Open house seeks input on North Savery Project

Last Thursday, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) held an open house to seek public input on the North Savery Project.

The project is located in the northwest corner of the Sierra Madre mountain range and was identified by Gov. Matt Mead as priority for treatment because of impacts from insects and disease under the 2014 Farm Bill and the amended Healthy Forests Restoration Act.

Part of the project includes vegetation treatments using timber sales. Many of the trees in the area were affected by the mountain pine beetle. This project will also thin overstocked timber stands to promote growth and clear trees that are deemed hazardous to roadsides, fences and ditches. The clearing of the mountain pine beetle-killed trees will also create fuelbreaks in the forest.

Because of the work to be done, the project includes a proposal to reconstruct and restore conditions of the roads in some portions of the forest that are in the project area. Some roads may also be relocated.

Before the open house, the USFS met with the Saratoga-Encampment-Rawlins Conservation District (SERCD). "They had a lot of ideas to improve the proposal," said Monique Nelson with the USFS. The USFS is also working with the Bureau of Land Management and Game and Fish. "Many were involved in the landscape process in 2007 ... and we will be looking to them for help," Nelson said.

Aaron Voos, with the USFS said that ultimately, 10-plus timber sales are expected to come out of the area. The number of CCF (Centrum Cubic Feet) is yet to be determined, Voos said.

Right now, the USFS is analyzing the whole area and once they have their environmental impact statement complete they will go in and carve out the timber sales, Voos said.

Monique Nelson, the Environmental Coordinator, referred to the project as a timber salvage project. The USFS is looking at trees that have been dead for more than 10 years, get them to mill and get the forest back into production. There is a limited time in which to harvest the trees and get a merchantable product to the mill.

"Right now, we have a lot of dead trees and the understory isn't regenerating really well," Nelson said. Once the dead trees are removed, this will allow the new forest to regenerate.

No trees will be removed from the wilderness area, Nelson said. "We are also not doing any timber salvage in roadless areas," Nelson said. The part of the forest the forest service will be working on is the part of the timber production area, so the USFS plan has this designated as an area where they are specifically growing timber.

This project has been in the early planning stages for a long time, Nelson said. The planning process was started with a landscape scale assessment in 2007. In 2013, the USFS analyzed the area to the south of the North Savery Project as the "Bud" Project. The Bud project includes vegetation treatments in the Big Sandstone, Little Sandstone, and Dirtyman Fork drainages just north of highway 70. With the North Savery Project, the USFS will complete analysis of the recommendations from the 2010 assessment. The project, which is being implemented under the Healthy Forest Act, includes other restorative activities like improving the road system, Nelson explained. "We are taking a close look at the road system. Most of it we propose to leave as is. Most of the roads we propose to decommission are in clumps and have wet meadows, beaver ponds, streams and wetlands," Nelson said.

"We are trying to limit the impact of roads in those sensitive areas and reroute roads and provide other access to those areas," Nelson said.

Nelson said the forest service is trying to improve access. Many of the roads that are proposed for decommissioning are not very good anyway, "so we are trying to create reroutes and provide other access through areas that are on ridge tops and not impacting water resources." According to the scoping document, around 26 miles of road are to be decommissioned.

Most of the areas the forest service is trying to decommission are not drivable, Nelson said.

The notice of intent to file an environmental impact statement was released on Dec. 1 and the public has 60 days to comment on the project. For a more detailed scoping document interested parties can contact Monique Nelson at 307-745-2310 or email her at [email protected].

Comments can be submitted by mail, fax, over the phone, in person or email. Electronic comments need to be emailed to [email protected] or mailed to the attention of Melanie Fullman at Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, Brush Creek/Hayden Ranger District, PO Box 249, Saratoga.

More details about the project are available at http://www.fs.fed.us/nepa/nepa_project_exp.php?project=47913.