The purpose of this project is to improve forest health, ecosystem resiliency, and wildlife habitat at a landscape scale by regenerating aspen in conifer encroached stands and stable stands, reducing hazardous fuel loads within forested stands, and treating conifer stands impacted by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Prescribed fire and mechanical treatments will be used to move the landscape closer to properly functioning conditions (i.e., a mosaic of patch sizes, species composition, stand structure, and age classes), increasing resilience, and reducing the risk of future large high-intensity/severity fires and widespread insect and disease outbreaks. The overall project is aim at restoring and regenerating aspen which has been encroached by conifer and/or impacted by a lack of disturbance and drought. Aspen woodlands in Utah are crucial habitat for wildlife. Currently, there is an abundance of mature aspen and a lack of early seral stages, and stands are being encroached by conifers. Once established, conifers limit understory diversity and production, eventually shade out mature aspen trees and severely limit the possibility of regeneration. If conifers are not removed by natural fire, disease, or insect events, then aspen stands are at risk of being lost. Although conifer encroachment into aspen is a natural process, it is occurring on a massive scale due mainly to fire suppression. Aspen rely on disturbances, such as fire, to perpetuate. Prescribed fire and mechanical treatments will be used to remove encroaching conifers, promote aspen regeneration, and restore age class diversity across the landscape. The project area has also been impacted by a mountain pine beetle epidemic that resulted in mortality in lodgepole pine stands. The dead trees are beginning to fall over, significantly increasing surface fuel loads and the risk of large high intensity/severity fire.

To conduct an archaeological clearance of approximately 1,550 acres of forested BLM-managed public lands in preparation for planning a forest health project, with a focus on restoration of aspen stands. This approach will give archaeological survey crews the ability to conduct their surveys and provide time for the BLM and its partners to develop a detailed proposal and completed required NEPA analysis. 1) Remove encroaching conifers from aspen stands to reduce competition and improve forest health. 2) Increase light penetration to the understory to encourage the growth of grasses and forbs for wildlife and livestock forage. 3) Improve aspen regeneration in stable aspen stands which are maturing and becoming decadent due to a lack of disturbance. 4) Improve the health of conifer stands (e.g., lodgepole pine) by removing trees impacted by disease (e.g., mountain pine beetle). 5) Reduce hazardous fuel loading in forested stands to improve resiliency and decrease the threat of higher severity wildfire. 6) Reintroduce disturbance into forested ecosystems though the use of prescribed fire and mechanical treatments. 7) Improve wildlife habitat for numerous wildlife species. 8) Improve watershed health by regenerating aspen stands in the area.

Aspen woodlands in Utah are crucial habitat for wildlife, but are being lost to encroaching conifer. The area provides habitat for many big game, avian, small mammal, and aquatic species including mule deer (crucial summer, crucial winter, substantial winter), moose (crucial summer and winter), elk (crucial summer, crucial winter, substantial winter), proghorn (substantial summer), black bear, greater sage-grouse (winter, summer, and breeding; includes PHMA), Bonneville cutthroat trout, potentially Canada lynx, and various migratory birds/raptors. Aspen on BLM-lands within Rich County have experienced decline compared to historical conditions. With increasing shade from conifers and a decline in aspen dominated cover, ungulate browsing pressure across the mountain increases as ungulates concentrate browse pressure in fewer areas of high forage, causing ecological impacts across a wide range of vegetation types. Without treatment, the amount of usable forage for ungulates will decrease and distribution of ungulates will continue to concentrate. If left untreated, a continued loss of seral aspen is expected due to the level of conifer infilling and low rate of aspen sprouts recruiting without the introduction of disturbance. Stable aspen ecosystems are also expected to decline without treatment - which distributes browse pressure from recruiting aspen sprouts within these stands. Some stable aspen stands are composed almost exclusively with older trees near the maximum life expectancy for quaking aspen. As conifers continue to expand and infill, the risk for large uncharacteristic/high-severity wildfires will also continue to increase. Wildfire suppression costs are extremely high especially when suppressing fires in similar fuel types and loadings as present on this project. When wildfires occur, this could result in damage to wildlife habitat, private property, increased erosion, greater opportunities for noxious weed establishment, impacts to available short-term forage, and stream sedimentation.

