Hi all,
On behalf of the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program (MMHSRP) of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), I am happy to announce the availability of a draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations, that evaluates the potential environmental effects associated with continued implementation of the MMHSRP. While the MMHSRP currently operates under a PEIS published in 2009, changes have been made to the Program to increase efficiency, reflect new information gained, and improve human health and safety during marine mammal entanglement response, stranding response, carcass disposal, and rehabilitation and release of animals back to the wild. This draft PEIS will supersede the 2009 PEIS, and assesses the potential environmental effects of MMHSRP activities under a range of three alternatives, characterized by different methods, mitigation measures, and levels of response. For all potentially significant impacts, the proposed PEIS identifies avoidance, minimization, and mitigation measures to reduce these impacts, where feasible, to a level below significance. These mitigation measures also include the issuance of best practices and guidance documents that are contained in the PEIS as appendices. The MMHSRP welcomes public comment on this draft PEIS, including the best practices and guidance documents, as well as comments on which of the chosen alternative(s) you support/do not support. You can comment in a number of ways, including: ● The preferred method of filling out the following Google form ( https://forms.gle/d3zTanFQTS8HvqLd6). ● If your comments are extensive, you can send an email to: mmhsrp.peis.comme...@noaa.gov. ● You can also send comments by mail to: Office of Protected Resources (1315 East West Highway, 13th Floor, Silver Spring, MD 20910, but please know that mail is not regularly checked by MMHSRP staff as we are all working remotely due to impacts from COVID-19) We ask that you pay particular attention to the associated appendices, as these contain many new and/or revised best practices and guidance documents, including: · Standards for Release of Marine Mammals following Rehabilitation · Marine Mammal Stranding Agreement · Evaluation Criteria for Marine Mammal Stranding Agreements · Cetacean and Pinniped Transport Best Practices · Small Cetacean Intervention Best Practices · Marine Mammal Euthanasia Best Practices · Marine Mammal Carcass Disposal Best Practices · Cetacean Mass Stranding Best Practices · Live and Dead Large Whale Emergency Response Best Practices · Standards for Rehabilitation Facilities · Dwarf and Pygmy Sperm Whale (Kogia Spp.) Best Practices · NMFS Criteria for Disentanglement Roles and Training Levels · Large Whale Entanglement Response Best Practices · Small Cetacean Entanglement Best Practices · Pinniped Entanglement Response Best Practices The public comment period will be open for 45 days, and *will close on June 28, 2021*. Please contact Stephen Manley (mmhsrp.peis.comme...@noaa.gov) if you have any questions about the PEIS or the public comment process. More information on the MMHSRP’s draft PEIS, as well as the PEIS document can be found at: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/document/draft-programmatic-environmental-impact-statement-mmhsrp. The associated appendices for the DPEIS can be found at: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/document/appendices-mmhsrp-draft-programmatic-environmental-impact-statement Thank you, Steve Manley on behalf of the MMHSRP
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