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Environmental Assessment United States Department of Agriculture Watershed Improvement Projects on the Pawnee

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Environmental Assessment United States Department of Agriculture Watershed Improvement Projects on the Pawnee Environmental Assessment United States Department of Agriculture Watershed Improvement Projects on the Pawnee Forest National Grassland Service September Pawnee National Grassland 2010 Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest and Pawnee National Grassland Weld County, Colorado Little Owl Creek, Pawnee National Grassland i Lead Agency: USDA Forest Service Responsible Official: Lori A. Bell, District Ranger, PNG Contact Persons: Lori A. Bell, District Ranger Pawnee National Grassland 660 ‘0’ Street, Greeley, CO 80631 Phone: 970-346-5003 E-mail: [email protected] Or Nehalem Clark, Rangeland Management Specialist Pawnee National Grassland 660 ‘0’ Street, Greeley, CO 80631 Phone: 970-346-5008 E-mail: [email protected] The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual’s income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write to USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Purpose and Need Introduction 1 Purpose and Need for Action 1 Proposed Action 2 Public Involvement 3 Resource Issues 3 Scope of Analysis 4 CHAPTER 2: Alternatives Alternative 1 – No Action 5 Alternative 2 – Proposed Action 5 Description of Treatments 5 Design Criteria 8 CHAPTER 3: Existing Conditions/Environmental Consequences Project Area Overview 17 Physical Resources Soil and Water 19 Biological Resources Range 23 Botany 25 Wildlife 27 Fisheries 37 Invasive Plants 39 Social Resources Heritage 41 Lands, Special Uses and Minerals 43 Recreation 45 Social/Economic 47 LITERATURE CITED 48 CHAPTER 4: Consultation and Coordination 50 APPENDICES Appendix 1. Response to Comments Received During Initial Scoping 51 Appendix 2. List of High Priority Sites to be considered for 53 Watershed Improvement Projects Appendix 3. Examples of Site-Specific Projects and Proposed Treatments 55 L I S T O F T ABLE S AND FIGURES Figure 1. Project Area Map 3 Table 1. Design criteria common to all treatments 8 Table 2. Design criteria specific to individual treatments, by resource area 10 Figure 2: Photo example of a road washout 18 Figure 3. Photo example of gully 18 Figure 4. Photo example of cattle trail 19 Figure 5. Photo example of riparian area with headcuts 19 Table 3. Principal watersheds on the PNG 19 Table 4: Threatened, Endangered and Proposed plant species to be considered 25 in future watershed project proposals. Table 5. Sensitive plant species considered in this analysis 26 Table 6. Rare and Imperiled Natural Plant Communities to be considered 26 for individual watershed project review. Table 7. Federally Listed wildlife species considered in this analysis. 27 Table 8. Sensitive wildlife species considered in this analysis 28 Table 9. ARNF Management Indicator Species (MIS) considered in this analysis 31 C H A P T E R 1 : PURPOSE AND NEED INTRODUCTION Across the Pawnee National Grassland (PNG), erosion features such as large gullies, road washouts and unstable stream banks are threats to soil, water and other natural resources. Many of these features are caused or accelerated by activities such as road use, grazing, recreation and other uses. The PNG is proposing to implement watershed improvement projects to rehabilitate the sites where unacceptable levels of erosion are occurring. This document will analyze potential effects of the proposed watershed restoration treatments and provide an adaptive framework by which projects will be completed. Under this Environmental Assessment (EA), the Forest Service (FS) anticipates undertaking up to five projects annually over the next 10-15 years. During the 2008 and 2009 field seasons, a total of 124 sites on the PNG were surveyed as part of the Watershed Improvement Needs (WIN) inventory. Some sites, mostly on the west side of the Grassland had been documented in previous years, but a complete inventory of the entire grassland did not exist. Using the WIN data, we ranked watershed inventory sites according to (1) level of alteration, (2) need for immediate attention, (3) threat to water or other resources, and (4) feasibility of restoration and/or corrective action. The ranking exercise was followed-up with field visits to all of the highest rated risk sites to explore potential remediation. The Proposed Action is to begin undertaking corrective management on the highest risk sites. Watershed improvement projects could include treatments such as reseeding, temporary fencing, drainage, cattle exclusion and soil grading or recontouring. In addition, we will continue inventory and monitoring efforts associated with existing and new sites. The FS prepared this EA in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest and the PNG Land and Resource Management Plan (1997) and other relevant federal and state laws and regulations. Both the No Action and Proposed Action alternatives will adhere to all required federal laws and executive orders and requirements for project-specific findings or other disclosures. This EA discloses the direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental effects of implementing the Proposed Action versus No Action. This EA is not a decision document. Instead, it presents evidence and analysis necessary to determine whether the consequences of the Proposed Action have “significant” effects on the human environment and natural resources and therefore, whether an EIS is necessary. Upon completion of this determination, the Responsible Official (Lori A. Bell, PNG District Ranger) will make a decision to implement the Proposed Action, a modification of the Proposed Action or No Action. Additional documentation may be found in the project planning record located at the PNG District Office in Greeley, Colorado. PURPOSE AND NEED FOR ACTION The purpose of the Proposed Action is to rehabilitate degraded areas that are contributing to loss of topsoil, sedimentation of water sources, or loss of riparian habitat or other watershed 1 impacts. Examples of these features include: road erosion and washouts, gullies, streambank degradation, and eroded cattle trail networks. The need for the Proposed Action within the PNG Watershed Improvement Project Area is based on the Forest Plan and the need to reconcile the difference between the existing and desired conditions in the project area. The need for action is driven by two chief concerns related to erosion features: (1) degraded soil and water resource conditions; and (2) displacement of soil and loss of vegetation resulting in degraded habitat for wildlife and loss of forage for permitted livestock. Implementation of watershed improvement projects would benefit a variety of resources, and improve overall watershed condition. This is especially critical on the PNG where surface water and associated aquatic and terrestrial species are rare. As an example, under the Proposed Action a potential watershed improvement project would be the reshaping and reseeding of a large headcut and gully site which is devoid of vegetation cover and forage used by livestock and contributing sediment to downstream water sources. Another example would be the implementation of projects that would improve habitat which supports two fish species, the plains topminnow (Fundulus sciadicus) and the plains killifish (Fundulus zebrinus), considered management indicator species for the prairie aquatic community. This could be accomplished through the rehabilitation of a gully that drains to a pond supporting these fish. PROPOSED ACTION The proposed action is to utilize a suite of watershed improvement treatments across the PNG (see Figure 1) to reduce erosion and sedimentation occurring at these sites. The project area encompasses the entire 193,000 acres of the PNG (Figure 1); however, we estimate that erosion features comprise only a small fraction of the PNG. We expect to treat up to 100 acres annually. Prior to development of this Proposed Action, maps and ground surveys of the project area were used to identify types and severity of erosion features. Treatments, described in detail in Chapter2, will be tailored to individual sites, and rehabilitation projects may include a combination of treatments. Monitoring will be used to determine effectiveness of treatments and used to guide future management and implementation under an adaptive management approach. 2 Figure 1. Project Area map (Pawnee National Grassland, Weld County, Colorado). PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT Public input was conducted through scoping in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forest and Pawnee National Grassland (ARNFPNG) Schedule of Proposed Actions (SOPA) under the name “PNG Watershed Restoration Environmental Assessment” beginning on January 1, 2010. The public was also informed about this project through the environmental assessment scoping and comment period. From these outreach efforts, six comment letters were
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