This proposed project is consistent with the Laketown Canyon Area of Critical Environmental Concern Management Plan 1989, and the Randolph Framework Management Plan 1980, as amended by the Salt Lake Field Office (SLFO) Fire Management Plan (FMP) 1998 Alternative 2-Proposed Action/Integrated Fire/Resource Management Plan. The FMP specifically mentions the reintroduction of fire into the ecosystem to meet desired resource management objectives (p. 7).'Vegetation management would include a wide variety of management activities including prescribed fire, mechanical manipulation, seeding to a less flammable and more desired species, fuelbreak establishment, and other strategies (p. 8).' 1) Randolph Management Framework Plan (BLM 1980), as amended: a) Revised Forestry Decision F-1.1: Manage the forest areas on public land in Rich County as outlined in the proposed action of the Bear River Resource Area Woodland Product Program Environmental Assessment (EA UT 020 84-25). The objective of the program is to benefit multiple use management, including wildlife, watershed, and range; to help control pine beetle; to reduce the incentive for trespass; and to meet local needs. The purpose for a sale or permit is not to be the commercial production of forest products. i) Rationale 1: Control of mountain pine beetle by removing infected lodgepole pine. ii) Rationale 2: Continued control of mountain pine beetle by periodic removal of susceptible lodgepole pine. iii) Rationale 3: Enhancement of existing wildlife habitat and livestock forage by selectively treating existing stands of subalpine fir and quaking aspen. iv) Rationale 4: Protection of valuable watershed. v) Rationale 5: Control of indiscriminate theft of valuable woodland products by offering a more visible compliance program. 2) Salt Lake District Proposed Fire Management Plan Amendment (BLM 1998): a) The FMP specifically mentions the reintroduction of fire into the ecosystem to meet desired resource management objectives (p. 7).'Vegetation management would include a wide variety of management activities including prescribed fire, mechanical manipulation, seeding to a less flammable and more desired species, fuel break establishment, and other strategies (p. 8).' b) This project is within the Fire Management Units A13, B08a, and B10a. Within these units, vegetation management would include a wide variety of management activities including mechanical manipulation, seeding to less flammable and more desirable species, fuel break establishment, and other strategies which will improve the fire regime condition class. Prescribed fire would also be used to reintroduce fire into the ecosystem. 3) Utah Land Use Plan Amendment for Fire and Fuels Management (BLM 2005) a) To reduce risks and to restore ecosystems, the following fuels management tools would be allowed throughout Utah: wildland fire use, prescribed fire, and mechanical, chemical, seeding, and biological actions. b) Treat aspen stands with fire or mechanical treatments to reduce encroaching junipers and conifers and to stimulate sprouting. If treated aspen stands are small, consider excluding big game and livestock until the regeneration can withstand grazing. In the WUI, consider increasing aspen cover if possible to create a shaded fuel break between private land (and other high value areas) and the more flammable conifer trees on BLM land. 4) Utah Greater Sage-Grouse Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment (BLM 2015/2019): a) Objective SSS-1: Enhance or improve GRSG habitat (e.g., through restoration or rehabilitation activities) within PHMA that has been impaired or altered. b) MA-VEG-1: In PHMA, where necessary to meet GRSG habitat objectives, treat areas to maintain and expand healthy GRSG habitat (e.g., conifer encroachment areas and invasive annual grasslands). c) MA-VEG-2: Remove conifers encroaching into sagebrush habitats, in a manner that considers tribal cultural values. d) MA-VEG-4: In PHMA, include GRSG habitat objectives in restoration/treatment projects. Include short-term and long-term habitat conditions in treatment objectives, including specific objectives for the establishment of sagebrush cover and height, as well as cover and heights for understory perennial grasses and forbs necessary for GRSG seasonal habitats (see Objective SSS-3). e) MA-FIRE-3: In PHMA, fuel treatments will be designed through an interdisciplinary process to expand, enhance, maintain, or protect GRSG habitat. 5) Laketown Canyon Area of Critical Environmental Concern Management Plan (BLM 1989). a) B. The management plan should enhance the vegetation in the area and the riparian areas. b) D. The condition of the watershed should be maintained at its present level or improved. c) F. The crucial winter range should be maintained at its present condition or enhanced. 6) Rangeland Health Standards and Guidelines for Healthy Rangelands. BLM Utah State Office (1997). Standard 3: a) Desired species...are maintained at a level appropriate for the site and species involved. As indicated by: frequency, diversity, density, age classes, and productivity of desired native species necessary to ensure reproductive capability and survival. 7) Utah Conservation Plan for Greater Sage-Grouse (UDWR 2019): a) Conservation goal: Protect, maintain and increase sage-grouse populations within the established SGMAs throughout Utah. b) Habitat Objective: Protect, maintain and increase sage-grouse habitats within SGMAs at or above 2013 baseline disturbance levels. c) Conservation Strategy 2: Implement the actions outlined in EO/002/2015 and related MOUs, along with the Governor's Catastrophic Wildfire Reduction Strategy, relevant sections of State code, and the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, to reduce the size, severity and frequency of wildfires in and adjacent to SGMAs: i) 2A. Coordinate across relevant state agencies to ensure maximum conservation and risk reduction benefit to sage-grouse populations on all land management projects, prescribed fires, and fire suppression actions in and adjacent to SGMAs. 8) Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) Conservation Objectives: Final Report. