Environmental Assessment

ALTERNATIVE DESCRIPTION – ALTERNATIVE 2 – PROPOSED ACTION CHAPTER 2
• Pretreat, Machine Pile, Burn Piles, & Underburn (2,140 acres);
• Pretreat, Mow, & Underburn (307 acres);
• Hand Fall or Mow Juniper 9 inches dbh and less (335 acres);
• Hand Fall or Mow Juniper 9 inches dbh and less , Mow, Underburn (133 acres);
• Mow (192 acres).
Total: 20,170 acres
Connected Actions
In order for the Proposed Action to be implemented, the following connected actions would also need to
be implemented 2 :
• Of the 19 miles of currently opened system roads, approximately 3 miles would be closed
following project activities. Approximately 16 miles of system roads would be
decommissioned by subsoiling (removed from the transportation system) to mitigate the
effects of vegetation and fuel reduction treatments on wildlife habitat, particularly to reduce
the effects of reductions in hiding and thermal cover and to reduce habitat fragmentation.
• To facilitate timber harvest, road maintenance to apply clay or crushed aggregate to surface
on about 30 miles of roads.
• To facilitate timber harvest, road maintenance, especially blading, brushing, and shaping
would be performed on about 8.0 miles of roads.
• About 1.05 miles of temporary roads would be constructed to facilitate economical timber
harvest and obliterated/subsoiled upon completion of harvest activities.
• Tree planting on 49.25 acres, which are for the 38 acre regeneration clearcut and 11.25 acres
of pre-existing openings.
Proposed Forest Plan Amendments
Three site specific, non-significant forest plan amendments are proposed for Alternative 2.
Amendment 1: The first amendment would waive the thermal cover objective of 30 percent of the land
area being in thermal cover within the deer winter range land allocation (MA-7). It would only apply to
the MA-7 land allocation in the Opine Planning Area.
Amendment 2: The second amendment would waive S&G WL-54, which requires that 30 percent of the
National Forest land within each Implementation Unit (IU) be in hiding cover. This amendment would
be specific to the MA-9 and MA-15 land allocations on Pine Mountain located in IU #52 and the MA-15
allocation associated with the Pumice Springs Old Growth Management Area (OGMA) in IU #57.
Amendment 3: This amendment addresses concerns with LOS and the Eastside Screens. Any of the
units proposed for treatment that fall below the Historic Range of Varibility would require a Forest Plan
amendment to the screens. The third amendment would amend the Eastside Screens to permit
regeneration harvest on 146 acres of black bark ponderosa pine and lodgepole pine stands to reduce the
risk of loss due to insect and disease and to create structural diversity to improve deer hiding and thermal
cover. This amendment would be specific to units H19 and H28.
Commercial and Non-Commercial Harvest Slash Treatments
Commercial harvest activities, both thinning and regeneration harvest, would include the use of ground
based equipment. Skidders would operate on designated skid trails spaced on average of 100 feet apart
and would be required to remain on those trails and, when necessary, to pull line up to 75 feet to reach
2 Refer to the Transportation System section in Chapter 3 of this document for descriptions and definitions of these activities.
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