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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011.01.11 Forest Lands Commission Minutes Minutes FOR A MEETING OF THE ASHLAND FOREST LANDS COMMISSION Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 5:30PM to 7:30PM Siskiyou Room, Community Development Building 51 Winburn Way I. CALL TO ORDER: 5:30 PM Present: John Williams, Greg Lemhouse, Gary Pool, Marty Main, Chief John Karns, Craig Gorson, Chris Chambers, Chris Iverson, Dan Maymar Guest: Albert Pepe - Citizen II. INTRODUCTIONS III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: December 14th meeting Chambers will change the title to "action minutes". Poky's name should be POKY with no E before the Y. Need to add Craig Gorson to the list of those present at the meeting(he came in late). Williams moved to approve minutes with changes, Iverson seconded and voted in favor. IV. PUBLIC FORUM V. ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AGENDA None. VI. BUSINESS A. Public Outreach Plan—Watershed Map Project Iverson mentioned the small section of road next to the plaza that shouldn't be there and he would work on Photoshopping it out and inserting the City logo. Chambers will email the logo. Williams suggested converting to a vector map so that it's scale independent and can be blown up as large as needed and can be edited as needed. Williams will work on getting an illustrator to work on the vectorizing of the map. City logo will go in the lower left corner. Final version will take up the whole page with a small border. Iverson continued with a question about a game for kids. Multiple suggestions were brought up and the final suggestion is to list questions for kids to answer. Need to include a statement that the map is not for navigation purposes. Websites to list will be www.ashlandwatershe , bear creek watershed council, and the City's website. Williams suggested an introduction paragraph about the watershed and its importance to the city. Maymar would like to know how much water the watershed produces on average per year. USGS gauges should be able to tell us the answer. Gorson wondered how much electricity as a percent of the City's government consumption is produced at the Reeder Gulch power plant. Might mention the Pacific fisher and spotted owl as rare, threatened, or endangered species including the Mt Ashland lupine plant. Iverson suggested a map showing where the watershed is in the larger landscape-he'll figure that out. Williams suggested the coordinates of the plaza for folks using Google Earth. Maymar brought up precipitation: Average precipitation ranges from 20 inches near town to nearly 60 inches per year on Mt. Ashland. The group discussed whether or not to use the figure of 3 percent of electricity usage being generated at the treatment plant. Karns suggested using the watts production figure. Originally the watershed power plant produced the entire City's power and the plant still contributes power today. Need to confirm with Pieter Smeenk. Include: Major wildfires burned in the watershed in 1901, 1910, and 1959 and major floods in 1964, 1973, and 1997. Iverson proposed crafting the final draft of the text by next meeting. Include a question about trails use and answer that hiking and biking are allowed on officially designated trails. Group suggested that a statement about why camping is not permitted be included. Reasons to include protection of the watershed from fire and sanitation reasons. Lemhouse suggested listing the City's population and the number of visitors each year who visit Ashland and depend on the water supply, something like 300,000 visitors need to check with the Chamber of Commerce. Lemhouse would like to see the poster framed and hung in the Council Chambers or elsewhere. B. AFR Project Update including Community Engagement Main described how the partnership is reviewing their strategic plan to prioritize the amount of work that is currently funded with a subsequent timeline. Some areas have been added and others subtracted. Prescriptions for block 1 density management are being worked on right now. Lomakatsi has been working on surface and ladder fuels before and after the holidays. The first burn of piles was completed on that day(January 11 th). The burn went ahead cautiously on 10 acres due to smoke management concerns and developing protocols for burning among the partners. Main described a community information gathering process on Saturday the 15th lead by Kevin Preister. Any commissioner can participate at this point. Chambers spoke about monitoring including SOU students and professors lead by The Nature Conservancy including water quality and sedimentation, spotted owl prey base, and a grant application for a large study of fire history and historic forest reconstruction. Iverson mentioned the upcoming Earth Day celebration and the need to talk about it and plan for the event. Chambers talked about the upcoming steering committee meeting to build a vision for involving Ashland School District students in watershed education. Main talked about the importance of the approach to thinning in the watershed and its novelty in creating diverse and ecologically informed prescriptions about acceptance of the new