SNFPA Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement

June 12, 2003

Executive Summary

Background

In January 2001, the Pacific Southwest Region adopted the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment (SNFPA) for managing 11 national forests and 11.5 million acres of national forest land. The Forest Service received more than 200 appeals to the SNFPA decision. In November 2001, the Chief of the Forest Service affirmed the decision but also expressed concerns about the decision's flexibility and compatibility with other important programs. The Chief and Regional Forester agreed to review six specific areas of the SNFPA: fire and fuels treatments, compatibility with the National Fire Plan, compatibility with the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group (HFQLG) Forest Recovery Pilot Project, and the effects of the SNFPA on grazing, recreation, and local communities. The Regional Forester established a review team to examine these elements of the SNFPA and charged them with preparing a report with findings and recommendations. That report was completed in March 2003 with specific recommendations for improving the SNFPA. As a result of the review team's report the Region has prepared a draft supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) to document new information and to analyze the effects of the proposed improvements. The Draft SEIS will be available June 6, 2003 and the public will have 90 days to comment on it. A final SEIS and new Record of Decision will be published in October 2003.

The SEIS Preferred Alternative (Alternative S2)

• Retains the SNFPA land allocations and their associated goals and desired conditions.
• Replaces the prescriptive and detailed current SNFPA standards and guidelines with a simplified fuels treatment and vegetation management strategy which recognizes local conditions and variables across the Sierra Nevada.
• Improves the ability to meet National Fire Plan objectives with aggressive fuels treatments in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) to protect communities, and with effective, strategically placed fuels treatments in the wildland to reduce fire severity in sensitive watersheds and wildlife habitat. (The WUI includes the defense zone, the first ¼ mile, and the threat zone, the next 1 ¼ miles, surrounding homes and communities.)
• Protects most medium and all large, old trees. Retains 40% of the basal area in the largest trees even if they are less than 30 inches in diameter.
• Sets a canopy cover goal of 50% in treatment areas, and allows reductions to 40% based on local conditions and analysis.
• Maintains existing California spotted owl Protected Activity Centers (PACs), requires owl surveys, establishes new PACS for newly discovered owl sites, and limits fuels treatments in PACs. Where fuels treatments occur in PACs, the treated acres will be replaced by adding adjacent untreated acres of comparable quality to the PAC.
• Implements the HFQLG Pilot Project including defensible fuel profile zone (DFPZ) construction, group selection, and single tree selection in suitable owl habitat. Allows DFPZ construction in the Late Successional/Old Growth (LSOG) 4 and 5 areas with direction to preserve large, old trees in these areas.
• Allows natural resource professionals more flexibility to work with grazing permit holders and recreationists to develop land use practices that protect sensitive habitats and allow appropriate use of resources and enjoyment of the national forests.
• Allows economically efficient fuels treatments with byproducts of small logs and biomass that provide revenue and jobs in local communities.

Effects and Benefits

Wildfire

The SEIS preferred alternative (Alternative S2) reduces wildfire acres and, more importantly, the severity of wildfire. The current direction (Alternative S1) and the preferred alternative treat a similar number of acres. The current direction is intended to treat about 112,000 acres per year over the next two decades; the preferred alternative would treat about 114, 000 acres per year over the same period. The fuels treatments under the preferred alternative are expected to be much more effective in reducing wildfire acres and wildfire severity on the acres burned. The current direction relies solely on appropriated funds to accomplish fuels treatments. The preferred alternative decreases reliance on appropriated funds and improves the probability of accomplishing fuels treatments. The preferred alternative has fewer operational constraints. Consequently, fuels treatments will be more efficient and more strategically placed to reduce landscape level wildfire effects.

It will take at least 2 to 3 decades of aggressive fuels treatments to noticeably affect wildfire behavior and reduce fire severity. Therefore, an important estimate of the effectiveness of a fuels reduction program is the predicted acres of severe wildfire effects after several decades. Compared to the current direction, the preferred alternative will reduce total acres of wildfire by about 23 percent and reduce severe wildfire acres by about 40 percent by the fifth decade.

