Environmental Services Archives

Jul
2020
23
2020 / Jul / 23
Browns Canyon National Monument Resource Management Plan and EIS
- posted in
Logan Simpson led preparation of the first-ever resource management plan (RMP) for the newly-created Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado. This 21,604-acre monument is located along the upper Arkansas River and contains scenic and diverse natural resources. The monument is jointly managed by BLM and USFS and includes one of the most heavily utilized commercial boating areas in the nation. The RMP focuses on protection of resources, continued public use and enjoyment, and continuation of historic uses, such as livestock grazing.
Logan Simpson also prepared the associated EIS for the BLM and USFS. The EIS was completed in just 434 days from the Notice of Intent to the publication of the Record of Decision in July 2020—more than a year ahead of the contracted schedule. Logan Simpson’s planners employed multiple strategies to help keep the project moving, such as crosswalking the agencies’ vocabularies and processes. This small but important step helped improve the Interdisciplinary Team’s respect and understanding for each agency’s guidelines and reduced schedule delays and do-overs.
May
2020
08
2020 / May / 08
Community Wildfire Protection Plans
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The wildland urban interface (WUI) is the area where homes are built near or among lands prone to wildland fire. These areas have become more popular for homeowners for their privacy, natural beauty, recreational opportunities and affordable living. As a result, rural fire districts are more often having to fight fire and protect homes and property within these WUI areas. Logan Simpson developed the first two CWPPs in Arizona for the at-risk communities of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest that complied with Title I of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA). We facilitated the collaboration among Federal, state, and local partners as well as Native American tribes to developed these two CWPPs and established priorities to reduce the risks to communities and surrounding lands. Subsequent to these first two CWPPs, Logan Simpson developed 20 CWPPs, analyzed over 31 million acres, and gathered input from over 300 communities across multiple states.
May
2020
08
2020 / May / 08
Four Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) Facilitation
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The Four Forest Restoration Initiative is a collaborative effort more than 20 years in the making. 4FRI is the flagship of the Forest Service’s national Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program which sought to achieve the collaborative, science-based ecosystem restoration on unhealthy forest landscapes. This project is considered one of the most massive restoration projects in the nation. Stakeholder collaboration and consensus was central, as the values of restoration are complex. Stakeholders were a broad cross-section of more than 100 organizations, including federal, state, and local government, timber industry, preservation, and environmental interest groups, and citizens. The collaborative had often been divided deeply on specific issues and struggled to achieve consensus. Within four years, the collaborative turned over five different facilitators before turning to Logan Simpson. From 2012 to 2015, Logan Simpson guided the group through several complex challenges. Where possible, we brought electronic polling and modern collaborative planning tools into the 4FRI mix. The group’s success with Logan Simpson included revised decision rules (unanimously adopted); revision of the behavior-related ground rules of the Charter; revisioning/strategic planning each year; consensus comments on a draft EIS for the first analysis area; and successful collaborative leadership leading to broad-based support for the final EIS, which has moved to implementation without litigation. Logan Simpson managed and facilitated the collaborative with steering committee calls, facilitated meetings, problem-solving and conflict resolution.
Dec
2019
04
2019 / Dec / 04
National Historic and Scenic Trails Methodology, Field Guide, and Training
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Logan Simpson’s landscape architects, archaeologists, historic preservationists, biologists, visual resource specialists, and recreation specialists recently worked with the BLM to develop a first-of-its-kind methodology to help inventory, assess, and monitor National Scenic and Historic Trails (NSHTs). Since National Trails often cross multiple administrative boundaries, the BLM purposefully designed the methodology so it could be used by all agencies and organizations who share management responsibilities. This integrated approach provides federal, state, and local agencies and trail organizations with a common framework as they inventory, assess, and monitor each trail’s resources, qualities, values, settings and uses.
The National Trails Methodology considers four landscape elements―natural, scenic, historic and cultural, and recreation―and how they work together to define the nature, purposes, and uses of a trail. An interdisciplinary team made up of agency decision-makers, technical professionals in each resource area, and members of trail organizations and volunteer groups implements the methodology. Together, they determine how to study the trail—from the locations from which inventory will be conducted to how data will be collected and analyzed, and eventually to how resources will be monitored. Cross-agency participation is encouraged when trails cross jurisdictional boundaries.
A companion Field Guide and training curriculum provide the step-by-step guidance needed to carry out the methodology. Both the Field Guide and training emphasize the use of existing programs, skill sets, and data standards whenever possible with simple checklists and a standardized monitoring form to ensure consistency across agencies. BLM anticipates that the NSHT Methodology, Field Guide, and Training will be rolled out in early 2020.