approach in the Forest Service. Main said the local Forest Service employees have been great in working with a new approach. Karns has been impressed with the work that's been done by the partnership and gave credit to the Forest Service for forming the stewardship group at the outset of the project. Main stressed how challenging the ecological situation is in the Siskiyou Mountains and the Ashland Watershed with so many settings to work in, including a diverse social environment. Gorson commented on the local expertise that's been brought to the table. Main is looking forward to the social work by Kevin Preister and volunteers in gathering information from populations who are not commonly heard from. Pepe asked about extraction of wood and utilization in the AFR project. Main said that no utilization has taken place to date of any materials. The partners are exploring use of non-commercial materials coming up this spring although it is pretty small. There is a plan to utilize commercial sized material that can be sent to a mill by using a helicopter to lift logs to landings for transport. Pepe is interested in utilization of small diameter materials and Main said there would likely be an opportunity although limited by access and slope. Williams asked about the economics of the prices of wood and the project. Main answered that the plan is that the project will lose money in order to meet ecological and watershed values. A better market for wood would only help to treat more acres that aren't budgeted currently. Williams also asked about how many helicopter pads would be used. Main explained that a number of pads were evaluated for potential use C. Ashland Water Advisory Committee Update Williams talked about the Ashland Creek water quality study that recently was reported in the Tidings and has shown that the contamination is coming from the TID input pipe in upper Lithia Park although TID water tests clean before it enters the City limits so it picks up contamination as it travels through the city to Ashland Creek. The water supply issue will be featured on the Town Hall program with the mayor. The last public input meeting is January 19th at the Ashland Middle School Commons at 5:30 PM after which the committee will make its final recommendation within a couple months. The recommendation will be passed on to City Council for a final decision. Maymar asked if the studies include any prediction of water volumes as a result of forest thinning making more water available. Williams did not know of any work to that effect. Pepe asked about the public use component and Williams commented on possible use of treated water for non-consumption uses like landscaping. Main asked about any global warming scenarios as part of the planning. Williams said they have worked with professors and learned about issues such as decreases in snowpack and more late spring rains, but less rain in the summer and hotter temperatures stressing late summer water supply. D. Follow up on FSC Certification Williams talked about the prior plan to form a sub-committee to explore the options presented at a past meeting. There are some economic issues with supply and certification, but also a feather in the cap of the City to market certified sustainable wood. Iverson proposed getting asub-committee together after April when the map is completed. Iverson would like to see the City use wood in any Main said that the City has had three small loads of logs mostly salvaged from roadsides (hazard trees), which would be perfect for this program and there's likely to be more of that at points. Williams said there's a listserve about getting sustainable wood and he'll pass it on to Chambers. Chambers suggested contacting Jeff McFarland at Parks and getting a rep from the Parks Commission on the sub-committee as well. E. Commission 3-Year Goals progress Chief Karns handed out a memo explaining a proposal to increase the size of the wildfire hazard zone per a discussion at a past Forest Lands Commission meeting. Lemhouse suggested a review of the AFR project goal in the Council's goals at goal setting the coming Saturday. Karns read the current goal about partnerships to increase forest health and reduce fire hazard in the watershed. Lemhouse would like to put something more concrete in the goal. Maymar suggested waiting until more work has been completed and numbers are available to form a qualitative goal the City can support. Chambers agreed with that given the infancy of work in the AFR project. Lemhouse commented the new Council would like to communicate better with the Commissions by bringing a rep (chair) to the Council meeting once a year to talk about the commission's work. VII. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS VIII. REVIEW AND SET COMMISSION CALENDAR/NEXT MEETING A. Next Regularly Scheduled Meeting: February 8th, 2011 IX. ADJOURN: 7:30 PM In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need special assistance to participate in this meeting,please contact the Public Works Office at 488-5587(TTYphone number 1 800 735 2900). Notification 48 hours prior to the meeting will enable the City to make reasonable arrangements to ensure accessibility to the meeting(28 CFR 35102-35104 ADA Title I).