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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 18, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
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C Aquatic invertebrates for food. The spring environment is capable of supporting a diverse aquatic invertebrate community that includes crustaceans, insects, and aquatic snails.
D Subterranean aquifer. Access to the subsurface water table exists to provide shelter, protection, and space for reproduction. This access can occur in the form of large conduits that carry water to the spring outlet or porous voids between rocks in the streambed that extend down into the water table.
ii For subsurface habitat:
A Water from the Northern Segment of the Edwards Aquifer. Groundwater quality is similar to natural aquifer conditions. Concentrations of water quality constituents and contaminants are below levels that could exert direct lethal or sublethal effects such as effects to reproduction, growth, development, or metabolic processes, or indirect effects such as effects to the Salado salamanders prey base.
Hydrologic regimes similar to the historical pattern of the specific sites are present, with continuous flow. The water chemistry is similar to natural aquifer conditions, with temperatures from 61 to 84 F 16 to 29 C, dissolved oxygen concentrations from 5 to 13 mg/
L, and specific water conductance from 317 to 814 mS/cm.
B Subsurface spaces. Voids between rocks underground are large enough to
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provide salamanders with cover, shelter, and foraging habitat. These spaces have minimal sedimentation.
C Aquatic invertebrates for food. The habitat is capable of supporting an aquatic invertebrate community that includes crustaceans, insects, and aquatic snails.
3 Surface critical habitat includes the spring outlets and outflow up to the high-water line and 262 ft 80 m of upstream and downstream habitat, including the dry stream channel during periods of no surface flow. The surface critical habitat does not include manmade structures such as buildings, aqueducts, runways, roads, and other paved areas existing within the legal boundaries on September 17, 2021;
however, the subsurface critical habitat may extend below such structures. The subsurface critical habitat includes underground features in a circle with a radius of 984 ft 300 m around the springs.
4 Data layers defining map units were created using a geographic information system GIS, which included species locations, roads, property boundaries, 2011 aerial photography, and U.S. Geological Survey 7.5 quadrangles. Points were placed on the GIS. We delineated critical habitat unit boundaries by starting with the cave or spring point
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locations that are occupied by the salamanders. From these cave or springs points, we delineated a 984-ft 300-m buffer to create the polygons that capture the extent to which we estimate the salamander populations exist through underground conduits. The polygons were then simplified to reduce the number of vertices, but still retain the overall shape and extent.
Subsequently, polygons that were within 98 ft 30 m of each other were merged together. Each new merged polygon was then revised to remove extraneous divots or protrusions that resulted from the merge process. The maps in this entry, as modified by any accompanying regulatory text, establish the boundaries of the critical habitat designation. The coordinates or plot points or both on which each map is based are available to the public at the Services internet site at http
www.fws.gov/southwest/es/
AustinTexas/, at http
www.regulations.gov at Docket No.
FWSR2ES20200048, and at the field office responsible for this designation. You may obtain field office location information by contacting one of the Service regional offices, the addresses of which are listed at 50 CFR
2.2.
5 Note: Index map follows:

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