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Denver, CO. February 2013: a) General Conservation Objectives: 1. Stop population declines and habitat loss. 2. Implement targeted habitat management and restoration. b) Specific Conservation Objectives: 1. Retain sage-grouse habitats within PAC's. 3. Restore and rehabilitate degraded sage-grouse habitats in PAC's. 9) Utah Wildlife Action Plan. DWR Publication Number 15-14, State of Utah, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife Resources, Effective 2015-2025: a) The proposed action supports mitigating threats to Aspen-Conifer including: i) Increasing disturbance from either prescribed or natural fire. Recent studies have shown that larger scale burns (e.g., 5,000 acres) that burn more intensely have been the most successful in terms of aspen regeneration. Higher-intensity burns stimulate higher numbers of young aspen per unit area, than lower-intensity burns. A larger treatment area distributes ungulate browse pressure, allowing most young aspen stems to reach a safe height. ii) Applying mechanical disturbance agents such as timber harvest. This can also be used to stimulate aspen regeneration and avoid or reduce resource losses to conifer beetles. As with fire, larger mechanical treatment areas serve to distribute browsing pressure and reduce damage to individual stems, increasing regeneration success. iii) Monitoring smaller, naturally-occurring or human-created disturbances for ungulate damage, and taking follow-up actions such as fencing, hazing, hunting, and/or domestic grazing management, may be required to prevent or reduce damage caused by domestic, wild, or feral ungulates. 10) Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources: a) Section IV Statewide Management Goals and Objectives. This proposal will address Habitat Objective 2: Improve the quality and quantity of vegetation for mule deer on a minimum of 500,000 acres of crucial range by 2019 (see pages 19 and 20). i) Strategy B: Work with land management agencies, conservation organizations, private landowners, and local leaders through the regional Watershed Restoration Initiative working groups to identify and prioritize mule deer habitats that are in need of enhancement or restoration. ii) Strategy D: Initiate broad scale vegetative treatment projects to improve mule deer habitat with emphasis on drought or fire damaged sagebrush winter ranges, ranges that have been taken over by invasive annual grass species, and ranges being diminished by encroachment of conifers into sagebrush or aspen habitats, ensuring that seed mixes contain sufficient forbs and browse species. iii) Strategy F: Encourage land managers to manage portions of pinion-juniper woodlands and aspen/conifer forests in early successional stages. 11) Rich County Coordinated Resources Management Plan: a) TES Species/Wildlife i) Rich County desires to maintain viability of wildlife and plant species-at-risk (including endangered, threatened and sensitive species and unique communities) and their habitats. ii) Protect and restore degraded habitats and connectivity between fragmented habitats where at-risk wildlife and plant species are found. iii) Rich County desires to maintain healthy native wildlife populations. The county also desires to protect and enhance natural landscapes, ecosystems, and the biodiversity of the county to support healthy wildlife populations. Rich County desires to take an active role in the RACs and communicate and advocate for county goals for wildlife. iv) Support active management of vegetation (e.g., weed removal and treatment) to reduce components or factors that promote risk of catastrophic fire, such as cheatgrass or excessive conifer encroachment. Support management actions to reduce potential for insect epidemics. v) 1. Support fuel reduction strategies including vegetation treatments, silvicultural actions, prescribed fire, prescriptive grazing, and weed control. vi) 2. Support vegetation management that focuses on approximating natural disturbances and processes by restoring composition, age-class diversity, patch sizes, and patterns for all vegetation types. b) Fire Management i) Rich County supports controlled wildland fire use and prescribed fire on public lands to provide for ecosystem maintenance and restoration consistent with land uses and historic fire regimes where it does not threaten adjacent development. Rich County also supports hazardous fuel management to reduce risk of property damage and uncharacteristic fires, and the county supports fire suppression activities for public and firefighter safety and protection of other federal, state and private property and natural resources. ii) 9. Support projects that alleviate the possibilities of catastrophic wildfire. c) Forest Management i) Rich County desires to maintain and improve forest health to reduce threat of catastrophic wildfire and for the benefit of water quality, wildlife habitat, recreation, aesthetics, and the forest's resilience. ii) Support agencies in providing woodland products on a sustainable basis consistent with maintaining ecosystem health and other resource management objectives to meet local needs where such use does not limit the accomplishment of goals for the management of other important resources. 12) The Utah Smoke Management Plan (1999, 2006 revision): a) By using mechanical mastication this plan will accomplish Goal #5, Use of alternative methods to burning for disposing of or reducing the amount of wildland fuels on lands in the State (p3). 13) State of Utah Hazard Mitigation Plan (March 2011): a) This plan accomplishes statewide goals including, 1) Protection of natural resources and the environment, when considering mitigation measures and 2) Minimize the risk of wildfire (p12). 14) A Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy Implementation Plan (U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service 2002): a) 1) Improve fire prevention and suppression; 2) Reduce hazardous fuels; and 3) Maintain and restore fire adapted ecosystems. 15) Secretarial Order 3336 -- Implementation Plan: Rangeland, Fire Prevention, Management and Restoration. a) Section 7b(iii) -- Expand the focus on fuels reduction opportunities and implementation b) Section 7b(iv) -- Fully integrate the emerging science of ecological resiliency into design of habitat management, fuels management, and restoration projects.

