Final Supplementary Rule for Public Lands in the Colorado River Valley, Grand Junction and Kremmling Field Offices, and the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area, CO

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Land Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>43 CFR Part 8360</CFR> <DEPDOC>[PO #4820000251]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Final Supplementary Rule for Public Lands in the Colorado River Valley, Grand Junction and Kremmling Field Offices, and the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area, CO</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Land Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final supplementary rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is finalizing a supplementary rule to protect natural resources and public health and safety. The final supplementary rule applies to public lands and BLM facilities managed by the Colorado River Valley, Grand Junction, and Kremmling Field Offices, and the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area (NCA) in Colorado managed by the Grand Junction and Uncompahgre Field Offices. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final supplementary rule is effective January 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Inquiries may be directed to the Colorado River Valley Field Office at (970) 876-9000 or 2300 River Frontage Road, Silt, CO 81652; the Grand Junction Field Office at (970) 244-3000 or 2815 H Road, Grand Junction, CO 81506; or the Kremmling Field Office at (970) 724-3000 or 2103 E. Park Avenue, Kremmling, CO 81459. The final rule and accompanying documentation are available for inspection on the ePlanning website at: <E T="03">https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/90071/510.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Erin Jones, Upper Colorado River District Associate District Manager, 2815 H Road, Grand Junction, CO 81506; telephone (970) 244-3008; email: <E T="03">erjones@blm.gov.</E> 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. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The BLM is establishing this supplementary rule under the authority of 43 CFR 8365.1-6, which authorizes BLM State Directors to establish supplementary rules for the protection of persons, property, and public lands and resources. The BLM approved resource management plans (RMPs) for the Colorado River Valley, Grand Junction, and Kremmling Field Offices in 2015, and for the Dominguez-Escalante NCA in 2017. The RMPs identify management actions that restrict certain activities and define allowable uses to protect natural resources and public health and safety. This final supplementary rule is necessary to implement those management decisions and make them enforceable. The field offices completed their RMP processes and issued Records of Decision (RODs) after inviting the public to comment during scoping and public-comment periods. The field offices reviewed each public comment received during each step of the process and responded to all comments received during the public comment periods. (See the individual RMPs for responses to public comments.) <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion of Public Comments</HD> The BLM published a proposed supplementary rule on January 25, 2024 (89 FR 4872). The BLM received 432 comment letters during the 60-day public comment period, 344 of which were identical form letters and 88 of which were unique comments. Of those 88 unique comment letters, 17 contained substantive comments. Many comment letters expressed support for the proposed supplementary rule, but other letters said the proposed rules were too restrictive. Many of the form letters expressed the need for clarification and justification of some of the rules. The proposed rule's restrictions on dispersed camping received the most comments. Commenters were concerned that the rule would diminish their ability to camp in dispersed areas. However, even with these restrictions, the vast majority of each of the field offices and the NCA would still be open to dispersed camping. Over 500,000 acres in the Colorado River Valley Field Office, over 300,000 acres in the Kremmling Field Office, and over 1 million acres in the Grand Junction Field Office (including the Dominguez-Escalante NCA) would still be available for dispersed camping. These comments did not result in changes to the final rule. Some commenters said the public would not know about the new rule once it is finalized and that the BLM would have trouble enforcing it. The BLM plans to begin a public education campaign to help inform the public of the new rule, including through personal contacts in the field, signs, and other methods. These comments did not result in changes to the final rule. In its comment, Eagle County requested that the BLM add a rule prohibiting public land users from leaving unsecured trash at campsites and requiring that unattended food and trash be stored in a sealed container or in locked vehicles. However, the BLM did not consider or analyze this requirement when preparing the Colorado River Valley Field Office RMP and the proposed supplementary rule, which precludes us from including this requirement in this final rule. The BLM will work with the county and the public to address trash concerns. The BLM did not change the final rule to address this comment. The Kremmling Board of Trustees commented that the proposed rule would greatly reduce the number of areas within the Kremmling Field Office's jurisdiction that are available for recreational shooting. The BLM included this reduction in the final 2015 Kremmling RMP, and the public had the opportunity to comment on it at that time. Implementation of the restrictions in this final rule will result in over 300,000 acres still being available for recreational target shooting in areas managed by the Kremmling Field Office. This comment did not result in a change to the rule. The BLM changed the definition of “target backstop” in the final rule based on comments received from Shooting Sports Round-table members that the proposed definition was too specific and that there are other backstop designs that will accomplish the same goal. The BLM also added language that states “you must not engage in target shooting without a target backstop” to each of the field offices' final rules. In the proposed rule, the BLM listed this requirement under the Colorado River Valley Field Office's rules only, which was an error. In its comment on the proposed rule, Mesa County pointed out that the BLM made an error in including “Coal Gulch” in the Grand Junction Field Office mechanized travel winter closure areas in Table 6—Areas Closed to Mechanized Travel During Winter/Spring. The BLM agrees that this is an error and has removed Coal Gulch from this list (see Rule 8 below). <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of the Final Supplementary Rule</HD> This final supplementary rule will apply to public lands and BLM facilities managed by the Colorado River Valley Field Office, Grand Junction Field Office, Kremmling Field Office, and Dominguez-Escalante NCA. This final supplementary rule will address resource damage, public safety, wildland fire, and wildlife disruption concerns. The BLM consulted with the Shooting Sports Roundtable while preparing each RMP to coordinate on the shooting closures described in this final rule. The final supplementary rule conforms with management decisions contained in the following RMPs: • Colorado River Valley RMP (2015) as amended by the Sutey Ranch and Haines Parcel Approved RMP Amendment (2019); • Grand Junction RMP (2015); • Kremmling RMP (2015); and • Dominguez-Escalante NCA RMP (2017). <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Procedural Matters</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Planning and Review (Executive Orders (E.O.) 12866, 13563, and 14094)</HD> This final supplementary rule is not subject to review by the Office of Management and Budget under E.O. 12866 as amended by E.O. 14094. This final supplementary rule will not have an effect of $200 million or more on the economy and will not adversely affect in a material way productivity; competition; jobs; the environment; public health or safety; or State, local, or Tribal governments or communities. This final supplementary rule will not create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency. This final supplementary rule will not materially alter the budgetary effects of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs, or the rights or obligations of their recipients, nor does it raise novel legal or policy issues. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> Congress enacted the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA), as amended, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, to ensure that government regulations do not unnecessarily or disproportionately burden small entities. The RFA requires a regulatory flexibility analysis if a rule will have a significant economic impact, either detrimental or beneficial, on a substantial number of small entities. The BLM considered economic impacts at the time it developed the land use plans that underpin this final supplementary rule and it deemed these impacts to be minimal. The BLM expects that impacts from this final rule will affect a small number of outfitters and will have only a minor socioeconomic impact relative to the area's overall economy. For more economic information and analyses, please refer to the four RMPs listed earlier in this preamble and their supporting documents (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). The BLM has determined under the RFA that this final supplementary rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of smal ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 53k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━