8A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2017
U.S. Forest Service signs off on
Lower Joseph Creek restoration
More than
100,000 acres
could be treated
State tourism
bucks are tied
to water efforts
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Acceler-
ated restoration is coming to the
Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest, including an increase in
logging and burning.
The U.S. Forest Service has
approved a massive proposal
to treat more than 100,000
acres on the Wallowa Val-
ley Ranger District north of
Enterprise, part of a broader
regional effort to increase the
pace and scale of forest resto-
ration across Eastern Oregon
and Washington.
Tom Montoya, supervi-
sor for the Wallowa-Whit-
man National Forest, signed
a record of decision for the
Lower Joseph Creek Resto-
ration Project on Friday. Activ-
ities will include more than
16,500 acres of commercial
logging and fuels reduction,
and up to 90,000 acres of pre-
scribed burning over the next
decade.
It is the first major project
to be completed by the Blue
Mountains Restoration Strat-
egy Team, a group of local
Forest Service employees that
formed in 2013 to step up res-
toration, make landscapes
healthier and lower the risk of
devastating wildfires.
But the plan isn’t without
controversy, as stakeholders
continue to wrestle with the
environmental and economic
impacts of such a large effort.
The project garnered input
from Wallowa County, the
Nez Perce Tribe and the Wal-
lowa-Whitman Forest Collabo-
rative, consisting of both envi-
ronmental and timber industry
representatives.
Montoya admits the parties
did not reach a perfect consen-
sus, but said he is pleased with
the result.
“This project, safe to say, is
a priority not only for this for-
est, but for the region,” Mon-
toya said.
Initial assessment
The Lower Joseph Creek
Restoration Project began with
a 2014 watershed assessment
by the Wallowa County Natu-
ral Resources Advisory Com-
mittee, which identified 20,000
acres of forestland at very high
risk due to heavy fuel loads and
overstocking of trees that could
be commercially logged.
Another 21,370 acres were
recommended for thinning
smaller trees, for a combined
estimated value of more than
$67 million.
The Blue Mountains Resto-
ration Strategy Team decided
to take up Lower Joseph Creek
under the umbrella of acceler-
ated restoration, making forests
more resilient to things like fire
and disease while also protect-
ing natural resources and sup-
porting the local economy by
boosting timber production.
The project area is located
on the northern boundary of the
Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest, and includes portions
of the Hells Canyon National
Recreation Area. Joseph Creek
provides critical habitat to
Snake River steelhead, which
are listed as threatened under
the Endangered Species Act.
Ten different groups and
individuals filed objections
with the Forest Service after
the agency released its draft
decision for Lower Joseph
Creek last year. Montoya said
they were able to work through
some of their disagreements —
such as roadless-area conser-
vation and limiting the size of
trees that can be harvested —
but not everything.
“My goal was to see if we
could move a little closer to
meeting everyone’s thoughts
and concerns out there,” Mon-
toya said.
By PHUONG LE
Associated Press
U.S. Forest Service.
Swamp Creek, a tributary of Joseph Creek, flows through Wallowa County and will be
subject to the Lower Joseph Creek Restoration Project.
ingly dense — as much as
10 to 20 times in some areas
of the Lower Joseph Creek
watershed. Higher density
means more fuels for fires to
become large infernos, and
has even changed the compo-
sition of tree species, allowing
shade-tolerant firs to expand
significantly.
The Lower Joseph Creek
Restoration
Project
will
involve cutting trees across
roughly 17,000 acres and using
prescribed fire on up to 90,000
acres to bring the forest back in
line with historical conditions,
McCusker said.
“Really, the focus is on thin-
ning all age classes out on the
landscape and retaining old
trees wherever they may be,”
he said.
The final project also calls
for improving or replacing six
culverts to boost fish passage,
and closes 12 miles of roads
to address resource concerns
while opening 23 miles of
roads to provide public access.
Riparian areas
Paul Boehne, fisheries biol-
ogist for the restoration team,
said they primarily looked at
treatments around streams that
do not contain any fish popula-
tions. These riparian areas are
mostly located at higher ele-
vations, he said, and make up
20-25 percent of any given
watershed.
But even though the streams
do not host fish, Boehne said
they serve an important eco-
logical function, providing
cold water and filtering sedi-
ment where fish do swim.
“That’s the value of those
large trees standing in the ripar-
ian habitat conservation area,”
he said. “We want to protect
those.”