Nov
2018
09
2018 / Nov / 09
Rawhide Solar Facility Permitting
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Logan Simpson worked with Platte River Power Authority to prepare a 1041 permit application for construction of a 30-MW solar generating facility at the site of the Rawhide Power Plant north of Fort Collins, Colorado. The project included a survey of the site’s biological and cultural resources and other related investigations. Following hearings by the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners, the project was unanimously approved.
Oct
2018
21
2018 / Oct / 21
Desert Tortoise Surveys
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Logan Simpson conducted desert tortoise surveys and provide data and a final report to BLM for three BLM land parcels added to the Las Vegas Field Office. To comply with federal environmental laws, the LVFO tasked Logan Simpson with collecting endangered species survey data. The 5,400 acres were surveyed according to BLM and USFWS standards and protocols. Tasks included performing a project assessment using the 2009 USFWS publication key to determine survey requirements for the project area, and submit a survey plan to LVFO for review, conducting surveys during the desert tortoise active season using 2009 USFWS published protocols, and finally providing LVFO with a final report and all survey data.
Sep
2018
25
2018 / Sep / 25
LiDAR Cultural Resources and Environmental Support
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Rocky Mountain Power uses Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data collected from helicopter flights to measure minimum ground clearance, structural loads, wire sag, and wire tension along their existing electric transmission line network. Lines that pose a safety hazard are then repaired. Many of the lines pre-date environmental and cultural resources regulations such as NEPA, ESA, or NHPA. Logan Simpson helped Rocky Mountain Power navigate relevant regulations while ensuring that construction schedules were not impacted by unexpected environmental or cultural resources issues. Specific tasks included interfacing with federal and state agencies; large-scale literature reviews and due diligence studies to identify potential conflicts; GIS-based mapping, modeling, and database preparation; cultural resources inventories, site recording, and monitoring; and biological tasks like avian surveys, plant surveys, revegetation, and monitoring construction buffers for threatened and endangered species. We also identified construction access roads onto the right-of-way and facilitated the resolution of potential logistical issues that could impede construction.
Sep
2018
24
2018 / Sep / 24
NPS Transportation Resource Stewardship Protection Tool
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Logan Simpson is beginning Phase IV of this project, which provides a web-based decision-support system to allow NPS staff to manage natural resources within national parks. The tool allows users to aggregate and review natural resource data from multiple parks so trends can be identified. During Phase II, Logan Simpson piloted the program in ten parks in the Southeast Region. During Phase III, we improved the tool based on information gathered from interviews conducted with NPS technical specialists. The pilot testing for this phase was conducted in the Alaska Region and included nine national parks, two national forests, three national wildlife refuges, and BLM’s Eastern Recreational Management Area. In Phase IV, Logan Simpson will update the tool; update/develop support resources; and pilot the tool in the Intermountain Region.
Sep
2018
24
2018 / Sep / 24
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument Visual Resource Inventory
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Logan Simpson is currently working on the final phase of the visual resource inventory (VRI) for the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (GSENM), located in south-central Utah. This VRI spans a study area of just less than two million acres, including all public lands with the prior GSENM boundary, as well as almost 40,000 acres of the Kanab Field Office that are located north of the monument’s boundary. The study area includes much of the Escalante River and Paria River watershed, segments of Scenic Byway 12 (Utah’s only All-American Road) and many miles of state scenic byways and back ways. It also encompasses 16 wilderness study areas, 252 miles of suitable wild and scenic river segments, and significant archaeological and historic sites, including a segment of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, Dance Hall Rock National Historic Site, and the Hole in the Rock State Historic Trail.
Sep
2018
24
2018 / Sep / 24
Visual Resource Inventory of National Historic Trail Segments
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Logan Simpson provided a field inventory program for the Wyoming Military Department that assessed the trail segment and viewshed conditions of approximately 26 miles of the California, Oregon, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express National Historic Trails (NHTs) within the administrative bounds of Camp Guernsey, located in eastern Wyoming. The results of this assessment were then carried into NRHP eligibility recommendations for each trail segment. The site condition assessments included detailed in-field archaeological documentation of the disturbances to the trails. Archaeological documentation included inventory, measurements, photographs, and GPS-based mapping; this new data was compared to previously documented trail segments to determine the current condition of the trail sites. In addition, Logan Simpson prepared an archaeological report documenting the history, locations, and current integrity of the trail segments, as well as OAHP site forms. Logan Simpson provided a robust GIS data set of inventory components as well as supporting documentation associated with visual resources, NHT condition assessments by segment, and NRHP eligibility recommendations.