Seedskadee Project: Remote sensing in non-site archeology.

A cultural resources inventory survey of the lands near the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge

Proposed Allagash National Recreation Area

https://digitalmaine.com/doi_feddocs/1000/thumbnail.jp

Final General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement. (Visitor Management and Resource Protection Plan) Zion National Park.

This document describes the path the National Park Service intends to follow in managing Zion National Park over the next 20 years, providing a framework for proactive decision-making on such issues as visitor use, natural and cultural resource management and park development

Environmental Assessment : Middle Salt Creek Canyon Access Plan Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Salt Creek is the largest drainage in the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. The creek supports one of the most important riparian ecosystems in the park. It is also the heart of the Salt Creek National Register Archeological District, the area with the highest recorded density of archeological sites in the park. A tributary canyon contains the spectacular Angel Arch, a well-known geologic formation that for many years has been a destination point for park visitors. In 1998 the U.S. District Court for the State of Utah ruled, in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, that the National Park Service violated the NPS Organic Act (16 U.S.C. 1 et seq.) by failing to close the upper 8.2 miles (above Peekaboo campsite) of the Salt Creek four-wheel drive road in the 1995 Canyonlands Backcountry Management Plan. The jeep road weaves in and out of the creek, sometimes remaining in the streambed for extended lengths. The court found that vehicles upstream of Peekaboo Spring caused permanent impairment of park resources, and enjoined the NPS from continuing to allow limited use of the area by motorized vehicles. Four-wheel-drive groups appealed the decision, and in 2000 the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case to the district court. The remand included instructions to re-examine the administrative record and consider the new NPS Management Policies in regard to the question of “impairment of park resources or values,” the central issue in the case. With the concurrence of the U.S. District Court of Utah, the NPS has prepared an environmental assessment (EA) to analyze the impacts of a range of alternatives for recreational access to the portion of Salt Creek Canyon from Peekaboo Camp to Angel Arch Canyon (“Middle Salt Creek Canyon”), and to apply the new NPS Management Policies on impairment to the alternatives. The management objective, toward which the EA alternatives are directed, is based on the NPS Organic Act, the act establishing Canyonlands National Park, and the issues on remand to the district court: To provide recreational access to Middle Salt Creek Canyon without major adverse impacts or impairment of the natural and cultural resources. The list of possible management alternatives includes limited year-around vehicle access under the permit system established in the 1995 Backcountry Management Plan (BMP), part-year vehicle access under the permit system, realignment of the existing four-wheel-drive road, year-round prohibitions on motorized vehicles, or a combination of these actions. The three vehicle-access alternatives, each of which would permit vehicle travel through substantial portions of the streambed and riparian area, have been found to cause impairment of park resources or values, which is prohibited by the National Park Service Organic Act. Consequently, an alternative prohibiting motorized vehicles year-round, but permitting access by hiking or pack stock, is identified as the preferred alternative

Proposed Experimental Actions for Water Years 2005-2006 Colorado River, Arizona, in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park

In September 2002 the Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service (NPS), and U.S. Geological Survey released an environmental assessment (EA) on proposed experimental releases from Glen Canyon Dam and removal of non‐native fish from the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, Arizona (Bureau of Reclamation, NPS, and USGS 2002). The experiment was developed by the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center of the U.S. Geological Survey (GCMRC), cooperating scientists, and the Technical Work Group (TWG) of the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP). It was recommended to the Secretary of the Interior by the Adaptive Management Work Group (AMWG), a Federal Advisory Committee charged with providing input to the Secretary pursuant to fulfilling provisions of the Grand Canyon Protection Act. In December 2002, following tribal consultation, public meetings, and responses to comments by the federal agencies and the public, the Secretary of the Interior concurred with the agencies’ finding of no significant impact for the proposed project and agreed that the experiment should move forward

Final General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement (Visitor Management and Resource Protection Plan) Zion National Park, Utah

The purpose of this conceptual plan is to describe the general path the National Park Service intends to follow in managing Zion National Park over the next 20 years. The approved plan will provide a framework for proactive decision making on such issues as visitor use, natural and cultural resource management, and park development, which will allow park managers to effectively address future problems and opportunities. In most cases, new development outside the park would take place to meet visitor needs

Cuba, New Mexico Trails, Park and Walkability Workshop

The purpose of this workshop was to provide an opportunity for community members and topic area experts to join together and assess the walking and activity opportunities in the community and to provide recommendations for ways to make the community an easier and safer place to be physically active. Fortyfive individuals attended the walkability workshop and learned about creative solutions other communities have used to: solve traffic and pedestrian challenges; design trails for people of all abilities; increase safety of walking routes to school; and make park improvements for increased physical activity

