BLM Launches EIS for Conservation and Restoration of
BLM Public Lands in Western U.S.

The Bureau of Land Management will prepare an environmental impact statement for the conservation and restoration of vegetation, watershed and wildlife habitat treatments on public lands administered by its staff in the western United States, including Alaska. To begin the process, the agency will hold scoping meetings across the West and in Alaska, starting in November. Completion of the EIS is scheduled for the summer of 2003.

The comprehensive EIS will update and replace analyses contained in four existing vegetation treatment and noxious weed management EISs completed from 1986 to 1992.

The EIS, which is national in scope, will consider reasonably foreseeable activities planned in each state, to include reduction and treatment of highly flammable forest and rangeland fuel (trees, brush and other plants that have accumulated). Treatment activities may include, but are not limited to, prescribed fire, riparian restoration, restoration of native plant communities, control of invasive plants and noxious weeds, thinning of forest under-story, forest health activities, and other treatment projects in ecosystems where fire has historically played an active role.

The analysis area will include all surface estate public lands administered by the BLM in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, North and South Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Issues that have been initially identified for analysis during the EIS process are:

• reduction and treatment of highly flammable forest and rangeland fuel (trees, brush and other plants that have accumulated), including mechanical treatments;
• noxious weed control activities;
• restoration of ecoystem processes;
• protection of cultural resources;
• watershed and vegetative community health;
• habitat improvement opportunities for threatened and endangered species, and sensitive and special status species;
• new chemical formulations for herbicides that may be more environmentally favorable than those now being used;
• smoke management and air quality;
• emergency stabilization and restoration of wildfire-affected landscapes; and
• watershed and water quality improvement

The EIS will also address human health risk assessments for a variety of chemical herbicides that have become available since the last EIS was written.

A reasonable range of alternatives, including a No Action alternative, will be developed to respond to the issues identified at the outset of the NEPA process. Each alternative will provide solutions to the issues and concerns brought out through public scoping to develop reasonable approaches to conservation and restoration activities.

The BLM's interdisciplinary project team will coordinate closely with local, state and tribal governments, in addition to working with the Western Governors Association and the National Association of Counties. Locations and dates for public scoping meetings will be announced in a future Federal Register notice and in local and statewide media.

During the initial scoping phase, written or e-mailed comments regarding the issues listed above or any additional issues will be accepted for 30 days after publication of the Notice in the Federal Register.

To provide written comments, or to be placed on the mailing list, contact Brian Amme, Acting Project Manager, Bureau of land Management, P.O. Box 12000, Reno, NV 89520-0006; e-mail brian_amme@nv.blm.gov; tel: (775) 861-6645. Comments will be available for public inspection at the BLM Nevada State Office, 1340 Financial Blvd., Reno, NV 98502.

People making comments may request confidentiality. If you wish your name and/or address withheld from public review or disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, you must state this prominently at the beginning of your written or e-mailed comment. Such requests will be honored to the extent allowed by law. The BLM will not, however, consider anonymous comments. All submissions from organizations or businesses, and from individuals identifying themselves as representatives or officials of organizations or businesses, will be available for public inspection in their entirety.

The BLM, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, manages more land — 264 million surface acres — than any other Federal agency. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which gave the BLM its comprehensive mission to manage the public lands for a variety of uses so as to benefit present and future generations. The BLM accomplishes this by managing for such resources as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing and mineral development, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on the public lands. Most of the country's BLM-managed public land is located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. These lands, once remote, now provide the growing communities of the West with open space that gives the region much of its character. The Bureau, which has a budget of $1.8 billion and a workforce of about 9,000 employees, also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the Nation.