U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management California Desert District 6221 Box Springs Blvd Riverside, CA 92507 December 2002 Northern & Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan Record of Decision An Amendment to the California Desert Conservation Area Plan 1980 QH 76.5 . C2 U56 2002c c. 2 BLM/CA/ES-2003/006 +1790 - 1600 United States Department of the Interior BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT California Desert District 6221 Box Springs Boulevard Riverside, CA 92507-0714 www.ca.blm.gov December 19, 2002 Dear Friend of the California Desert: Bureau of Land Management California State Director Mike Pool has signed the Record of Decision approving the Northern and Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan (NECO Plan) and amendment to the 1980 California Desert Conservation Area Plan. Enclosed please find a copy of the record. Copies of the record of decision are being mailed to those who received a copy of the proposed plan and final environmental impact statement or submitted a letter protesting the plan. The record of decision is now available on line at http://www.ca.blm.gov/cdd/landuseplanning.html. The approved plan will be available soon and will also be mailed and posted on line. Completion of the NECO Plan culminates a comprehensive, collaborative eight-year planning effort that will protect species and their habitats, preserve the desert's natural beauty and resources, and ensure that present and future generations of Americans will continue to enjoy the myriad of multiple-uses on these public lands managed by the BLM. Sincerely, Linda Hansen District Manager > U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management News Release For Immediate Release: December 19, 2002 CA-CDD-03-14 Contact: Doran Sanchez (909) 697-5220 or Jan Bedrosian (916) 978-4616 BLM Issues Decision Approving Northern and Eastern Colorado Desert Plan The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has signed the record of decision approving the Northern and Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan (NECO plan), an amendment to the 1980 California Desert Conservation Area Plan. The planning area encompasses about 5.5 million acres in eastern San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties. The NECO plan will provide for conservation management of desert ecosystems to aid in the recovery of the desert tortoise and the Coachella Valley milkvetch and the conservation of approximately 60 other sensitive species and their habitats on federal lands administered by the BLM. as well as streamline processing of land use permits. The record of decision fulfills BLM’s responsibilities under the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act and the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The plan complements the National Park Service’s existing Joshua Tree National Park General Management Plan and Backcountry and Wilderness Management Plan, and will serve as a basis for a biological resources management plan for the U.S. Navy's Chocolate Mountains Aerial Gunnery Range. State Director Mike Pool added that his signature of the record of decision lifts a number of interim restrictions on public access and use of the BLM-managed lands that resulted from the lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in March of 2000. BLM will be publishing notices in the Federal Register of the specific stipulations in the lawsuit settlement that have now expired. Copies of the record of decision are being mailed to those who received a copy of the proposed plan and final environmental impact statement or submitted a letter protesting the plan. The record of decision is now available on line at http://www.ca.blm.gov/cdd/landuseplanning.html. The approved plan will be available soon and will also be mailed and posted on line. For more information or to request copies of the documents, contact BLM Project Lead Dick Crowe at BLM's California Desert District Office at (909) 697-5216. -BLM- visit our website at www.ca.blm.gov" California Desert District Office - 6221 Box Springs Blvd, Riverside, California - (909) 697-5220 BLM CDD Record of Decision NECO CMP RECORD OF DECISION Decision This Record of Decision (ROD) approves, with minor modifications, the Proposed Northern and Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan (NECO), an amendment of the 1980 Bureau of Land Management California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) Plan to that portion that lies within the NECO planning area. The minor modifications from the Proposed Plan include changes in format, wording, and other minor corrections to improve clarity as well as two substantive changes as follows: 1. Ten priority artificial waters in wilderness areas are specifically approved subject to a subsequent site-specific analysis. 2. Twenty percent forage utilization is added for the Chocolate-Mule Mountain Burro Herd Management Area. This plan was prepared under the regulations implementing the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). An environmental impact statement was prepared for the NECO Plan in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The Proposed Northern and Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement was published in August 2002, and is available on BLM’s web site at http://www.ca.blm.gov. A summary of the major plan amendment decisions of NECO includes: 1. Establish Regional Standards for Public Land Health and set forth guidelines for grazing management. 