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Death Valley National Park Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan and Environmental Assessment

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Death Valley National Park Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan and Environmental Assessment National Park Service United States Department of the Interior Death Valley National Park California and Nevada Death Valley National Park Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan and Environmental Assessment August 2012 ON THE COVER July Bloom on Panamint Mountains near Sentinel Peak, 2009 Photographer: Emily McCuistion, Death Valley National Park Archeology Team WILDERNESS AND BACKCOUNTRY STEWARDSHIP PLAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT National Park Service Death Valley National Park California and Nevada Death Valley National Park Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan/Environmental Assessment Inyo and San Bernardino Counties, California Nye and Esmeralda Counties, Nevada The original protected area of Death Valley National Monument was designated by Presidential Proclamation on February 17, 1933. The 1994 California Desert Protection Act (P.L. 103-433) enlarged the park to its present size and designated 91% of the park as the “Death Valley National Park Wilderness” totaling 3,102,456 acres. Another 220,000 acres of the park are undeveloped backcountry lands and a network of over 1000 miles of pre-existing backcountry dirt road corridors that serve as both a visitor experience in themselves and access to the expansive wilderness and backcountry. The scope of this Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan addresses all congressionally designated wilderness lands within Death Valley National Park. It also includes non-wilderness backcountry concerns, such as: backcountry road corridors and campsites, backcountry cabins near roads, and non-wilderness backcountry lands. This plan is considered an implementation plan tiered from the 2002 Death Valley National Park General Management Plan and its associated Environmental Impact Statement. This Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan includes an environmental assessment as the environmental impact analysis document required under the National Environmental Policy Act. Cooperating agencies (as defined by the National Environmental Policy Act) in the preparation of this plan include Inyo County (CA), Nye County (NV), and Esmeralda County (NV). The Timbisha Shoshone were also substantially involved throughout the planning process. This plan presents and analyzes four alternatives to provide future direction for the stewardship, administration, and visitor use of these vast lands. The potential environmental impacts of all alternatives have been identified and assessed. Alternative A: No-action Alternative would continue existing management practices which tend to be reactive to the needs of the moment rather than being proactive toward specific goals. Alternative B: Minimum Action Alternative would maximize outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation by largely formalizing the no-action alternative and adding a few specific actions to address current visitor impacts issues while fulfilling agency requirements for wilderness and backcountry administration. Alternative C: Maximum Action Alternative would provide more opportunities for park visitors with less experience or lacking specialized equipment and proposes the greatest increase in new visitor facilities and administrative requirements with the intent of proactively addressing future visitor impacts. Alternative D: Focused Action Alternative, which is the agency’s preferred alternative, would recognize and protect the premier wilderness and backcountry resource values of the entire park while providing for a wider range of visitor experiences and opportunities in specific locations primarily along maintained road corridors. It also proposes a moderate increase in new visitor facilities and administrative requirements with the intent of addressing known visitor impacts and those anticipated in the near future. This Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan and Environmental Assessment has been distributed to other agencies and interested organizations and individuals for their review and comment. The public comment period for this document will last for 60 days. Readers are encouraged to submit comments on this plan at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/DEVAWildernessPlanEA. You may also send written comments to Superintendent, Death Valley National Park, Attn: Wilderness Plan Comments, P.O. Box 579, Death Valley, CA 92328. See “How to Comment on this Plan,” immediately following, for further information. i How to Comment on this Plan Comments on this Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan are welcome and will be accepted for 60 days after its release. If you wish to comment on the environmental assessment, please visit the NPS website below, or you may mail or e-mail comments to the address below. Our practice is to make all public comments available for public review. Individual respondents may request that we withhold their name and/or home address from the record, which we will honor to the extent allowable by law. If you want us to withhold your name and/or address, you must state this prominently at the beginning of your comment or select that information on the webform. We will make all submissions from organizations and businesses, and from individuals identifying themselves as representatives or officials of organizations or businesses, available for public inspection in their entirety. Comment online at the NPS Planning, Environment, and Public Comment Website: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/DEVAWildernessPlanEA By email: [email protected] Or by hardcopy to: Superintendent, Death Valley National Park Attn: Wilderness Plan Comments P.O. Box 579 Death Valley, CA 92328 ii Executive Summary This Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan (the Plan) and Environmental Assessment provide direction for the National Park Service to make decisions regarding the future use and protection of the park’s vast wilderness and backcountry lands. This planning process addresses all Congressionally designated wilderness and potential wilderness lands within Death Valley National Park as designated by the California Desert Protection Act of 1994. It also includes non-wilderness backcountry concerns including backcountry road corridors and campsites, backcountry cabins near roads, and non-wilderness backcountry lands. This plan was developed in consultation with the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and these cooperating agencies: Inyo County (CA), Esmeralda County (NV), and Nye County (NV). The purpose of this Wilderness and Backcountry Stewardship Plan and Environmental Assessment for Death Valley National Park is to provide a framework by which to preserve and improve wilderness character while providing for unique visitor opportunities for quiet, solitude, and primitive adventure; and to accommodate continued use of the Park’s unpaved roads and protection of backcountry resources. Completion of the planning process and approval of the plan also fulfills the requirements of NPS policy that parks have a wilderness management plan and a backcountry management plan (combined in this case) and addresses the needs identified in the 2002 General Management Plan. This purpose will be achieved through advancement of the following goals: …common to both wilderness and backcountry: promote safety and outdoor ethics; preserve natural and cultural resources; preserve dark night skies; preserve natural soundscapes; minimize conflicts between user groups as well as between users and sensitive resources; accommodate and manage commercial uses as subject to applicable laws and policies; preserve undisturbed areas for appropriate scientific research; and proactively foster an inspired and informed public and park staff who value the preservation of the Park’s natural and cultural resources. …specific to wilderness: preserve the untrammeled quality of wilderness character by refraining from the deliberate manipulation or management of wilderness resources except as necessary to promote another quality of wilderness character or to preserve human life or to accommodate other activities in compliance with applicable laws; promote the natural quality of wilderness character through the thoughtful restoration and/or maintenance of natural processes and features while managing archaeological, historical and ethnographic sites in a manner that is compatible with wilderness and cultural resources management laws; preserve and enhance the undeveloped quality of wilderness character by judicious review and, where appropriate, removal of non-conforming and/or unnecessary installations; provide for outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation as long as such visitor uses can be offered without degradation of significant natural and cultural resource values; preserve ecological, geological, scientific, educational, scenic, and historical values of wilderness, including culturally significant resources and paleontological resources within wilderness as important and prominent values of the Death Valley NP Wilderness consistent with the California Desert Protection Act and the General Management Plan; iii preserve the intangible aspects of wilderness, including the ethnographic value to the Timbisha Shoshone and accommodate ongoing traditional cultural uses by the Timbisha Shoshone within their Natural and Cultural Preservation Area and other special use areas. …specific to non-wilderness backcountry: allow for continued use of backcountry roads where appropriate for multiple purposes, including: o to accommodate recreational access; o to accommodate administrative access and
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