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New England Wilderness Act Road Restoration Project Decision Memo

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New England Wilderness Act Road Restoration Project Decision Memo United States New England Wilderness Act Department of Agriculture Road Restoration Project Forest Service Eastern Decision Memo Region July 2014 Green Mountain National Forest Middlebury and Rochester Ranger Districts Towns of Ripton, Granville and Hancock, Addison County; and Town of Rochester, Windsor County, Vermont Responsible Official: Colleen Pelles Madrid Forest Supervisor Green Mountain & Finger Lakes National Forests 231 North Main Street Rutland, VT 05701 Phone: (802) 747-6700 E-mail: [email protected] For Information Contact: Ken Norden Middlebury Ranger District Green Mountain National Forest Forest Road 67A Culvert – Joseph Battell Wilderness 1007 Route 7 South Middlebury, VT 05753 (802) 388-4362, ext. 113 E-mail: [email protected] 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 for program information (e.g. Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) please 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, SW., Washington, DC 20250-9410, or call (800) 795- 3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. This document can be made available in large print. Contact Jay Strand at (802) 767-4261, x522 or email [email protected] Green Mountain National Forest New England Wilderness Act Road Restoration Project Decision Memo USDA Forest Service, Eastern Region, Green Mountain National Forest Middlebury and Rochester Ranger Districts I. SUMMARY As the Forest Supervisor of the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests, I am approving the implementation of the New England Wilderness Act Road Restoration Project. The project includes restoring roads within existing federally designated wilderness to more natural conditions. The roads that will be restored are located on National Forest System (NFS) lands within the Joseph Battell Wilderness and Breadloaf Wilderness on the Middlebury and Rochester Ranger Districts, Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF) in the Towns of Ripton, Granville, and Hancock, Addison County; and the Town of Rochester, Windsor County, Vermont (refer to the attached maps). II. DECISION TO BE IMPLEMENTED A. Background and Project Area The New England Wilderness Act (NEWA), signed into law on December 1, 2006, established an additional 41,650 acres of wilderness on the GMNF. This raised the total amount of wilderness on the GMNF to approximately 101,000 acres. In addition to expanding existing wilderness areas including the Breadloaf Wilderness, the NEWA also designated the new Joseph Battell Wilderness. The project area is along existing road corridors within both the Breadloaf and Joseph Battell Wilderness areas and is part of the Wilderness Management Area as provided for in the 2006 GMNF Land and Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan). B. Purpose and Need As a result of the NEWA, four existing Forest Service system roads and their associated infrastructure are within the Breadloaf and Joseph Battell Wilderness areas. These roads are incompatible with the wilderness area character and values. The roads are summarized in the table below. Wilderness Forest Town Road Mileage: Total Length Existing Road # and (Length within the Culverts within Wilderness to Restore)1 Wilderness Breadloaf FR 25 Granville 2.0 (1.4) 18 Joseph FR 42 Hancock 1.9 (0.5) 4 Battell Joseph FR 67A Ripton 0.5 (0.45) 3 Battell Joseph FR 61A Rochester 0.5 (0.18) 2 Battell TOTAL 4.9 (2.53) 27 1Road lengths are approximate. Decision Memo – New England Wilderness Act Road Restoration Project Page 1 Green Mountain National Forest Section 4(C) of the Wilderness Act (P.L. 88-577) states: “Except as specifically provided for in this Act, and subject to existing private rights, there shall be no commercial enterprise and no permanent road within any wilderness area designated by this Act and except as necessary to meet the minimum requirements for the administration of the area for the purpose of this Act (including measures required in emergencies involving the health and safety of persons within the area), there shall be no temporary road, no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area”. The purpose and need of this project is to address the incompatibility of existing infrastructure in wilderness, specifically roads, which do not conform to the intentions of the 1964 Wilderness Act and the Forest Plan. Specifically, there is a desire to: • Remove roads from the forest transportation system that are no longer needed for administrative purposes and are inconsistent with the Wilderness Act and Forest Plan direction for the Wilderness Management Area (Forest Plan, pp. 49-53) • Restore