AMERICAN RIVER WATERSHED GROUP

February 16, 2006

The meeting of the American River Watershed Group (ARWG) meeting was called to order by Bill Templin, North American River Watershed Coordinator at 10:14 a.m. at the Auburn Recreation District Canyon View Community Center located at 471 Maidu Drive, Auburn.

Present: Bill Templin, North American River Watershed Coordinator; Rich Gresham and Katie Maloney, Placer County Resource Conservation District (PCRCD); Mal Toy, Placer County Water Agency (PCWA); Bill Cave, Auburn Lake Trails Fire Safe Council; Edmund Sullivan, Placer County Sr. Planner; Marilyn Jasper, Clover Valley Foundation and Sierra Club; Bill Christner and Alicia Pool, ECORP Consulting; Leo Winternitz, Water Forum; Tom Kohler, US Forest Service Eldorado Nat’l Forest; Larry Goodell, Auburn Flycaster; and Otis Wollan, American River Watershed Institute.

Check-In:

Bill Templin led the “Check-In” procedure that entails telling who you are, how you are, if you have any time constraints, emergent issues, and/or individual expectations.

Review & Approval of Minutes:

No minutes were presented for approval.

Additions to the Agenda:

No additions were made to the agenda.

Colfax Fuel Load Reduction Project – Otis Wollan, American River Watershed Institute:

Bill Templin turned to floor over to Otis Wollan. Otis began a PowerPoint presentation with a brief background review of the project funded by Prop 13 and local cost shares awarded to the City of Colfax. The presentation is excerpted below:

• Project Elements, plus:
• Fire behavior analysis, resulting in a strategic plan for fuel break locations
• Organize a community fire safe project. Or better stated, create conditions for a community to self-organize to accomplish a project.
• Assessing water quality impacts of the project: close in picture & Big picture
• Do it!
• Education & outreach, monitor and feedback

• Project location: Ponderosa Fire Safe Council boundaries

• Analysis of fuel and hazard rating, plus fire type and flame length, plus fire behavior models will inform SPLAT map

• Two fire behavior models:
• FLAMMAP: shows how fire would burn on its own
• FARSITE: shows ignition location and simulates its spread under various weather conditions

• Next Step: Using information from the previous analyses, establish a network of Strategically Placed Local Area Treatments (SPLATs)

• SPLATs: Essentially, a network of shaded fuel breaks will help protect the community

• SPLAT map to be completed in February 2006
• Otis reviewed photos of what a shaded fuel break looks like and before project conditions.

• Reviewed natural old growth forest photos where the canopy and the understory are separate.

• Compared pictures of the Cone Fire’s impact on both treated and untreated areas that demonstrated the benefits of fuel load reduction to remove ladder fuels from wooded areas and provide for separation between the understory and tree canopy.

• Reviewed the local project water quality impacts:
• Hillcrest Lane drainages are ephemeral, the use of mastication and chipping will mulch the soil, and 50% of the tree canopy will remain.
• Hillcrest Lane project will conduct photo monitoring; water quality monitoring was deeming inappropriate for this type of shaded fuel break

• Compared historical photos with photos of current conditions highlighting the impact of 100 years of fire suppression resulting in crowded, same age class forests.

• Past fire ecosystem management over the past century consisted of fire suppression and managed toward dense even age fuel loaded forest stands. The unintended consequence-increased risk of catastrophic fire, resulting erosion, impaired water quality, and impaired water flow and timing.

• Reviewed photos of the Stevens Fire progression at Cape Horn 2004 that resulted in flame lengths too great to fight from the ground, even without wind, due to heavy fuel load. The fire also demonstrated the benefits of fuel load reduction as fuel breaks and back fires stopped the fire at the ridge top with only a few homes lost.

• Reviewed Nevada-Yuba-Placer Fuels Hazard and Severe Fire Weather Ranking, and Overall Ranking Maps.

• The project is based on the recommendations of a USFS sociologist that stressed the need for neighborhood background education; the Hillcrest area has been an education target since 2000.

Multiple contacts are also recommended and were made in a joint effort between the local Fire Safe Council and CDF.

Experiencing a prior successful project was fulfilled with a successful neighborhood chipping effort conducted in 2002.

Perhaps the most important component was the need for a community “sparkplug”; a local leader did emerge to champion the project to the neighborhood resulting in great participation.

• Reviewed maps of project area, before and after photos, and photos of work in progress. The project is focused on the areas beyond the 100 foot defensible space parameters and has encouraged the neighborhood to comply with those requirements realizing added benefit by providing resources to expand protection beyond the 100 foot requirement. The project will improve the safety zone around the Colfax High School, a designated ‘shelter-in-place’ refuge for the area.

