[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 136 (Friday, July 16, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 41517-41518]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-17245]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Land Management
[LLCOF02000 L71220000.EA0000 LVTFC09C6050]
Notice of Availability of the Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for the Proposed Over The RiverTM Art Project,
Colorado
AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of Availability.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of
1969 (NEPA), as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has
prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Proposed
Over The RiverTM Art Project (Over The RiverTM
Draft EIS) and by this notice is announcing the opening of the comment
period.
DATES: To ensure comments will be considered, the BLM must receive
written comments on the Over The RiverTM Draft EIS on or
before August 30, 2010. The BLM will announce future meetings or
hearings and any other public involvement activities at least 15 days
in advance through public notices, media releases, and/or mailings.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments related to the Over The
RiverTM Draft EIS by any of the following methods:
Web site: http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/rgfo/planning/otr.html.
E-mail: [email protected].
Fax: (719) 269-8599.
Mail: BLM Royal Gorge Field Office, Over the River
Comments, 3028 E. Main St., Ca[ntilde]on City, Colorado 81212.
Please write ``OTR Comments'' in the subject line of comments that
are e-mailed or faxed. Copies of the Over The RiverTM Draft
EIS are available in the BLM Royal Gorge Field Office at the above
address, and on the project Web site listed above. A review copy of the
Over The RiverTM Draft EIS is available at the Ca[ntilde]on
City Public Library, 516 Macon Ave., Ca[ntilde]on City, Colorado;
Salida Regional Library, 405 ``E'' Street, Salida, Colorado; Arkansas
Headwaters Recreation Area (AHRA) office, 307 West Sackett Ave.,
Salida, Colorado; and the Denver Public Library, 10 W. Fourteenth Ave.
Parkway, Denver, Colorado.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information contact Mr.
Vincent Hooper, Over The RiverTM Project Manager, at the
Royal Gorge Field Office (see ADDRESSES above); telephone (719) 269-
8555; or e-mail: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The OTR Corporation (OTR Corp.), formed by
the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, proposes to install a work of
art, known as Over The RiverTM, on Federal, State, and
private lands adjacent to the Arkansas River between the cities of
Salida and Ca[ntilde]on City in Colorado. It has filed with the BLM an
application for a land use authorization under Section 302 of the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act, 43 U.S.C. 1732, and its
implementing regulations, 43 CFR Part 2920. Following an estimated 2-
year construction period, the exhibit is proposed for a 2-week display
and viewing period in early August 2013. The proposed art exhibit is a
no-fee visitor event. At the end of the 2-week exhibition period, the
system of cables and anchors and other above-ground materials would be
removed over an estimated 3-month period. The artists would be
responsible for restoring the river corridor according to the standards
defined by permitting and approval authorities.
The proposed art exhibit involves the installation of 925 porous,
semi-transparent fabric panels, weighing an average of 140 lbs/panel.
These panels would be suspended 8 to 25 feet above the water for a
total of 5.9 miles in eight locations dispersed along a 42-mile stretch
of the Arkansas River. A support structure of an estimated 9,100 steel
anchors would be drilled along and into the banks of the Arkansas River
to support 2,275 steel anchor transition frames for an estimated 1,275
steel cables that would support the fabric panels. OTR Corp. also
proposes to construct two equipment laydown areas totaling
approximately 56 acres (acreage includes visitor facilities) and a
4,000-square-foot warehouse/office building. Upon project completion,
the warehouse would be donated to a public agency or deconstructed and
removed from the site.
The earliest that the project would be exhibited is in 2013. An
estimated 344,000 visitors (which includes 100,000 baseline visitors to
the area) are expected to visit the Arkansas River canyon during the 2-
week exhibition period. An additional 36,000 visitors are expected to
view both the installation and the removal of the art. The resulting
traffic in the area is estimated to be 118,620 cars during the overall
exhibition period, and 12,862 cars during installation and removal. It
is assumed there would be an average of 2.9 visitors per vehicle.