Boehne said the Lower
Joseph Creek project will not
touch old growth trees in ripar-
ian zones, and foresters will
work to maintain a minimum
level of canopy to ensure the
water doesn’t get too warm,
and snow doesn’t melt too fast.
More controversially, the
project aims to treat 31 acres
around Swamp Creek, a tribu-
tary of Joseph Creek that does
support steelhead. Boehne,
however, argues the work is
justified, citing lodgepole pine
trees that have encroached in
the area.
“They shouldn’t be there,”
he said. “It should be a wet
meadow that stores water like
a sponge.”
Instead, Boehne said those
trees are sucking up water that
would otherwise filter back
into the stream for fish. Ulti-
mately, Montoya agreed in his
decision.
“I felt, based on specialists,
that we needed to do a little
bit of work in Swamp Creek,”
Montoya said.
Stakeholder concern
Several
environmental
groups have expressed con-
cerns with the plan, though
they are continuing to review
the details of the final proposal
before determining the next
steps.
Rob Klavins, Eastern Ore-
gon field coordinator for Ore-
gon Wild, said the organization
has spent hundreds of hours
over several years to find com-
mon ground on the project. The
Forest Service, he said, contin-
ues to use restoration to treat
symptoms in the forest, rather
than addressing the underlying
management issues.
“Given the politics and spe-
cial interests behind it, it’s been
clear for some time that come
hell or high water, this project
was going to go forward, push
boundaries and test the limits of
public trust,” Klavins said.
Brian Kelly, restoration
director for the Hells Can-
yon Preservation Council, said
the organization remains con-
cerned about logging in remote
forests.
“Joseph Canyon is a magnif-
icent place,” Kelly said. “Hells
Canyon Preservation Coun-
cil has worked incredibly hard
through the Wallowa-Whitman
Forest Collaborative to find
solutions for this project. We
are extremely disappointed that
those efforts apparently did not
succeed.”
SEATTLE — State offi-
cials, environmental advo-
cates and others are warn-
ing of dire environmental
and economic consequences
if President Donald Trump’s
cuts to Puget Sound and other
environmental programs go
through as proposed.
The Environmental Pro-
tection Agency’s funding for
Puget Sound — about $28
million last year — would be
gutted under Trump’s budget
blueprint released Thursday.
The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administra-
tion’s 50-year-old Sea Grant
program, which focuses on
creating a healthy coastal
environment and economy,
would also be axed, includ-
ing about a $4 million hit to
the program in Washington
state.
U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer,
a Washington state Demo-
crat, called the cuts “com-
pletely irresponsible” and
vowed to fight the presi-
dent’s proposal.
“It sets a bad starting
point for the discussion,”
Kilmer, who is on the House
Appropriations Committee,
said in an interview Friday.
“These are iconic bodies of
water that have an important
role, not just environmen-
tally but from an economic
standpoint as well.”
Statewide tourism and
recreational dollars are tied
to Puget Sound and clean
water supports shellfish and
fishing industries that pumps
up the economy, Kilmer
said.
EPA money has helped
cities, counties, state agen-
cies, local nonprofit and
tribes on cleanup efforts in
Puget Sound. The money has
been used to restore salmon
habitat, help open shell-
fish beds to harvest, manage
stormwater runoff, replace
culverts that block salmon
passage and prevent flood-
ing while restoring wetlands.
Trump’s spending plan
says it “returns the respon-
sibility for funding local
environmental efforts and
programs to state and local
entities, allowing EPA to
focus on its highest national
priorities.”
The plan also targets the
Great Lakes and Chesapeake
Bay. While the plan doesn’t
identify them, a proposal
by the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget this month
called for cutting all or most
funding for San Francisco
Bay, Puget Sound and the
Gulf of Mexico. The EPA
in D.C. did not immediately
respond to an email.
“We’re just at the point
where we’re seeing things
turn a corner,” said Sheida
Sahandy, executive direc-
tor of the Puget Sound Part-
nership, the state agency set
up in 2007 to oversee resto-
ration of one of the nation’s
largest estuaries.
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Changing conditions
Neil McCusker, who works
with the Blue Mountains Res-
toration Strategy Team as a sil-
viculturist, said the natural con-
dition of local forests has over
time.
As fire suppression has
improved, McCusker said the
forest is becoming increas-
Environmentalists
warn about Trump’s
cuts to Puget Sound
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