Approved December 27, 2016
STANDING COMMITTEE MEETING
November 22, 2016
9 AM –OSU Meeting Room
NRAC Standing Committee Members Present
Bruce Dunn, ChairmanJohn Williams, OSU Extension
Cynthia Warnock, SWCDRod Childers, Rancher
Nils Christoffersen, WRKris Stein, USFS
Matt Howard, ODF
Others
Eileen WilliamsKaty Nesbitt
The meeting was called to order at 9:00 am by Chairman Bruce Dunn.
October minutes stand approved as presented.
OLD BUSINESS
Charter Forest (Charter Ranger District)
Bruce -What do we think about it?
Nils – Wallowa Resources has signed a commitment of groups. Believe working together is the best
interest of the forest and community.
-Avehicle for groups to work on the forest
-Expectation of tax cut coming up, meaning cuts in discretionary spending. Anticipation of
Federal agencies having cuts.
-WR Believe need more support and funding at regional level, but don’t think we will get it.
John - Have been able to take a group out and do trail work as it is. What would the Charter do to that?
Nils – Hopefully there will be more frame work and organization so volunteers cover more areas.
Kris – As is paper work is tremendous. This frame work would give structure and capacity to see if work
would be beneficial.
John - Do I become a formal volunteer, is there insurance?
Kris - You sign a waiver of liability.
Rod – If someone just goes out and clears a trail isn’t that alright.
Kris - Technically no.
John - If Rod does work on permit is that ok.
Kris - He would be covered under his permit maintenance.
Kris – This will allow students to help with range monitoring.
Nils – There is a fourth party trying to get organized for a foundation, Trails Recreation & Heritage.
John – They would focus on recreation?
Nils - Yes.
Nils - Will work on a base which would allow us to get grants and funding.
Rod - The monitoring thru OCA will help.
Kris -There are student that would like to do monitoring as part of their education.
Nils - They want us to help them create opportunities with EOU.
John- We need to be teaching what techniques to use.
Rod - Permittees need to be involved
John - Never be out on a permit without permittee knowing
Nils -There are somethings already happening. Camp sites management.
-Want to be sure that Forest Service values these partnerships.
Kris - We do get a lot of pressure to reduce foot print, but this does not benefit the public.
Nils - RV license fees help, wehave worked to get some of these funds to the county.Getting funds
because county developed 101 county campsites.
Nils-Thanks to ODF, they have put up some money to match Title II for forest stand assessment.
Waiting for an agreement to be signed.
Bruce – Good to start with the easy stuff,work toward monitoring and build as we go.
John Need to support this any way we can, is there anything we can do?
Kris - Give verbal support county and state level.
Nils – John, if you could focus on student and University.
Rod – We need to get with Sky and get started.
John- Need to get together with FS
Last time we did a training Extension, OCA,PLC and Forest Service did the training would be willing to do it again.
Kris – That is good.
Kris - This is not new stuff, need to make it more visible.
Rod - Where are we with Range Budget?
Kris - We were going to be down a GS9 position, but because of public interest they have reinstated
the GS9 position, not sure where funds will come from so will keep Pats position.
Community Wildfire
-Have changed the zone of lapover, so added to bigger southern WUII zone.
-Going to meet next week and evaluate Community Risk (economic risk).
-Got a decent response so far to the survey, about 50 people.
Matt - Sent out 5000 letters, would like to see 550 but happy to have 50.
Bruce – When do you plan to wrap this up?
Nils – Plan to be done in March, April and submit to County Commissioners.
Matt - When it comes out for tech review, we would like as many as possible look at it.
Nils –FEMA funding for zoning does not requireCounty Commissioner approval.
Bruce – If building codes change would affect Salmon Plan then would need their approval
Wallowa Whitman Forest Collaborative
Last meeting had a field trip to Sheep Creek.
Next meeting Dec. 7thin LaGrande.
WWFC Forest Project
Bruce - Looks like group is looking at Sheep Creek, cool moist, old roads a few warm dry sites.
-3 hours from Wallowa county is a long ways away
-Not a lot going on, not a lot of controversial issues.
Rod – If not a lot of nuts and bolts is it worth doing.
Nils - Many on Ops committee that feel we need to step back and do an easy project so can build trust.
I find it is a barrier to slow us down; the people involved have done this before.
The one thing is if we get a Lower Joseph Creek decision soon we could be occupied in a lot of
good thing. If have easy WWFC Project would have more time for Lower Joseph Creek.
Rod – If Forest Service can do it on their own, then why are we bothering?
John - If we are going with sheep then we need to see if we can get them to have meeting here, to
spread the travel out.
Kris – Thought on project, in Wallowa Co. the easy stuff is done, I could really us the input the Sage
would give us.
Nils - It sounds that you could specifically ask Brian and Rob to be part of a project here in the County
and run our own collaborate thru your office on a project here.