The footprint of the proposed project would encompass approximately
310 acres. The project would be located primarily on Federal lands
administered by the BLM Royal Gorge Field Office, but would also be
located on lands owned or managed by the Colorado State Land Board
(SLB), Union Pacific Railroad, and private landowners; lands leased by
the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW); and lands owned or
cooperatively managed by Colorado State Parks in the AHRA. The Colorado
Department of Transportation (CDOT) and Colorado State Patrol (CSP)
have jurisdiction for activities along U.S. Highway 50. The majority of
the project area is within Fremont County. However, a small portion at
the western end of the project is within Chaffee County. Approximately
80 percent of the area in the proposed project would be located in the
Arkansas Canyonlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), a
BLM-specific designation that recognizes the need for recreation use as
well as protection of outstandingly remarkable values.
The BLM Royal Gorge Field Office is the lead Federal agency
responsible for preparing the EIS and complying with the requirements
of NEPA and other applicable laws and regulations. Multiple cooperating
agencies and permitting authorities have participated and provided
input in the development of the Draft EIS including the Colorado
Department of Natural Resources (DNR)--which consists of CDOW, Colorado
State Parks, and SLB--as well as CDOT, CSP, and Chaffee and Fremont
counties.
Considerations for decisions to be made through the BLM's EIS
process include:
Whether to authorize, and under what terms and conditions,
the artists' request for use of public lands;
Which combination of project elements may be authorized if
the proposed project is determined to result in unacceptable impacts
and the artists' proposed action is not authorized in its entirety;
Whether some or all mitigation measures identified in the
EIS may be adopted or if additional measures may be required;
Whether the project and its potential effects are in
conformance with the Resource Management Plan (RMP), including the
Arkansas Canyonlands ACEC; and
Whether an amendment to the Royal Gorge Resource Area RMP
is
[[Page 41518]]
necessary to allow for the use of public lands for the Proposed Action.
Over The RiverTM was informally proposed by the artists
Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1996. Based on OTR Corp.'s verbal
proposal, the BLM started conducting an Environmental Assessment (EA)
and held public meetings between 1997 and 2000. The BLM initiated an
informal scoping period through eight public meetings held in
communities within the proposed project area from April 1997 to October
2000. OTR Corp. re-approached the BLM about the proposed project in
August 2005. Additional EA-level scoping occurred in January and
February 2006. The BLM also hosted interagency meetings with CDOT, DNR,
Fremont County, Chaffee County, and CSP on May 24, 2006, to discuss and
understand the public comments and questions. The scoping comments led
to a Notice Of Intent (NOI) published in the Federal Register on June
19, 2006 (71 FR 35289), announcing the intent to prepare an EIS based
on several factors, including a specific request from the applicants;
the increasing complexity of the project; the level of controversy
related to the project; and the level of involvement during the scoping
process. The NOI was also advertised in local newspapers. The OTR Corp.
and the BLM developed and signed a Memorandum of Understanding for EIS
preparation in May 2007. OTR Corp. delivered a Design and Planning
Report in 2007 that included a preliminary set of alternatives.
However, the 2007 report did not include some of the details previously
requested by the BLM and cooperating agencies that were necessary to
move forward with the EIS. In April 2008, the BLM received a Detailed
Design Proposal including additional project information with the level
of detail necessary to move forward with the EIS. This led to the
process of filing an upper-level-agency review of a Notice of Realty
Action, published in the Federal Register on October 31, 2008 (73 FR
64982).
This Draft EIS analyzes seven separate alternatives, including the
No Action Alternative. The action alternatives were developed to
consider and compare configurations of public lands that could be made
available for artistic panel placement as well as construction,
logistics, traffic planning, and visitor management. The process of
developing a range of alternatives began with a review of the artists'
proposal and public and agency scoping comments, as well as a series of
cooperating agency meetings. The following four project components,
each of which could be altered in various ways to respond to known
issues and concerns, formed the basis of the alternatives development
process: panel placement, transportation, visitor management, and
temporal considerations.
The primary issues that were identified as key general concerns of
the public, project team staff, and cooperators that are further
analyzed in this Draft EIS include: emergency response; project
engineering; natural and cultural resources (including soils, geology,
noxious weeds, and wildland fire); pollution and sanitation; public
safety; recreation; socioeconomics; transportation; and wildlife.
Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or
other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be
aware that your entire comment--including your personal identifying
information--may be made publicly available at any time. While you can
ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying
information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be
able to do so.
Authority: 40 CFR 1506.6, 40 CFR 1506.10.
John Mehlhoff,
Associate State Director.
[FR Doc. 2010-17245 Filed 7-15-10; 8:45 am]
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