Trout Slope East Timber Project; Ashley National Forest, Uintah County, UT

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Forest Service

Trout Slope East Timber Project; Ashley National Forest, Uintah

County, UT

AGENCY: Forest Service, DOA.

ACTION: Notice of intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement.

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SUMMARY: The Ashley National Forest has proposed to harvest live and

dead timber within the Trout Slope East area of the Vernal Ranger

District. After completing an environmental assessment (EA), the

Responsible Official, Forest Supervisor Bert Kulesza, has determined

this proposal will be a major federal action which may affect the

quality of the human environment, requiring the preparation of an EIS

(Environmental Impact Statement).

The objectives of the project are to improve ecosystem function by

improving forest structure and pattern characteristics. Treatments are

proposed that will recover wood products, reduce fuel loads, salvage

the dead tree component to prevent a likely future forest condition of

blown down and jackstrawed timber, improve long term scenic quality

along primary access routes and at popular recreation sites while

protecting the integrity of the productive land base.

DATES: To be most useful, comments concerning the scope of the analysis

should be received in writing by March 15, 1999.

ADDRESSES: Written comments and questions should be sent to: Brad

Exton, District Ranger, Vernal Ranger District, Ashley National Forest,

355 N. Vernal Avenue, Vernal, Utah 84078, or e-mail at bexton/

[email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Specific questions about the proposed

project and analysis should be directed to Greg Clark, ID Team Leader,

Vernal Ranger District, 355 N. Vernal Ave., Vernal, Utah, (435) 789-

1181.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This proposal arose out of the Vernal Ranger

District's Trout Slope Landscape Assessment (1996) which described the

existing condition of an 80,000 acre area between East Park and Leidy

Peak. The assessment suggested a desired condition for the area, and

recommended resource management strategies to move the area toward the

desired condition as a more area-specific complement to the broad

direction of the Ashley National Forest Land and Resource Management

Plan (1986).

The Trout Slope East analysis area is approximately 18,650 acres

and lies between East Park and Oaks Park reservoirs and extends to the

divide of this part of the eastern Uinta Mountains.

The project area begins about six miles from Highway 191 on the

East Park Highway. There are over 38 miles of system roads and numerous

miles of non-system roads which provide access into the area.

Approximately 20 miles have been gated (five gates) to secure big game

habitat and provide non-motorized recreation. Access would be provided

by controlled access of gated road systems, opening some existing roads

and by possible construction of temporary roads. After harvest, opened

roads would be closed and temporary roads obliterated.

The proposed action was developed during the initial environmental

analysis and documented in the Trout Slope East Timber EA released for

public comment in spring, 1998. For continuity, this alternative will

be carried through this analysis as the proposed action. However, based

on the comments we received on the EA, we have developed two additional

alternatives in order to respond to some of the issues raised. These

are summarized briefly below.

Proposed Action (Alternative 1): Harvest from existing roads and

construct short segments of temporary roads. This alternative would

better access some treatment areas and reduce skidding distances.

Dead-only salvage on approximately 2,600 acres for

approximately 15 million board feet (MMBF) and overstory removal or

clearcut 475 acres of leave strips for approximately 4 MMBF.

Dead-only salvage on approximately 850 acres for 5 MMBF to

improve the East Park Campground viewshed.

Approximately 18 miles of temporary road would be

constructed.

Approximately 26 miles of existing roads would be opened

to access all harvest units. In general, a minimal amount of work is

needed to make these roads serviceable for hauling.

A ford crossing would be replaced with a temporary bridge

on a [West Fork] tributary of Little Brush Creek in the Round Park

area.

Timber stand improvement including precommercial thinning

of overstocked sapling stands would occur within the project area.

There are approximately 500 acres of sapling stands in the project area

scheduled for surveys and possible thinning within the next five years.

In addition, stands in this proposed action would be evaluated after

treatment for further work in the remaining seedling/sapling

understory.