Lower Joseph Creek Project
Kris - Time line, Tom said probably January, asked him why and he asked OGC(General Council) to take a
look at the Forest Plan Amendment.
Bruce - Still have not received answer to my question.
Can’t use InventoryRoadless areas as a termination of density on miles of roads, but they used
it.
John – So second question when Tom was here he said he was following the forest plan, but when Barb
writes back they can’t be bigger then what currently exist.
Kris – Have current existing roads and have a hand full of roads we were going to close.So that would
decrease the number of roads. Can’t increase
Rod -We were told that those decisions were so old that they did not apply.
Kris -That is a problem with change of staff.
Bruce What I read in Barb’s e-mail, can’t go above the no actions alternative even if belowForest Plan
Standards.
Kris - Worth checking into this.
Bruce - I don’t agree with this.
John -We have asked for miles in each sub watersheds unit and total square mile of roads and have
never received them.
Rod - If he is going to go by previous decisions, then there is no point of going forward.
Kris -Under wildlife it is one mile.
John - We are at .2.
Kris - There are more questions than answers. Everyone has a different opinion. We need to meet on
this.
Bruce - He did agree to suggestion to drop feet of treatment of riparian areas, did not see anything on
the 33 feet and treatment outside.
Bruce -We need to test these things.
I think you have to go back to the original map to determine density
Forest Plan Revision
- No updates
- After last Wilderness and Access meeting, requested we get together and plan the next one.
- He wants to do Pace and Scale next, John said that we want to do Range. He said they are still working things out internally on Range
- This is why we want range. That is the purpose of cooperating agency; we want to be involved before they make their decisions.
Want the groups input as to how to reply?
Bruce - What Susan said, is that they changed Pace and Scale and not much in Range.
We have not seen anything since the last meeting. We have been told we will love it, but have not seen anything. The new guy is public minded
Rod -In some ways want to push range to show them how Cooperating Agency should work.
Kris - Good time to be involved. Changes in Range are Endangered Species issues.
John - We want to be involved with the people.
Group Discussion
Rod– Let’s ask for a meeting on Range.
Bruce - Let’s see what they have done on the first meeting. (Wilderness and Access).
Rod -We need to be sure to finish the Access part also.
Kris – I will let Tom know that we want to finish Access and move forward on Range and Pace
and Scale.
Bruce – Let’s get the information needed and move forward.
Lostine Corridor Public Safety Project
-Will start marking trees.
-Waiting for concurrence back on fish.
-Sale out 3rd or 4th quarter.
-Probably next winter before they will do anything.
UPDATES
USFS Resiliency Project
-Nothing
ATLES
-2 meetings
One meeting general on how it would work.
2nd meetingwas with hard core Fish Bios.
-Will look a lot like updated Salmon Plan.
-Will be up to us to work on 3rd tier.
-Mostly in stream work.
Wallowa Front WUII
-Upper Prairie Creek
Mostly Hand thinning want to get density down.
Trial to see what people say.
150 acres on a slope in the WUII.
Have a buyer looking at down wood.
A little cool moist included.
Travel Management Plan
-Doing FPR First
Salmon Plan/SP Implementation
-Nothing
Old / New Photos
-Will get last picture
Wolves
-Still taking comments of Wolf plan.
-Another investigation yesterday on Birkmaeir’s.
-Hunters got picture of 12 last month and recently a video of 14.
-Wolf that was just collar went to Montana.
-Shamrock pack is back in Zumwalt.
-Two different packs in area of Birkmiear’s.
-Between 3 and 7pm cattle went thru three 5barb wire fences and electric fence around a riparian
area.
-A lot of talk at Cattlemen’s meeting. A lot of talk has migrated to targeted hunts.
-John gave two Class presentations at OSU last week.
OTHER
Bruce
-Went to a meeting on the 15th.
-Talking about putting in another channel on state land to creating a delta flood plan cost about two
million dollars.
-Purpose to minimize damage of a blowout.
-Reduce fuel loads and still maintain vegetative state on steep hill side.
Cynthia
-Will be sending a letter out about defensible areas around homes,have included FS part.
-In SWCD newsletter.
-Respect burning times.
-Needs to be a defensible area around homes, so if there is a fire, can triage as to if it can be saved.
Matt
ODF new - Joe Hessel
John’s last day Wednesday.
John
Dec 7th Pesticide Core Training
Dec 15th Calving School
Jan 10th Beef Quality on cows
Rod
Tribe has a bunch of Yellow star that is moving in on Forest
Have talked to Becky and Angela trying to get with tribe. They have not been spraying lately
Meeting adjourned 10:55 am.
Respectfully Submitted,
Eileen Williams
NRAC Standing Committee Secretary
WC NRC Standing Committee November 22, 2016Page 1