Tongass National Forest

(Note that the CERCLA based decision in the Regional Forester’s Action Memorandum of February 9, 2004 provides the basis in law for a non-NEPA finding.)

Thorne Bay Landfills are situated on National Forest System lands near the community of Thorne Bay. A series of actions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) has resulted in an Operations and Maintenance Plan and Monitoring Plan for the Thorne Bay Landfills. A 1996 Time Critical Action Memorandum was issued, followed by a 1997 Administrative Order on Consent with Ketchikan Pulp Company for capping and other treatments of the Landfills. An Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis was provided for public comment in December 2003. The Regional Forester issued an Action Memorandum (a CERCLA document) on February 9, 2004. Part of the direction was to require the Forest Supervisor to implement an Operations and Maintenance Plan and a Monitoring Plan (Appendices B and C) for the Landfills. These actions included direction to incorporate the Thorne Bay Landfills Monitoring Plan into the Forest Plan.

The long term and definite commitment (27 years or more) by the Forest Service to accomplish the operations, maintenance, and monitoring of the Thorne Bay Landfills and surrounding lands needs to be moved from CERCLA process to Tongass National Forest institutional processes. The Tongass Forest Plan provides the appropriate process to document the initial plans and expected revisions, and to establish a consistent basis for documenting the monitoring results and trend analysis called for in the CERCLA decisions. Forest Plan monitoring provides an open basis for the disclosure of the results of landfill monitoring on an annual basis. Because CERCLA establishes a separate decision process instead of NEPA, there is no additional NEPA analysis required.

Need to amend the Forest Plan to add this monitoring to Chapter 6. Determine the process to amend the Plan using a CERCLA decision. Include in the monitoring strategy who is responsible for the monitoring and identify the promary funding source(s) to complete the monitoring through the life of the project.

• Forest Planner
• Forest Environmental Engineer

• Forest Plan amendment