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News
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
FOREST
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10 years, with as much as 500
million board-feet of timber
harvested.
The contract was partially
funded by the Collaborative
Forest Landscape Restoration
program, with the Forest Ser-
vice, Oregon State Univer-
sity and the Blue Mountains
Forest Partners partnering to
monitor the work. That work
could increase to 500 plots in
100 different forest stands in
10 different planning areas in
2018.
Blue Mountains Forest
Partners emerged in 2006.
The collaborative group’s
diverse stakeholders include
loggers, environmentalists,
ranchers, landowners, tim-
ber industry representatives,
elected government officials
and federal land managers.
“Prior to Blue Mountains
Forest Partners’ inception,
management of the Malheur
National Forest was plagued
by gridlock,” the group states
in its website. “Not only did
this have a negative impact
on the local economy, it also
prevented forest restoration
work.”
The group says its mission
is promoting the long-term
well-being of the forest.
“The forest’s declining
condition is largely due to a
combination of fire suppres-
sion, social and legal gridlock
that arose as a result of dis-
senting stakeholders’ views
and sharply curtailed silvicul-
tural management, outcomes
of well-intentioned policies
and advocacies that have
produced a myriad of unfore-
seen and unintended negative
�
Eagle file photo
A view of the Strawberry Mountains from Keeney Fork Road on the Malheur National Forest in Grant County.
consequences,” the website
states.
Contract update
Mark Webb, the collabora-
tive group’s executive direc-
tor, updated the Grant Coun-
ty Court about the group’s
work.
Grant County’s econom-
ic opportunities are limited,
Webb said. Google won’t set
up a server center here, so
the county will need to focus
on its natural resources.
Webb said the collabora-
18TH ANNUAL
�
Grant County
Quilt Show
the Grant County Piecemakers Quilting Guild
FRIDAY and SATURDAY
June 8th & 9th 2018
Fri. 9am to 6pm & Sat. 9am- 4pm
Grant County Fairgrounds
Trowbridge Pavilion, John Day, OR
$5.00 FOR BOTH DAYS
FEATURING
Quilts of Valor
P ATRIOTIC Q UILTS M ADE F OR V ETERANS
Sunday workshop on the Woven
Star Taught by Mary Lou Drury
of Heartfelt Quilts and Karen
Hinton of The Shiny Thimble
Workshop is Sun. June 10th
9am- 4pm $20.00
Bring your own kit to work on or work on a patriotic community quilt kit
There will be
a delicious
menu to
choose from.
Door prizes & special awards too!
Our guild will be selling raffle
tickets for this gorgeous quilt and
drawing a name on Saturday.
PROJECTS
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Blue Mountain Acting District Ranger
Amanda Lindsay, a forester and silvi-
culturist, said about 5,400 acres of tree
planting was completed this spring on
land burned by the Canyon Creek Com-
plex fire in 2015. Another 3,500 acres
could be planted next spring to wrap up
that project.
“That will depend on the success of
the planting we’ve already done,” she
noted.
Last year’s hot summer caused
seedling mortality across the region,
she said. This spring has been cooler
and wetter, which bodes well for the
seedlings. Lindsay took the position of
acting district ranger as District Ranger
Dave Halemeier is leaving in July.
Prescribed burns typically take
place in spring and fall. About 50 acres
near the Sumpter Valley Interpretative
Site was burned by Prairie City Ranger
District personnel in April, and about
740 acres in the Knox project on Cot-
tonwood Creek, southeast of Prairie
City, was burned in May.
About 600 acres of thinning will take
place in the Crane Prairie area south of
Prairie City this summer. Some of it
will be “lopped and scattered,” while
the rest will be hand-piled. That will be
followed by an “under burn” in the fall.
Guzman said three timber harvest
UPTMOR
For Information or class sign up send email to
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Or call Lou’s Heartfelt Quilting (541) 620- 2798
or The Shiny Thimble (541) 932- 4111
Continued from Page A1
“In reality, education is
about learning,” he said.
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JOHN DAY, OREGON
might be because the stew-
ardship treatments were not
aggressive.
Webb said he’d like to see
more aggressive treatments,
but he expected that could
spark litigation. The col-
laborative group might not
want to be more aggressive,
he said.
Jobs supported
According to the study by
the University of Oregon’s
Ecosystem Workforce Pro-
gram, about 96 jobs sup-
contracts were sold for the 30,000-acre
Summit Prairie project, which also will
include aspen treatment and thinning.
Some fencing projects designed to keep
livestock out of critical stream habitat
also will take place this year, he said.
On the Blue Mountain Ranger
District, four timber harvests on the
19,422-acre Damon project north of
Seneca are completed, Lindsay said.
Forest crews will return this year for
fuels treatment. That will include mas-
tication — using heavy machinery
to grind up trees less than 9 inches in
diameter — along with chainsawing,
hand-piling and slash burning for the
rest of the project site.
Fisheries and roads
A large fisheries project on the main
fork of the Malheur River this year will
involve using helicopters or excavators
to place large woody debris in a 2-mile
stretch of the river to create pools for
juvenile fish, Guzman said.
“They’ll need to clear a site for the
helicopter, so they’re falling ponderosa
pines,” he said.
Both the main fork and the west fork
of the Malheur River are designated for
protection under the Wild and Scenic
Rivers Act, he noted.
