Applegater
Community Calendar
Applegate Valley Garden Club meets at 1:30
pm on the third Wednesday of the month
from September through May. For meeting
locations and programs, call Sandra King at
541-899-9027 or Betty Lou Smith at 541-
846-6817.
Applegate 4-H Swine Club meets on Tuesday
following the third Wednesday of every
month at 7 pm. For more information contact
Charles Elmore at 541-846-6528 or Barbara
Niedermeyer at 541-846-7635.
Applegate Christian Fellowship. For service times,
call 541-899-8732, 24 hours/day.
Applegate Friends of Fire District #9 meets on
the third Tuesday of each month at the Fire
Station—1095 Upper Applegate Road—at
6:00 pm. New members are welcome. For more
information, call Bob Fischer 541-846-6218.
T.O.P.S. (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) meets every
Monday morning at Applegate Church, 18960
North Applegate Road (at the corner of Hwy.
238 and N. Applegate Road). Weigh-in starts
at 8:30 am; the meeting starts at 9:00 am.
Come join us!
Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation
District (SWCD) meets Thursdays at 6 pm.
For meeting information, call Connie Young
at 541-846-6051.
Applegate Valley Community Forum (AVCF)
meets the third Thursday of each month,
location alternating between Applegate and
Ruch. For more information, call Pat Gordon
at 541-899-7655.
American Association of University Women
(AAUW) Grants Pass Branch meets monthly
from September through June. Days, times,
and locations vary. All those who hold an
associate of arts, a baccalaureate or higher
degree from an accredited college or university
are welcome to join.Contact Sylvia Rose at
snrjrose2@charter.net or 541-479-0277 or
Georgia Applegate at gkapple@apbb.net or
541-787-7175.
AA Meeting There is an open meeting of Alcoholics
Anonymous every Wednesday at 7:00 AM at
the Williams Community Church Fellowship
Hall on East Fork Road in Williams. This
meeting is open to those who have a drinking
problem and have a desire to stop drinking,
and also to anyone interested in the Alcoholics
Anonymous program of recovery from
drinking.
Applegate Library Hours
Sunday ............................................ closed
Monday .......................................... closed
Tuesday ............................... 2 pm - 6 pm
Wednesday ..................................... closed
Thursday ........................................ closed
Friday ................................... 2 pm - 6 pm
Saturday ..............................10 am - 2 pm
(Storytime will be held Tuesdays at 2:30 pm.)
Ruch Branch Library Hours
Sunday ............................................ closed
Monday .......................................... closed
Tuesday ..............................11 am - 5 pm
Wednesday ..................................... closed
Thursday ............................. 1 pm - 7 pm
Friday .............................................. closed
Saturday ............................. 12 pm - 4 pm
(Storytime will be held Tuesdays at 11 am.)
Friends of Ruch Library Board of Directors
meets monthly. Check with the Ruch Library
for schedule. 541-899-7438.
Food & Friends Senior Nutrition Program invites
local 60+ seniors to enjoy a nutritious, hot
meal served at 11:30 am Monday through
Friday at the Jacksonville IOOF Hall located
at the corner of Main and Oregon Streets.
A donation is suggested and appreciated.
Volunteers help serve meals or deliver meals
to homebound seniors. For information
about volunteering (it takes 40 volunteers
to keep the Jacksonville program going)
or receiving meals, call Food & Friends at
541-664-6674, x246 or x208.
Wonder Neighborhood Watch Meetings: second
Tuesday of each month, 6:30 pm, Wonder
Bible Chapel.
Josephine County Farm Bureau. For meeting
information, call Connie Young at 541-846-
6051.
Williams Library Hours
Sunday ............................................ closed
Monday .......................................... closed
Tuesday ..........................1:30 pm - 4 pm
Wednesday .....................1:30 pm - 4 pm
Thursday ........................................ closed
Friday .............................................. closed
Saturday ............................. 12 pm - 4 pm
Upper Applegate Grange #239 Business
meetings: second Thursday at 7:30 pm.
