OPPORTUNITY TO OBJECT – Supplemental Environmental Assessment for the 2020 Fire Affected Road System Risk Reduction Project (67147) Willamette National Forest The draft Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact and Supplemental Environmental Assessment (EA) for the 2020 Fire Affected Road System Risk Reduction Project are now available for public review. The Supplemental EA analyzes the environmental impacts of a proposed action change to reduce the risks to forest workers implementing the 2020 Fire Affected Road System Risk Reduction Project on the Willamette National Forest now, more than four years since the Fires occurred. The proposed action change would allow ground-based equipment to operate off-road on flatter terrain to conduct the falling and removal of fire-killed and injured trees previously authorized 2020 Fire Affected Road System Risk Reduction project. This proposed action change would occur on about 950 acres of lands adjacent to roads where implementation of the project has not yet been completed and fire-killed or injured trees remain. The project area is the Willamette National Forest (Forest) System lands within the perimeters of the Beachie Creek and Lionshead Fires which burned on the Detroit Ranger District in 2020 within Oregon’s Linn and Marion Counties. The draft Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact and Supplemental EA are available on the Willamette National Forest’s project webpage at www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=67147. This proposed decision is subject to objection pursuant to 36 CFR 218, subparts A and B. The responsible official for the project is the Willamette National Forest’s Acting Forest Supervisor, Duane Bishop. Objections will only be accepted from those who submitted project-specific written comments during scoping or another designated comment period. Issues raised in objections must be based on previously submitted comments unless based on new information arising after the designated comment period(s). Written objections must be submitted within 45 days following the publication of this legal notice. The date of this legal notice is the exclusive means for calculating the time to file an objection. Those wishing to object should not rely upon dates or timeframes provided by any other source. It is the objector’s responsibility to ensure evidence of timely receipt (36 CFR 218.9). Objections must include: 1) objector’s name, address and telephone; 2) signature or other verification of authorship; 3) identification of a single lead objector when applicable; 4) project name, Responsible Official name and title, and name of affected National Forest or Ranger District; 5) reasons for, and suggested remedies to resolve, your objections; and, 6) description of the connection between your objections and your prior comments (36 CFR 218.8(d)). Incorporate documents by reference only as provided for at 36 CFR 218.8(b). For further information concerning the Supplemental EA for the 2020 Fire Affected Road System Risk Reduction Project, please contact Elspeth Gustavson, Forest Environmental Coordinator at elspeth.gustavson@usda.gov, 541-225-6436.
Elspeth Gustavson
