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Wallowa County has attempted to do a lot of things to aid in the harvest figures, the watershed improvement projects and the stewardship projects in the county. One of the steps is to pursue what the federal agencieswill let you do on the ground. They may allow a stewardship project (Stewardshippilots were created by Congressin 1999 to allow forests to experiment with new contracting authorities designed to improve implementation of forest projects and meeting the needs of rural communities. The stewardship pilot legislation has three parts: land management goals for restoration, new contracting authorities and multi-party monitoring) that cuts trees but not allow a timber sale that would cut the same trees because of the process you go thru to get to the action.
The National StewardshipPilot Program1 allows pilots to test five contracting authorities:
Best Value—The U.S. Forest Service(USFS) has the authority to consider best value to the government when awarding procurement contacts. Pilot authority allows the USFS to award timber sales based on best value, not just highest bid.
Multi-year contracts—Pilot authority allows the USFS to issue contracts for up to ten (10) years, twice the current limit.
Retention of receipts—The USFS must send timber sale receipts (less deposits to trust funds) to the Federal Treasury. Congressmust appropriate funds for service contracts. Pilot authority allows income from positively valued contracts to be used on part of the project or another pilot project.
Designation by Description/Prescription—In a service contract, the USFS may describe required actions or desired end results. In a timber sale contract, the USFS must either indicate trees to be removed or provide descriptions that would lead any two people to choose the same trees. Pilot authority allows the USFS to describe the desired end results in a timber sale contract.
Goods for services—Generally, the federal government is prohibited from trading goods for services because it cannot augment appropriated funds by exchanging something of commercial value for work. Pilot authority allows a single contract in which commercially valued timber is exchanged for work the USFS would normally have to hire.
We have also begun initiating planning processes with the USFS so we can help design the projects that get done on the ground. Specifically, we have done the following:
1. The Carol Creek fire occurred in September of 2000. We met in late September with the USFS district ranger who is on the NRAC; we had asked her if we could sell the timber from the fire area. She brought a broad group of folks together, including NRAC and the local HCPC (an environmental organization) representative. She proposed a project to attempt to sell the salvage timber, and then we made massive changes to the proposal that made it much more inclusive of watershed improvement actions. We encouraged her to find additional money and staff to aid in the planning so the regular work could go on as well as this special project. We supported her in D.C. to get the additional help. We requestedthat much of the work be contracted to aid in the employment. These are just some of the actions and steps we did. We sold the project in July; it was harvested in August, just 11 months after the sale started. The timber volume was about 3 million board feet, which made it 3 million more than the whole county sold the previous couple of years. Much of this was accomplished because of the relationships we had already in place through the NRAC, the cooperation we got from the USFS and the political support given the local district ranger in the requests for more funds and staff. Although it was appealed by the HCPC, the appeal was expedited by Region 6 and denied, particularly because they had been at the table and had had the opportunity to give input.
2. We requestedpilot authority on some of our projects to start a new planning process on the ground.
3. Stewardshipcontracting allows for different rules on how projects are done and who does them. By utilizing this program of the USFS we can develop projects that we would otherwise be unable to do.
4. We are starting a planning process for a whole watershed so that we can get some larger areas "planned" with less cost and less time. To do this we the county, through the NRAC, are the lead on the process even though the USFS is doing much of the coordination. To accomplish much of the actual planning we hope to receive funds to have it done by private contractors that will cut several years off the process.
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1Information on the National Stewardship Pilot Program is provided from Volume 4 Number 1 of The Stewardship Chronicle.
Read other successes:
Modoc County, California
Last Updated 05/30/2007