Curecanti National Recreation Area: Personal Watercraft Use Enviornmental Assessment

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SUMMARY park desiring to continue long -term PWC use must promulgate a park - specific special regulation in 2002. In addition, the settlement stipulates that the National Park Service must base its decision to issue a park - specific special regulation to continue PWC use through an environmental analysis conducted in accordance with NEPA. The NEPA analysis at a minimum, according to the settlement, must evaluate PWC impacts on water quality, air quality, soundscapes, wildlife, wildlife habitat, shoreline vegetation, visitor conflicts, and visitor safety. As the settlement deadline approached and the park units were preparing to prohibit PWC use, the National Park Service, Congress, and PWC user groups sought legal methods to keep the parks open to this activity. However, no method was successful. After November 6, 2002, Curecanti was closed for PWC use. If, as a result of this environmental assessment, an alternative is selected that would allow PWC use to be reinstated, then a special regulation to authorize that use will be drafted. ALTERNATIVES CONSIDERED This environmental assessment evaluates three alternatives concerning the use of personal watercraft at Curecanti. • Alternative A would reinstate PWC use under a special regulation as previously managed. • Alternative B would reinstate PWC use under a special regulation with additional management prescriptions. (The park has identified alternative B as the preferred alternative.) • The no- action alternative would allow no PWC use. No special rule would be promulgated. Based on the environmental analysis prepared for PWC use at Curecanti, alternative B is considered the environmentally preferred alternative because it would best fulfill park responsibilities as trustee of this sensitive habitat; ensure safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings; and attain a wider range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences. 1 ' ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES Impacts of the three PWC management alternatives were assessed in accordance with Director's Order ( #12: Conservation Planning, Environmental Impact Analysis and Decision - Making. The Director's Order #12 Handbook requires that impacts to park resources be analyzed in terms of their context, duration, and intensity. It is crucial for the public and decision - makers to understand the implications of those impacts in the short and long term, cumulatively, and within context, based on an understanding and interpretation by resource professionals and specialists. To determine impacts, methodologies were identified to measure the change in park resources that could occur with the implementation of the PWC management alternatives. Thresholds were established for each impact topic to help understand the severity and magnitude of changes in resource conditions, both adverse and beneficial. Each PWC management alternative was compared to a baseline to determine the context, duration, and intensity of resource impacts. The baseline, for purposes of impact analysis, is the reinstatement of PWC use and previous management projected over the next 10 years (alternative A). Table A summarizes the results of the impact analysis for the impact topics that were assessed in the "Environmental Consequences" chapter. The analysis considered a 10 -year period (2002 - 2012). ry