Notice of Completion & Environmental Document Transmittal

Attachment A-Project Description

Tramway Road/A-Line Road/F-Line Road/Road 90-A Shaded Fuel Break

Resource Conservation District of Tehama County

The project under analysis in this Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration consists of a 22.05 mile long approximately 300' wide (809 acre) roadside shaded fuel break. Project work would be completed to 150” both sides of the roadway along the Tehama County maintained Tramway Road, an unpaved secondary route along with the A-Line Road, F-Line Road and Road 90-A which are owned and maintained by Sierra Pacific Industries. The three SPI maintained roads are also unpaved and are used for access to timber stands located within the watersheds of Battle Creek, Paynes Creek and the North Fork of Antelope Creek. In general, tracked and tired cutting equipment will cut brush along with small conifer and deciduous trees having a diameter of 10” and under (oak species 6” and under). Similarly tracked and tired skidding equipment will transport cut vegetation to chipping areas where drum type chippers would process this material and blow it into chip vans for transport to cogeneration plants located in the Sacramento Valley. Chipping areas would be established on already in place landings and other open sites. Skidding of vegetation to chipping units will in most instances require one end of a load to drag across the soil surface. A number of Mitigation Measures developed in this IS/MND address this issue in order to reduce the impact of such activity to a less than significant level. In addition to cutting and chipping vegetation, large tracked mastication equipment would be used in some treatment areas to chip vegetative material in place in order to protect and stabilize soils on steeper slopes.

Prior to project implementation or in some instances as discovered, areas where no treatments of any kind are to occur such as streamside zones, riparian areas, locations of rare and threaten plants, habitats of rare and threatened animal species, cultural sites and plantations among others will be protected through the formal establishment and flagging of no treatment buffers. These no treatment areas are referred to in this IS/MND as Mechanical Treatment Exclusion Buffers (MTEB). Establishment and flagging of such areas will be completed by either the Resource Conservation District of Tehama County Project Manager or SPI Registered Professional Forester. If necessary in order to properly develop treatment areas, hand crews may hand cut vegetation adjacent to MTEB boundaries and either feed it into an arborist chipper unit having a 15” throat or stack it into piles for later burning within the road right-of-way. Preference for trees to be left within the fuel break will be given to Ponderosa pine, Incense cedar, Douglas fir and Black oak. It is anticipated that project work will be completed rapidly with equipment operating within in a particular location for only a short period of time. This will require frequent moving of cutting, chipping, skidding and hauling equipment. On occasion equipment will need to cross riparian exclusion zones and live streams. Entrance into any stream or riparian area MTEB will only occur along already in place roads having formally developed stream crossings and such movement will be under the supervision of either the RCDTC Project Manager or SPI Licensed Forester.

Herbicide Applications to be Completed Exclusively

Along Tramway Road and the Development of the Tramway Road/South Unit

Establishment of Tramway Road/South Unit and North Unit

In addition to the mechanical fuel treatments described above that will be conducted within all portions of the project area, appropriate herbicides registered for use within brush and forest stands will be applied along Tramway Road once chipping and mastication treatments have been completed. This special treatment area is referred to the Tramway Road/South Unit. Herbicide application’s will be completed in order to reduce the redevelopment of brush and shade tolerant tree species thus extending the life of fuel break infrastructure between mechanical treatments. The herbicide applications as described below will be completed by SPI or Resource Conservation District of Tehama County personnel who have a California Applicators License. No herbicide applications of any kind will be completed along the A-Line Road, F-Line Road or Road 90-A (referred to as “North Unit” in this IS/MND) as project work in this area will be funded using Forest Service dollars. All project work of any kind along the Tramway Road/South Unit will be funded separately by either Sierra Pacific Industries or by the RCDTC utilizing other non-federal dollars.

Use of Herbicides Within the Tramway Road South Unit

In consideration of the fact that the Tramway Road/A-Line Road/ F-Line Road/Road 90A Fuel Break project will be funded by a number of financial sources including the Lassen National Forest, Sierra Pacific Industries and potentially others, this IS/MND takes a programmatic approach to the project’s environmental analysis covering the entire project area regardless of the treatments to be used. Forest Service Region 5 policies limit or in some instances prohibit the use of chemical treatments on agency lands or in connection with projects using Forest Service dollars. Consequently it is important to note that chemical treatments will only be completed within the Tramway Road/South Unit segment of the overall project area where vegetation treatments will be completed using non-Forest Service dollars. This portion of the project area is located along Tramway Road between its junction with Sierra Pacific Industries’ N-Line Road near Lyman Springs to the south and the road’s junction with State Route 36E near Lassen Lodge to the north. In recognition of the project area’s segmentation into chemical and non-chemical treatment units, those Mitigation Measures related to herbicide treatments apply only to the Tramway Road/South Unit of the project area. All other Mitigation Measures described in this Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration document apply to all portions of the project area.

Description of Herbicide Treatments to be Completed Exclusively

Within the Tramway Road/South Unit

Once hand treatments have been completed along the Tramway Road portion of the overall project area, a Licensed Pest Control Advisor will develop a program of herbicide application using appropriate chemicals applied by a Licensed Applicator. The California approved herbicides would be used to control brush species including Whitethorn (Ceanothus leucodermis), Mazanita (Arctostaphylos), chinqipuin (Chrysolepis sempervirens), and Black Oak Sprouts (Quercus kelloggii). Herbicides will be applied in either the following summer or fall after mechanical treatments have been completed using a combination of a spray boom towed behind a quad or backpack sprayer. Vegetation will be sprayed to wet using the dosage rates shown in Table 1. With these species under control, it is anticipated that increased development of grasses, forbs and other non-woody vegetation will occur. Not only will these treatments reduce the threat of roadside ignitions in dense understory vegetation moving into adjacent timber stands, they will also provide a point from which fire control personnel can conduct back firing operations during wildfire events. In addition, fuels management personnel will have a point from which prescribed fire operations can be safely conducted if such treatments are executed at some point in the future.

Table 1

Herbicide and Dosage Rates to be Used Within Tramway Road/South Unit Portion of the

Tramway Road/A-Line Road/F-Line Road/Road 90A Shaded Fuel Break Project

Name of Pesticides to be Used / Dosage Rate/Acre / Volume/Acre / Dilution
Glyphosate / 5% / 10-20 Gal / Water
Imazapyr / 3% / 10-20 Gal / Water
Surfactants / 5%