Request for Proposal for Redwoods Rising Forest & Road Restoration
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Request for Proposal for Redwoods Rising Forest & Road Restoration Operations October 2019 INTRODUCTION In partnership with the National Park Service (NPS) and the California Department of Parks and Recreation (CDPR), Save the Redwoods League (the League) is seeking proposals for services to conduct ecological restoration activities including forest thinning, road improvement and removal, and stockpiling large pieces of wood to be installed in creeks as aquatic habitat structures within Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP). This project is expected to last for several years, and it is the partnership’s intent to develop a long-term relationship with a trusted operator to implement a complex suite of activities across multiple watersheds, forest types, and road conditions. Competitive proposals will assure high quality and timely work, transparency in practices and accounting, will employ local labor where possible, and demonstrated commitment to long-term stewardship. SECTION 1. PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS Overview RNSP includes Redwood National Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks. The parks are home to 45 percent of the world’s remaining protected old-growth redwoods. However, alongside these remaining primeval redwood stands are large swaths of forest that bear the scars of logging, including eroding roads, degraded streams, and unnaturally dense forest stands. The park’s diverse landscape supports a wide variety of habitats and ecosystems (e.g., coastal dune/scrub, forests, woodlands, grasslands) and essential habitat for threatened, endangered, and special status species such as marbled murrelet, northern spotted owl, and salmonids such as coho salmon, chinook salmon, and steelhead trout. The region also has a rich history of land use and active stewardship by local Native American tribes, including the Tolowa, Yurok, and Chilula. Redwoods Rising—a partnership of RNSP and the League—builds upon decades of efforts to protect and improve the health of these redwood ecosystems. The partnership is currently focused on restoring redwood forest ecosystems in the Greater Prairie Creek (GPC) and Greater Mill Creek (GMC) Watersheds as described below. The planned scope of work includes forest stand management, road system management, and aquatic habitat restoration. The main activity of forest stand management will be restoration thinning, which involves commercial and non-commercial thinning. Road system management will comprise both road improvement and removal. Aquatic habitat restoration will require the stockpiling of large pieces of wood, which will be installed in creeks as aquatic habitat structures. Road improvements include brushing, resurfacing, and watercourse crossing repair and replacement. 1 Greater Prairie Creek Project Area The Greater Prairie Creek (GPC) watershed includes land within Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park and Redwood National Park (Figure 1). The lower Prairie Creek watershed was extensively logged from the 1930s until the expansion of Redwood National Park in the late-1970s. These stands have been unmanaged since the 1970s and consist of unnaturally dense forests where growth is hindered, species composition has been shifted, and habitat quality is low especially for threatened fish and wildlife species. This area is of a high priority for restoration because of its location, in context with the surrounding landscape. To the north and south lie two of the largest remnants of redwood old growth forests. Improvements to the structure and vigor of the forest in the project area will help to provide connectivity between these two critical and disconnected habitats. Furthermore, numerous species rely on the existence of mature forests, particularly threatened and endangered species. These restoration efforts will improve the quality of habitat in the space between these two forests, and will foster greater connectivity for the life supported by mature redwood forests. Forest inventory data were collected in 2014-16 and road inventory was conducted between 2011 and 2019 (Figure 2). Many unmapped abandoned roads exist within the project area and contractors will be required to treat unmapped roads as well as designated mapped roads. In the first phase of work, the GPC project area includes 16 forest management units totaling approximately 2,900 acres. Of these 16 forest management units, 14 units show log removal potential, and two units are designated for proposed lop-and-scatter operations (Figure 3). Greater Mill Creek Project Area The Greater Mill Creek (GMC) watershed restoration project will include land within Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and Redwood National Park (Figure 4). The project area is located approximately 6 miles to the southeast of Crescent City, California, and links Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park to the north, the original portion of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park to the west, and smaller parcels managed by the National