Members Present: Sara Gregory- ODFW Deschutes Watershed Dst. Manager; Thomas Stokely- Nature Conservancy Deschutes/Ochoco Nat’l Forest; Marilyn Miller- own Miller Conservation Consulting; Cari Press- OFRC Facilitator; Jenna Deibel- CO Ext. Forester OSU/Executive Comm.; Vickie Dunaway- Retired Forest Service/Executive Comm.; Slater Turner- Dst. Ranger U.S. Forest Service; Janet Hutchison- Chairman OFRC, retired BLM, elected official City of Prineville; Cynthia Harper-community member; Bob Sjolund Assistant Fire Management Officer (FMO) for Central Oregon Fire Management Services (COFMS); Mary Opperman- retired forest service, Executive Comm.; Cameron Scott- Unit Forester Central Oregon Dst.; Frank Porfily- Rancher, retired Extension Service and Commissioner; John Shelk- Ochoco Lumber retired timber baron; Scott McFarland- Paulina Dst. Ranger; Susie Hermreck- Crook County Commissioner and rancher; Dawn Alexander- Admin. Asst.; Ben Whalen- Resource Oregon Dept. of Forestry Bend-Sisters Dst.; Dave Nielson- lived in the Willamette Valley, now retired and his wife; Kevin Keown- Natural Resources Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River Grassland; Mark Wunch- Commissioner Jefferson County; Nina Hoge- moved here from Colorado; Gayle Casselman- community member; Tom Casselman Co-Chair OFRC Executive Comm.; Necole Ontko- rancher, manages medical units; Steve Ontko- rancher and logger.
Agenda Overview: Tom made a motion to accept the minutes with corrections, Janet 2nd the motion. Motion passed; November minutes were approved. The financial report was given by Mary. Janet mentioned that if you need to move the OWL at meetings someone needs to hang onto it and be careful. They are $800 to replace.
Forest Service/ODF- Fire Update/Program Overview-
Slater- Wiley Fire started on Sept 2nd and caused by lightning, also wind driven burning towards private ground. CIMT (Complex Incident Management Team) out of California came on Sept 4th and took over. Burned into the old Les Schwab Ranch and the middle of the Maury’s. Looking to do a CE to do some reforestation, a CE for 250 area salvage and a CE for hazard tree abatement, the timing is critical to catch as much value as we can with this material. We want to get the CE’s out by the end of March, first part of April before the bugs start coming out.
We can comment on Crazy Creek Roadside Hazard Tree Abatement, and the Jackson Watershed Fuel Break Project.
BEHR reports are available. Maury’s is under grazing permits, will have conversations with permitees to hold off on their allotments. This will all be monitored. Jenna mentioned that Areil Cowan, Regional Wildland Fire Specialist could give a talk to this group in the future.
Kevin Keown- went over the Wiley fire map burn severity and soil burn severity maps.
Each of the fires had an assessment that addresses the emergency like landslides, etc. The Crazy Creek fire will have more range fencing replacement, reseeding, weed treatments, storm proofing washouts. It has been submitted. Wiley and Rail Ridge will be the first of March. 2.8 million dollars has been requested. Some seeding has been done on Crazy Creek.
Bob Sjolund- Central Oregon Fire Management Services; Ochoco NF had 44 fires with 121,747.70 acres burned. Lighting was the cause of the big three.
Ben Whalen- Works with ODF leading and helping landowners. Contact him if you haven’t had contact and need help. Extended window of sign-up through March 31st. Reforestation on private land. Other programs to help with fencing, etc. The Farm Service Agency is run by the Dept. of Ag, in Redmond, Marty Peterson, EFRP (Emergency Forest Restoration Program). There are also emergency conservation programs that helps with fencing and grass seeding. There is a three page document and you can get up to $500,000 per person. Reach out to Ben. Cody Johannsen 541-903-0196, here in Prineville.
Cameron Scott- ODF Federal Forest Restoration Program; Bend has four foresters that work on grants and partner with NRCS. Cameron is on Federal lands. Ochoco FFR increases pace scale and quality. Tie in with FS resource specialists. Help with planning. Quality of FFR program, why Cameron is in collaboration using best practices to be the most effective with an array of resources we can assist with.
Scott McFarland- The project on Crazy Creek is open for comment on hazard tree abatement with 14 miles of road. Not any area salvage as not economically viable. Jackson Fuel Break had started planning before fires, revised that project and put back out for scoping, a little clearer on what we are doing. Focused on hazard fuel 50 miles of treatment.
