Joni Mogstad View Draft Environmental Impact Statement No Presentation Team members and District Ranger will be present Wednesday, Dec 3 - 3:30 to 8:30 - Cave Junction at County Building Thursday, Dec 4 - 3:30 to 8:30 - Grants Pass - Floral Building at Fairgrounds Tuesday, Dec 9 - 3:30 to 8:30 - Brookings, Chetco Public Library Wednesday, Dec 10 - 3:30 to 8:30 - Gold Beach - Showcase Room at Fairgrounds Pavillon in Grants Pass Fairgrounds 5:00 - 9:00 - No presentation - circle of chairs, court reporter, 3 minutes per speaker FS to listen only Senator Smith hosted a forum in Roseburg, Oregon on Tuesday this week to discuss the recovery plan for the Biscuit fire. Sad to say, the crowd was pretty sparse. Others at the table were Secretary Mark Rey and Oregon State University Dean of the College of Forestry Hal Sawasser. They were accompanied by Forest supervisors from the Siskiyou, Deschutes and Umpqua National Forests. Most of the discussion centered on the Biscuit recovery plan. I would venture to guess that over half the crowd was there to support maximizing salvage recovery. Dean Hal Salwasser said his position was that it made sense to focus on the most severely burned land outside the Kalmiopsis Wilderness area. (apparently the B&B fire also encroached on a Wilderness. The Mt. Jefferson). He said the less severely burned areas can recover by themselves. He predicted the most severely burned areas will never recover to their Late Successional Reserve status. He reminded the attendees that the Wilderness area is off limits due to the definition of Wilderness as being "untouched by man." He suggested this fire has provided us with a tremendous learning opportunity and suggested it is appropriate to reforest 6,000 to 7,000 acres of previously identified LSR land. The greatest threat to recovery of the LSR is to leave stands of dead trees that are subject to more wildfire. He closed his comments with a caution to the audience. He said it is fine to make decisions based on philosophy but know that is what you are doing. "Don't let philosophy masquerading as science fool you!" Secretary Rey spoke of the Healthy Forests Initiative and told the audience the President was to sign the bill today (Wednesday). He expects this bill to do a number of things to assist in fire recovery. It tells Fish and Wildlife to use a broader vision than it has in the past (during consultation for EA or EIS) and look at long term benefits of a project or action rather than just the immediate impact. It tells the agency to use a Categorical Exclusion when planning for a recovery where the circumstances mirror past experience. It provides model E.A.s for circumstances beyond the Categorical Exclusion. It moves the public forward in the process with disincentives for them to wait until the end and jump in. To be eligible to appeal, one must first participate in good faith comments early on. He expects this to "Eliminate ambush by appeal!" Senator Smith provided an overview of Oregon's economy over the last decade during which we lost 35,000 jobs in or related to timber and lumber. He believes there may be 2 billion board feet of killed timber available and accessible during the Biscuit fire recovery and says time is of the essence as the bark beetle sees the dead wood as fair game. Forest Supervisor Conroy told Senator Smith to expect loss to rot of about 11% by next summer and 40% the following summer if left to stand. The Biscuit Environmental Assessment is out for comment and the comment deadline is January 5, 2004. There will be four open houses during December to inform interested people of the plan and the alternatives. The overarching goals are to provide Active Management, to protect safety, to restore habitat and to recover economic benefit. We need to read the summary and the alternatives in order to make informed comments. From what I heard during this forum the preferred alternative isn't the best one as it presumes recreation would prefer no logging in the recreationist's areas. It sounds like the forest supervisor believes salvage logging and recreation are mutually exclusive activities as he mentioned 50,000 acres he does not wish to restore as he wants to leave that for recreation. I for one am not interested in trails among dead trees. He also mentioned that his projection of economic activity includes road decommissioning. Heads Up! The B and B complex fire consumed 91,000 acres, some on the Willamette Forest and most on the Deschutes. Some of it is in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness. The next step in this recovery is 70 miles of roadside salvage for safety. The Draft Environmental Assessment for this fire recovery plan will be out for comment by February of 2004. The Tiller Complex and Baked Apple fires were 2002 fires. The forest supervisor, Carol Cushing told us that last fall they conducted roadside salvage for safety, that they began reforestation in the spring to preserve watersheds, and that they have let two salvage contracts. The Baked Apple Draft Environmental Assessment is out for review and comments are due by December 15, 2003. The preferred alternative is Alternative #4 which focuses on economics and would harvest 15,000 acres and reforest all stands harvested. The expected result would be 56 thousand board feet of lumber. My next task is to read the two Draft E.A.s that are completed and I'll let you know what I find out! |