roads to a more natural level (Forest Plan, p. 53) • Restore natural processes and watershed conditions (Forest Plan, Goals 3 and 4, p. 13) • Improve fisheries, invertebrate and plant habitat by restoring the natural flow of water in streams, wetlands and riparian areas (Forest Plan, Goal 4, p. 13) If this action is not taken, the wilderness character for the areas in proximity to the existing roads would be compromised, and natural ecosystem functions would continue to be inhibited. C. Description of Decision My decision is to authorize the activities needed for the restoration to more natural conditions approximately 2.53 miles of existing road within the Breadloaf and Joseph Battell Wilderness areas. The minimum requirement analysis prepared for the project shows that a short-term motorized/mechanized equipment approach is the best method to use for restoration activities while maintaining the greatest qualities of wilderness character in the long-run (MRDG, 2014). The restoration activities will include the unearthing and removal of 27 road culverts using a tracked excavator of sufficient size to perform the work in a safe manner. Culverts will be dug- up with an excavator, removed and salvaged for scrap metal off NFS lands. Stone headwalls at the culvert inlets and outlets will be reused at the site of culvert crossings to restore the stream channel and banks to match natural conditions or to construct hardened water bars in cases of cross culverts not carrying live streams. Live streams will be restored with care to accommodate complete aquatic organism passage. Scarification and re-vegetation of the roadway will occur where necessary to address ongoing soil erosion and hasten the restoration of the landscape to a more natural condition. Excavator work within the road template and scarification of the roadbed with the excavator bucket will be used to improve conditions for natural re-vegetation and to improve future ecological function. Areas of road template already re-vegetated and stable will not be disturbed unless needed for access to other areas of the road template. All equipment will be cleaned prior to entering NFS lands to prevent spread of non-native invasive plants; and no other materials will be brought onto NFS lands. Native forest leaf litter and duff adjacent to work areas will be used as an erosion control material over any disturbed or bare soil areas. Decision Memo – New England Wilderness Act Road Restoration Project Page 2 Green Mountain National Forest Restoration activities will occur on the following roads (refer to the project maps): Forest Miles that will Description of Activity Related to the Purpose and Need Road # be Restored1 (Name) Remove a total of 18 culverts within the Austin Brook watershed. Culverts include cross-drain and perennial streams. FR25 has a history FR25 of catastrophic failure in the late-1990s that deposited road material in (Austin Austin Brook. Fish monitoring showed a near collapse of wild trout 1.4 Brook) population following the event, but have since recovered. Careful removal of drainage structures and installation of long-term soil stabilization structures will greatly reduce the risk of a repeat failure. Some culverts serve as barriers to fish and aquatic species. Remove a total of 4 culverts on tributaries to Bingo Brook. Culverts are FR42 0.5 barriers to the free movement of fish and aquatic species, and are (Bingo) resulting in sedimentation and water quality issues. Remove a total 3 culverts on Goshen Brook and tributaries. FR67A Culverts are barriers to the free movement of fish and aquatic species (Goshen 0.45 and are resulting in sedimentation and water quality issues. The gate at Brook Spur) the beginning of FR 67A will be removed and replaced with boulders. FR61A Remove a total of 2 culverts on Forest Road 61A that cross drain into (Smith 0.18 Smith Brook. Brook Spur) 1All portions of each road proposed for restoration are fully within the wilderness boundary. My decision includes implementation of mitigation measures and monitoring requirements identified in Appendix A of this Decision Memo. This decision is based upon an environmental analysis conducted by an interdisciplinary team of Forest Service specialists, and responses to public scoping. This information is filed in the project planning record located in the Rochester Ranger District office. III. REASONS FOR CATEGORICALLY EXCLUDING THE DECISION Decisions may be categorically excluded from documentation in an environmental assessment (EA) or environmental impact statement (EIS) when they are within one of the categories of actions found at 36 CFR 220.6(d) or (e), and there are no extraordinary circumstances related to the decision that may result in a significant individual or cumulative environmental effect.
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