Chetco Bar Fire Timber Salvage Project
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United States Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management Coos Bay District Myrtlewood Field Office 1300 Airport Lane Coos Bay, OR 97459 Categorical Exclusion Review Chetco Bar Fire Timber Salvage Project DOI-BLM-ORWA-C040-2018-0002-CX BLM Office: Myrtlewood Field Office Lease/Serial/Case No. : DOI-BLM-ORWA-C040-2018-0002-CX Proposed Action Title: Chetco Bar Fire Timber Salvage Project Location of Proposed Action: Township 39 South, Range 13 West, Sections 1, 2, 11, 13-15, 22, 23, 25-27, Willamette Meridian, Curry County, Oregon (see attached Map2 and Map3). Background Reported on July 12, 2017, the Chetco Bar Fire started in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness on U.S. Forest Service Land from lightning strikes. The fire burned within the 2002 Biscuit Fire and 1987 Silver Fire scars between Brookings, Oregon to the west and Cave Junction to the east. Winds pushed the fire southward towards Brookings and onto private and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered lands in Curry County. The fire burned on approximately 185,920 acres of which 6,501 acres are BLM-administered lands. The fire burned on steep slopes (elevations range from 3,420 ft. on ridge tops to 1,200 ft. in drainages) within two watersheds (North Fork Chetco River and South Fork Pistol River). The BLM assigned a Burn Area Emergency Response (BAER) team to BLM-Administered land effected by the Chetco Bar Fire. The BAER team created a Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC) map and field reviewed the area to create a soil burn severity (SBS) map. SBS maps identifies fire-induced changes in soil and ground surface properties that may affect infiltration, run-off, and erosion potential (Parsons et al. 2010). Much of the fire progression on BLM-Administered lands occurred during the large runs in mid-August. The BAER report reflects this in the extent of moderate and high severity SBS acres on BLM administered lands (See Map1). While the SBS map focuses on fire effects to the soil, the Coos Bay BLM wildlife and forestry staff reviewed mapped severities and found generally consistent correlations with vegetation effect: High Severity: areas with high SBS had an altered dominate vegetation class and greater than 75 percent loss of canopy cover and tree mortality. Moderate Severity: areas with moderate SBS had an altered dominate vegetation class and greater than 75 percent loss of canopy cover and tree mortality. These stands had slightly greater number of live trees than high severity burned areas, but still below 75 percent canopy cover. Low Severity: areas with low SBS retained greater than 75 percent canopy cover. Most stands were underburned with signs of scorch in the upper canopy and occasional pockets of torching where canopy was lost. The SBS map indicates that approximately 55 percent (3,688 acres) of BLM-Administered lands within the fire perimeter showed effects of high and moderate fire intensity (USDI-BLM 2017). In September/October, the Coos Bay District Myrtlewood Field Office (Field Office) decided to explore the possibility of proposing timber salvage activities of marketable timber located throughout the BLM-administered Page 1 of 16 lands effected by the fire. The intent of this salvage is to harvest stands that would deteriorate rapidly due to the decomposition process experienced during large-scale stand replacing fires such as this one, and to begin site preparation for reforestation. Description of Proposed Action On October 23, 2017, Field Office forestry staff first visited the fire area to begin verifying the tree mortality in the high and moderate SBS. Staff used criteria established by Lowell et al. (2010) to distinguish trees and stands impacted by the fire that have a low probability of survival and still provide enough economic value for contractors to harvest. The Field Office determined the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documentation to adopt by evaluating variables such as stand age (stands greater than 50 year old), stand composition, operability, access and field verifying the land use allocations. With the provided information, the Field Office decided to move forward with categorically excluding this project. The BLM is proposing a post-fire salvage on 140 acres of BLM-administered land. The salvage would occur on 12 units ranging in size from 1 to 37 acres in Moderate Intensity Timber Area Harvest Land Base land use allocation as defined in the Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Record of Decision and Resource Management Plan (2016 ROD/RMP). Land use allocations excluded from salvage in this project are the Riparian Reserve, District Designated Reserve, and Late-Successional Reserve. Salvage treatments would remove dead or dying trees from the proposed units. For the purpose of this categorical exclusion, the BLM is adopting the definition of a dying tree from the BLM NEPA Handbook (H-1790-1). The BLM defines a dying tree as a standing tree