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County staff: BLM draft EIS to enter 30-day cooperating-agency review; Thunder Basin mapping expected in September
Summary
County staff reported the Newcastle BLM will send an administrative draft of a final EIS for cooperating-agency review with a 30-day comment period, and provided updates on Black Hills/roadless inventory rulemaking and the Thunder Basin National Grassland working group's mapping work.
County staff provided several natural-resource updates to the board, including that the Newcastle office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had notified the county it would provide an administrative draft of the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for cooperating-agency review.
Staff said the county had not yet received the administrative draft but that, once received, the county will have 30 days to review. “We were supposed to get it yesterday for a 30 day review. This is not a public document. This is just for cooperating agencies,” a county staff member said, and staff indicated the county will coordinate with neighboring counties and arrange virtual check-ins during the review period.
Staff also briefed the board on federal forest and grassland matters. They said the Forest Service is expected to formally withdraw or revise its inventory rule and that the state forestry division is conducting rulemaking on its emergency fire suppression account, with a comment deadline of Aug. 6. County staff urged local emergency management and fire departments to review the state rulemaking.
On the Thunder Basin National Grassland, staff reported a working-group field tour on June 24. Staff described current mapping efforts and said mapping results are expected to be available in September; those maps will inform future vegetation- or invasive-species control and boundary-management planning. Staff noted recent moisture had produced more uniform vegetation density across some areas and that, based on earlier mapping, the working group had previously identified roughly 10,000 acres of concern under the 2020 plan; staff said they did not expect a large expansion in acreage this year but that formal mapping results are pending.
Staff also noted personnel changes in nearby federal offices: some district-level Forest Service staff had taken early retirement and replacements were being named. Board members had no immediate questions beyond scheduling and review coordination.
