NEPA Project Details

Project: Wyoming Sagebrush Beating
Project Status: Planning Completed
Office Location: Burns
Resource Area: Three Rivers
NEPA #: DOI-BLM-OR-B050-2010-0012-DNA Documentation of NEPA Adequacy
Document Publish Date: 12/15/2009
Summary: Vegetation adjacent to select roads in the southwest portion of the Three Rivers Resource Area (RA) was mowed (brush-beat) from 2003-2007 to reduce sagebrush height for the purpose of creating fuel breaks. Sagebrush was mowed to a height between six and fourteen inches tall in twelve to fifty foot wide strips along select roads, with an average of twenty-four feet on both sides. The proposed action is to maintain these fuel breaks by mowing these areas again to reduce fuel loading along roads. Strategic fuel breaks in this area would aid in suppression of wildfires, and help protect several hundred thousand acres of important contiguous sagebrush habitat which is at risk of conversion to cheatgrass. Maintaining strategic fuel breaks would protect critical sage-grouse, pygmy rabbit, and other sagebrush-steppe species and reduce costs of fire rehabilitation.
Contact: Burns District Office
Contact Phone: (541) 573-4400
Program Areas: Fire/Fuels