that has been severely damaged by forces such as fire, wind, ice, insects, or disease, and that in the judgement of an experienced forest professional or someone technically trained for the work, is likely to die within a few years. The proposed salvage is located within a mixed conifer forest primarily dominated by Douglas-fir. Other common tree species include knobecone pine, madrone, and tan oak. Understory vegetation is variable and includes evergreen huckleberry, salal, swordfern, blue blossom ceanothus, and beargrass. Salvage harvest would consist of 50 acres of cable yarding in Units 1, 7, 8, 9 and 10, with the remainder of the units (90 acres in total) harvested using ground-based yarding methods. Stands are designed to have five percent of the pre- harvest basal area (nine total acres) per harvest unit in live trees or snags. No additional snag creation or retention is required for salvage harvest. Three yarding corridors would be required to bring logs through Riparian Reserves with two full suspension yarding corridors required over an intermittent stream. No salvage harvest would occur within the Riparian Reserve (160 feet site potential tree height). All streams, seeps, and wetlands have been field verified and are excluded from the proposed action areas. With this proposed project, the BLM would maintain 24 miles of haul roads and renovate 0.55 miles to haul road standards, as well as construct and decommission 0.5 miles (2.3 acres) of temporary roads in Units 1, 7, and 8 (See Map2 and Map3). All work would be carried out during the dry season (May 16th through October 14th). Once work on these roads is completed, the proposed temporary roads would require decommissioning and reestablishment of vegetation cover within the construction footprint to minimize erosion in the disturbed areas. The BLM would replace two culverts with longer and larger diameter pipes along the haul route where the proposed temporary roads intersect the main haul road. The BLM would leave slash remaining in units after salvage operations are complete in a discontinuous horizontal pattern near the ground. The material would decompose faster in this arrangement and minimize the amount of time slash would be available to influence fire behavior. Retaining slash would ameliorate impacts to sensitive burned soils by decreasing the chance for off-site erosion and increasing retained nutrients on-site. The BLM would oversee the piling and burning of slash found at landings. Excessive slash in ground-based areas may be spot piled and burned as necessary to mitigate fire risk while still providing for soil protection. Following salvage operations, the BLM would evaluate for any additional site-preparation within the units for reforestation. Page 2 of 16 Purpose and Need The BLM designed the post-fire salvage project to recover economic value and to minimize commercial loss or deterioration of damaged trees where the BLM determined that removal is economically viable (2016 ROD/RMP p. 63). Timely salvage is critical to capture a portion of remaining merchantable timber before further deterioration occurs. Salvaging dead or dying trees would allow the BLM to retrieve some economic value from these trees while retaining levels of basal area in live trees and snags to meet 2016 ROD/RMP standards and guidelines. The BLM would evaluated each unit and prepare them for both natural and artificial reforestation. Best Management Practices and Project Design Features Project Design Features (PDFs) are an integral part of the proposed project. They are developed to avoid or reduce the potential for adverse impacts to resources. These PDFs include seasonal restrictions on many activities that help minimize erosion and reduce disturbance to wildlife. PDFs also outline protective buffers for sensitive species and delineate many measures for protecting sensitive Riparian Reserves throughout the project. Where applicable, PDFs reflect Best Management Practices (BMPs). The applicable BMPs are cited in parentheses; the numbers (e.g., SP-05, TH-08) correspond to the BMP numbers listed in Appendix C of the 2016 ROD/RMP. The PDFs would be incorporated into the BLM timber sale contract and be monitored to ensure that contract specifications are implemented as designed. The BLM has included applicable BMPs to prevent and reduce nonpoint source pollution and maintain water quality at the highest practicable level to meet water quality standards and Total Maximum Daily Level loads as set by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The specific BMPs for this project are selected from Appendix C of the 2016 2016 ROD/RMP, p. 140. Common to All Proposed Actions Objective 1: Prevent and contain hazardous material spills • During operations require the operator to have a BLM-approved spill plan or other applicable contingency plan. In the event of any release of oil or hazardous substance, as defined in Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR) 340-142-0005 (9) (d) and (15), into the soil, water, or air, immediately have the operator implement the site’s plan.