What is the Forest Resiliency Project?
Across the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon and Washington, more than 2.3 million acres of dry forests have become overcrowded and vulnerable to unusual outbreaks of insects, diseases, and wildfires. The current pace of active forest restoration is not keeping pace with forest growth. Every year the Forest Service falls further behind. As have seen in the Winom-Frazier OHV complex since the 1996 Tower Mountain Fire, Forests have become denser, ladder fuels have increased, and the abundance of fire-tolerant tree species have declined. This is leads to the statement that it is not a matter of IF we are going to have a forest fire, rather WHEN!
The Blue Mountains Forest Resiliency Project is an effort to restore over 610,000 acres of forests on the Ochoco, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests. This project will use commercial and non-commercial thinning and fire to actively restore dry forests toward more normal eastside resilient conditions (Proposed Action Maps) (FAQ’s)
So what does this mean for NWTRA?
On the Winom-Frazier OHV complex, the areas outside of the road-less boundary area around the Tower Mt part of the wilderness will be affected. So that is the Wallowa-Whitman side and the trails closest to Frazier Campground. What is being stated to the public is that after the project is done, the open trails and roads of that area are to be restored. What level of restoration was not specified, as some of these open trails and roads do not meet specification now.
The project also states that roads currently closed will be temporarily open for the project and then re-closed after. This part and the vagueness of the language has a number of people very concerned, both in he definition of what a close road is now, and what will be then, and basically an underhanded way to close more roads. Most people that utilize the forest have seen roads that are in use arbitrarily closed without public input that should be re-opened. Any road that is closed requires a environmental impact reviews, paperwork, and public comment to re-open. So this issue within the project is raising some red flags.
Final language of the project has yet to be established.
On the surface, this large scale approval project will fast track a great deal of needed forest health management issues, which sounds like a great idea. Even with this fast track, Forest Service officials still stated that is will take at least 10years to complete the project once it overcomes the procedural and legal issues.
Healthy, non-wild fire impacted forests equals more enjoyable forest experience. NWTRA will monitor the progress of this project to ensure that we do not loose trails/access, the effect on access during the project, and assurance that once complete, our trails will be restored.
What is going on now?
The Forest Service hosted eight public engagement sessions on the proposed action. More than 170 people participated. Additional meeting occurred during collaborative meetings, meeting with the staff from three Tribes, and meeting with other interested stakeholders. Comments from the public meetings are found here: BMFRP Comments. Comments/Letters from concerned citizens are HERE. Those meetings with the other groups and their comments are not available.
A review of both of these methods of public comment has shown a general positive view of the Forest Service actually managing the forest. Comments from the meetings were more specifically productive as a number of comments addressed alternatives to prescribed burning, such as specific commercial logging, Biomass/Bio-Char utilization of slag/underbrush, and natural methods such as animal grazing. The meeting in Pendleton that NWTRA attended was positive toward the project, just concerned about the health of the forest, and the actual feasibility of this project making it to implementation. Letters were mostly positive, very concerned about closing roads, and a few environmental do nothing types.
Since the initial batch of public meetings, a series of private meetings (Tribes, Collaborative groups, and “other interested parties”) were held. No letters or feedback from the environmental groups does not mean they are not interested. (Restoring Forests in the Face of Climate Change)
The Proposed Action flyer in the “What We Heard” section highlights a number of areas that don’t seem to be reflected as clearly as the Forest Service state it was if you actually read the comments from the public meetings. This indicates to this author that those comments from the non-public meetings must have had more impact.
After this comment phase, will be a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that is planned to be introduced potentially by July 2016, still waiting on that. Once this is introduced, there will be another comment period. Final EIS and draft Record of Decisions will be introduced by Winter 2016 with further comment and the plan nailed down in 2017.
One concern of NWTRA’s is the quantity of large, long-term affecting, projects by the Forest Service going on at once.
- Blue Mt Forest Plan Revision
- Blue Mt Forest Resiliency Project
- Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman Travel Management
These all are and are not connected, with some being out of order of each other, which lends NWTRA to believe that the confusion may be intentional.
Another area of concern by NWTRA is the disconnect between public meetings and private meetings and there impact on the process. There is no comments from these private group meetings that have been made public at this time.