HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013.09.10 Forest Lands Commission Minutes MINUTES FOR A MEETING OF THE
A SHLA FORES T LA N COMMISSION
Tuesday, September 10th 2013
5:30PM to 7:30PM
Siskiyou Room, CommunityDevelopment Building
51 Winburn Way
I. CALL TO ORDER: 5:30 PM
John Karns, Marty Main, John Williams, Albert Pepe, Dan Maymar, Dave Brennan,
Chris Chambers, Dennis Slattery, Frank Betlej ewski, Stefanie Seffinger
II. INTRODUCTIONS
III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: August 13th minutes
B. Ashland Forest Plan revision item C. The first sentence "Frank discussed..."
should be deleted and replaced with "The existing policy documents Restoration
II and III say we will generally manage for dispersal habitat but are inconsistent
with each other as to what specifically we intend." The rest is eliminated and
replaced with"The US Fish and Wildlife Service have authorized pilot projects to
shoot barred owls in California and Oregon."Also add "Barred owls are present
in the watershed and may cause conflicts between the species."
B. section d refers to Seffinger as if she's at the meeting and she was not present.
The item may reflect an email or is a mistake altogether.
Under C. AFR Project Update item c, Frank would like to get rid of the word
"upcoming" in sentence 1 and in sentence two add"enough trees cut around the
legacy trees to increase their chances for survival." Replace "heavy duty" with
"solid" and add that the results are going to be published in a peer reviewed
journal soon.
Under D. Outreach Plan section A. 1 should read"get a bead on" instead of"get a
beat on".
Motion to approve the minutes as amended made by Brennan and seconded by
Pepe, no opposed. Seffinger abstained due to not being there.
IV. PUBLIC FORUM
V. ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AGENDA
VI. BUSINESS
A. Trails/Recreation Update
Karns is waiting to meet with Dave Lewis who wrote the Parks Trails Master
Plan. They will talk about combining the two plans into one master plan.
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B. Ashland Forest Plan Revision
Williams received updates/drafts from Brennan and Seffinger. Chambers was
able to find the old Word document files for the Ashland Forest Plan and they
are available to all through Williams. Pepe talked about the increase in
recreation and referred to the Forest Plan, which said that 41% of people used
the watershed for recreation. Chambers suggested using Mark Shibley's report
for the AFR project that might have updated recreation survey data. Williams
suggested talking to the Ashland Woodlands and Trails Association. Pepe is
also looking at the current Parks Trails Master Plan. There's a lot more
community involvement. Chambers suggested adding the major events.
Seffinger said that data from the last public opinion survey at
http://ashland.or.us/Files/Public%20Perceptions%20of%2OAFR%2OForest%2
ORestoration.pdf showed that the public wasn't as aware of the importance of
the watershed as the City's water supply. Brennan brought up dog waste as a
potential problem for water quality. Williams discussed a water quality study
where TID water coming into the city was found to be relatively clean and by
the time it hit Ashland Creek the water was contaminated. Part of the agreed
upon plan approved by Council is to pipe that section of the TID canal.
Williams will add that to the streams and water quality section. Seffinger said
that waste collection stations have been having an impact on the
contamination issue, and also there is less camping, but some homeless have
dogs as well.
Brennan had emailed the first draft of his work on monitoring prior to the
meeting. He has done a summary and is now looking at the attribute data with
Frank to discuss the use of baseline data, desired future conditions, etc...
Frank suggested that the group think about recalibrating the timeline and
amount of work they have accepted. Frank pointed out that some acres are
missing between the AFP map and the original plan acres. The difference is
140 acres that are not included in the plan narrative.
Frank discussed the current work on the attribute table with input from
Chambers and Main. The dilemma is how to enter data in such a way as to
minimize the size of the table while allowing for the range of attributes and
dates to make it useful and detailed enough. Multiple inventory dates and
repeated treatments in the same unit over time make it challenging. Chambers
is going to work with the City GIS staff to look at options.
Frank is still looking at combining units and is still talking with Main about
this issue. Frank suggested a Lithia Demo Forest on the Lithia Hillside where
there are lots of trails and pedestrian traffic. Seffinger would like to see more
information for the public on specific issues that are pertinent and important.
Frank asked the question about how to finally edit the whole document and
put it together. There are several options for editing, but that's not a decision
to be made just yet. Frank is collecting the glossary and data dictionary for
standardizing terms.
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Seffinger has made several drafts on the social section. She focused on some
of the history of the United States that has affected the Ashland Forests such
as the Forest Service creation and the 10am policy of fire suppression. This
was done to give background to the conditions we have on the ground and the
course of management we've taken. She also added info from the 2011 public
opinion survey on wildfire attitudes done through the Rogue Valley Fire
Prevention Co-op and SOU. There is quite a difference between Ashland
resident's opinions than other communities. She included excerpts from that
survey into her write up. The surveys indicate that the public doesn't have as
good of an understanding about the watershed from a perspective of water
supply versus recreation or other values. Williams encouraged the group to
look at Seffinger's and Brennan's submissions. Main said that Ashland has
had its own evolution of thinking about forests than the nation or other local
communities. He suggested talking with Vicky Sturtevant about the national
perspective in relation to Ashland's. Ashland has a lot of good examples of
community forestry to share. Williams suggested a small section on the mills
that used to operate in town.
Williams hopes to have a draft by the end of this month on his section. He'll
email it if he can't make the next meeting. He's looking at the last Bear Creek
watershed assessment and also adding more info from the recent Ashland
Water Advisory Committee effort. Steelhead actually made it far up Ashland
Creek this past year, which is something notable for the narrative.
C. AFR Project Update
Chambers discussed the recent Supplemental Project Agreement to bring in
new funding for AFR that will fund legacy tree treatments in the Research
Natural Area as well as roadside fuels treatments on 10 miles of roads in the
watershed. Additional fuels treatments will be planned using carry-over
dollars and the bulk of the City dedicated funding of 175,000 dollars each of
the current and next fiscal years. AFR partners are in planning mode right now
to design and field this work in hopes of treating 1000 acres by next fall.
D. Fire Adapted Communities
Chambers gave a quick overview of the Fire Adapted Communities (FAC)
program. FAC is a nation-wide initiative supported by all the federal land
agencies, State Foresters, International Fire Chiefs, and The Nature
Conservancy. The National Fire Administration (under FEMA)put on a six
day course that Chambers attended in August on the FAC program. Fire
Adapted Communities is an umbrella for all fire prevention and mitigation
programs in a community from planning to response, it covers it all. The
primary avenue is the Community Wildfire Protection Plan, or CWPP. The
CWPP establishes the community's risk and hazards, develops priorities, and
establishes a strategic action plan. Ashland has a CWPP, but it was created
largely to satisfy the need to qualify the community's Forest Resiliency
Alternative for consideration by the Forest Service. The tight focus and
limited timeframe for completion made for a narrow-in-scope CWPP that
tended to gloss over other issues out of necessity. Written in 2004, the CWPP
is also just out of date. The primary task will be to expand and update the
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CWPP and the Fire Department would like to use the Firewise Commission as
the Steering Committee for this effort. Chambers and Karns will keep the
Forest Commission up to date on the progress and fold in the current efforts to
update the Ashland Forest Plan and ongoing activities on City Forestlands.
The FAC overview is being presented to Council in early October.
Meeting Adjourned 7:31pm.
VII. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS
VIII. REVIEW AND SET COMMISSION CALENDAR/NEXT MEETING
A. Next Regularly Scheduled Meeting, October 8th 2013
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 35.102-35.104 ADA Title I).
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