Notice2023-12847
Notice of Availability of the Proposed Southeastern Oregon Resource Management Plan Amendment and Final Environmental Impact Statement
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
June 16, 2023
Issuing agencies
Interior DepartmentLand Management Bureau
Abstract
In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has prepared a Proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendment/Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the 2002 Southeastern Oregon RMP, and by this notice is announcing the start of a 30-day protest period of the Proposed RMP Amendment.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 116 (Friday, June 16, 2023)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 116 (Friday, June 16, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39451-39452]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-12847]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Land Management
[BLM_OR_FRN_MO4500169742]
Notice of Availability of the Proposed Southeastern Oregon
Resource Management Plan Amendment and Final Environmental Impact
Statement
AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of availability.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of
1969, as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of
1976, as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has prepared a
Proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendment/Final Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS) for the 2002 Southeastern Oregon RMP, and by
this notice is announcing the start of a 30-day protest period of the
Proposed RMP Amendment.
DATES: This notice announces the beginning of a 30-day protest period
to the BLM on the Proposed RMP Amendment. Protests must be postmarked
or electronically submitted on the BLM's ePlanning site within 30 days
of the date that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publishes
its Notice of Availability (NOA) in the Federal Register. The EPA
usually publishes its NOAs on Fridays.
ADDRESSES: The Proposed RMP Amendment/Final EIS is available on the
BLM's ePlanning page at <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/87435/510">https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/87435/510</a>. On the project summary page, click on ``Documents'' on the
left side of the screen to find the electronic version of the Proposed
RMP Amendment/Final EIS. Hard copies of the Proposed RMP Amendment/
Final EIS are also available for public inspection at the BLM Vale
District Office, 100 Oregon Street, Vale, Oregon 97918, telephone:
(541) 473-3144.
Instructions for filing a protest with the BLM for the Proposed RMP
Amendment/Final EIS for the 2002 Southeastern Oregon RMP can be found
at: <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/public-participation/filing-a-plan-protest">https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/public-participation/filing-a-plan-protest</a> and at 43 CFR 1610.5-2.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Brent Grasty, Planning and
Environmental Coordinator, Vale District Office; telephone: (541) 473-
3144; email: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#dcbebbaebdafa8a59cbeb0b1f2bbb3aa"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="81e3e6f3e0f2f5f8c1e3edecafe6eef7">[email protected]</span></a>. Individuals in the United States who are
deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial
711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay
services for contacting Mr. Grasty. Individuals outside the United
States should use the relay services offered within their country to
make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The RMP amendment would change the existing
2002 Southeastern Oregon RMP. The Southeastern Oregon planning area
covers approximately 4.6 million acres of public lands in Malheur,
Grant, Harney, and Baker counties. The area is characterized by a basin
and range topography with remote canyons, desert, and mountain systems.
The Final EIS evaluates six alternatives that address lands with
wilderness characteristics; determine open, limited, and closed off-
highway vehicle area allocations; provide livestock grazing management
practices related to areas that fail to meet the BLM's Standards for
Rangeland Health; and address voluntary livestock grazing permit
relinquishments. Resource uses not addressed by the alternatives in
this focused amendment will continue to be managed under the direction
of the 2002 Southeastern Oregon RMP and Record of Decision, as amended
by the 2015 and 2019 Approved Oregon Greater Sage-Grouse RMP
Amendments.
The Proposed RMP Amendment/Final EIS responds to comments the BLM
received on the Draft EIS during the 90-day public comment period that
began on May 29, 2019. During the public comment period, the BLM held
open houses in Ontario and Jordan Valley, Oregon, and McDermitt,
Nevada. A summary of the comments received during the public comment
period and responses to those comments can be found in Appendix P of
the Proposed RMP Amendment/Final EIS.
