Public Comment Period Begins for Upper Briggs Creek Landscape Restoration Project
Release Date: May 3, 2018
Contact(s): Matt Paciorek, Wild Rivers District Ranger (541) 592-4001
Grants Pass, OR – The Forest Service is proposing to conduct a 4,000+ acre landscape and watershed restoration project in the Upper Briggs Creek watershed. The project will improve the resiliency of the watershed to short-term natural disturbances, such as fire, drought and storms, as well as long term climatic changes. The project will be accomplished through a combination of vegetation management, habitat and plant restoration, fuels management and roads management. The actions are proposed to be implemented on the Wild Rivers Ranger District of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
The Upper Briggs Landscape Restoration Project is located approximately eleven miles west of Grants Pass, Oregon. Elevations range from 2,000 feet on the valley floor to approximately 4,400 feet on both Taylor Mountain at the northwest boundary of the watershed and Onion Mountain on the southeast boundary.
Identified objectives of the project include:
-
Strategically manage fuels to reduce the risk of large stand-replacing fires and to re-introduce controlled fire on the landscape
-
Maintain and restore structural and vegetation diversity, including prolonging the persistence of legacy (large) trees, accelerating development of later seral forest structure, and restoring pine/oak, meadow habitats and rare plant populations
-
Conserve and enhance habitat for northern spotted owl and other wildlife species
-
Maintain and restore species composition and structural diversity of plant communities in riparian reserves and wetlands
-
Re-establish more natural subsurface flow patterns and improve overall watershed function
The general condition of the Upper Briggs planning area is considered to be highly modified by human influence. The practices of fire suppression, timber harvesting, road building, trapping, mining and homesteading have simplified habitats and lead to extreme fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of fire and other disturbance processes.
Mining, hiking, mountain biking, ATV and motorcycle riding, dispersed camping, hunting and firewood collection are all popular uses of the watershed year-round and continue to increase. The planning area includes approximately 20 miles of recreation trails and the Sam Brown Campground.
The desired condition for the project area is to create areas of reduced fuel loading while continuing to provide habitat for wildlife species that are dependent upon late seral, old forest habitat with high fuel loading. “Fireproofing” the watershed is not reasonable nor an objective of this project. Management of fuel loading would reduce the potential for large stand-replacing fires and allow for the reintroduction of controlled fire to the landscape, which in turn would promote development of successional habitat and create diverse landscape conditions.
The 30-day public comment period began with the publication of a Legal Notice in the Grants Pass Daily Courier on May 2, 2018. The comment period extends through May 31, 2018. The Draft Environmental Assessment is available for review online. Comments should be sent or hand-delivered Matt Paciorek, District Ranger, Wild Rivers Ranger District, Attn: Upper Briggs Project, 26528 Redwood Hwy, Cave Junction, OR 97523.
Office business hours for submitting hand-delivered comments are 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Comments may be faxed to (541) 592-4010. Electronic comments must be submitted in a common format such as an email message, as a standalone or with attachments in plain text (.txt), rich text format (.rtf), Adobe portable document format (.pdf), or Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx); and emailed to: comments-pacificnorthwest-siskiyou-wildrivers@fs.fed.us. Include in the subject line: Upper Briggs Landscape Restoration Draft EA.
If you would like more information or have questions relating to this proposal, contact District Ranger, Matt Paciorek, by email at mpaciorek@fs.fed.us, or by phone at (541) 592-4001.