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Availability of a Draft Environmental Assessment and Preliminary Finding of No Significant Impact, and Receipt of an Application for an Incidental Take Permit for Gopher Tortoises by the Board of Water and Sewer Commissioners of the City of Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama
Note: EPA no longer updates this information, but it may be useful as a reference or resource.
[Federal Register: January 17, 2001 (Volume 66, Number 11)]
[Notices]
[Page 4036-4038]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr17ja01-101]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fish and Wildlife Service
Availability of a Draft Environmental Assessment and Preliminary
Finding of No Significant Impact, and Receipt of an Application for an
Incidental Take Permit for Gopher Tortoises by the Board of Water and
Sewer Commissioners of the City of Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama
AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice.
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The Board of Water and Sewer Commissioners of the City of Mobile
(``Board'' or ``Applicant'') has requested an incidental take permit
(ITP) pursuant to section 10(a)(1)(B) of the Endangered Species Act of
1973 (U.S.C. 1531 et seq.), as amended (Act). The Applicant anticipates
taking the threatened gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) over the
next 99 years. The proposed taking is incidental to the establishment
of a conservation bank to mitigate take of up to 128 tortoises for
residential, commercial and other development by private property
owners throughout Mobile County. Under the proposed plan, the Board
will sell mitigation credits to private landowners seeking incidental
take of occupied gopher tortoise habitat in Mobile County. The private
landowners will pay a mutually agreeable mitigation fee to the Board
and allow for the relocation of the affected tortoises to the
conservation bank. For each tortoise taken, private landowners will be
required to cover costs associated with protecting, managing, and
monitoring 1.5 acres of habitat at the conservation bank.
A more detailed description of the mitigation and minimization
measures to address the effects of the Project to the gopher tortoise
is provided in the Applicant's habitat conservation plan (HCP), the
Service's draft Environmental Assessment (EA), and in the SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION section below.
The Service announces the availability of a draft EA and HCP for
the incidental take application. Copies of the draft EA and/or 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 TE035340-0 in such
comments. You may mail comments to the Service's Regional Office (see
ADDRESSES). You may also comment via the internet to
``david__dell@fws.gov''. 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
[[Page 4037]]
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 March 19, 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, P. O. Drawer 1190, Daphne, Alabama 36526. Written
data or comments concerning the application, or HCP should be submitted
to the Regional Office. Please reference permit number TE035340-0 in
requests of 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. Barbara Allen, Fish and Wildlife Biologist, Daphne
Field Office, Alabama (see ADDRESSES above), telephone: 334/441-5181.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The gopher tortoise was listed in 1987 as a
threatened species in the western part of its geographic range, west of
the Tombigbee and Mobile Rivers in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
The gopher tortoise is a burrowing animal that historically inhabited
fire-maintained longleaf pine communities on moderately well drained to
xeric soils in the Coastal Plain. These longleaf pine communities
consisted of relatively open fire-maintained forests, without a closed
overstory, with a well developed herbaceous plant layer of grasses and
forbs. About 80% of the original habitat for gopher tortoises was lost
by the time the species was listed due to conversions to urban and
agricultural land use. On remaining forests, management practices
converting longleaf pine to densely planted pine stands for pulpwood
production, fire exclusion, and infrequently prescribed fire further
reduced the open forest with grasses and forbs that tortoises need for
burrowing, nesting, and feeding. Over 19,000 gopher tortoises have been
estimated to occur in the listed range. The tortoise, however, is a
long-lived animal with low reproductive rates. Remaining populations,
though relatively widespread, are individually small, fragmented, and
usually in poor habitat without adequate reproduction for a self-
sustaining viable population.
In Mobile County, Alabama, development and fragmentation of
tortoise habitat are a significant threat to the remaining tortoise
population of the project area. The Applicant proposes to establish a
conservation bank on land owned by the Board to benefit the federally
threatened gopher tortoise. This HCP provides a mechanism to address
development threats to the tortoise, to provide private landowners in
Mobile County with viable gopher tortoise mitigation alternatives, and
to provide the Board with a financial incentive to manage its lands for
the benefit of this species.
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.
Under this HCP, the Board is applying for a 10(a)(1)(B) permit
which would then be extended to private landowners who have tortoises
on their property through a Certificate of Inclusion. Those landowners
would purchase mitigation credit(s) from the Board after review and
approval by the Service. After allowing for the relocation of affected
tortoises onto Board property, they would have authorization to develop
their property. The 222-acre conservation bank site occurs on lands
(over 7,000 acres in total) owned by the Board that are permanently
protected from development and that surround Big Creek Land in western
Mobile County. A significant proportion of the site contains mature
longleaf pine forest on well-drained, sandy soils. The site is in need
of management activities that restore more open, longleaf-pine canopy
conditions, reduce hardwood encroachment, reduce invasive exotic
species, and restore more natural fire regimes. In addition, the
resident tortoise population is significantly depleted, thus requiring
translocation of tortoises to the site in order to establish a viable
population. Should conservation banking prove to be a viable strategy
for the Board and conservation of the tortoise, the Board is open to
considering devoting more of the remaining 7,000 acres to serve as a
gopher tortoise conservation bank.
The EA considers the environmental consequences of 5 alternatives,
including the proposed action and no-action alternatives. The proposed
action alternative is the issuance of a permit under section 10(a) of
the Act that would authorize incidental take of up to 128 gopher
tortoises from private landowners who would be required to obtain a
certificate of inclusion from the Board. The proposed action would
require the Applicant to implement their Habitat Conservation Plan
which requires that for each tortoise taken, 1.5 acres of longleaf pine
habitat at the conservation bank is restored, protected, and managed
for a period of 99 years. Under the no-action alternative, the
Incidental Take Permit would not be issued. There will be no concerted
effort to restore, enhance, or maintain longleaf pine forest at the
conservation bank owned by the Board. There is no legal obligation
under the ESA for private property owners to actively manage their
property for the benefit of the gopher tortoise. In the absence of this
proposed ITP, much of the occupied habitat in Mobile County will be
lost to benign neglect as the canopy becomes too dense to support
gopher tortoises. The third alternative is to offer financial
incentives to protect existing gopher tortoise habitat on private
lands. This would be a useful approach for those landowners with
sizeable tracts of fire-maintained longleaf pine that contain occupied
habitat or habitat that is readily restorable. For this reason, in
part, the Service maintaines the ability to deny Certificates of
Inclusion under this HCP when the agency deems that large tracts of
occupied, suitable gopher tortoise habitat in Mobile County can and
should be addressed through other appropriate means. The fourth
alternative is to require on-site mitigation by issuing individual HCPs
to landowners in Mobile county, requiring each to mitigate such take on
the property where take occurs.
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
[[Page 4038]]
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: January 9, 2001.
Sam D. Hamilton,
Regional Director.
[FR Doc. 01-1303 Filed 1-16-01; 8:45 am]
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