United States Department of Agriculture

Forest Service

Salmon-Challis National Forest North Fork Ranger District

11 Casey Road North Fork, ID 83466 208-865-2700

Caring for the Land and Serving People Printed on Recycled Paper

File Code: 1950-1/5150

Date: July 6, 2010

Greetings:

Enclosed is information on the Williams Restoration Project on the Salmon-Cobalt Ranger District of the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Inadvertently, the detailed information about the proposal was left out of the initial scoping letter.

As stated previously, a Decision Memo (DM) will be completed and mailed to those who submit comments, and to those who request to be included on the project mailing list. The DM is expected to be completed by August 31, 2010.

Written comments should be sent to Karen E. Dunlap, Deputy District Ranger, North Fork Ranger District, P.O. Box 180, North Fork, ID 83466. Electronic comments must be submitted in rich text format (.rtf) or Word (.doc) to comments-intermtn-salmon-challis@fs.fed.us. If using email, please state that your comments are for the Williams Restoration Project on the subject line. Hand delivered comments should be delivered to the North Fork District Office at 11 Casey Road, North Fork, Id 83466, during normal business hours from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Comments may also be faxed to 208-865-2738. Although your comments are always welcome, comments are most helpful to us if received by July 25, 2010. For more information about this proposal, please contact Michael S. Smith, Team Leader, (208) 865-2704.

Again, I encourage your comments regarding this proposed action. I apologize for any inconvenience caused by the earlier omission.

Sincerely,

/s/ Karen E. Dunlap

Karen E. Dunlap

Deputy District Ranger

Attachments (3)

Williams Restoration Proposal

Proposed Action The Salmon-Challis National Forest is proposing a timber stand and wildlife habitat restoration project of approximately 3363 acres in the South Fork of Williams Creek drainage on the Salmon-Cobalt Ranger District to begin in the spring of 2011. The project is bounded on the north by FS Road 028 and the south by the FS Trail 80 and Henry Creek, approximately 6 miles southwest of Salmon. Legal description: portions of: Sections 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 30, T20N R21E; Sections 13, 23, 24, 25, 26, T20N R20E, Boise Principal Meridian. The proposed action would reintroduce fire across the project area where past fire suppression activities have eliminated its natural role on the landscape. In addition, approximately 73 acres would be thinned to improve growth and reduce fire hazard. Conifer trees would be girdled around aspen clones to create snags and improve growth within the clones. The prescribed fires would occur in the transition seasons (prior to full green up and/or following the growing season) to maintain native grasses, stimulate herbaceous development, and facilitate a significant reduction in the understory in the surrounding woodlands. Hand crews would use chain saws to accomplish the thinning and girdling activities. Aerial ignition devices would be utilized in union with ground crews for prescribed burning. Few or no fire lines will be constructed; instead, existing roads would be used in conjunction with experienced firefighters and hand crew tactics to manage the fire and the smoke it produces. The category of these actions is in the 36CFR 220.3 (e) (6), “Timber Stand and/or wildlife habitat improvement activities which do not include the use of herbicides or do not require more than one mile of low standard road construction.” Table 1 illustrates restoration treatments and associated opportunities that have been preliminarily identified by the Forest Service for this project.

Roads

Existing roads would be used for access to treatment areas; no new permanent or temporary roads would be constructed; no road maintenance would be needed; after use, roads would be returned to their pre-project condition (open roads would remain open, closed roads would again be closed). To provide for public safety some roads could be closed or traffic restricted during prescribed burning.

Mechanical Treatments

Utilize non-commercial hand thinning with a chainsaw to accomplish ladder fuel reduction and thinning of select conifers in approximately 73 acres adjacent to private property and chainsaw girdling in selected aspen stands on about 79 acres. No timber sale or removal would occur.

Prescribed Burning

Approximately 3363 acres in three treatment units would be prescribed burned through a series of one to three separate entries per treatment unit during the spring and/or fall seasons over a period of 3-5 years. Create conditions that allow for maintenance burning on a 10-20 year cycle. Burned areas would not exceed 3363 acres in a single treatment. The fuels treatments would involve broad scale under-burning in natural surface fuels and include approximately 73 acres of hand piles adjacent to private property. Underburns would be low intensity with 50 to 80% of the surface

expected to burn and target <25% overstory mortality in timber stands. Reduction of duff and timber litter in timber stand, and sagebrush and conifer encroachment by 40-60 % would occur.

