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Home My WebLink Aboutgreater_lapine_basin_draft2Greater La Pine Basin Restoration Project _____________________________________________________________________________________ The Project The Forest Service, in cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, presents the Greater La Pine Basin Restoration Project. The 320,000 acre Greater La Pine Basin Restoration Project is a shining example of collaborative work to respond to wildland fire’s refusal to recognize jurisdictional boundaries. Existing partnerships and future partnerships currently being fostered within the Greater La Pine Basin marry multiple critical objectives across the entire landscape. These objectives span a continuum from increasing forest resiliency, enhancing water yield and quality and improving wildlife habitat to engaging the community and providing educational opportunities for children. Today, opportunities exist to fund a variety of ‘shovel-ready’ projects that will increase fuel reduction activities on adjoining federal and state-protected private lands. Those projects fall within the following NEPA approved projects; Lava Cast, Ogden, Myst, Fall, Dilman, Maintenance Burn, Five Buttes, BLT, and Rim Paulina. The Deschutes National Forest feels this work best defines the goals of the Cohesive Strategy of “restoring/maintaining resilient landscapes, creating fire-adapted communities and responding to wildfires.” The project area includes an array of community driven efforts to include five Community Wildfire Protection Plans, Project Wildfire- a national example of a community fire planning and mitigation organization, the active Upper Deschutes River Coalition, and approved USFS Community Assistance Grants. In addition, the agency has a long-standing commitment toward the project area through continued restoration and wildfire response work on Federal lands (to include BLM lands through our Service First agreement of Central Oregon Fire Management Service), as well as a current commitment to agreements with Upper Deschutes River Coalition for restoration efforts, a Training Exchange (TREX) agreement between the Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests and The Nature Conservancy to support cross-training of prescribed fire resources from many firefighting agencies, and a budding agreement with the Bend-La Pine School District to further education. The area includes Three Rivers, La Pine, Gilchrist and Crescent, and contains 203,055 acres of Wildland Urban Interface that approximately 10,000 people of the Central Oregon community calls home. These people live and work within this community and depend on a healthy forest that can continue to provide livelihoods through recreational opportunities, as well as a wide variety of forest products. These communities also depend on clean water and air that healthy functioning forests can provide. The local lumber mill at the heart of the project area is the last and only mill viable for servicing the Deschutes National Forest. The area surrounds and is the scenic and safety corridor for millions that travel State Highway 97 annually. The area is habitat for federally threatened and endangered bull trout, Oregon Spotted Frog and Northern Spotted Owl. The area is also considered key elk habitat and Mule deer summer and winter range as identified in the Deschutes National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP). NRCS has identified the Greater La Pine Basin as an area of concern in their Conservation Implementation Strategy. Forest health is identified as a critical issue and being responsive to forest health is a part of our long range plan. With funding, this project would open doors locally to building on the current MOU with Oregon Department of Forestry to leverage their expertise with local landowners to additionally address forest health on adjacent private lands. Greater La Pine Basin Restoration Project _____________________________________________________________________________________ The project itself is scalable, initial funding would start on NEPA-approved ground that falls within WUI Priority One acres (see map), those acres that are identified most critical by the local CWPPs. Additional funding would treat NEPA-approved ground within the project area boundary, starting with projects closest to priority one acres first. An example funding strategy is provided below based on a three year request of $3,000,000. Proposed treatment table and example funding strategy: Treatment Estimated Acres Treated Annually Cost/Acre Annual Total Cost 3-Year Total Cost Total Acres Treated1 Prescribed Fire2 1500 $150 $225,000 $675,000 4,500 Mowing/Mastication3 1400 $125 $175,000 $525,000 4,200 Pre Commercial Thinning (PCT)/Piling/Pile burning3 1000 $600 $600,000 $1,800,000 3,000 3 year Totals $3,000,000 11,700 1- Acres treated may also have a positive impact to ‘effected’ acres, which could be those acres within ¼ mile of acres treated. There may or may not be overlap of acres between treatment types, depending on the need of the acres 2- Prescribed fire would complete restoration efforts on these acres and represent best reduction in fire potential, some areas included may be a part of our ‘Maintenance Burn’ CE and acres would complete their second entry of prescribed fire 3- Mowing/Mastication and Thinning with follow-up piling/pile burning would either serve as intermediate treatments to full restoration efforts where prescribed fire could be anticipated or, dependent on stand type, could be considered the final treatment for restoration. Either way, fire potential would still be reduced with these treatments. The Partners The Greater La Pine Basin Project includes several partners: the Upper Deschutes River Coalition (UDRC), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), the Greater La Pine Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) group, Sunriver CWPP group, Walker Range CWPP group, Deschutes County, Klamath County, The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Walker Range Forest Protection Association for Cascade Timberlands, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Bend Chapter of the Oregon Hunter Association, and Bend-La Pine School District. There is a current agreement between the UDRC and the US Forest Service to plan and implement fuels treatment projects across federal and private land boundaries that provide defensible space and modify fire behavior in high risk urban interface areas that have been identified in local Community Wildfire Protection Plans. There is also a Training Exchange (TREX) agreement between the Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests and The Nature Conservancy to support cross-training of prescribed fire resources from many firefighting agencies, which would improve the capacity to apply prescribed fire across jurisdiction boundaries. An agreement is being negotiated between the US Forest Service and the Bend-La Pine School District to utilize students from their Forestry Program for assistance in the implementation of projects, which also reinforces the Agency’s ties to local communities while providing an educational opportunity for students to be a part of land and resource management activities. Greater La Pine Basin Restoration Project _____________________________________________________________________________________ The Benefits of Additional Resources Multiple opportunities exist for utilizing additional resources with a full complement of benefits. Examples include: Increasing forest resiliency from fire, insect and disease and reduce the risk to communities of south Deschutes County/north Klamath County from wildfire. Reducing the chance for uncharacteristic wildfire that would threaten municipal infrastructures and impair the Upper Deschutes River water quality due to erosion. Enhancing key elk and deer habitat by reducing the encroachment of lodgepole pine into natural meadows. Strengthening partnerships with communities through established agreements to treat hazardous fuel accumulations in high risk areas and improve water quality and quantity in the upper Deschutes River corridor. Providing educational opportunity for young adults to explore land management activities. Leveraging established agreements to plan and implement fuels treatment activities across Federal and Private land boundaries. Utilizing municipal, rural and state resources to implement prescribed fire treatments to further their training specific to wildland fire. The Measures of Success Our success in ‘restoring and maintaining landscapes’ will perhaps best be measured by the acres treated, and resulting fire potential on actual acres and effected acres (see proposed treatment table), providing the most quantitative results for success. Our success in ‘responding to wildfires’ is a success best qualitatively measured by the increased and strengthened relationships and partnerships, which can be further leveraged for improved working conditions surrounding future wildfire. Our success in ‘creating fire-adapted communities’ will be measured by the amount of actual acres and effected acres within the priority one acres first, as well as those qualitative measures tied to the educational opportunities we partner to provide with the community. As added benefit, the project will provide a diversity of key goods and services to local and regional communities and economies through employment, education and exposure for the youth of our communities, raw materials, fuel wood, and enhanced recreation opportunities for Central and Eastern Oregon. Points of Contact Deana Wall, USFS, deanawall@fs.fed.us, (541) 383-5754 Tom Bennett, NRCS, tom.bennett@or.usda.gov, (541) 923-4358 ext. 123 Greater La Pine Basin Restoration Project _____________________________________________________________________________________