Notice of Availability of Final Director's Order #77-1: Wetland Protection and Final Procedural Manual #77-1: Wetland Protection

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

Notice of Availability of Final Director's Order #77-1: Wetland

Protection and Final Procedural Manual #77-1: Wetland Protection

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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SUMMARY: The National Park Service (NPS) is converting and updating its

current system of internal instructions in conformance with a new

system of NPS internal guidance documents. As part of this process, the

NPS recently made available for public review and comment (63 FR 45254)

a draft Director's Order #77-1: Wetland Protection and a draft

Procedural Manual #77-1: Wetland Protection. The Director's Order will

revise NPS policies, standards, and requirements

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for implementing Executive Order 11990: Protection of Wetlands, and the

Procedural Manual will establish NPS procedures for implementing the

Director's Order within units of the National Park System.

The public review period for the Director's Order and Procedural

Manual ended on September 24, 1998. Comments received during this

period have been carefully considered and have been incorporated into

the documents, as appropriate (see SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION). The

comments were mostly related to clarifying certain points in the

Director's Order and Procedural Manual, and did not result in any

substantive changes to the policies, requirements, standards, or

procedures proposed in the draft documents.

The NPS now announces the availability of the final Director's

Order #77-1 and final Procedural Manual #77-1. The previous NPS wetland

protection guidance, found in the 1980 NPS Floodplain Management and

Wetland Protection Guidelines (45 FR 35916, minor revisions in 47 FR

36718), is now rescinded.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The NPS received four sets of written

comments during the public review. One commenter was concerned that

Director's Order #77-1 and Procedural Manual #77-1 might apply to

activities conducted by a private party on lands that are outside of

NPS units. The NPS believes that Section 2.0 of the Director's Order

and Section 4.1.B of the Procedural Manual clearly indicate that these

policies, requirements, and procedures apply only to activities

conducted by the NPS that are either on or otherwise affect lands

managed by the agency. A minor wording change was incorporated into

Section 4.1.B of the Procedural Manual to help clarify this point.

A state agency recognized the rationale for the 0.1 acre wetland

impact threshold for required compensation (Section 5.2.C of the

Procedural Manual), but expressed concern that this threshold could

potentially lead to unacceptable cumulative impacts in arid areas where

small wetlands are especially important. The NPS believes that these

concerns are adequately addressed in several ways. First, these

procedures and NPS National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures

do not allow an action to be ``categorically excluded'' from the NEPA

process if there is the potential for adverse impacts on wetlands.

Therefore, such cumulative impacts would have to be addressed in an

Environmental Assessment or an Environmental Impact Statement, and

justified in the required wetland ``Statement of Findings'' (Section

5.3.D and 5.3.E of the Procedural Manual). Second, we believe that the

required wetland avoidance and impact minimization steps outlined in

Section 5.2 of the Procedural Manual, along with other NPS natural

resources policies and procedures, make the choice of important desert

aquatic habitats for development sites highly unlikely. Third, such

actions would also be subject to the permitting provisions of Section

404 of the Clean Water Act. For these reasons, the NPS is convinced

that such areas are adequately protected from such cumulative impacts,

and no changes were made on this subject in the final documents.

A federal agency found the Director's Order and Procedural Manual

to be clear and useful to NPS staff and the public, and provided a

number of comments intended to further clarify information in the areas

of wetland definitions, assessment methodologies, delineation manuals,

compensation, inventories, and treatment of incidental wetlands. We

found these suggestions to be useful, and incorporated a number of them

via minor modifications of Sections 2.3 and 2.4 of the Director's Order

and Sections 2.2.C, 2.2.D, 3.2, 4.1.A, 4.2.B, and 4.2.C of the

Procedural Manual.

DATES: Director's Order #77-1: Wetland Protection and Procedural Manual

#77-1: Wetland Protection became effective on October 22, 1998.

ADDRESSES: Director's Order #77.1: Wetland Protection and Procedural

Manual #77.1: Wetland Protection are available on the Internet at the

following address: http://www.nps.gov/refdesk/DOrders/index.htm

Requests for copies should be sent to: Joel Wagner, National Park

Service, Water Resources Division, P.O. Box 25287, Denver, CO 80225.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Joel Wagner at (303) 969-2955.

Dated: October 30, 1998.

Michael Soukup,

Associate Director, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science.

[FR Doc. 98-29859 Filed 11-6-98; 8:45 am]

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