A-1 Allotment Management Plan Specialist Report
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United States Department of Heritage Specialist Report Agriculture Forest A1-Mountain Allotment Service Flagstaff Ranger District, Coconino National Forest Coconino County, Arizona Date: April 25, 2016, updated September 13, 2016 Prepared By: Jeremy Haines, Archaeologist, Flagstaff Ranger District Signatures: /s/Jeremy Haines *The information in this specialist report reflects analysis that was completed prior to and in conjunction with the completion of the Environmental Assessment (EA). The primary purpose of specialist reports is to provide detailed information to assist in the preparation of the EA. As the EA was prepared, review-driven edits to the broader document resulted in modifications to some of the information contained in some of the specialist reports. As a result, some reports no longer contain information and analysis that was updated through an interdisciplinary review process and is included in the EA in its entirety. This specialist report retains the additional information on the environmental consequences that was not included in the summarized information in the EA. Efforts have been made to ensure that the retained information in the specialist reports is consistent with the EA. If unintended inconsistencies exist between specialist reports and the EA, the EA should be regarded as the most current, accurate source of analysis. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Description and Location ________________________________________________ 3 Purpose and Need ______________________________________________________ 3 Grazing and Cultural Resources ___________________________________________ 4 Affected Environment/Existing Condition ___________________________________ 4 Cultural Overview ________________________________________________________________ 4 Previous Surveys _________________________________________________________________ 6 Cultural Resource Sites_____________________________________________________________ 9 Cultural Resource Site Assessments _______________________________________ 10 Site Sample _____________________________________________________________________ 10 Summary of Site Assessments ______________________________________________________ 11 Desired Condition _____________________________________________________ 12 Recommendations _______________________________________________________________ 12 Environmental Consequence _____________________________________________ 12 Alternatives _____________________________________________________________________ 13 Future Infrastructure Improvements __________________________________________________ 14 Compliance with the Forest Plan and Other Regulatory Direction_______________ 15 References Cited ____________________________________________________________ 17 Appendix A – Overview Map _________________________________________________ 21 Figure A.1 A-1 Allotment Overview - Previous Archaeological Survey and Sites 2 A-1 Allotment Management Plan Specialist Report Jeremy Haines, Flagstaff District Archaeologist Description and Location The A-1 Mountain Allotment (A-1 Allotment) is located on the Flagstaff Ranger District of the Coconino National Forest (CNF) and is administered and managed by the Flagstaff Ranger District. The allotment boundary begins approximately ~1-2 miles west of the City of Flagstaff. This allotment is located within all or portions of T21N R6E Sections 1-3, 10-15 and 24; T21N R7E Sections 5-8 and 17-19; T22N R6E Sections 25-27 and 34-36; T22N R7E Section 31. Under the Proposed Action, livestock grazing would continue on A-1 Mountain Allotment with 99 head of adult cattle permitted from June 1 through October 31 equating to 498 AUMs. Seasonal utilization levels would be managed at the moderate level (up to 50%) in late spring and early summer months when sufficient opportunity exists for plant regrowth. During the late summer and fall, seasonal utilization would be managed at the conservative level (30 to 40%) when potential for plant regrowth is limited. Utilization levels would be managed at the conservative level (30 to 40%) for herbaceous vegetation. In addition, the construction or removal of structural range improvements are necessary to better implement adaptive management, facilitate livestock management and reduce hazards to wildlife from structural range improvements that are no longer necessary. Improvements include the construction of 5,580 feet of fencing and the realignment of some 300 feet of barbed wire fence, and the construction of a permanent corral. Ponderosa pine, which varies from open, park like stands to dense, closed canopy stands, dominate the vegetation on the A1-Mountain Allotment which ranges in elevation from 7,000 feet to 8,300 feet. Land ownership within