Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Designation of Critical Habitat for the Rayed Bean, Sheepnose, Snuffbox, and Spectaclecase Mussels

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0144; FXES1111090FEDR-256-FF09E21000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH73</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Designation of Critical Habitat for the Rayed Bean, Sheepnose, Snuffbox, and Spectaclecase Mussels</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 designate critical habitat for the rayed bean ( <E T="03">Villosa fabalis</E> ), sheepnose ( <E T="03">Plethobasus cyphyus</E> ), snuffbox ( <E T="03">Epioblasma triquetra</E> ), and spectaclecase ( <E T="03">Cumberlandia monodonta</E> ), all species of freshwater mussels, under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). Specifically, we propose to designate approximately 560 river miles (rmi) (902 river kilometers (rkm)) in 15 units as critical habitat for rayed bean; approximately 801 rmi (1,289 rkm) in 11 units as critical habitat for sheepnose; approximately 2,472 rmi (3,979 rkm) in 38 units as critical habitat for snuffbox; and approximately 1,143 rmi (1,839 rkm) in 12 units as critical habitat for spectaclecase. Portions of these proposed designations overlap among the four species; in total, approximately 3,974 rmi (6,396 rkm) of unique critical habitat within 76 units across 17 States (Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) fall within the boundaries of the proposed critical habitat designations. We also announce the availability of an economic analysis of the proposed designations of critical habitat for all four species. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before February 11, 2025. 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 January 27, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Written comments:</E> 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-R3-ES-2024-0144, 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-R3-ES-2024-0144, 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 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R3-ES-2024-0144, or at the Service's website on each individual species' page (rayed bean: <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/species/rayed-bean-villosa-fabalis;</E> sheepnose: <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/species/sheepnose-plethobasus-cyphyus;</E> snuffbox: <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/species/snuffbox-epioblasma-triquetra;</E> spectaclecase: <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/species/spectaclecase-cumberlandia-monodonta</E> ). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rayed bean and snuffbox: Erin Knoll, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ohio Ecological Services Field Office, 4625 Morse Road, Suite 104, Columbus, OH 43230; telephone 614-416-8993; sheepnose: Kraig McPeek, Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Illinois-Iowa Ecological Services Field Office, 1511 47th Avenue, Moline, IL 61265; telephone 309-757-5800; spectaclecase: Betsy Galbraith, Acting Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Minnesota-Wisconsin Ecological Services Field Office, 3815 American Boulevard East, Bloomington, MN 55425; telephone 952-858-0793. 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-R3-ES-2024-0144 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 (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), when we determine that any species is an endangered or threatened species, we are required to designate critical habitat to the maximum extent prudent and determinable. Designation of critical habitat 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 designate critical habitat for the rayed bean, sheepnose, snuffbox, and spectaclecase mussels; these four freshwater mussel species have been listed as endangered species under the Act since 2012 (See 77 FR 8632, February 14, 2012, and 77 FR 14914, March 13, 2012). <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under section 4(a)(3) of the Act, if we determine a species is an endangered or threatened, we must, to the maximum extent prudent and determinable, 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 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) Specific information related to critical habitat, such as: (a) The amount and distribution of rayed bean, sheepnose, snuffbox, and spectaclecase habitat; (b) Any additional areas occurring within the range of the species (Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) 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; and (c) Special management considerations or protection that may be needed in critical habitat areas we are proposing, including managing for the potential effects of climate change. (2) Land use designations and current or planned activities in the subject areas and their possible impacts on proposed critical habitat. (3) Any probable economic, national security, or other relevant impacts of designating any area that may be included in the final designations, and the related benefits of including or excluding specific areas. (4) Information on the extent to which the description of probable economic impacts in the economic analysis is a reasonable estimate of the likely economic impacts and any additional information regarding probable economic impacts that we should consider. (5) Whether any specific areas we are proposing for critical habitat designation should be considered for exclusion under section 4(b)(2) of the Act, and whether the benefits of potentially excluding any specific area outweigh the benefits of including that area, in particular for those areas included within the Columbia Pipeline Group Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan (formally NiSource; for more information, see our website at: <E T="03">https://www.fws.gov/project/columbia-pipeline-group-mshcp-formally-nisource</E> ). If you think we should exclude any additional areas, please provide information supporting a benefit of exclusion. (6) Whether we cou ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 331k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━