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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 2019)
THE CHIEFTAIN’S FOOTBALL CONTEST STARTS TODAY! PAGE 8 Enterprise, Oregon 135th Year, No. 21 Wallowa.com Wednesday, September 4, 2019 $1.50 Land Trust hike explores sustainable forestry, grazing By Ellen Morris Bishop Wallowa County Chieftain Ellen Morris Bishop Kurt Melville (left, in orange shirt) and Tim Melville (in red shirt) talk with fi re fi ghters after the fi re in the farm’s pea fi eld was controlled and mostly out. Combine fires keep local firefighters busy By Ellen Morris Bishop Wallowa County Chieftain Two separate combine fi res last week interrupted harvest and tested the fi re- fi ghting resources of Wal- lowa County. Neither fi re produced injuries to any- thing but crops. And Wal- lowa County’s fi refi ghters, including the U.S. For- est Service helitack and ground-based teams, and Oregon Department of For- estry, effectively and effi - ciently quenched both blazes before they could spread very far. A combine-sparked fi re charred about 15 acres of the Melville farm’s pea crop, causing an estimated $10,000 in crop loss on the afternoon of Wednes- day August 28. The fi re sent a thick plume of grey and white smoke into the air. Wallowa County Emer- gency Services Manager Paul Karvoski called in 13 fi re engines, fi ve tenders, and the U.S. Forest Service helicopter, which bucketed water out of nearby Prairie Creek to drop on the blaze, helping to control the fi re. Enterprise, Joseph, Oregon Department of Forestry, and U.S. Forest Service fi re- fi ghters responded. Grain Growers and Wallowa See Fires, Page A7 Ellen Morris Bishop A U.S. Forest Service helicopter drops water on a hotspot along the edge of the fi re at the Melville farm. As Wallowa County and the moraines coalition move incrementally closer to raising the $6.5 mil- lion needed to purchase and conserve nearly 1800 acres on the east moraine, understanding how this working landscape can continue to be a sustain- able source of timber and grazing is increasingly important. On Saturday, August 31, the Wallowa Land Trust sponsored a stroll with forester Larry Nall and range management specialist Kelly Birk- maier. About 20 peo- ple participated in the event. That portion of the moraine was last logged in about 1989, under a plan devel- oped by RY Timber’s manager, Bruce Dunn. “Bruce left 25% of the big trees. In a way,” Ellen Morris Bishop Nall noted, “Dunn was practicing restoration Forester Larry Nall forestry: returning the explains how older trees stand to a more natu- distribute nutrients to ral state. Nall noted that their seedlings through fungal the Nez Perce and other underground tribes were actively networks. burning and managing forests for millennia before settlers arrived. “It was a landscape adapted to fi re.” Nall, who certifi es sustainable forests across the U.S. and Canada, would like to see a more open, fi re-resilient forest on the moraine: 30 to 40 large trees per acre, including fi re-tolerant pon- derosa pine and western larch, and less of the cli- mate-challenged grand fi r. “Climate change is bringing less moisture, and more heat to a lot of places. We are already seeing the effect on grand fi r. We’ve got grand fi r dying all over the place in this county,” he said. Nall would like to see most of the existing big trees on the east moraine remain for several rea- sons. They are more fi re resistant. They are grow- ing well and putting on lots of new wood. And most of them are ponderosa pines, which right now are low in market value. In addition, there’s evidence from new research that the larger trees in a forest selectively nurture their own offspring. “Keeping the big trees probably means we’ll have healthier and faster growing small trees,” Nall said. Soils on the lower east side of the moraine have been compacted by past logging and grazing. But the good news, according to rangeland special- ist Kelly Birkmaier, is that bioturbation—worms, beetles, and other subterranean critters, along with roots and the freeze-thaw cycles, are doing the needed work of aerating, loosening, and uncom- pacting the ground. On this grazed bottom piece, Birkmaier noted that the planted perennial grasses, including timo- thy and fescues were holding their own, and inva- sive grasses—cheat grass, medusa head, and oth- ers, seemed to have a minimal roothold. As fi re is reintroduced, Birkmaier said, the grass community could increase in vigor because more light and water would be available, and fi res would also produce nitrogen that would spur plant growth. Future management of the moraine would likely include fencing the property into several grazing areas. That would ensure better manage- ment of grazing as well as facilitating restoration of soils and forage. There are economic considerations as well as ecologic and restoration ones. Wallowa County will need income from the property to manage it. Funds will be needed to maintain trails, build fenc- ing for livestock grazing, and hire a manager. Ancient Nez Perce village site yields oldest date of human habitation in North America By Ellen Morris Bishop Wallowa County Chieftain Loren Davis/Oregon State University Lithic tools excavated from the oldest L3 layer at Nipéhe/Coopers Ferry. They include stemmed projectile points (A and B, and a macro blade (G). Macroblade (G) is about 2 inches long. The oldest known human habitation in North America, more than 16,000 years in age, is located at the site of an ancient Nez Perce village known as Nipéhe, near the confluence of the Snake and Salmon Rivers. See Village, Page A7