2. Establish two Desert Wildlife Management Areas (DWMAs) encompassing about 1.75 million acres that are managed as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern for recovery of the desert tortoise. 3. Establish the Southern Mojave and Sonoran Wildlife Habitat Management Areas (WHMAs) for bighorn sheep totaling over a million acres and 13 multi-species WHMAs totaling over a half million acres such that 80 percent of the distribution of all special status species and all natural community types are included in conservation management areas. 4. Combine Herd Management Areas for wild horses and burros and adjust the Appropriate Management Levels. 5. Designate routes of travel (approximately 95% of existing routes will remain available for vehicle access). 6. Identify priorities for potential acquisition of private lands and disposal of public lands. 7. Provide access to resources for economic and social needs. 8. Incorporate 23 wilderness areas (totaling over a million acres) established by the 1994 California Desert Protection Act in the CDCA. BLM CDD Record of Decision NECO CMP Included with the amendments are certain site-specific conservation measures. While these measures are addressed and approved in the Approved Plan, they are not authorized until specifically proposed and addressed through additional site-specific NEPA analyses. All of the interim measures identified in the Consent Decree in Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. BLM (C-00-0927 WHA (JCS)) and subject to expiration upon the signing of the ROD for the NECO planning area, are terminated. Consistency with other CDCA Plan Amendments Several other CDCA Plan amendments are concurrently being developed for other regions in the CDCA. Those decisions that are common among these amendments have been developed to be consistent with each other. In addition, the NECO planning area overlaps two adjacent planning areas, the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP), and the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area Management Plan (ISDRAMP). When approved, the MSHCP and ISDRAMP plan decisions will replace the NECO plan decisions in the overlap areas. Alternatives Considered Four land use management alternatives were developed for the NECO Plan and Environmental Impact Statement. They provided decision makers with a range of realistic and distinct options to fulfill the purpose and need for the project and address the eight scoping issues identified in Table 1-2 of the Proposed Plan/FEIS. 1. No Action-Current Management This alternative describes existing resource conditions with current management practices and present land use allocations. Included are many decisions previously made but not implemented. 2. Proposed Plan This alternative provides for managing public lands using strong conservation measures to provide for recovery of the desert tortoise. It emphasizes ecosystem management while balancing for multiple uses. 3. Small DWMA--A Alternative This alternative provides for managing public lands for recovery of the desert tortoise through recommendations contained in the Tortoise Recovery Plan (USFWS 1994). It emphasizes conserving biodiversity and non-consumptive uses. 4. Small DWMA-B Alternative This alternative provides for managing public lands with a reduced emphasis on ecosystem management and increased emphasis on multiple uses of public resources, while still providing for recovery of the desert tortoise. D-2 BLM CDD Record of Decision NECO CMP Environmentally Preferable Alternative Federal environmental quality regulations (40 CFR 1505.2 (b)) require that an agency identify the environmentally preferable alternative or alternatives in the ROD. Alternatives 2 and 3 are the environmentally preferred alternatives. While each contains different arrays of management features that create some difficulty in defining an obvious choice, Alternative 3 on an overall basis may be considered the more environmentally preferable. Management prescriptions for native species and their habitats are similar for both alternatives, and both alternatives contain the same amount of land dedicated to conservation management of special status species and their habitats. Alternative 2 has a greater amount of area in more conservation management for the desert tortoise (i.e., DWMAs are larger), and is more limiting on surface area disturbance. On the other hand, cattle grazing and driving in washes on an area basis would not be allowed in the smaller DWMAs of Alternative 3. In addition, in Alternative 3 the following would be eliminated: cattle grazing from DWMAs, all burro herds, both domestic sheep grazing allotments, and competitive vehicle racing with speed as a primary competitive factor throughout the planning area. Alternative 3 contains three times the amount of highway fencing for the desert tortoise as Alternative 2. For a complete comparison of alternatives, see the Table 2.9 in the Proposed Plan/FEIS. Management Considerations This decision emphasizes ecosystem management with strong conservation measures and also broadly provides for multiple uses of public lands. A summary of the key management considerations involved in the decision is as follows: Standards and