Kodiak Botanist Comments on FAA Rare Plant Survey Species Report

Stacy Studebaker, noted Kodiak botanist and author of Wildflowers and Other Plant Life of the Kodiak Archipelago, submitted the following comments to the FAA concerning the Rare Plant Survey Species Report.  As you will read, the report has major problems.

Dear Leslie,

Thank you for sending me the Rare Plant Survey Species Report.  I have read it over and have the following comments:

1)  The first aerial photo on page 6 does not specify the location within the study area. Buskin River?

2)  The photo of the sessile-leaf scurvy grass on page 4, figure 1, shows the plants mostly in fruit and not in flower even though it as labeled as being in flower.

3)  The photo on page 5, figure 2 is labeled "sessile-leaf scurvy grass and oriental popcorn flower in Woman's Bay".
     I don't see either species in this photo but instead, Spergularia canadensis (Canadian Scurvygrass) is poking up out of the shallow water.
     This is a common intertidal species within the study area but it is not listed on the species list on Table 1, page 3.

4)  Plagiobothrys is misspelled throughout the report as Plagiobothryus.

5)  This report appears to have been quickly put together. Given the misidentified plants in the photo on page 5, the accuracy of their findings in Woman's Bay is questionable. Did they really find Cochlearia sessilifolia and Plagiobothrys orientalis there? There is no photo documentation of Plagiobothrys in the report to show that they actually found it or correctly identified it.

With this report, what kind of "management" decisions can be made? The authors really did not add anything to the information that Carolyn Parker and I already supplied. There is nothing in the report that says that these rare plants would or would not be impacted by the various alternatives in the PDEIS.

Sincerely,
Stacy Studebaker