Potluck/Social meetings: fourth Friday at 7:30
pm, open to the public. Join us for informative
meetings, fun and involvement in community
service. Sponsors of Cub Scout Pack Troop
#18. Call 541- 899-6987.
Williams Rural Fire Protection District
Meetings: fourth Wednesday of the month at
7 pm at the Williams Fire Department.
Williams Creek Watershed Council Meetings:
fourth Wednesday of the month at 7 pm at
the Williams Creek Fire Station. The Public
is welcome. For more information, call 541-
846-9175.
Williams Grange Pancake Breakfast, second
Sunday of each month, 8:30 to 11:00, fol-
lowed by the Bluegrass Jam, 11:00 to 1:00.
Closed July and August. 20100 Williams
Hwy, near Tetherow Rd. Information 541-
846-6844.
Williams Grange #399 Business Meeting,
second Tuesday of each month, 7:00 p.m.
20100 Williams Hwy, near Tetherow Rd.
Information 541-846-6844.
Applegate Fire District Board of Directors meets
on the third Wednesday of each month at
Station 1 – 18489 N. Applegate Rd. at 7:30 pm.
Except for the months of March, April and
May, which are held at Headquarters – 1095
Upper Applegate Rd. For more information,
call 541-899-1050.
Applegate Neighborhood Network (ANN) meets
on the last Wednesday of every month at
the Ruch Library. All interested persons are
welcome to attend. ANN is a community
organization dedicated to protecting,
preserving, and restoring the Applegate
watershed. For more information about ANN,
call Duane Bowman, 541-899-7264.
Women Helping Other Women (WHOW) meets
the second Tuesday of the month at 10036
Hwy 238 (Gyda Lane) at 6:30 pm for a potluck
meeting to plan work parties at each other’s
homes. New members are welcome. For
more information, call Thalia Truesdell at 541-
899-8741 or Sioux Rogers at 541-846-7736.
Applegate Lake Cub Scouts Pack #18 (Ruch
Region) Outdoor activity (fishing, rafting,
hikes, etc.) the first Friday of each month;
regular meeting the third Friday of each
month. Upper Applegate Grange from 10 am
to 1 pm. All boys in grades first through fifth
including homeschoolers, Ruch students, and
non-Ruch students are welcome. For more
information, contact Cub Leader Vic Agnifili
at 541-899-1717.
Applegate Partnership and Watershed Council
meets the 4th Thursday of the month at the
Applegate Library. For more information call
541-899-9982.
The Southern Oregon Beekeepers Associa-
tion meet the first Monday of each month,
7:30 pm, at the OSU extension. For more
information, please contact sobeekeepers@
gmail.com
Sanctuary One is open to the public for farm
tours every Wednesday and Saturday at
11am.Recommended donation is $5. Please
check out our website for details: www.
SanctuaryOne.org and call to reserve a spot.
541-899-8627.
Greater Applegate Community Development
Corporation meets the second Wednesday
of each month at 6:00 pm at Applegate Fire
District Station 1 on North Applegate Road.
For more information, call 541-245-4741 or
go to www.gacdc.org.
Ladies Spring Luncheon at Applegate Com-
munity Church, April 30 at 10:00 A.M.
All ladies invited to come and enjoy special
music, speaker and salad luncheon. Any
questions contact: 846-6100.
Email calendar information to
gater@applegater.org.
Spring 2011 3
Understanding the
Middle Applegate Pilot
By JoHn GErriTsma
The birth of the
Middle Applegate Pi-
lot is the culmination
of community, politi-
cal, and scientific in-
terests wanting to find
a more ecologically
and socially accept-
able forest manage-
ment approach. To
that end, the Secretary
of Agriculture em-
braced the ecological
restoration approach
for the dry forests of
the Applegate developed by forest scien-
tists Jerry Franklin and Norm Johnson
and designated a Pilot to demonstrate
those principles. With long-standing
community partners in the Applegate
Partnership and the Southern Oregon
Small Diameter Collaborative, the Med-
ford District BLM has embarked on a
collaborative process to implement this
Pilot. It is the Secretary’s hope that a for-
est management approach that restores
forest structure and processes will also
produce a substantive amount of timber
as an important byproduct. In addition,
the Pilot may provide information to the
Secretary about a future 20-year forest
management plan for the BLM lands in
southern Oregon.