the A-1 Allotment includes Forest Service, state, and private land. The Forest Service only has management jurisdiction over Forest Service acreage; the remaining acreage is managed by state or private land owners. Therefore, while the allotment is approximately 6,448 acres in size, the Forest Service manages about 5,085 acres with the remaining 1,363 acres owned by the City of Flagstaff or private land owners. Purpose and Need The A-1 Allotment is scheduled for an environmental analysis of grazing use on the Coconino National Forest, as required by the Rescissions Act (1995). This analysis is required in order to ensure that livestock grazing is consistent with goals, objectives and the standards and guidelines of the Coconino National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan) (1987, as 3 amended). The purpose of this project is to authorize livestock grazing in a manner that maintains and/or moves the area toward Forest Plan objectives and desired conditions. Grazing and Cultural Resources Livestock, which share the rangelands with deer, elk, antelope and other wildlife, were introduced in the Southwest by the Spanish in the late 16th Century. By the late 1800s, cattle grazing on open ranges in Arizona and New Mexico grew to more than 1,500,000 head fostering environmental degradation, perhaps best described as a tragedy of the commons resulting in overgrazing through shared use (USFS 2007). Over grazing without sustainable practices on the open rangeland resulted in badly deteriorated range conditions. Around the turn of the century, the number of cattle slowly declined as sheep increased to more than 1,000,000 head on the newly established forest reserves. Range conditions were deteriorating as a result of years of overgrazing. In 1898, concerns about watershed and irrigation degradation led to the first grazing permit system on forest reserve lands limiting the number of cattle (Lewis, 2005). The first Forest Service grazing permits in the Flagstaff area were issued in 1908, at the time when the San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserves became the Coconino National Forest. The initial permits provided no regulation other than a fee collected by the Forest. Although stock numbers remained relatively high throughout the early 1900s, adaptive management strategies and changes in the livestock industry have resulted in decreasing stock numbers over time. By the 1970s, with strong federal regulation and Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960 in place, the USFS entered into an era of land management that dramatically changed how grazing is managed on public lands. On the Coconino National Forest the number of grazed cattle have been at an all-time low with 19,000 permitted in 1970 to 16,271 permitted in 2000 (Hanneman, 2006). In the A-1 Allotment little change has occurred over the last 10 years with cattle numbers fluctuating with dry years and wet years. Overall, the management in place over the last 10 years has resulted in grazing utilization below the 35 percent allowable use guideline (USFS 1987: 66- 1) Affected Environment /Existing Condition Cultural Overview1 Human occupation on the Colorado plateau goes back at least 12,000 years. The cultural- historical framework used in following discussions consists of a five period general chronology applicable to the project area: Paleoindian (ca. 10,000 to 7,000 B.C.), Archaic (7,000 B.C. to A.D. 500), Formative (500 B.C.to A.D. 750), Protohistoric (A.D. 1300 to 1540) Historic (A.D. 1 Taken from Laurila (2015) with modifications. 4 1540 to 1950). The Paleoindian period describes a time in the Americas when social organization revolved around mobility and an economy based on the gathering of wild resources (Irwin-Williams, 1979:31); and supplemented by the hunting of Pleistocene megafauna to varying degrees (Meltzer, 2009:95-136). Evidence of Paleoindians in the project area is sparse. Mike Lyndon (2005) found evidence of a Clovis presence, which was restricted to around twenty-two Clovis points discovered as surface finds. Evidence of later Folsom peoples in Northern Arizona is sparse as well, amounting to two possible Folsom points found near Ashfork, Arizona. The intervening period between the attenuation of the Paleoindian cultures and the widespread adoption of maize agriculture in the Southwest around A.D. 500 is known as the Archaic period. The Archaic period within the project area is generally separated into four periods marked by changes in projectile point style correlated to ecological change (Smiley, 2002; Lyndon, 2005): Early (7,000 to 4,200 B.C.), Middle (4,200 to 2,600 B.C.), Late (2,600 to 500 B.C.), and Basketmaker II (500 B.C. to ca. A.D. 500). The Archaic period is marked by a subsistence strategy based on the gathering and hunting. Settlement and subsistence during the Archaic