Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Kentucky Creekshell and Designation of Critical Habitat

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0065; FXES1111090FEDR-245-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH46</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Kentucky Creekshell and Designation of Critical Habitat</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to list the Kentucky creekshell ( <E T="03">Leaunio ortmanni</E> [ <E T="03">=Villosa ortmanni</E> ]), a freshwater mussel species from Kentucky and Tennessee, as an endangered species and designate critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). This determination also serves as our 12-month finding on a petition to list the Kentucky creekshell. After a review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing the species is warranted. Accordingly, we propose to list the Kentucky creekshell as an endangered species under the Act. Finalizing this rule as proposed would add this species to the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and extend the Act's protections to the species. We also propose to designate critical habitat for the Kentucky creekshell under the Act. In total, approximately 545 river miles (877 river kilometers) in Kentucky and Tennessee fall within the boundaries of the proposed critical habitat designation. We also announce the availability of an economic analysis of the proposed designation of critical habitat for the Kentucky creekshell. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before November 18, 2024. Comments submitted electronically using the Federal eRulemaking Portal (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> , below) must be received by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on the closing date. We must receive requests for a public hearing, in writing, at the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> by November 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments by one of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Electronically:</E> Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the Search box, enter FWS-R4-ES-2024-0065, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Then, click on the Search button. On the resulting page, in the panel on the left side of the screen, under the Document Type heading, check the Proposed Rule box to locate this document. You may submit a comment by clicking on “Comment.” (2) <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R4-ES-2024-0065, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: PRB/3W, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. We request that you send comments only by the methods described above. We will post all comments on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This generally means that we will post any personal information you provide us (see Information Requested, below, for more information). <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> Supporting materials, such as the species status assessment report, are available on the Service's website at <E T="03">https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/species/8209,</E> at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0065, or both. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Lee Andrews, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ecological Services Kentucky Field Office, 330 West Broadway, Room 265, Frankfort, KY 40601; telephone 502-653-0571. Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. Please see Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2024-0065 on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> for a document that summarizes this proposed rule. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Summary</HD> <E T="03">Why we need to publish a rule.</E> Under the Act, a species warrants listing if it meets the definition of an endangered species (in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range) or a threatened species (likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range). If we determine that a species warrants listing, we must list the species promptly and designate the species' critical habitat to the maximum extent prudent and determinable. We have determined that the Kentucky creekshell meets the definition of an endangered species; therefore, we are proposing to list it as such and proposing a designation of its critical habitat. Both listing a species as an endangered or threatened species and making a critical habitat designation can be completed only by issuing a rule through the Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking process (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). <E T="03">What this document does.</E> We propose to list the Kentucky creekshell as an endangered species under the Act, and we propose designation of approximately 545 stream miles (877 river kilometers) in Kentucky and Tennessee as critical habitat for the species. <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under the Act, we may determine that a species is an endangered or threatened species because of any of five factors: (A) The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (B) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (C) disease or predation; (D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; or (E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence. We have determined that Kentucky creekshell is endangered due to the following threats: Habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation (Factor A) resulting from stressors, including dams and other instream barriers, and degraded water quality from development, agriculture, and instream gravel mining. Changes in climate conditions and small population size exacerbate the effects of habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation (Factor E). Section 4(a)(3) of the Act requires that the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary), to the maximum extent prudent and determinable, concurrently with listing designate critical habitat for the species. Section 3(5)(A) of the Act defines critical habitat as (i) the specific areas within the geographical area occupied by the species, at the time it is listed, on which are found those physical or biological features (I) essential to the conservation of the species and (II) which may require special management considerations or protections; and (ii) specific areas outside the geographical area occupied by the species at the time it is listed, upon a determination by the Secretary that such areas are essential for the conservation of the species. Section 4(b)(2) of the Act states that the Secretary must make the designation on the basis of the best scientific data available and after taking into consideration the economic impact, the impact on national security, and any other relevant impacts of specifying any particular area as critical habitat. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from this proposed rule will be based on the best scientific and commercial data available and be as accurate and as effective as possible. Therefore, we request comments or information from other governmental agencies, Native American Tribes, the scientific community, industry, or any other interested parties concerning this proposed rule. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) The species' biology, range, and population trends, including: (a) Biological or ecological requirements of the species, including habitat requirements for feeding, breeding, and sheltering; (b) Genetics and taxonomy; (c) Historical and current range, including distribution patterns and the locations of any additional populations of this species; (d) Historical and current population levels, and current and projected trends; and (e) Past and ongoing conservation measures for the species, its habitat, or both. (2) Threats and conservation actions affecting the species, including: (a) Factors that may be affecting the continued existence of the species, which may include habitat modification or destruction, overutilization, disease, predation, the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms, or other natural or manmade factors. (b) Biological, commercial trade, or other relevant data concerning any threats (or lack thereof) to this species. (c) Existing regulations or conservation actions that may be addressing threats to this species. (3) Additional information concerning the historical and current status of this species. (4) Specific information on: (a) The amount and distribution of Kentucky creekshell habitat; (b) Any additional areas occurring within the range of the species that should be included in the designation because they (i) are occupied at the time of listing and contain the physical or biological features that are essential to the conservation of the species and that may require special management considerations or protection, or (ii) are unoccupied at the time of listing and are essential for the conservation of the species; (c) Special management considerations or protection that may be needed in critical habitat areas we are pro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 204k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━