ELKO - The Tuscarora Field Office contains about 4 million acres of public land and is led by Field Manager Dave Overcast.
Now that the Dunphy Complex Fires are out (200,000 plus acres burned), specialists from the Tuscarora Field Office and Elko District Division of Operations are meeting the livestock operators affected by the fires to develop stabilization and rehabilitation plans.
These plans will include seeding, fencing and changes to grazing operations in conjunction with temporarily closing the burned areas during a recovery period.
During the 2012 fiscal year, the Tuscarora Field Office plans to prepare and issue standards and guidelines assessment reports on more than 10 grazing allotments.
These reports evaluate current conditions under the standards for rangeland health. If an evaluation indicates some changes in livestock management are warranted, grazing management plans will be developed to address the needed changes. The BLM will work with the concerned livestock operators and other interested parties during development of these plans.
Several proposed range improvement projects are also being evaluated for construction this fiscal year and include water pipeline systems and riparian protection fences.
A well and pipeline project called the Safford Seeding Well and Pipeline Project was proposed for construction recently, but the decision was appealed and construction was requested to be delayed pending an administrative court hearing. An administrative law judge reviewed the records and rules that a delay of project construction was not warranted.
Riparian Buffer Zones - Tuscarora Wildlife and Fisheries staff are diligently working to evaluate the effects of the recent Indian Fires on the stream channels containing Lahontan Cutthroat Trout (a federally-listed species).
Riparian buffers work to remove sediment mobilized by the destruction of vegetation cover as a result of the fires. The natural vegetation cover would normally reduce run-off and prevent excessive erosion. However, since the recent wildland fires removed this protective vegetation, the last defense to soil erosion is riparian buffer zones which do not burn in low intensity wildland fires. Carol Evans, BLM fisheries biologist, is evaluating the capacity of these riparian buffer zones to absorb the excess sediment runoff.
Sage grouse - Care for sage grouse populations and habitat will be a major work effort and will continue to receive a great deal of attention through 2012 and 2013.
Nevada BLM intends to ensure that conservation of sage grouse habitat receives consideration on any proposed use of public land. Nevada BLM is working with other states and the national BLM office to develop a programmatic Environmental Impact Statement addressing sage grouse conservation.
A large portion of northeastern Nevada is important sage grouse habitat. This means many proposed activities will be impacted during planning and implementation. Activities will be affected in a much bigger way should sage grouse become listed.
Mining - BLM director Bob Abbey has committed BLM to reviewing its decision-making processes to permit (or not) a mine with the intent to shorten the time. The Elko District is looking for ways to shorten the process. However, at the same time, the National Environmental Policy Act analysis has to stand up to intense and sophisticated scrutiny.
Major issues associated with mining are: presence of cultural resources, mule deer migration, potential acid generating waste rock, air quality and impacts to water tables.
Fire/Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation (ESR) - The Elko District responded to 107 fires in 2011. Lightning caused 69 fires with 38 human caused.
Through maintenance of a strong interagency fire suppression effort, BLM achieved an initial attack success rate of 97 percent. Only four of the 107 fires went beyond initial attack. BLM firefighters work to minimize impacts to sage grouse habitat from fire through aggressive initial attack followed by efforts to preserve unburned areas of sage brush with fire perimeters.
Elko has developed ESR plans for eight of the 2011 fires and expects to treat about 58,000 acres of the 222,000 acres burned in those fires.
Grass, forb and shrub seed will be spread using rangeland seed drills and helicopters. Fire resistant species like forage kochia are being planted where appropriate. Approximately 175 miles of dozer fire line is being rehabilitated and more than 100 miles of fence is being repaired or replaced.
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