Old Forests

The preferred alternative balances the short-term risk that treatments may disturb old forest conditions with the longer term benefit that effective fuels treatments will protect old forests from severe wildfires that would otherwise destroy old forests. Using historic fire data and recent trends, the projected losses of old forest and wildlife habitat are 68,000 acres per year over the next decade. At that rate, old forest habitat is burning up faster than it can be replaced under the current direction. The preferred alternative addresses this concern by improving the effectiveness of fuels treatments. For the first six decades, both the current direction and the preferred alternative would provide about the same amount of old forest stands. By the tenth decade it is estimated that management under the preferred alternative would support more old forests than would the current direction.

Both the current direction and the preferred alternative would protect all trees larger than 30 inches in diameter. The preferred alternative allows more effective fuels treatments to protect old forests by providing more flexibility for removing ladder fuels that can carry surface fires into the crowns of trees. The current direction has several cut tree diameter limits; the preferred alternative would replace these complicated rules with direction to leave 40% of the basal area in the largest trees in the treatment area, even if less than 30 inches in diameter.

California spotted owl habitat

Under the preferred alternative, the abundance and distribution of suitable owl nesting habitat is expected to temporarily decline while long-term the overall suitable owl habitat is expected to increase. The long-term improvements in habitat are the result of estimated reduction in large wildfires and, especially, the reduction in severe, stand-replacing wildfires in the fifth decade and beyond.

Wildfires are damaging an increasing number of owl PACs. Over the last eight years the number of owl PACs damaged by wildfires has averaged about 2.5 per year. Over the last four years the rate has increased to approximately 4.5 per year. The preferred alternative is expected to reduce the losses of wildfire below the eight year average by allowing more effective treatment of fuels in and around PACs.

There are key difference in treatment of PACs between the current direction and the preferred alternative. The current direction allows mechanical treatment of PACs only in the WUI defense zone; the preferred alternative allows mechanical treatment of PACs in the WUI defense and threat zones. (The WUI defense zone is the first 0.25 miles surrounding communities; the WUI threat zone is the next 1.25 miles around communities.) The current direction controls the number of PACs that can be treated; the preferred alternative controls the number of acres treated in PACs. If treatment of heavy fuels in PACs is necessary to protect the PACs or to reduce severe wildfire effects on the landscape scale, the preferred alternative will replace treated acres with adjacent untreated acres of comparable quality.

HFQLG

The preferred alternative will implement the HFQLG Pilot Project including DFPZs, group selection, and individual tree selection to assess the effectiveness of these management activities in improving wildfire suppression, protecting owl habitat and providing economic benefits to communities. While the acreage of DFPZ is the same in each alternative, the effectiveness of the DFPZ treatments in the preferred alternative is expected to be much greater. The preferred alternative treats about 5,500 acres more of group selection than current direction. Owl PACs in the HFQLG Pilot Project will not be treated.

Of the 2.4 million acres in the HFQLG Pilot Project area, about 1.5 million acres are available for treatment. Under the preferred alternative, about 13 percent of the area will be treated during the pilot.

Outputs and Costs

Timber byproducts of fuels treatments and other vegetation management

The preferred alternative will offer 50 percent less timber than the average annual timber sale offering during the six years prior to adoption of the 1993 California Spotted Owl (CASPO) Interim Guidelines, and 20 percent more than the six years since adoption of the CASPO Interim Guidelines. The preferred alternative will offer nearly three times the timber projected for the current direction in the first decade.

Projections for current direction and preferred alternative reflect implementation of HFQLG Pilot Project.

The biomass build-up would be less under the preferred alternative. Projected growth in sawtimber, material greater than ten inches in diameter, in the bioregion will exceed saw timber harvest under the preferred alternative by a factor of 4.7, 6.5 and 11.2 in the first, second and third decades respectively. Under the current direction, growth would exceed harvest by a factor of 12.8, 26.4 and 36.6 in the first, second and third decades respectively.

