AGATE FOSSIL BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT

DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

AND

NATIONAL HISTORIC PRESERVATION ACT

DRAFT ASSESSMENT OF EFFECT

TO DEVELOP A WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

WITHIN THE PARK

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument proposes to initiate a wildland fire management program within the park, having considered alternatives of continued wildfire suppression, prescribed fire, and mowing. The use of prescribed fire, in addition to continued wildfire suppression, is the environmentally and management preferred alternative. Evaluation of park resources and public use indicates that such a management program would have negligible or minor to moderate beneficial impacts the park environment, hence cause no impairment. Introducing prescribed fire on federal lands is controversial, but public response indicates that it is an acceptable alternative to potential uncontrolled wildfire on public park lands.

Approved by:

________________________________________________________ _______________

Ruthann Knudson, Superintendent, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument Date

301 River Road, Harrison, NE 69346-2734 Ph. 308.668.2211 ruthann_knudson@nps.gov

________________________________________________________ _______________

Ralph E. Moore, Superintendent, Scotts Bluff National Monument Date

________________________________________________________ _______________

Ernest Quintana, Regional Director, Midwest Region, National Park Service Date

PURPOSE AND NEED FOR THE PROPOSED ACTION

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument

Figure 1. Agate Fossil Beds National Monument Regional and Site Maps

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (Agate), a management unit of the U. S. Department of the Interior's National Park Service (Service), is in Sioux County in far northwestern Nebraska (Third Congressional District). The park is along the upper Niobrara River 10 miles east of Wyoming and south of the Pine Ridge and the Black Hills. The park was authorized in 1965, established in 1997, and includes 3055 acres of which 2270 are fee-owned, 467 are privately owned but under a Federal easement, 293 are privately owned without easement, and the remainder publicly owned. The area around Agate is relatively isolated, rural (0.7 persons/mi.²) ranch country, with a stable mixed grass prairie. The park is surrounded by private ranchlands. Agate is 50 miles north of Scotts Bluff National Monument (Scotts Bluff), which has administrative supervisory responsibility for Agate. The nearest community is Harrison, the Sioux County seat, 22 miles north of Agate. Agate's FY03 baseline funding allocation is $498,000 with a full-time-equivalent staff of eight, and the park had 17,129 visitors in calendar year 2003. Its small stream has not been designated as a wild, scenic, or recreational river and there is no designated wilderness within its boundaries.

Agate was authorized in 1965 (P. L. 89-33, 79 Stat. 123)

…to preserve for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations the outstanding paleontological sites known as the Agate Springs Fossil Quarries, and nearby related geological phenomena, …to facilitate the protection and exhibition of a valuable collection of Indian artifacts and relics that are representative of an important phase of Indian history…. [It] shall be administered…pursuant to the Act to establish a National Park Service….

The National Park Service Organic Act (16 U.S.C. 1) requires that Agate be promoted and regulated to conform to the Service's fundamental purpose, which is

…to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

Proposed Action

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument proposes development of a plan to manage wildland fire on the park’s fee-owned lands, in response to both formal public policy and resource management needs. Park lands have not been grazed, burned (except for a few acres in a research project), or mowed (other than maintenance and thistle control) since the park's authorization, and a heavy grass fuel load has built up that needs to be reduced in an environmentally appropriate program. Fire is a natural element in this upper Niobrara River valley habitat. Insofar as possible, Agate wants to manage the occurrence of fire on and impacts to park lands and structures in consideration of impacts to private inholdings, Service scenic easements, adjacent private lands, and visitor and affiliated Native American interests. The proposed management program would address the response to wildfires, the use of prescribed fire, and the impacts of both on Agate’s natural, cultural, and human resources.

Service Fire Management Policy

National Park Service management policy (NPS 2001, cf. NPS 2002) requires that:

Each park with vegetation capable of burning will prepare a fire management plan and will address the need for adequate funding and staffing to support its fire management program. The plan will be designed to guide a program that responds to the park’s natural and cultural resource objectives; provides for safety considerations for park visitors, employees, neighbors, and developed facilities; and addresses potential impacts to private and public property adjacent to the park. An environmental assessment developed in support of the plan will consider the effects on air quality, water quality, health and safety, and natural and cultural resource management objectives. Preparation of the plan and environmental assessment will include collaboration with adjacent communities, interest groups, state and federal agencies, and tribal governments.

Cultural and Natural History of the Park Lands

The lands included within Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (Fig. 1) have probably been used by people for at least the past 11,000 years based on archeological materials from the Hell Gap site 30 miles west of Agate (Frison 1978). Those archeological remains are based on eroded bedrock, leaving the question of earlier occupational evidence moot. Traditional Native American oral histories in the region cite people as having lived in the area since time immemorial, and Lakota affiliation with the cultural landscape associated with the fossil remains has been documented by LeBeau (2002). Agate is an old cultural landscape.