The Pilot is about forest ecology.
The Pilot seeks to reduce the uncharac-
teristically dense and homogenous forest
conditions abundantly present. All trees
over 150 years of age will be retained,
with an emphasis to provide those old
veterans of the forest less competitive
access to nutrients and water. Part of
the treatment includes restoring the
“gaps” where sun-loving species such as
the black and white oaks, the ponderosa
pine and the sugar pine can thrive. Gaps
will allow the herbaceous layers on the
forest floor to become more diverse and
robust. Equally important is to provide
dense patches of forest for those species
whose survival depends on such habitat,
including the Northern Spotted Owl. In
the end, the Pilot’s approach will result
in a less uniform and more diverse forest
benefitting all species. Forest trees’ re-
sistance to insects, disease, wildfire, and
other natural disturbances is increased,
providing a better balance between life
and death in the forest. And through all
of this, tree stem reduction will result in
the production of timber that sustains
the industry necessary to implement
restoration projects. This also provides
much needed jobs in southern Oregon,
thereby benefiting both rural Oregon
and the State. And of course, an impor-
tant benefit of reducing tree density is a
reduced threat of catastrophic wildfire
to our Applegate communities.
This Pilot needs collaboration to
be successful. At the heart of the long-
running debate over forest management
are people’s core values. The forest
management debate is a social question
about the proper balance between our
environment and the use of resources it
provides. There is such an extraordinary
collaborative capacity in and around the
Applegate that it would be foolish to
ignore such a powerful force in shaping
the future of our forests. In fact, the
Applegate Partnership and the Collabor-
ative were actively seeking an ecological
landscape approach for the Applegate
well before the Secretary announced the
Pilot. In addition, numerous Rogue
Valley partners, along with the BLM
and the Rogue River Siskiyou National
Forests, were involved in the effort that
resulted in last October’s Solutions for
Forest Conference, a precursor to the
Pilot. Collaboration means the BLM is
partnering with interested stakeholders
in the development of a solution. This
includes cooperative development of
criteria to select stands for restoration,
the treatment priority of those stands,
within-stand application of skips and
gaps, and monitoring of both the col-
laborative process and the effectiveness
of the project design. The Pilot is a
demonstration of an ecological restora-
tion approach using the collaborative
vehicle to fuel its success.
The Pilot is about achieving re-
sults. The first Pilot project will occur
on an estimated 300-800 acres as early
as September of 2011. An assessment
of the restoration needs for these acres
will occur by the end of March, suffi-
cient to develop this first Pilot project.
It is imperative that the principles of
the Pilot be visually displayed on the
ground, so that we can all see what it
means. Learning from what we see,
later this year a detailed assessment will
cover about 5,000 more acres to deter-
mine restoration needs for subsequent
projects in 2012 and beyond. And,
at some point in the near future, an
assessment of restoration needs for the
entire Middle Applegate Watershed will
be undertaken; however, there will be
no Pilot project in roadless areas.
Some things have not changed.
The Pilot project will follow the stan-
dards and guidelines of the Northwest
Forest Plan. The Pilot will meet the
Endangered Species Act, including
meeting any stipulations in the Re-
covery Plan for the Northern Spotted
Owl. The Pilot will follow the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
process that requires public review of
decisions made about Pilot projects.
The Pilot will follow the Secretary’s
recent Order for managing wildlands.
Additional information on the Pilot is
available on the Applegate Partnership
and Watershed Council and the Med-
ford District BLM websites.
John Gerritsma • 541-618-2438
Field Manager, Ashland Resource Area
Medford District BLM
John_Gerritsma@blm.gov
http://www.blm.gov/or/districts/med-
ford/forestrypilot/