Under the Proposed RMP Amendment, the BLM would protect 33 of the
76 areas the BLM identified as having wilderness characteristics. These
33 areas, which total 417,190 acres, are the units that were
prioritized for protection under Alternative D in the Draft RMP
Amendment/Draft EIS. The 33 units were identified using criteria
established by the BLM's Southeast Oregon Resource Advisory Council
that emphasized vegetative conditions, hydrologic function, and the
proximity to other protected areas. The Proposed RMP Amendment would
also designate these 33 protected areas as: Visual Resource Management
Class II public lands, which only allows for low levels of change to
the landscapes' visual character; Land Tenure Zone 1, where the BLM
would retain these lands in public ownership for the life of the RMP;
exclusion areas for major rights-of-way and commercial renewable energy
projects; and lands where no surface occupancy for the development and
extraction of leasable and saleable minerals, including new mineral
material sites, would be authorized. The Proposed RMP Amendment would
establish a 250-foot setback area from the protected areas' boundaries
to provide the BLM with management
[[Page 39452]]
flexibility to maintain the long-term sustainability of the public
lands while still maintaining or enhancing the wilderness
characteristics within the protected areas.
The Proposed RMP Amendment would also change 319,501 acres of off-
highway vehicle (OHV) area allocations within the planning area from
open to limited OHV areas, which would limit OHV travel to existing
routes and prohibit cross-country travel. This would create a total of
4.5 million acres within the planning area where OHV use would be
limited to existing routes, and all of the protected lands with
wilderness characteristics are within this limited OHV area category.
The Proposed RMP Amendment would retain two open OHV areas totaling
40,368 acres and maintain the current 15,829 acres of closed OHV areas.
The Proposed RMP Amendment would provide additional guidance on the
implementation of the BLM's Standards for Rangeland Health and the
processing of voluntary grazing permit relinquishments. The Proposed
RMP Amendment calls for the consideration of taking appropriate action
in areas that are not meeting Standards for Rangeland Health even if
existing livestock grazing is not a causal factor for non-attainment of
the standard. The Proposed RMP Amendment also clarifies that the BLM
would not permit increases to animal unit months if analysis finds that
doing so could cause negative impacts to other resources in an area
where there is either no rangeland health assessment and evaluation or
if the evaluation no longer represents the existing resource
conditions. The Proposed RMP Amendment calls for the BLM to review the
compatibility of livestock grazing use with other existing resources in
the permitted area when a voluntary permit relinquishment is received.
If livestock grazing is found to be incompatible, the area could become
unavailable to grazing and the forage allocation would be made to
another resource. If grazing is found to be compatible with the other
resource considerations, then the area would remain available to
livestock grazing, and/or could be designated as a reserve common
allotment.
The other alternatives evaluated in the Final EIS are the No Action
Alternative and Alternatives A, B, C, and D. These alternatives vary in
the acreages of lands with wilderness characteristics identified for
protection; the acreages of open, limited, and closed OHV area
allocations; and various livestock grazing management approaches for
implementing the Standards for Rangeland Health and processing
voluntary permit relinquishments.
Protest of the Proposed RMP Amendment
BLM planning regulations state that any person who participated in
the preparation of the RMP and has an interest that will or might be
adversely affected by approval of the Proposed RMP Amendment may
protest its approval to the BLM. Protest on the Proposed RMP Amendment
constitutes the final opportunity for administrative review of the
proposed land use planning decisions prior to the BLM adopting an
approved RMP Amendment. Instructions for filing a protest with the BLM
regarding the Proposed RMP Amendment may be found online (see
ADDRESSES). All protests must be in writing and mailed to the
appropriate address or submitted electronically through the BLM
ePlanning project website (see ADDRESSES). Protests submitted
electronically by any means other than the ePlanning project website or
by fax will be invalid unless a hard copy of the protest is also
submitted. The BLM will render a written decision on each protest. The
protest decision of the BLM shall be the final decision of the
Department of the Interior. Responses to valid protest issues will be
compiled and documented in a Protest Resolution Report made available
following the protest resolution online at: <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/public-participation/protest-resolution-reports">https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/public-participation/protest-resolution-reports</a>. Upon resolution of protests, the BLM will issue a Record of
Decision and Approved RMP Amendment.
Before including your address, phone number, email address, or
other personal identifying information in your protest, you should be
aware that your entire protest--including your personal identifying
information--may be made publicly available at any time. While you can
ask us in your protest to withhold from public review your personal
identifying information, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do
so.
(Authority: 40 CFR 1506.6, 40 CFR 1506.10, 43 CFR 1610.2, 43 CFR
1610.5)
Barry R. Bushue,
State Director, Oregon/Washington.
[FR Doc. 2023-12847 Filed 6-15-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE P
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