Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; 90-Day Finding on a Petition To Revise the Critical Habitat Designation for Southern California Steelhead

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 226</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250707-0119; RTID 0648-XE896]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; 90-Day Finding on a Petition To Revise the Critical Habitat Designation for Southern California Steelhead</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> 90-Day petition finding; request for information. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, NMFS, announce a 90-day finding on a petition to revise the critical habitat designation for the Southern California steelhead ( <E T="03">Oncorhynchus mykiss</E> ) distinct population segment (DPS) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The petition requests that we revise the designated critical habitat to remove an approximately 9-mile (15-kilometer) stream reach from the confluence of the Santa Clara River and Hopper Creek upstream to the face of Santa Felicia Dam on Piru Creek. We find that the petition presents substantial scientific information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted. We are hereby initiating a review of the currently designated critical habitat to determine whether the requested revision is warranted. To ensure a comprehensive review, we are soliciting scientific and commercial information pertaining to this action. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Scientific and commercial data pertinent to the petitioned action must be received by September 9, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, information, or data on this document identified by docket number, NOAA-NMFS-2025-0050, using any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2025-0050 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail or Hand-Delivery:</E> NMFS, West Coast Region, Protected Resource Division, Re: NOAA-NMFS-2025-0050, 1201 NE Lloyd Blvd., Suite #1100, Portland, OR 97232. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period, may not be considered by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address, <E T="03">etc.</E> ), confidential business information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). Electronic copies of the petition and related materials are available from the NMFS website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/endangered-species-conservation/candidate-species-under-endangered-species-act</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Robert Markle, NMFS West Coast Region, <E T="03">robert.markle@noaa.gov</E> or 503-230-5419. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Southern California steelhead was listed as an endangered species under the ESA in 1997 (62 FR 43937, August 18, 1997), and the listing was reaffirmed in 2006 (71 FR 834, January 5, 2006). The geographic range of this listed distinct population segment (DPS) of steelhead was extended in 2002 (67 FR 21586, May 1, 2002). The listed DPS is comprised of naturally spawned anadromous <E T="03">O. mykiss</E> (steelhead) originating below natural and manmade impassable barriers from the Santa Maria River to the United States-Mexico border (50 CFR 224.101). Critical habitat for the Southern California DPS of steelhead was designated in 2005 (70 FR 52488, September 2, 2005). On March 21, 2025, the Secretary of Commerce and the Under Secretary/NOAA Administrator received a petition from the United Water Conservation District (hereafter, the Petitioner) to remove an approximately 9-mile (15-kilometer) stream reach currently designated as critical habitat for Southern California steelhead. This reach includes all currently designated critical habitat in the Santa Clara River basin upstream of the confluence of Hopper Creek. The ESA of 1973, as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) defines critical habitat as: (i) The specific areas within the geographical area currently 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 protection; 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 (16 U.S.C. 1532(5)(A)). Joint NMFS-Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) regulations for designating critical habitat state that the agencies will identify physical and biological features essential to the conservation of the species at an appropriate level of specificity using the best available scientific data (50 CFR 424.12(b)(1)(ii)), and that prior to finalizing a designation of critical habitat we will take into consideration the probable economic, national security, and other relevant impacts of the designation upon proposed or ongoing activities (50 CFR 424.19). An essential physical and biological feature may be a single habitat characteristic or a more complex combination of characteristics, may include characteristics that support ephemeral or dynamic habitat conditions, and may also be expressed in terms relating to principles of conservation biology, such as patch size, distribution distances, and connectivity (50 CFR 424.02). “Special management considerations or protection” means any method or procedure useful in protecting physical and biological features essential to the conservation of the species (50 CFR 424.02). Section 4(b)(2) of the ESA requires NMFS to designate, and make revisions to, critical habitat for listed species based on the best scientific data available and after taking into consideration the economic impact, the impact on national security, and any other relevant impact, of specifying any particular area as critical habitat (16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(2); see also 50 CFR 424.19). The Secretary of Commerce may exclude any particular area from critical habitat if he determines that the benefits of such exclusion outweigh the benefits of specifying such area as part of the critical habitat, unless he determines, based on the best scientific and commercial data available, that the failure to designate such area as critical habitat will result in the extinction of the species concerned. Section 4(b)(3)(D)(i) of the ESA requires, to the maximum extent practicable, that within 90 days of receipt of a petition to revise a critical habitat designation, the Secretary of Commerce make a finding on whether that petition presents substantial scientific information indicating that the petitioned revision may be warranted, and to promptly publish such finding in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(3)(D)(i)). The ESA implementing regulations issued jointly by NMFS and FWS state that “substantial scientific information” refers to credible scientific information that would lead a reasonable person conducting an impartial scientific review to conclude that the revision proposed in the petition may be warranted (50 CFR 424.14(i)(1)(i)). The Secretary's determination as to whether the petition provides substantial scientific information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted will depend in part on the degree to which a petition for removal of an area from currently designated critical habitat includes the following types of information: (1) a description and map(s) of the areas that the current designation includes that should no longer be included, and a description of the benefits of designating or not designating these specific areas of critical habitat; (2) a description of physical or biological features essential for the conservation of the species and whether they may require special management considerations or protections; (3) information indicating that the specific areas do not contain the physical or biological features (including characteristics that support ephemeral or dynamic habitat conditions) that are essential to the conservation of the species, or that these features do not require special management considerations or protection, for any areas petitioned for removal from currently designated critical habitat within the geographical area occupied by the species at the time it was listed; (4) information indicating why the petitioned areas are not essential for the conservation of the species for areas petitioned to be removed from critical habitat that were outside the geographical area occupied by the species at the time it was listed; and (5) a complete, balanced representation of the relevant facts, including information that may contradict claims in the petition. (50 CFR 424.14(e)(1)-(2), and (4)-(6)). At the 90-day stage, we evaluate the Petitioner's request based upon the information in the petition, including its references, and information readily available in our files. We do not conduct additional research, and we do not solicit information from parties outside the agency to help us evaluate the petition. We will ac ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━