The proposed timber management actions are based on the following:

The timber resource in this area is primarily even-aged lodgepole

pine with small pockets of uneven-aged mixtures of lodgepole pine,

Engelmann spruce, Douglas-fir, subalpine fir and aspen. The lodgepole

pine stands are comprised of about 70% to 90% dead trees due to a

mountain pine beetle epidemic in the late 1970s to early 1980s.

Currently, the landscape looks gray with stands or strips of timber

containing dead trees surrounding 10 to 40 acre seedling or sapling

stands (regenerated clearcuts).

The project area was selected from the Trout Slope Assessment area

by using existing stand level data, areas with existing roads and areas

with primarily dead lodgepole pine. Environmental conditions considered

were sensitive soils, geologic hazard zones, riparian

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zones, timber stand patch size and arrangement in relation to wildlife

use, slopes suitable for tractor logging, level and type of recreation

use, forest cover type and vegetative structure stage. The existing

condition based on the calculated vegetative structure stage (VSS) by

site was compared to a possible desired future condition from the Trout

Slope Landscape Assessment.

Strips of (mostly dead) trees left between some of the previously

harvested areas are too narrow to function as forest cover habitat for

certain wildlife species. In many of these same stands the amount of

dead trees is so great that the current stand structure stage will not

continue to exist much longer. Overstory removal of the dead and

diseased trees in these strips would create a mosaic of larger stands

of seedling to sapling sized trees. These stands as they grow would, in

the long term, provide interior forest habitat for certain wildlife

species.

In other locations where past harvest hasn't occurred, only dead

trees would be removed, leaving a less dense but more green appearing

forest and lower fuel loads.

Maintenance of the remaining live green stands, especially those

with a mature component, is needed to provide forest cover in a

landscape primarily consisting of seedling/sapling stands and dead

trees until young stands grow to function as live mature forest. In

selected live stands, removal of individual live and dead trees is

expected to improve stand vigor and longevity.

Two other action alternatives have been developed thus far based on

resource issues (documented in the previously mentioned EA), in

response to public comment on the EA and in consideration of the

pending development of a new Forest Service roads policy. These

alternatives defer some harvest activity and drop some treatment areas

included in the proposed action. One of these alternatives emphasizes

harvest from the existing road system only, using longer skidding

distances and alternate skidding patterns to access treatment areas.

Public Involvement

Comments received and issues which were raised during the

development of the Trout Slope East EA will be carried forward and

considered in this EIS. Additional comments are encouraged. Public

participation is especially important at several points during the

analysis, particularly during initial scoping and review of the draft

EIS. Individuals, organizations, federal, state, and local agencies who

are interested in or affected by the decision are invited to

participate in the scoping process. This information will be used in

the preparation of the draft EIS.

Formal scoping begins upon publication of this notice and will

include mailing of information to known interested parties.

The second major opportunity for public input is the draft EIS. The

draft EIS is expected to be filed with the EPA (Environmental

Protection Agency) and to be available for public review in April of

1999. At that time the EPA will publish a notice of availability of the

draft EIS in the Federal Register. The comment period on the draft EIS

will be 45 days from the date the EPA's notice of availability appears

in the Federal Register. It is very important that those interested in

this proposed action participate at that time. To be the most helpful,

comments on the draft EIS should be as specific as possible and may

address the adequacy of the statement or the merits of the alternatives

discussed (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 Forest Service believes it is important to give reviewers

notice at this early stage of several federal court decisions 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. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519,

533 (1978). Second, environmental objections that could have been

raised at the draft stage may be waived if not raised until after

completion of the final environmental impact statement. City of Angoon

v. Hodel, (9th Circuit, 1986) and Wisconsin Heritages, Inc. v. 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 EIS.

After the comment period ends on the draft EIS, the comments will

be analyzed and considered by the Forest Service in preparing the final

EIS.

Dated: February 1, 1999.

Bert Kulesza,

Forest Supervisor.

[FR Doc. 99-3322 Filed 2-11-99; 8:45 am]

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