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Coconino National Forest Revision Plan Update

The Plan Revision Team offers a very sincere thanks to those who attended our February/March “office hour” sessions and March public meetings and/or provided valuable feedback on the draft revision forest plan language! (For those who were unable to participate, please click here to access the information made available at the March meetings.) We appreciate the time you took to join us and share your thoughts on language and specific aspects of the plan.



Next Steps
The Plan Revision Team is busily working with the Coconino National Forest leadership and resource specialists to best incorporate your helpful input into the next step of our plan revision. Per the environmental analysis process (NEPA process), we are refining the draft revised plan into the Proposed Action and identifying areas that may necessitate Alternatives – for example, those sections where opposing values and desires would best be evaluated separately.
From now until the documents’ expected release in late 2011, we will develop, analyze, review, and refine the Proposed Action, its Alternatives, and the subsequent Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to provide the strongest possible documents for public review. Upon the release of those documents, you will have 90 days to provide your official comments. Once the 90 day comment period has concluded, we will update documents in response to comments received and release the Final EIS and a Record of Decision (ROD), finalizing the Forest Plan. No decision is final until the ROD is signed (expected at the end of 2012).



How are Wilderness & Other Special Area Proposals being considered?
To date, no decision has been finalized about which Special Areas will be recommended or designated in the Final Forest Plan. The Forest will analyze a wide range of Wilderness options: an alternative with no Wilderness, a Proposed Action with 3 recommended Wilderness areas, and an alternative with 13 recommended Wilderness areas. This analysis will be made public in the Draft EIS. With regard to Special Area proposals previously submitted by the public, we have attempted to incorporate the values and intent of those proposals into the Proposed Action. Special Area proposals that didn’t fit well within the Proposed Action will be considered for inclusion in alternatives. Along with other comments provided during the official 90 day comment period, comments related to Special Areas will be considered by Forest Leadership in their decision to recommend or designate new Special Areas in the Forest Plan. That information will be released as part of the Final EIS and the Record of Decision, concluding the revision process and finalizing the Forest Plan.

As always, the Plan Revision Team would be happy to receive feedback from you, so please share your thoughts with us. We appreciate your interest in our revision effort and look forward to continuing to work together to create a strong and sustainable Coconino National Forest!

Email:
Coconino_National_Forest_Plan_Revision_Team@fs.fed.us

U.S. Mail:
Coconino National Forest
ATTN: Plan Revision
1824 S. Thompson St.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001

Phone:
Emily Williams: (928) 527 – 3477

In other exciting news, the interactive Plan Revision Internet Map Server is up and ready for public use! Although the site currently only displays spatial information from the 1987 version of the Forest Plan, it will be updated with spatial information from the Proposed Action and Alternatives as it is developed. Please visit http://maps.fs.fed.us/coconino/ to learn more!

 


1 Comment

  1. Coconino Fire Restrictions Issued! says:

    Fire restrictions on Coconino National Forest begin Friday, May 6, 2011 so be prepared. Remember last year’s wildfires?

    Officials with the U.S. Forest Service will be starting fire restrictions on the Coconino National Forest. Information released by the U.S. Forest Service warned that increasing fire danger has made the restrictions “necessary to prevent human-caused wildfires and to protect public health and safety.”

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