On the Blue Mountain Ranger Dis-
trict, Bear Creek will be reconnected
to the Middle Fork of the John Day
River near Galena by opening up tail-
ings piles created decades ago by mine
dredges.
Crews also will place woody debris
“Each student should en-
joy learning, and educators
should have the tools to
support them.”
Uptmor said he’s confident
about the resiliency of Ore-
gon schools after seeing them
tough it out through the recent
economic recession. Schools
were hit hard with budget
constraints but are pulling out
of that now, he said.
in the stream for steelhead and chinook
salmon. “Beaver dam analogs” can be
created by driving posts into the stream
bed and weaving willows between the
posts. Beavers finish the job of building
dams that create pools for juvenile fish.
Two historic mining ponds at Big
Creek, which is steelhead, chinook
salmon and bull trout habitat also in the
Middle Fork drainage near Galena, will
be filled using material from nearby
mine tailings.
Log jams will be installed on a quar-
ter mile of Long Creek to slow water
flow for juvenile fish. A side channel
will be reconnected to the main chan-
nel to provide fish passage. Two cul-
verts will be replaced nearby on the
East Fork of Beech Creek and on Tin-
ker Creek to meet fish-jumping height
specifications.
Road closure work across the Mal-
heur National Forest started in April,
according to Zeke Langum, the forest’s
assistant forest engineer. The work is
contracted out and involves installing
berms and water bars, he said.
The decision to close roads is deter-
mined by hydrology, fish, wildlife, ar-
chaeology and other staff, and proposals
undergo a National Environmental Poli-
cy Act review.
Langum, who recently received the
Chiefs Award for National Engineering
Technician of the Year, said road cov-
erage in the Malheur National Forest is
“pretty dense” compared to the Willa-
mette National Forest, where he worked
previously.
“I believe as educators we
should have an engaging plan
that meets every student’s
needs,” he said. “Working to-
gether with the staff, students,
parents and community, we
can plan for all students to suc-
ceed. I’m excited to see what
we can accomplish together.”
Uptmor’s children are
grown up and attending col-
lege.
He and his wife, who is
working on her Realtor li-
cense, will move to the John
Day area.
They enjoy camping and
four-wheeling and have a
summer place in Sumpter.
He said he’d like to meet
with community members —
for a cup of coffee, a town
hall or a barbecue — when he
arrives.
Grant SWCD Weed Control Dept.
Working for You in 2018
Picked up - $5.25/ton
Delivered - *$10.25/ton
46057
3
areas are being treated, and
he would like to see that in-
creased to 40 or 50 percent.
That increase, however, might
trigger more administrative
work under the National En-
vironmental Policy Act.
Blue Mountains Forest
Partners tries to help the
Forest Service avoid litiga-
tion and to facilitate stew-
ardship projects, Webb said.
No litigation over timber
projects on the Malheur Na-
tional Forest has occurred
since 2006, he said, but that
Planting and thinning
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tive process was mandated
by federal law. Forest Ser-
vice and Bureau of Land
Management lands in Grant
County are public lands, so
citizens across the U.S. have
an interest in what happens
to these lands. On the other
hand, locals needed an addi-
tional voice, he said.
Without the steward-
ship contract, the Malheur
Lumber Co. mill in John
Day, would have shut down,
Webb told the court. About
10 percent of the planning
ported by the stewardship
contract from 2015 through
2017 were in the private
forestry sector and involved
harvesting and transporting
timber or conducting forest
and watershed restoration
projects.
Another 36 jobs were at
the Malheur Lumber Co.
mill in John Day, where har-
vested timber was processed
into lumber and bioenergy
products. The stewardship
contract also supported saw-
mill jobs in other northeast-
ern Oregon locations.
The Malheur National
Forest hired 55 addition-
al employees to implement
and monitor the stewardship
contract, and 81 jobs at lo-
cal businesses in Grant and
Harney counties were sup-
ported through the economic
multiplier effect, the study
reported.
On average, about 38
million board-feet of timber
was harvested each year un-
der the stewardship contract,
with about 15 million board-
feet of sawlogs and 8,700
tons of non-sawtimber deliv-
ered to the mill in John Day,
the study reported.
Webb estimated about
one-third of logs harvest-
ed on the Malheur National
Forest went to the mill in
John Day and the rest went
out of the county.
According to Blue Moun-
tains Forest Partners, Iron
Triangle increased employee
wages by nearly $1 million
from 2013 through 2016.
The company also increased
the number of subcontractors
needed to meet the steward-
ship contract requirements
and invested about $5 mil-
lion in equipment.
(541) 932-4888
Thanks to the Grant County Court and Northeast Oregon Forests Resource
Advisory Committee, Grant Weed Control is able to offer a 50% Cost
Share Program for Noxious Weed Control on Private Grazing Lands,
through a Title II funded Grant Project. This program will provide a
maximum $5,000 of noxious weed control services with a $2,500 maximum
landowner contribution to qualifying participants. To be eligible for
participation, the treatment property must not be actively irrigated and must
be primarily managed for livestock grazing, minimum of 20 acres in size,
located within Grant County, and must contain weed species listed on the
Grant County Noxious Weed List. Applications for this limited weed control
assistance opportunity will be funded on a first come first serve basis.
Contact the Grant Soil and Water Conservation District Office at
(541) 575-1554 or visit 721 S. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845 for
applications and additional information.
61745