In the nineteenth century the Cheyenne and Lakota (Siouan) people probably made frequent use of the Niobrara River springs, sheltering cottonwoods, game and plants, nearby chalcedony (for tool stone), and sacred landscape. The area of the Agate Springs Ranch headquarters was homesteaded in the 1870s by Dr. Elisha Graham of Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory; Graham's daughter Kate Graham Cook and son-in-law James H. Cook established the Agate Springs Ranch there in 1887 (Cook 1968, Cook 1980, Meade 1990). Cook was acquainted with the Lakota Chief Red Cloud from the early 1870s until the latter's death in 1909, and after the Indians had been confined to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota Cook frequently invited Red Cloud and his band members to spend time at the Ranch. From the Ranch's establishment it was always open to Native American visitors, who came to camp, hunt, sometimes work cattle, socialize, and counsel with Jim Cook (Meade 1994). The most frequent visitors were probably Cheyennes or members of Red Cloud's band. The Ranch also employed African Americans as ranch hands during its historic operations, and possibly former members, friends, or relatives of the Buffalo Soldiers stationed at Fort Robinson. Professional paleontologists and/or geologists were also frequent Ranch guests, and the Ranch continues to operate today as a working cattle ranch. Ranch operating records from the James and Harold Cook eras are held in the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument archives.

Agate is located at the northern edge of what is now identified as the High Plains physiographic province, which is bounded on the north by the Pine Ridge escarpment. About 20 million years ago it was a grassland savannah in the rain-shadow of the rising Rocky Mountains, with meandering streams and abundant wildlife (Hunt 1984, Kiver and Harris 1999). Increasing drought during the Early Miocene apparently resulted in the death of herds of mammals around shallow waterholes. Remains of these animals were subsequently buried under the silt and ash that, even later, were exposed in what are now the upper breaks of the Niobrara River valley at Agate. Native people have taken note of these remains for generations (cf. LeBeau 2002), and they were the focus of professional paleontologists and geologists from the late nineteenth century to the present time.

The Agate natural environment is presently a mixed grass prairie with an extensive wetland along the Niobrara River meanders and springs, with impacts from a century of domestic cattle and horse grazing and haying operations but no extensive disturbance of the native sod. The landscape has been managed as a national park with minimal development for thirty years. There is a resident white-tailed and mule deer population, occasional antelope, with accompanying small mammals, frogs and snakes, turtles, and a range of birds including golden and bald eagles, meadowlarks, lark buntings, and sparrows. There is reliable scientific documentation of most of Agate’s floral and faunal resources.

Agate Fire Management History

There is quite a bit of written documentation about the natural history of the Agate landscape, including published histories (H.J. Cook 1968, J. H. Cook 1980) and extensive archival records of the Agate Springs Ranch operations from the 1800s to the present. Kyle Wendtland (1993) conducted fire research at Agate from 1988 to 1992, and noted the presence of Agate fire records since 1961 but didn’t provide any references; none is known today. In addition to some small research “prescribed” fires set by Wendtland, there is a record of the September 1990, 10.5-acre Scout creeping ground fire north of the Niobrara River in the vicinity of the Buckley field. This humanly caused wildland fire extended from south of River Road to the river. The records suggest that there has been no other wildland fire on what are now Agate fee lands in the past century, despite Dodd and Smith’s (1994) evaluation that prior to Euroamerican settlement of the area fires probably occurred at five to ten year intervals.

Agate currently participates in the Northern Great Plains Area Fire Management group, based at Wind Cave National Park, under an Interpark Agreement (NGPAFM 2003), which arranges for funding for Agate fire support. The group assists in the development and implementation of wildland fire prevention, preparedness, and suppression at Agate, as well as in the coordination and implementation of prescribed fire programs, fuel treatment, and fire use programs according to Agate's fire management plan (see attached). Agate also cooperates with the Harrison Rural Fire Protection District in fire control activities on park lands or outside of the park within a Mutual Aid Zone (AGFO/HRFPD 2002).