Park Service. The current forest conditions across the project area are the result of decades of timber harvest. Most of the stands are even-aged, and have either regenerated or were planted at high densities. Furthermore, the species composition has shifted, resulting in an underrepresentation of coast redwoods or hardwoods in many areas. Restoration thinning in this first phase of planned work for the Greater Mill Creek project includes 9 management units that involve log removal (approximately 3,400 acres), and 226 acres of several small dispersed units that will receive lop and scatter operations (Figure 5). Restoration Activities Include: • Forest thinning to encourage the development of late-seral characteristics • Improvement of key haul roads, skid roads and landings to gain access for restoration operations 2 • Road removal and outsloping of logging roads and associated infrastructure (landings and skid roads) • Removal, replacing, or upgrading drainage structures (e.g., culverts) from stream crossings and reestablishment of natural hydrological patterns • Reducing fuels (brush and slash material under 6-inch diameter) within 25-foot of roadsides using chainsaws and chippers or mastication • Other wildlife enhancement activities, such as snag and slash pile creation and stockpiling of large wood for aquatic restoration efforts. SECTION 2. SCOPE OF WORK Redwoods Rising is a multi-decade restoration project and will be implemented with a phased approach. The scope of this contract is for the first phase of the Redwoods Rising restoration project. This scope of work (SOW) includes approximately 6,300 acres of forest thinning, 50 miles of mapped road removal, and staging of large wood pieces for several miles of instream restoration and large wood placement. Estimated scope for forest thinning and road removal activities: Greater Prairie Creek 1. Forest Thinning – approx. 2,900 acres total a. 1,400 acres of Ground-based operations b. 1,100 acres of Skyline Operations c. 400 acres of Lop-and-Scatter operations 2. Additional Line Items a. Approximately 30 miles of known haul road removal b. Abandoned road improvement, culvert replacements, and other road maintenance tasks as needed to access restoration sites Greater Mill Creek 1. Forest Thinning – approximately 3,400 acres total a. 1,800 acres of Ground-Based Operations b. 1,200 acres Skyline Operations c. 400 acres Lop-and-scatter operations 2. Additional Line Items a. Approx. 20 miles of known haul road removal b. 2.5 miles of new road construction c. Abandoned road improvement, culvert replacements, and other road maintenance tasks as needed Forestry Restoration thinning in both project areas will take a variable density thinning approach and will include a suite of restoration thinning methods (low thinning, crown thinning, forest gaps, skip 3 areas, individual tree release, etc.) with an end result of increasing forest heterogeneity across the landscape. The combination of thinning methods used in a particular management unit will be determined by a thinning prescription developed by the League and RNSP forestry staff. At some units, the trees will be marked with the thinning prescription. At other units, sample marks will be available to train operators in the implementation of prescriptions. At a minimum, each prescription and forest type will have several acres sample-marked. The operational thinning methods that will be used are lop and scatter (i.e., no log removal) with hand crews, and biomass or log removal using ground-based, skyline, and cut-to-length operations (CTL limited to a 100 ac pilot phase). The silvicultural approach will be consistent across the different operational methods. In general, lop and scatter areas will be predetermined and oftentimes include areas that have limited access, have forest structure suitable to this thinning approach, or otherwise require low impact restoration. The operational methods used in log removal areas will be determined by Redwoods Rising representatives in coordination with the contractor. All timber cruise data collected throughout the project area can be provided to the contractor in the form of timber cruise reports summarized in Tables 1 & 2. Actual volumes may be more or less than those below, and Redwoods Rising makes no guarantee as to the actual volumes or amounts subject to removal and delivery. The contractor is encouraged to perform their own timber cruise or walk-through. Table 1. Volume estimate table for GPC log removal in forest inventory units. Unit Total Pre-treatment Estimated Merch Volume Acres Volume (mbf) per ac (mbf) Removed per ac Berry Glen A 354 73 36 Berry Glen B 209 45 15 Gold Bluffs Beach A 510 46 10 Gold Bluffs Beach B 172 89 6 North Fork Streelow Creek A 450 63 8 North Fork Streelow Creek B 385 84 9 North Fork Streelow Creek C 303 72 28 North Fork Streelow Creek D 310 88 30 Streelow Headwaters North A 313 62 17 Estimated total volume (mbf) removed by species Douglas-fir Spruce Hemlock Redwood Total 600 27,000 105 15,000 43,000 *note GPC forest inventory unit boundaries are not identical to forest management unit boundaries. Table 2. Volume estimate table for GMC log removal in forest management units.