The project is being planned to effectively restore resilient, fire-adapted aspen ecosystems on a landscape-scale and across boundaries by moving the stands toward properly functioning condition in terms of composition (species diversity) and density (crown spacing and fuel loading). In addition the treatments will improve structural diversity, promote aspen regeneration and recruitment, reduce the hazardous fuel loading and reduce the continuity of fuels across the western Rich County landscape; thus mitigating the risks and damage associated with a high intensity, high severity, uncharacteristic/catastrophic wildfire.

Project treatments may result in short to moderate term impacts to water quality, but project design features would prevent long-term degradation. Project treatments would considerably lessen the risk of large-scale high-severity wildfires that could result in long-term watershed degradation. When wildfires occur, increased erosion, greater opportunities for stream sedimentation, and possible mud slides. This project reduces risks to multiple watersheds across western Rich County within the Bear River watershed. By maintaining watershed function, long-term water quality and watershed health would be maintained or enhanced. By removing conifer and increasing aspen regeneration via prescribed fire and/or mechanical treatments, it is anticipated that watershed resilience, hydrologic storage capacity in the regenerated aspen, and water quantity will be enhanced.

NEPA is not required for the archaeological clearance, but will be completed once the project is fully designed and prior to any implementation of forest health treatments.

The cultural resource inventory will be contracted through UDWR. Once implemented, treatment methods while vary by stand type and objectives. Treatment methods may include commercial removal (salvage harvest), precommercial thinning (mechanical thinning), lop and scatter, lop and pile, mastication, broadcast burning, and pile burning.

Monitoring and surveys will be identified once the project proposal has been developed. At a minimum, aspen stand condition data will be collected both prior to treatment and for a minimum of 10 years post-treatment. Wildlife surveys and monitoring will also occur.

The BLM will coordinate with partners including UDWR, UWRI, Rich County CRM, Western Aspen Alliance, permittees, etc.

The project area will continue to be managed for multiple use. The project area will see treatments implemented in phases over the next 10+ years. Maintenance treatments would be implemented, as necessary, on treated units to ensure long-term success. Preventative and reactive weed treatments would be implemented, as needed. Livestock grazing on permitted allotments would continue and use by the public for recreational opportunities (e.g., hunting) would also continue.

The project area includes multiple livestock allotments, including the Three Creeks consolidated allotments. Conifer removal and aspen regeneration open up the forest canopy and increase understory plant species richness and diversity. Treatment areas may be rested from livestock, if needed to protect aspen shoots.

06/01/2021

02/15/2022

2022

PaleoWest was awarded the contract for $26.38/acre to complete 1,550 acres of Class III survey. SHPO concurrence was received 02/15/2022.

PaleoWest was awarded the contract on 05/19/2021. Field work was completed in late October 2021 with deliverables provided to BLM in late December. SHPO concurrence was received 02/15/2022.

No historic properties were identified. Thus, this project will have no adverse effects on any cultural resources.