Public Scoping Issues

A public scoping meeting about the proposed fire management program was held at the park on January 10, 2002, after a news release to regional papers had been distributed on December 20, 2001 (Appendix). Coincidentally letters notifying tribes of the park's intent to consider initiation of prescribed fire on park lands was sent to all of Agate’s consulting Native American tribes, inviting general comment. The scoping meeting was led by Agate Superintendent Ruthann Knudson, Scotts Bluff National Monument Superintendent Valerie Naylor, and Northern Great Plains Fire Management Officer Bill Gabbert, with several Agate staff members as well as the Northern Great Plains Fire Ecologist participating. Five members of the public participated in the discussion, and none provided written comments. The primary concern during the discussions was control of wildfire and/or prescribed fire within Agate’s fee land boundaries, and compensation of neighboring ranchers if fire escaped on to their lands. The consensus was that fire is always potentially dangerous, but that it was an appropriate tool on Agate’s ungrazed prairie. In response to the tribal letters of intent, five tribal organizations (Crow Tribe, Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, and Three Affiliated Tribes) responded and all were supportive of the use of fire to manage Agate park lands; all responding tribes asked to be kept informed of the program and project activities.

Compliance Issues

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) as amended (16 U.S.C. 460) requires that Federal agencies take into account the effect of any undertaking on "any district, site, building, structure, or object that is included in the National Register." NHPA Section 110(a)(2) directs Federal agencies to "exercise caution" that any properties eligible for the National Register of Historic Places not be inadvertently demolished or substantially altered. The entire Agate Fossil Beds National Monument landscape is in process of nomination to the National Register as a cultural landscape. Hence the proposed project design must be developed in consultation with the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Officer and, if appropriate, with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. The Bone Cabin Complex within the landscape is already listed on the Register. Thirty-one Native American tribes have been determined to be culturally affiliated with the Agate landscape, and within that landscape the Crazy Buffalo Complex traditional cultural property is considered to be eligible for Register listing. Given the tribes’ affiliation with the park, Agate is particularly concerned about its compliance with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. 1966), Executive Order (E.O.) 13007 (Indian Sacred Sites; 61 FR 26771), and E. O. 13175 (Tribal Consultation; 65 FR 67249) supplemented by U. S. Department of the Interior Departmental Manual (512 DM 2, 3) and Environmental Compliance Memorandum (ECM97-2). These require consultation with tribal representatives and consideration of trust resources and spiritual values throughout the management process.

The proposed use of prescribed fire at Agate could involve ground-disturbing activity that must comply with requirements of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act as amended (16 U.S.C. 470a) to avoid disturbing any archeological sites. In addition, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (25 U.S.C. 3001-3013) requires that if any Native American cultural items are discovered in an emergency situation when no such items were expected to be found, disturbance of the items must immediately cease until appropriate tribes are consulted about treatment of the remains.

The proposed use of prescribed fire at Agate could involve ground-disturbing activity affecting fossils that must comply with the Antiquities Act of 1906 (P.L. 59-209, 16 U.S.C. 431-433).

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321) requires that, prior to initiating any major action that affects environmental quality, a detailed statement of the proposed action's alternatives, effects, and commitments of resources be developed in consultation with interested parties. Because of the complexities of the cultural and natural interactions involved with this fire management proposal, and the long-term government-to-government relations among the Service and federally recognized tribes, this document has been developed in consultation with organizations and individuals listed below. It is also being made available to the general public for review and comment before being implemented.

The proposed project must also comply with requirements of the Clean Air Act as amended (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.), Clean Water Act as amended (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.), Endangered Species Act as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.), E.O. 11988 (Floodplain Management; 42 FR 26951) and E.O. 11990 (Protection of Wetlands; 42 FR 26961), and E.O. 12898 (Environmental Justice; 59 FR 7629) as well as with the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 650).

Environmental Impact Issues Relevant To the Proposed Action

The staff at Agate has determined that a wide range of proposed actions, environmental resources, and potential effects merits address in this evaluation of the use of prescribed fire on Agate lands. While there is not a neat list of topics that must be addressed in 40 CFR 1500 ("Regulations for Implementing the Procedural Provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act"; Council on Environmental Quality, 1978), given NEPA's broad definition of “environment” this Environmental Assessment addresses these issues:

• Cultural Resources: archeological sites, historic properties including cultural landscapes and traditional cultural properties, and ethnographic resources;
• Natural Resources: fossil and associated geological deposits, soils, wetlands and floodplains, exotic species, threatened and endangered species, fuel load, state-listed rare plants, and hydrologic and air resources; and
• Human Resources: socioeconomic resources, health and safety, environmental justice.

An overview of Agate's natural, cultural, and human environment is presented following the discussion of proposed project alternatives. This description of the park environment provides a context within which to address specific impact issues, as identified above, and identifies some environmental characteristics (e.g., soils) that are not adverse issues for this evaluation. The proposed action has no conflicts with land use plans, policies, or controls for the area, and doesn't affect energy requirements and conservation potential, prime and unique agricultural lands, or ecologically critical areas (e.g., wilderness, wild and scenic river).