An innovative project in cooperative watershed management planning is underway in the Scott River Watershed of Siskiyou County. Representatives of 13 agencies and private organizations are meeting to identify key environmental issues and to develop cooperative resource management strategies. The French Creek watershed is the current focus of this advisory group because of its mix of public and private ownerships.
Issues under discussion include timber harvest, fire protection, erosion, water quality, communication, information sharing, wildlife, and aesthetic values. Broad goals of the pilot project are to establish a continuing process for conflict resolution, to better coordinate resource management in the watershed and to reduce the potential for costly litigation and the need for new regulations. As an initial effort, the watershed group is developing a road management plan and a fuel treatment corridor plan for the French Creek subwatershed.
Invited participants represent landowners and other organizations with an interest in the watershed, including the California Department of Forestry, the State Water Resources Control Board, The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Fruit Growers Supply Company, Sierra Pacific Industries, Roseburg Forest Products Company, the California Department of Fish and Game, the Klamath National Forest, the Marble Mountain Audubon Society, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, the French Creek Landowners Association, the Siskiyou Resources Conservation District, and Siskiyou County.
Facilitators of the project, sponsored by the California Department of Forestry, are Dennis Pendleton of the University of California Extension, Davis, and Sari Sommarstrom, natural resource management consultant, Etna.
Sari can be reached at (916) 467-5211 if you wish to comment or obtain further information on this ongoing project.
The Mokelumne River Watershed in Amador, Calaveras and Alpine Counties is a significant source of water for both consumption and energy production. The major land use in the upper watershed, owned both privately and publicly, is timber management. The cumulative effects of timber harvest on the beneficial downstream uses of water in this area has developed into an issue of growing importance to several public and private agencies.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) provides drinking water for 1.1 million customers in the San Francisco East Bay Area. The source of supply is the 585 square mile Mokelumne River watershed in the central Sierras. Runoff from the watershed is impounded in Pardee Reservoir, located in Amador and Calaveras counties, and is transported across the Central Valley by three aqueducts.
Private ownership of half the mixed-evergreen forest (81,750 acres) in the Mokelumne River watershed changed from American Forest Products (AFP) to a consortium of owners, Kohlberg, Kravitz and Roberts, in the early 1980s. The prior annual timber harvesting level, established by AFP to provide maximum sustained yield (40 million board feet), was maintained by the new owners until 1985 when the harvest was doubled. In 1988, Georgia-Pacific Corporation (GP) purchased the land and further increased the harvesting rate.
Through these ownership changes, EBMUD staff became increasingly aware and concerned about the increased rate of harvest. The concern stems from the potential for deterioration of water quality in Pardee Reservoir due to accelerated erosion and resulting turbidity, loss of reservoir holding capacity due to sedimentation, and changes in biotic habitats and communities. EBMUD provided formal review and written comment to CDF on each Timber Harvest Plan submitted by GP in 1988 and 1989. In September 1989, EBMUD wrote to the State Board of Forestry, suggesting that a thorough review of GP logging operations within the Mokelumne watershed be conducted.
Following this communication from EBMUD, the Mokelumne River watershed became a critical part of a larger multi-agency study with the goal of breaking impasses in mixed-ownership-watershed decision-making. Besides EBMUD, the participants in this study include the Stanislaus National Forest, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, the State Water Resources Control Board, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the California State Board of Forestry, the California Department of Fish and Game, Calaveras County, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
The objectives of this study, which will continue through 1991, are:
Steve can be reached at (415) 254-3790
Editor's note: The Joint Protocol Study in the Mokelumne River Watershed will be the topic of the Summer Field Trip scheduled for October 1991 by the Watershed Management Council. Exact dates and details will be in the Spring Newsletter.
The Grouse Creek saga continues. In October, an intrepid team of earth scientists and other resource specialists on the Six Rivers National Forest began an EIS to analyze cumulative watershed effects and other issues affecting further timber management on NFS lands in the mixed-ownership Grouse Creek watershed. Grouse Creek is a 40,000-acre watershed tributary to the South Fork of the Trinity River.
As you may recall, the Forest Supervisor suspended further timber sale planning in Grouse Creek in late 1988 because of apparent effects of past management on watershed conditions and fisheries habitat that had emerged in the Environmental Analysis for the Wildcat Timber Sale. A confrontation rapidly developed with the Timber Association of California (TAC) and major timberland owners in the drainage about the conclusions that Forest Service watershed scientists had reached concerning the relative effects of past management and natural processes on sedimentation and habitat conditions. Through a long series of meetings with landowners and TAC representatives, some cooperation and a sense of common interests in watershed/fisheries recovery and continued timber management has gradually developed. There has been considerable informal cooperation with several landowners in identifying sediment source problems and beginning to make repairs. Their permission for Forest Service personnel and private contractors to access their lands and evaluate existing sediment sources was especially valuable in preparing a sediment budget for the Grouse Creek watershed (Kelsey, Raines, & Furniss, 1989). However, a formal cooperative plan such as a CRMP is not yet in place. Lacking a formal agreement to ensure recovery of the fish habitat through restoration work on both Federal and private land (most of the identified sediment sources are on private lands), the Forest decided to proceed with an EIS. This is due to the controversial issues involved, the uncertainty of what restoration work will occur and what its effectiveness will be, and the potentially significant effects of any further timber management in the drainage.
So far, the ID Team has begun the scoping process to clarify major issues that will drive alternatives of timber management, contingent on demonstrated improvement in watershed conditions for the net benefit of fish habitat. A public meeting on Nov. 15th generated a good dialogue among local publics, timber interests, a CDF representative, and Forest personnel. We are now preparing issue statements to accurately reflect all public and agency concerns. The team's major challenge then will be to construct the proverbial "meaningful array" of alternatives and create an analytical framework to compare the potential cumulative effects of each, given the many uncertainties involved - negative effects of both proposed Federal timber management and possible private logging, positive effects of restoration measures and improved logging practices, and the actual mechanisms by which cumulative effects occur. Currently, our vision is for some type of decision tree, combined with a risk-based accounting system for both positive and negative management effects.
Another important aspect of this project is our attempt to enlist the cooperation of State regulatory agencies including Fish & Game, CDF, Department of Water Resources, and North Coast RWQCB. Because of the precedent-setting nature of this resolution of the mixed-ownership problem, it is critical that these agencies agree with the framework and methodology that is created. We have made contacts with representatives of each agency and they have stated their willingness to be involved. The ID Team is optimistic for an innovative and viable outcome from this process. Stay tuned for further updates.
Mark Smith is the ID Team Leader and may be contacted at (707) 442-1721