Rail Ridge rapid period comment Feb. 12th. Will have some proposed salvage, hazard tree abatement along roads. Will receive public comments on that.
NW Forest Service Plan/Impact Statement- meeting canceled.
FS/NEPA documents- Jackson Fuel Break Project- Put out there so people could comment on it. Since they took out the riparian part, we are not commenting on it. Crazy Creek Roadside Hazard Tree Abatement Scoping Notice, do we need to respond to it? Let us know by Monday. Kevin commented that they accept positive comments too. Jenna Deibel and Mary Opperman commented on these.
Kevin mentioned that on the Ochoco National Forest Website page, scroll down to the Forest Activities link and you can subscribe to receive notices on NEPA projects and see a schedule of proposed projects.
Election Discussion Executive Committee- Tom – We have elections scheduled for the next meeting for positions on the executive committee. Send us a letter if you are interested in being on the executive committee. Elections are for a 2-year term. Vickie, Janet and Tom are at the end of their 2 years. Janet will stay for another two years. The Chairman and Vice chairman are both up also because of term limit. Need at least 5 people. Vickie and Tom will not renew. Susie will be submitting. We are down two people.
Environmental Community Involvement-Cari, Cameron, and Jenna met with Marilyn Miller about environmental involvement with OFRC. Jenna mentioned that the collaborative is a place where industry, forest service, the general community, and environmental people come together. Marilyn had mentioned that issues that were important to the environmental community were not being addressed, feeling that certain issues we were supporting the forest service on she could not get behind- riparian zones of agreement, steep slope logging, and salvage logging. Cameron mentioned that it’s important to understand that many of the people here now weren’t around 2012-2020 when this was taking place. When it did work well there was a diverse group of stakeholders. The initial projects were the wolf project, Glaze Meadow project, both were heavily collaborative involved with discussion and planning details. What would it take to bring environmental groups back to the table, issues that are big issues for the environmental community? Answer: work in riparian zones, trees over 21 inches, steep slopes, and salvage logging. Ideas: an opportunity for the community to engage with forest service ahead of time in planning phase instead of just scoping phase. Look for another project we can have in the collaborative. Cari suggested we try to recruit other environmental groups. Tom mentioned there are some misunderstandings with the Riparian Zones of Agreement, at the start there were four people, two environmental people were involved. As it was finalized, the document was not what they wanted, and they left part way through the project. Oregon Wild never said anything negative until the day they left. The operations manual has a way to disagree respectfully, a clear understanding of how collaboratives work with a spirit of willingness to compromise. John mentioned that this group must ask themselves with commercial forest products, where will it go? There is nobody left, we’ve lost 3 mills since the collaborative has been together. What is this collaborative going to promote on multiple use in the forest? Every stakeholder would agree that what we should be working towards is a healthy forest. How do we get there? Then we have disagreement. How to follow the best science available? Find grants, scientific studies to answer that. Common ground. Frank- it’s been resolved by the chart we were given with the severity of these fires.
Kevin- Fully support and broaden our group. Extremes on both ends and they will never see a compromise. Want people in the middle that can collaborate and compromise. Bridge to the 80%. Janet mentioned we did try to reach out to some of the environmental groups, try to get involved and got a negative response, most felt they were at capacity and couldn’t get involved in another group. Many groups are now litigating their issues so tied up in court, they don’t want to collaborate. Could Forest Service identify a project that may have some controversial part to it? Kevin- NFCR look at field trips this summer, paying it up front is better than catching up later. North Slope is one of our more important areas, has a lot of riparian areas, steep slope, lots of trees, would be a good collaborative conversation. Contact environmental groups and ask if their capacity has changed, taking on things that will get their attention.
Continue this discussion at the next full group meeting- how do we get environmental groups to participate?
COFSF Update- Cameron, personnel update, Sadie left in December. Annie Price is now hired. Nikka is doing financials but is ending the end of February. Annie will take on that then.
Monitoring/Outreach- Jill Welborn and Forest Service can start this spring. John is mapping out locations.
Website Update– 31 new users. Healthy Forests and Communities Now is the most visited page.
General Sharing– Jenna with the announcement of Malheur Lumber shutting down she has reached out to four groups to create an article on causes and issues loss of industry leading to mill closures and impact. Hoping the article will be educational stating facts, give this proposal to an OPB journalist. Reach out to west side folks. Keeping us in the loop. She will share the outline and all drafts along the line.
Adjourn meeting: 4: 35 pm.