• Project Status:
• Contracts signed
• Construction is underway and will be completed by March 6^th
• Education and outreach continues
• Project completion date March 31^st.

Otis stressed the need to find ways to create a more natural balance within our natural fire ecosystem. For more information on the shaded fuel break project; visit: www.arwi.us.

Group discussion revolved around the increasing population density in forested areas and the challenges it presents.

Otis, Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) Director, pointed out the implications for PCWA in terms of fire management planning. Near-term: Emergency service plan (Plan B) – multiple day service outage plan that include trucking and pumping. Long-term: Implementation, defensible space for treatment plants (Alta, Monte Vista, Colfax, and Applegate) and modified shaded fuel break or defensible space for wooden flumes and other facilities. Watershed stewardship implications include Upper Middle Fork Project (MFP) watershed safety: vegetation management to mimic fire for protection from catastrophic fire – directly part of operations management. Middle elevations: assist watershed stewards (landowners) to attain a high level of fire safe management, a general public good.

Group discussion revolved around the need for strategic protection of PCWA water supply structures, the ARWG’s part in the initial formation of fire safe councils, the need to reach out to residents new to living in a fire ecosystem, and the negative impacts a catastrophic fire would wreak upon the watershed.

Rich Gresham noted there is a preliminary PowerPoint presentation highlighting collaborative fire safe efforts between local, state, and federal entities.

Bill Templin solicited assistance in mounting an organized effort to develop a package that would encourage entities like the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, legislators, and others to focus their attention and funding here in local watersheds.

Leo Winternitz of the Water Forum stressed the importance of multi-group support and suggested development of a ‘White Paper’ with a focused request for assistance.

Bill Cave offered Bill his assistance in the effort.

Bill Templin thanked Bill Cave for his participation and representation from the El Dorado County portion of the watershed and stressed the importance of remembering the American River watershed is a multi-county watershed.

Bill Cave encouraged ARWG to keep on, keeping on; added his advice, to search for specialists when needed and remember the importance of dedicated volunteers.

Bill Templin expressed his desire to see the ARWG become more effective and brought up the need to develop a more formal decision-making process.

Discussion revolved around the historical decision making process; a loose structure built around informal consensus based on the concept that you had to be present to win (be involved in making the decision).

Bill Templin noted his desire to compile a prioritized list of watershed projects which would facilitate the search for funding.

Bill further requested clarification regarding ARWG decision-making that resulted in a discussion of the topic being placed on the agenda for next month.

Bill solicited assistance in developing projects and funding proposals for the North Fork, Middle Fork, and Rubicon watersheds.

Bill Cave suggested forming a 501(c)3 to implement projects.

Bill noted noxious/invasives have been an issue the fire safe council is working to address post shaded fuel break implementation at Auburn Lake Trails.

Bill Templin solicited members to summarize their top ten issues of importance, without prioritization. He noted he will send out the existing project matrix for further review and refinement.

Bill noted the Category III report is available for review online and could potentially serve as a good starting place for the development of a management plan as a lot of work went into the document that contains GIS-based watershed data.

Bill again noted his desire to develop a State of the Upper American River Watershed Report that would mirror the report developed for the lower watershed.

Bill introduced Tom Kohler, USFS Geologist for the Eldorado Nat’l Forest and invited him to give the Group an update on the Otter Creek LiDAR project to search out and map the location of abandoned mines.

Tom briefly gave an overview of his background then noted three fatalities related to abandoned mines instigated the pilot project to evaluate whether LiDAR might be an effective tool to find abandoned mines on USFS lands and minimize risks by identifying potential dangers and assigning appropriate risk values.

Tom noted LiDAR is currently being used to identify cultural resources, landslides, roads, skid trails, calculate basal areas and inventories, structure (over/under story), and transpiration.

Tom stated LiDAR is effective in cutting through tree canopy/cover and reviewed preliminary images of the Otter Creek effort. He again noted the potential uses for LiDAR including the identification of habitats for insects/bats, archeological sites, non-system roads, and prehistoric sites. The Otter Creek effort is in the preliminary stages of ground truthing and processing the LiDAR images.

Bill Templin added Otter Creek drains into the Rubicon and is also within the Consumnes-American-Bear-Yuba (CABY) Integrated Regional Water Management Plan development effort.

Group discussion revolved around to potential formation of a LiDAR collaborative to lower the costs of flying the watershed. The potential of using LiDAR to track sediment transport was brought forth.

Tom closed discussion by noting the Eldorado Nat’l Forest is interested in developing partnerships in terms of LiDAR and its potential applications.

Due to time constraints the rest of the agenda was deferred and the meeting was adjourned at 12:20 p.m.