Biomass byproducts of fuels treatments and other vegetation management

The SEIS preferred alternative imposes fewer restrictions on the use and intensity of mechanical treatments and is expected to make a more predictable and consistent supply of biomass available for energy generation and other uses.

Fuels treatment costs and value of byproducts

The costs of fuels treatments are assumed to be slightly lower under the preferred alternative due to increased flexibility and fewer restrictions on operability. The savings are estimated to be about $5 million annually during the first decade. In addition, the preferred alternative allows harvest of some medium sized trees and increases the value of byproducts of fuels treatments. This greater value would result in more dollars returned to the treasury. The preferred alternative yields a net product value more than three times that of the current direction and would potentially return an estimated $22 million more to the treasury each year. The reduced costs and greater return would result in an estimated $27 million annual net savings to the treasury during the first decade.

Wood products related employment and earnings

The SEIS preferred alternative imposes fewer restrictions on the use and intensity of mechanical treatments and encourages the utilization of byproducts, including small and some medium sized tress, and approximately doubles the timber jobs related to Forest Service management compared to the current direction.

Grazing

There are about 427 active grazing allotments on the eleven Sierra Nevada national forests. Forty seven of these are the most affected by the current direction, especially the standards and guidelines for willow flycatcher and Yosemite toad habitats. These 47 allotments are located on seven of the 11 SNFPA national forests. The current direction allows grazing in allotments with unoccupied habitat only late in the grazing season, and does not allow any grazing in occupied habitat. The SEIS preferred alternative allows grazing in unoccupied willow flycatcher habitat and allows grazing after August 15 in occupied habitat. As a result, permit holders can use the allotments for 4 to 6 weeks at the end of the grazing season when there is little impact expected on willow flycatchers.

In December 2002, the US Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that a proposal to list the Yosemite toad as endangered or threatened is warranted, but precluded by other higher priority listing actions. There are slight differences in the standards and guidelines for Yosemite toad habitat in the current direction and the SEIS preferred alternative. The preferred alternative allows development of site-specific grazing management plans in Yosemite toad habitat.

The preferred alternative will reduce the number of grazing permit holders potentially affected by habitat protections from 47 to 33. These changes will help reduce the likelihood of fragmentation of ownerships and ecosystems in ranchlands near the national forests.

Recreation

The current direction applies limited operating periods to all new activities in the vicinity of sensitive species. The SEIS preferred alternative would apply limited operating periods to only vegetation management activities, and not to recreation activities.

The current direction for willow flycatcher and Yosemite toad habitat affect pack stock grazing. The current direction restricts pack stock grazing in potential Yosemite toad habitat. The SEIS preferred alternative would not apply restrictions to pack stock grazing in potential Yosemite toad habitat until it has been surveyed and found to be occupied. The preferred alternative allows pack stock grazing in unoccupied willow flycatcher habitat and allows this recreational use after August 15 in occupied habitat when there is little impact expected on willow flycatchers.

Additional information

Alternatives considered

The Draft SEIS analyzes and compares the effects of the current direction (Alternative S1), the SEIS preferred alternative (Alternative S2), Alternative S3, and Alternatives F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7 and F8 from the January 2001 final environmental impact statement (FEIS.) Alternative S3 would implement the preferred alternative in only the WUI defense zone during the first five years and would initiate four adaptive management studies to learn the response of owls to various fuels treatments. The WUI defense zone is the first ¼ mile surrounding homes and communities.

Public comment

The Draft SEIS will be posted on the internet June 5, 2003. Printed copies will be mailed beginning June 6. Notice of its availability will be published in the Federal Register June 13 and will mark the beginning of the 90-day public comment period. The comment period will end September 12, 2003. The Final SEIS will incorporate public comments and lead to a new Record of Decision in late October 2003.

Comments may be sent to:

More details

The complete SNFPA EIS and ROD, the SNFPA Review Report, the Draft SEIS and related information can be found on-line at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/snfpa.

USDA Forest Service · Pacific Southwest Region