Action Plans - Watersheds and Wildfire - Legislative Updates

Attendees: 22

Purpose of Today’s Task Force: to assign above action plans to individual teams and to discuss watershed hydrology and wildfire (Piehl).

Proposals and Budgets presented for:

In-school Education Program (Team Leader Brad Piehl)
Interpretive Signs (Team Leader Jan Cutts)
Program to Showcase Blue Stain Wood Projects (Gene Dayton)

Participants included: Matt Sugar, Senator Mark Udall’s rep.; Karn Stiegelmeier & Bob French, SC Commissioners; Jan Cutts, USFS, Dillon District Ranger; Cary Green, USFS; Brad Piehl, JW Associates; Don Parsons, Dillon Town Council

FLAME ACT HR 5541 – To provide a supplemental funding source for catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression activities on Department of the Interior and National Forest System lands, to require the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to develop a cohesive wildland fire management strategy, and for other purposes. [In the last budget, 48% of the day to day operating money was used to fight fire. Thus, it was deemed necessary to establish an additional and separate pot of money for wildfires.

Brad Piehl: Concerned with water supply and how wildfire will adversely affect the hydrology of a community. There exists a need to coordinate efforts with the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP. Three components to be considered into common effort of initiating action: community values, watershed, and power lines. Communities need a categorical exclusion to speed up process of mitigating under power lines. Howard Hallman: To add to the hydrology equation, there is mine draining and highway run-off. Let’s include Summit County (Gov’t) to overlay all plans as one. The value of BW (Blue Wood) locally is insufficient to do the work we want to do. Goal is to cut transportation costs, remove and use whole tree. Bob French: Public Policy Update – Bob was one of 16 delegates to recently meet with Senators, Representatives, and Senior Staffers in DC. Sen. Salazar met 30 minutes with delegation to discuss Forest Health Issues. Delegates hand-delivered a letter to four Secretaries under the new Admin. Commissioner Karn Stiegelmeier: There could be coordination with Fire Districts who already present in the schools and the Blue Wood In-school Education Program. Organization called “Temperate Forest Foundation” presently exists to educate teachers. Walt Ormes: Private Sector is ready and willing, but the question remains – where do we go with the trees and slash? Consensus: BW is not an easy sell in non-mountain regions. Howard Hallman/Sandy Briggs: Proposed a BW catalogue of available suppliers, dealers, builders, lumber dealers, haulers. Plans were presented for the annual Forest Health Guide to be published in May.