BATTLE MOUNTAIN - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Battle Mountain District Office (BMD), is preparing a comprehensive Resource Management Plan (RMP) and associated Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to guide management of BLM administered public land (surface lands and federal minerals) within the district.
The RMP/EIS will be a dynamic and flexible plan to allow management to reflect the changed needs of the planning area and will replace the existing 1997 Tonopah RMP and the 1986 Shoshone-Eureka RMP.
Public involvement is an integral part of preparing an RMP. The scoping period gave the public and other interested parties the opportunity to provide comments on issues to be addressed and methods to be used in the RMP before BLM began drafting it.
The official scoping period began with the publication of the Notice of Intent in the Federal Register on Dec. 13, 2010, and continued for 60 days through Feb. 11, 2011.
During the scoping period, the BLM hosted eight public open houses in Reno, Battle Mountain, Eureka, Austin, Carvers/Hadley, Tonopah, Beatty and Dyer.
Notice of these meetings was posted on the BLM Web site, in local community centers such as libraries, and was included in the December 2010 newsletter that was sent to the project mailing list.
A scoping summary report was completed in July 2011 and is now available on the RMP Web site for download and viewing by the public.
The report provides: a description of the scoping process and the collaborative involvement process, which includes BLM coordination with cooperating agencies, resource advisory councils and Native American tribes; a summary of comments received during scoping; a summary of comments organized by land use planning issue; preliminary planning criteria; a summary of the number of comments received and people in attendance at public open houses; and an overview of future steps and public involvement opportunities.
Socioeconomic workshops were held June 14 - 16 of in Battle Mountain and Tonopah. The workshops sought input from local representatives on the priorities for and challenges faced by communities within the planning area.
Several background studies on specific topics for resources and land uses in the BMD are currently underway. These studies will provide the basis for the Affected Environment section of the RMP/EIS, which will describe the current conditions of these resources and uses.
The studies currently in progress cover mineral potential, socioeconomics, ethnography, cultural resources, leasing stipulations, air quality modeling, areas of critical environmental concern, wild and scenic rivers and a review of areas with wilderness characteristics.
The next steps for the RMP/EIS is the Alternatives Development process and the preparation of the Affected Environment section. Following these two steps will be impact analysis.
The BLM, in conjunction with cooperating agencies and the resource advisory councils, will develop alternative management strategies. The basic goal of developing alternatives is to prepare different combinations of resource uses to address issues and to resolve conflicts among those uses.
Alternatives must meet the purpose and need, the established planning criteria and all federal laws, regulations, policies and standards, including the multiple use mandate of the Federal Lands Policy Management Act.
Each alternative will contain a full suite of management goals, objectives and actions. During Alternatives Development and once the background studies are completed, the Affected Environment section of the EIS will be developed. Once the Alternatives Development process is complete, the BLM will conduct impact analysis. The impact analysis will provide an estimation of how management under each alternative would affect the resources and uses that the BLM manages for in the Battle Mountain District.
The next opportunity for public involvement will be during the public review period of the Preliminary RMP/Draft EIS. The 90-day public review and comment period is expected to occur during the spring of 2013.
You can stay up to date on the project status by visiting the Battle Mountain RMP Web site at http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/battle_mountain_field.html. The Web site will be updated with information, documents and announcements throughout the RMP preparation. If you know someone who would like to be added to the project mailing list or e-mail list, send an e-mail to BattleMountainRMP@blm.gov or contact Christopher Worthington at (775) 635-4000.
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