Revised Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Oregon State Office and Mt. Hood National Forest; Hood River County, Oregon; Clear Branch Dam Remedial Project

Natural Resources Conservation Service and Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Revised Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Forest Service previously published an NOI (referred to in this notice as the original NOI) to announce the intention to prepare an EIS for the Clear Branch Dam Remedial Project (Remedial Project) on September 19, 2022. NRCS and the Forest Service are jointly publishing this revised NOI to update the project timeline, preliminary description of the proposed action and alternatives, and expected impacts; and identify the substantive provisions for potential forest plan amendments to the 1990 Mt. Hood National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan), as amended by the 1994 Record of Decision for Amendments to Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management Planning Documents within the Range of the Northern Spotted Owl (Northwest Forest Plan). This revised NOI also provides an additional 30-day scoping period and gives notice of a supplementary scoping meeting. In addition, the project name has been changed from the Clear Branch Dam Rehabilitation Project to the Clear Branch Dam Remedial Project (Remedial Project) to better align with policy (National Watershed Program Manual 505.20). The NRCS Oregon State Office and the Forest Service, announce their intent to prepare an EIS for the Remedial Project, located within the Hood River watershed in Parkdale, Oregon. The project area includes Clear Branch Dam, Laurance Lake which is formed by the dam, and associated infrastructure all located on the Mt. Hood National Forest. The Middle Fork Irrigation District (MFID)'s purpose is to provide clear and dependable irrigation water to its patrons. Recent developments have shown that Clear Branch Dam does not meet the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) safety standards and thus, in addition to remediation, this EIS will examine alternative solutions to meeting this FERC requirement while also meeting MFID's purpose which is to supply clean and dependable water. The project area in the Clear Branch watershed is primarily on National Forest System lands and includes Endangered Species Act (ESA) bull trout and Critical Habitat, significant recreation, and natural area amenities. NRCS is requesting comments to identify significant issues, potential alternatives, information, and analyses relevant to the proposed action from all interested individuals, Federal and State agencies, and Tribes.

We will consider comments that we receive 30 days after publication of this notice in the Federal Register . We will consider comments received after close of the comment period to the extent possible.

We invite you to submit comments in response to this notice. You may submit your comments through one of the methods below:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRCS-2022-0011. Follow the instructions for submitting comments;
• Mail or Hand Delivery: Ed Salminen, Project Manager, Watershed Professionals Network (WPN), P.O. Box 8, Parkdale, OR 97041. In your comments, specify the docket ID NRCS-2022-0011; or
• Project Website: clearbranchdam.com/contact.

All comments received will be posted without change and made publicly available on www.regulations.gov.