Learning from Conservation Planning for the U.S. National Wildlife Refuges

The U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System has nearly completed its first round of unit-level, comprehensive conservation plans (CCPs) and will soon begin required revisions. Laws and policies governing refuge planning emphasize ecological integrity, landscape-scale conservation, and adaptive management. We evaluated 185 CCPs completed during 2005–2011, which cover 324 of 555 national wildlife refuges. We reviewed CCP prescriptions addressing 5 common conservation issues (habitat and game, nongame, imperiled, and invasive species) and 3 specialized topics (landscape-scale conservation, climate change, and environmental quality). Common conservation issues received prescriptions in \u3e90% of CCPs. Specialized topics received more variable treatment. Prescriptions for aquatic connectivity, water quantity, and climate change impacts increased over the study period. Except for climate change, direct actions were the most common type of management prescription, followed by plans or studies. Most CCPs stated a commitment to adaptive management and prescribed monitoring for common conservation objectives; other aspects of planning for adaptive management were often lacking, despite strong support for adaptive management in the conservation planning literature. To better address refuge-specific threats, we recommend that revised plans explicitly match identified refuge issues with prescriptions, particularly for under-represented concerns such as novel pests and pathogens. We recommend incorporating triggers into monitoring frameworks and specifying actions that will occur when threshold values are reached to improve support for adaptive management. Revised CCPs should better reflect work that refuges already undertake to extend conservation objectives beyond their borders and better engage with regional conservation efforts to continue this work. More thorough landscape-scale threat assessments and explicit prioritization of planned actions would further improve conservation effectiveness. Excellent examples of all recommended practices exist within the CCPs we examined; sharing best planning practices would improve planning efficiency within the refuge system

Characterizing the Preferences and Values of US Recreational Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Anglers

The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Thunnus thynnus is the target of a recreational fishery along the U.S. East Coast that is thought to be of considerable economic value. In some years, recreational landings have exceeded the sector’s annual subquota due to changes in fish availability, limited predictability of angler effort, and difficulties in realtime monitoring of catch. Understanding the drivers of angler behavior is critical for predicting how effort and harvest may vary as a function of changing fish availability, regulations, or costs. To investigate angler decision making, preferences, and values, we surveyed private recreational anglers from Maine to North Carolina and employed discrete choice experiments to determine how regulatory and nonregulatory trip-specific variables influence trip-taking behavior. A latent class-ranked log it model identified two distinct classes of anglers who exhibited differing preferences in regard to the importance of nonconsumptive aspects of Bluefin Tuna fishing (e.g., catch and release). Income and recent Bluefin Tuna targeting were the primary determinants of class membership, and higher-income anglers who had targeted Bluefin Tuna in the past 5 years were significantly more likely to be in the class that derives substantive benefits from nonconsumptive angling activities. An annual consumer surplus exceeding US$14 million was estimated for the 2015 fishery. We considered potential angler welfare impacts of possible management changes (compensating surplus) and identified a large amount of latent effort currently present in the fishery in the form of consumptive-oriented anglers. As a result, liberalization of harvest regulations could potentially lead to a large influx of effort into the fishery, which could impede the ability of managers to maintain harvest levels within prescribed limits

Mortality among US employees of a large computer manufacturing company: 1969–2001

BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggested increased cancer incidence and mortality in workers exposed to solvents and other chemicals in computer manufacturing jobs. Most previous studies were of small cohorts and findings were inconsistent. A lawsuit involving a large U.S. company produced a data file for analysis. This study sought to elucidate patterns of mortality in workers who were engaged manufacturing computers and related electronic components in the largest database available to date. METHODS: A proportional mortality and proportional cancer mortality analysis of deaths in eligible workers between 1969 and 2001 was carried out, with U.S. population mortality data as the standard for comparison. Mortality and work history data was from corporate mortality and work history files produced during litigation and standard U.S. and state mortality files. The study base comprised 31,941 decedents who died between 1969 and 2001, who had worked for at least five years and whose death information was collected in the corporate mortality file. Proportional mortality ratios (PMRs) and Proportional Cancer Mortality Ratios (PCMRs) and their 95% confidence intervals were computed for 66 causes of death in males and females. RESULTS: PMRs for all cancers combined were elevated in males (PMR = 107; 95% CI = 105–109) and females (PMR = 115; 95% CI = 110–119); several specific cancers and other causes of death were also significantly elevated in both males and females. There were reduced deaths due to non-malignant respiratory disease in males and females and heart disease in females; several specific cancers and other causes of death were significantly reduced in both males and females. Proportional cancer mortality ratios (PCMRs) for brain and central nervous system cancer were elevated (PCMR = 166; 95% CI = 129–213), kidney cancer (PCMR = 162; 95% CI = 124–212), melanoma of skin (PCMR = 179; 95% CI = 131–244) and pancreatic cancer (PCMR = 126; 95% CI = 101–157) were significantly elevated in male manufacturing workers. Kidney cancer (PCMR = 212; 95% CI = 116–387) and cancer of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue (PCMR = 162; 95% CI = 121–218) were significantly elevated in female manufacturing workers. CONCLUSION: Mortality was elevated due to specific cancers and among workers more likely to be exposed to solvents and other chemical exposures in manufacturing operations. Due to lack of individual exposure information, no conclusions are made about associations with any particular agent