Guidelines for Public Land Health Regional standards and guidelines are selected instead of National standards and guidelines because they were tailored to the local desert situation with involvement by the Desert Advisory Council, and broadly apply to all resources and management programs. Desert Tortoise Recovery The larger than minimum recommended size for DWMAs and the defined array of management prescriptions best allows for recovery over a large area with a generally less restrictive array of specific management prescriptions. Specific features such as deletion of some critical habitat, changes to standard mitigation and compensation measures, inclusion of some cattle grazing, designation of both open and closed roads and washes, proposals for artificial waters for large and small wildlife, and the 1% surface disturbance limitation on federal lands apply up-to date scientific analyses and provide balanced commitment to promoting desert tortoise recovery and multiple use management by reducing conservation-use conflicts. Special Status Species A comprehensive approach to managing all species and habitats is included and features at least 80% coverage of the known or predicted habitat for 60 special status species in specific conservation management areas. This ecosystem emphasis of the plan greatly diminishes the chance of future species listings. Included in the array of management prescriptions is a proposal to construct a number of artificial waters for bighorn sheep and deer in the Sonoran Bighorn Sheep Wildlife Habitat Management Area to sustain the herds through periods of difficult drought conditions. Because of the amount of bighorn sheep range contained in BLM wilderness areas and because of the declining number of bighorn D-3 BLM CDD Record of Decision NECO CMP sheep, it is necessary that some of these waters be located in wilderness. Wild Burros BLM is committed to managing free-roaming herds of wild burros under the 1971 Wild', Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act. Because a high number of former burro herds in the CDCA have been eliminated through prior land use planning and agency transfers, and because the several state and federal agencies along the Colorado River have successfully collaborated on this matter, the two NECO burro herds will be retained but managed at reduced levels. Continued collaboration on implementation among these agencies will produce efficiencies and creative solutions to meet management commitments that have not previously been applied. Routes of Travel and Organized Competitive Vehicle Events All routes outside closed and OHV open areas are designated as open, closed or limited - i.e., there will be no more “existing routes” areas. As a result of applying specific designation criteria to all routes on public lands in the planning area outside current closed areas, about 5% of the inventoried routes are closed. This approach to designation and the consideration of specific designation criteria to implement 43 CFR 8342.1 are necessary because 1) there are so many species, cultural resources, and other sensitivities that large-scale, existing-routes areas simply can no longer be supported, and 2) to assure that designations are exacting and not arbitrary. The resulting road and washes closures are appropriate considering that most previous public and/or motor-vehicle access closures throughout the CDCA (i.e., military, parkland, and wilderness areas) had no or very little basis in comprehensive conservation of species and habitats. That only 5% of the roads and 10% of navigable washes are closed is appropriate considering that about 50% of the planning area (and the CDCA) is already closed. The approach to decisions on competitive events is also science-based: the Parker-400 route is eliminated because 75% of its alignment lies well within the Chemehuevi DWMA, and the Johnson Valley-Parker route is not eliminated because it lies entirely outside DWMAs and has no other particular species sensitivity association. General design criteria contained in 1980 CDCA Plan MUC guidelines are also eliminated because of the extreme difficulty in finding environmentally suitable opportunities. Land Ownership The general proposal is to acquire private lands in conservation management areas and dispose of federal lands in areas low in species and habitats and other resource values. No specific land acquisition or disposal proposals are addressed in the plan, but areas are identified for potential acquisition and disposal to advance the goals and objectives of the Plan, including providing for community expansion. Proposing and completing lands actions requires willing landowners, local government review, and specific NEPA analyses. Any future action that involves disposal of federal land may also require a plan amendment. The preferred method for accomplishing this goal is land exchange to support local government tax base. This approach supports goals to improve manageability of sensitive federal lands, usability of private lands, reducing local government services costs, and minimizing the effects on local tax base. Incorporation of Congressional Wilderness Designations into Land Use Plans Twenty-three wilderness areas created by Congress through enactment of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act are formally incorporated in the CDCA plan through NECO. D-4