Introduction
The Methow Valley Ranger District which belongs to Forest Service, cooperates with the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation (Yakama Nation) and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), propose to re-establish, enhance and improve the diversity of aquatic habitat for Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed fish in the River Mile (R.M.) 15.5-20 reach of the Chewuch River. They plan to start this project on the Methow Valley Ranger District of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Okanogan County in north central Washington State starting in the summer of 2017. This Environmental Assessment (EA) was prepared compliant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) implementing regulations, which require federal agencies to assess the impacts that their actions may have on the environment. The Forest Service is the lead agency and BPA is a cooperating agency to write this Environmental Assessment (EA). Based on the analysis in the EA, BPA has determined that the Proposed Action is not a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, within the meaning of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Therefore, the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is not required and BPA is issuing this Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Proposed Action. And the EA for this particular federal action will be reviewed and analyzed based on its compliance with NEPA requirements for EA’s in general, including the regulations set by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).
BASIC INFORMATION, PURPOSE AND NEED
The Project and Vicinity Map (Figure 1), shows that the project is located in the north of Winthrop, Washington at Chewuch R.M. 15.5- 20. It includes construction of features at 29treatment sites on National Forest System. Up to 7 ½ acres would be potentially disturbed.
The purpose of the project is to re-establish, enhance, and improve the diversity of fish habitat for threatened and endangered anadromous fish species including Chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout in the R.M.15.5- 20 reach of the Chewuch River. The major environmental issue is that lack of habitat diversity in the Chewuch River limited fish productivity for anadromous fish listed under the Endangered Species Act. There is a need to restore habitat diversity by increasing large wood quantities, pool frequency and quality, and re-establishing side- and off-channel habitat to improve fish habitat for ESA-listed species.
PROPOSED ACTION AND ALTERNATIVE
The Forest Service and the Yakama Nation, funded by BPA, are currently proposing restoration actions on the Chewuch River from R.M. 15.5 to 20.0. The proposed project has been designed to enhance fish habitat and to improve fish habitat diversity by Increasing habitat complexity by the introduction of large wood. Increasing pool habitat, and restoring historical off-channel habitat. On the other hand, the No Action Alternative would neither restore wood or stream side channels in the 15.5–20 R.M. nor any other river restoration activities. The recovery process will follow the nurture processes.
STRENGTH
This EA is clearly and contains details in every section. Additionally, this EA complied with the NEPA requirements which four sections covered all the information. The EA contains the purpose and need for the summary, followed by the second part which is alternative description, and the third section is existing condition and environmental consequences, finally, the last section contains the references.
Section 1-Purpose and Need
The first part is a general introduction to the project which mentioned the project location and description, as well as the purpose and need for the proposed action. With the help of the figures of the location, and the table of the regulatory framework, the information is more clear and vivid. This section generally introduced the EA’s information and the requirements of NEPA as well as the process they should follow. The consultation and public involvement are also mentioned as required, then the issues and indicators followed. The lead agency fulfilled the requirements of NEPA in the introduction and include public involvement.
Section 2-Alternative Description
This section mainly states the proposed action and alternative. The no action alternative is considered as the only alternative action, because there are no unresolved conflicts emerged during scoping. The EA complied with the NEPA requirement to include a No Action alternative. This section clearly describes the specific methods and details about the proposed actions with the aids of figures of all the sites in a satellite map and each site are analyzed separately.
In addition, this section uses the table shows the design criteria, mitigation and monitoring features. With the help of the table of the selected alternative and mitigation, the information is clear and easy to understand. Also, the comparison of two alternatives also presented by the table form, which will deliver the information that the project is necessary and effective. And because of this section, the people who read this EA will have a general structure about this project and will lead to next section smoothly.
Section 3- Existing Condition and Environmental Consequences
This section is the biggest section in EA, and introduce the structure about this section then explain what should focus and what should avoid in the analysis process. This section summarize the potential physical and biological impacts of the proposed action and no action alternatives for each impacted resource and mainly covered botany, invasives, water resources, wild and scenic rivers and wildlife. This EA successfully makes these factors together and the whole section is concise and relevant to plenty information offered. This section divided into several parts and each part focus on one type of resource to analyze. In each part, the first step is to determine which factors should be analyzed and which not. And then the methodology will be determined like the Geographical Information System (GIS) data on sensitive plants, then the field survey will complete.
The environmental consequences part has a specific analysis for each category. Compare with the No Action Alternative and Proposed Action, the consequences are clear and can prove the significance and necessity of the proposed action. The environmental consequences analysis is based on each type and each indicator to become more and more specific and precise. The EA also states the proposed action mitigate measures that can be taken to avoid or minimize the foreseeable effects in case the project is executed. The EA focus on the long-term effects for the area even they have small adverse effects. However, compared with the no action alternative, which in most cases nothing will change while the construction of the project will not take place and no impact is present on natural processed, the proposed action is relatively considerable.
Next part is the cumulative Effects, Cumulative effects are the incremental effects of the Chewuch River Restoration R.M. 15.5 – 20 Project alternatives when considered with the overall effects of all past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions. The analysis of cumulative effects relies on current environmental conditions as a proxy for the impacts of past actions for the reason that existing conditions reflect the aggregate impact of all prior human actions on natural events that have affected the environment and might contribute to cumulative effects. This analysis also based on the resource indicators. As a result, there will be negligible cumulative effect to the habitats, populations and individuals, and unique habitats. As well some heavy equipment entering these sites would cause a minor amount of ground disturbance and loss of understory vegetation. The minor amount of disturbance caused would be offset by the revegetation plan that is in place for disturbed areas. The overall cumulative effects would be negligible.
Section 4-Appendix
This section mainly lists the crucial documents for the EA analysis, the appendix provides information about the federal and state agencies, local governments, etc. that were included in the scoping process.
Summary
In general, this EA shows a clear highly organized and objective work of the BPA. It compliant with the NEPA requirement and the regulation of CEQ, analyzing different parts as well as the aspects of proposed action then to get the conclusion. The EA also acts its role as a planning and decision making tool as defined. Additionally, the project introduction, purpose and need, effects on the environment as well as the no action alternative are all stated in order to make the whole process complete.
WEAKNESS
Although we can consider the EA as a successful one, there is room for the EA to be improved in several aspects. The first aspect is that the EA analyzes process usually use some resource indicators like using the S. marilandica habitat (black snake-root)’s occupation and population to predict the botany condition in that region. This might be an effective way to analyze the effects of the action to the environmental, however, this is not precise enough. For the reason that just one species can represent maybe many other species but not most of the species in that area.
On the other hand, it is a good work that the EA analyses the environmental effects and consequences of different types of resource, nevertheless, there is no conclusion after all the analysis, even we can find details and the summary of each resource, but this EA can be better if there is a conclusion after the whole analysis process.
Conclusion
This EA is the final version adopted by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) for the for the Chewuch River Miles 15.5-20 Fishing Enhancement. It complied with NEPA’s requirements and the regulations set by the CEQ, where it considers several important aspects of the project such as direct and indirect effects, cumulative effects and proposed action as well as no action alternative. This EA also compares the proposed action with no action alternative in several aspects such as analyzing the short-term and long-term effects of the proposed action which will help with the decision maker to make the final decision. In addition, the cumulative effect is another vital point to be evaluated in the EA. Nevertheless, the EA could be better if it can be improved in several aspects such as the summary after all the analysis, which will provide a clearer and straightforward vision for the reader. On the other hand, the resource indicator could also be more diversity not limited to just one species. Such improvement could make the EA document better and more compliant with NEPA’s requirements.