres of trees will be harvested and approximately 0.5 miles of road will be constructed. The proposal results from an extensive landscape design and watershed analysis conducted in the Augusta area. The dominant theme for that design was to base landscape and watershed objectives, designs, and prescriptions on an interpreted range of ``natural'' variability of disturbance processes.
DATES: Comments concerning the scope of the analysis should be received in writing by September 10, 1995.
ADDRESSES: Send written comments to Lynn Burditt, District Ranger, Blue River Range Station, P.O. Box 199, Blue River, Oregon, 97413.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Karen Geary, Resource Planning Assistant, (503) 822-3317.SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Augusta Creek timber sale proposal is one result of the Augusta Creek Project, a natural disturbance-based landscape ``design'' for a managed forest. The landscape design was projected for 200 years into the future using 20 year time steps. This specific timber sale proposal includes writing prescriptions for the nine blocks that would be in early seral conditions at the end of the first 20-year time step. This will result in harvesting approximately 200 acres of trees in the first timber sale entry and building approximately 0.5 miles of roads to access the trees. The nine blocks are located in T19S, R5E, Section 1; T19S, R51/2E, Sections 9 and 16; T18S, R5E, Sections 35 and 36; T18S, R51/2E, Sections 31, 32, and 33 (Lat 43 deg.56'00'', Long 122 deg.7'30''). Detailed ground review and alternative development will be concentrated on these nine landscape blocks. Decisions will include identification of the timing and location of timber harvests, silvicultural prescriptions, levels of green and dead tree retention, and the spatial patterns of retention trees. The Augusta Creek Landscape Design Project was initiated to establish and integrate landscape and watershed objectives into a landscape design to guide management activities within a 19,000 acre planning area in western Oregon. The objectives were to maintain native species, ecosystem processes and structures, and long-term ecosystem productivity in a Federally owned and managed landscape with substantial acreage allocated to timber harvest. A dominant theme has been to base landscape and watershed objectives, designs, and prescriptions on an interpreted range of ``natural'' variability of disturbance processes. A fire history study characterized fire patterns and regimes over the last 500 years. Changes in the existing and surrounding landscape due to past intensive human uses were also factored into the landscape design. Landscape prescriptions include a small-watershed based aquatic reserve system and major valley bottom corridor reserves. Where timber harvest is allocated, four landscape management areas prescribe varying rotation ages (100-300 years), green tree retention levels (15-50), and spatial patterns as derived from interpretations of fire regimes. These prescriptions were linked to specific blocks of land, which provides an efficient transition to site-level planning and project implementation. The EIS will tier to the Willamette National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (1990) as amended by the Record of Decision and Standards and Guidelines for Management of Habitat For Late Successional and Old-Growth Forest Related Species within the Range of the Northern Spotted Owl (1994).
Scoping will include public meetings and potentially visits to the site. The first public meeting is scheduled for August 3, 1995 and will be held at the Lane Transit District office in Eugene, Oregon. Additional public meetings will be held in August and September. Preliminary scoping identified a few issues. One of the issues is the location of some of the units and possible road construction in the Chucksney inventoried roadless area. This is the reason the Forest Service is preparing an EIS. Other issues identified at this point include water quality in Augusta Creek[[Page 40155]]
and in the South Fork of the McKenzie River and the Wild and Scenic Study River values of the South Fork McKenzie river. The lead agency for this proposal is the Forest Service. The responsible official is Lynn Burditt, District Ranger. The Forest Service invites your comments or ideas on this proposal and asks that they please be sent in writing to the above address. The draft EIS is expected to be filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and to be available for public review by October 1995. The comment period on the draft environmental impact statement will be 45 days from the date the Environmental Protection Agency publishes the notice of availability in the Federal Register. The Forest Service believes it is important to give reviewers notice at this early stage 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. versus 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 versus Hodel, 803 f. 2d 1016, 1022 (9th Cir. 1986) and Wisconsin Heritages, Inc. versus 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 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.) The final EIS is scheduled to be completed by December 1995. In the final EIS, the Forest Service is required to respond to comments and responses received during the comment period that pertain to the environmental consequences discussed in the draft EIS and applicable laws, regulations, and policies considered in making the decision and rationale for the decisions in the Record of Decision. That decision will be subject to Forest Service Appeal Regulations (36 CFR 217).Dated: July 27, 1995.
Marsha Scutvick,
Acting Forest Supervisor.
[FR Doc. 95-19378 Filed 8-4-95; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 3410-11-M