Noxious Weeds

Throughout the project area fuels reduction activities would be coordinated to complement existing weed treatments and Lemhi Coordinated Weed Management Area (CWMA) prevention and control actions and activities excluding the use of herbicides.

The project area is within 4A, 5B, and 8A Management Areas, discussed on pages IV-110 thru IV-158 in the Forest Plan. The project area is not within any Inventoried Roadless Areas. The following table shows approximate acreages in the project area by Forest Management Prescription area and emphasis as defined in FLRMP pages IV-95-96.

Table 2. Forest Management Area Emphasis and approximate acreage

Forest Management Area Prescription Number and Emphasis or Desired Future

Condition

Approximate Acres

8A – Emphasis is to manage non-forested areas to improve soil and vegetative

conditions and provide forage for domestic livestock.

169

4A – Emphasis is on managing key big game winter range to insure required forage and

cover conditions exist to meet big game winter needs.

771

5B - Emphasis is on producing long-term timber outputs through moderate

investments in regeneration and thinning. 2423

Need for Proposed Action Currently, with over a century of successful fire suppression, the vegetative species composition has been altered dramatically. In addition, stands within the project area have been impacted by dwarf mistletoe, Douglas-fir beetle and pine beetle. The pre-settlement conditions, particularly the late 1800’s, of stands located within the project area were influenced by periodic low intensity fires. These fires were low severity due to the short period of time between fires, approximately 5-35 years, in the more xeric types, that reduced surface fuels and also conifer and brush regeneration. Stands were more open with grass and forbs present. South facing slopes generally favored bunchgrass openings with some sage pockets. Aspen clones were well distributed where fire induced regeneration responded. Fuel accumulations during the inter-fire periods were generally not sufficient to result in the mortality of larger trees although some trees would have been killed due to fuel concentrations and basal scarring. Under these conditions conifer regeneration was often killed, with mature fire-resistant species more likely to survive so these fires served to perpetuate ponderosa pine, at the expense of Douglas-fir. Purpose of the Proposed Action

The purpose of the Williams Restoration Project is to treat vegetation to restore the historic ecosystem composition, structure and function to a more diverse, productive, resistant and resilient condition as measured by Fire Regime Condition Class*. Restoration treatments will reduce hazardous fuels, promote fire resilient species by regenerating aspen stands and fire resistant species by retaining larger Douglas fir, and thinning lodgepole stands with prescribed fire. Multiple entry prescribed burning as required to lower FRCC and mechanical thinning treatments within the project area will lower risk of losing ecosystem components such as large fire-resistant trees, native grasslands, and fire-dependent species. Generally speaking, the dry conifer forest types on the Salmon-Challis N.F. have been classified as a Condition Class 3 at a broad scale. The majority of the proposed project treatment area can be categorized as such, therefore is in need of restoration of vegetation and fuel composition and structure from disturbances such as fire. The goal of the project is to move the proposed treatment units toward Condition Class 1 which will substantially reduce the risk of losing ecosystem components from wildfire in the present hazardous fuels conditions and/or restore such components. *Fire Regime Condition Class is a classification of the amount of departure from the natural regime (Interagency Fire Regime Condition Class Guidebook V 1.2, May 2005). FRCC includes three condition classes for each fire regime. The classification is based on a relative measure describing the degree of departure from the historical natural fire regime. This departure results in changes to one (or more) of the following ecological components: vegetation characteristics (species composition, structural stages, stand age, canopy closure, and mosaic pattern); fuel composition; fire frequency, severity, and pattern; and other associated disturbances (e.g. insect and disease mortality, grazing and drought). The three classes are based on low (FRCC 1), moderate (FRCC 2), and high (FRCC 3) departure from the central tendency of the natural (historical) regime. Low departure is considered to be within the natural (historical) range of variability, while moderate and high departures are outside.