Regarding the watershed, the Water District Board has completed the purchase phase and transitioned to a planning phase for operations and maintenance.
During this planning phase, these conversations will track and report what’s happening in order to: 1) Keep you informed of the status of things as the multi-faceted plan develops, and 2) Encourage you to weigh in with your perspective
The Watershed property has been purchased: The Board has purchased, and the ratepayers are now financially responsible for, 1400+ acres of Watershed property, approximately 700 acres of which is our source water protection area. Across that entire property, the Board has collaborated in granting NCLC, for free, an easement that will have critical implications for the impact of public access and recreational use in our Watershed (see below).
Financial Planning: Given the recent drastic changes in our economy, the previously developed financial plan for operating-managing the property is no longer viable: Revenue from logging, donations and a tax levy are no longer expected to cover operating costs after 2035, and a multi-million-dollar debt is anticipated. Ben Dair, of Sustainable Northwest, who was contracted by the Board to update the previous financial plan has taken another job. The contracted forester now has the responsibility of working with the Board to come up with a new financial plan.
The Board has not announced the process for reviewing this plan nor the expected completion date.
Logging: According to the previous financial plan, approximately 100 acres of trees are targeted to be cut down in the next several years and 900 acres are to be thinned.
The specific plans for logging and thinning have not yet been formalized. That planning is part of the to-be-done financial planning. The forester has previously indicated that the logging prescriptions will be subject to public review and comment.
The Board has not announced the process for reviewing these logging prescriptions nor their expected completion date.
Public Access & Recreation Usage: Over the past 12 months the Board, District Manager and NCLC have been pre-planning recreational use of the Arch Cape Watershed. Recently they have expanded those efforts by engaging the National Park Service (NPS) to guide a Public Access Committee through an 8-month process to determine how the public will access and use Arch Cape’s Watershed. The Board has appointed 3 full time Arch Cape residents and 2 part time residents to work with 3 NCLC employees on the Public Access Committee. (Cannon View Park is represented on the Committee as they have adjoining property to our Watershed. Lewis & Clark Timberlands have 2 representatives on the Committee but have been very clear that they “WILL NOT be influencing the decisions that should truly be made by the Water District. Their role will only be to share their experience of what has worked for them.”)
The Public Access Committee had their first meeting on June 27. Based upon that meeting, the following are fundamental questions of relevance to the Arch Cape Community:
1. A goal of the Committee, as stated by the National Park Service (NPS), is that the Arch Cape community will be engaged in the process and that their input will be taken seriously. How actively will the input of the Arch Cape community be sought and incorporated into the Committee’s recommendations?
Note: the Community Survey on Recreational Use (148 responses) has been very clear on the community’s interest in recreation. 91% want “no promotion” of the watershed for recreational use and over 60% want it to be left as status quo.
2. A goal of the committee, as stated by the NPS, is that Public Access recommendations will be driven by the goals for purchasing the property. Katie Volke, NCLC Executive Director, said that the primary goal for purchasing the Reserve is conservation. Phil Chick, the District Manager, said that the primary goal for purchasing the Watershed is for water resource protection, i.e., clean, safe and affordable drinking water. If conservation and water resource protection are the priority goals, how do they align with the seemingly conflicting goals of public access and recreation, as recognized by other watersheds and scientific facts
Portland’s Bull Run Watershed: “We know how important the Bull Run is to the quality of life in the Portland area, and we take pride in the protections that are in place to preserve this precious resource. The area within and around the watershed is off-limits to logging, mining, and public recreation.”
Astoria’s Bear Creek Watershed: “The work of Nathan Bartlett, the watershed’s caretaker, is hardly idle. To ensure water quality, he actively monitors and restricts public access to the watershed.” (Click here to see Astoria’s rationale)
Forest Fires: “Nearly 85% of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans.” U.S. Forest Service Research Data Base.
“Studies have shown human ignition is to blame for 84% of all wildfires in the United States, and 97% of all those that threaten homes. … Human-sparked fires typically spread about 1.83 kilometers per day, more than twice as fast as the 0.83 kilometers per day for lightning-induced burns”. Science Magazine (Click here for article)
NOTE: For NCLC’s Reserve, forest fires pose a threat to wildlife habitats and NCLC’s ecotourism revenue stream. For our Watershed, they pose a threat to wildlife habitats, our drinking water and our homes.
Soil Erosion Sedimentation: “Trail-based recreation has increased over recent decades, raising the environmental management issue of soil erosion that originates from unsurfaced, recreational trail systems. Trail-based soil erosion that occurs near stream crossings represents a non-point source of pollution to streams. … We found modeled soil erosion rates for non-motorized recreational approaches that were … 13 times greater than estimated rates for undisturbed forests and 2.4 times greater than a 2-year-old clearcut in this region.” Environmental Management and other scientific literature (Click here for article).
NOTE: The unsurfaced roads across the Watershed and Reserve crisscross our streams and source water protection area at multiple points. Public use across those roads is currently envisioned to include logging trucks, passenger vehicles as well as foot traffic. The soil erosion rates discussed above are likely very understated.
Given NCLC’s easement and their interest in ecotourism-public access to their Reserve (see NCLC Supporting Documentation links below), there will greater public awareness of and access to our Watershed than has historically occurred. It is important to recognize that our Watershed and NCLC’s Rainforest Reserve are two different properties-ecosystems with fundamentally different environmental objectives. For our Watershed, source water protection and wild fire prevention (since it backs right up to our homes) are primacy. Hopefully for the Committee, these objectives will take precedence over public access and recreation.
With all this in mind, now is the time for the Arch Cape community to continue to voice and reinforce their perspectives on public access to the Watershed. As the Public Access Committee deliberates on the policies and practices that will guide use of the Watershed, we encourage them 1) to consider the primacy of source water protection, 2) to consider the results of the Community Recreational Use Survey, 3) to actively reach out to the broader Arch Cape community for their input and 4) to meaningfully incorporate the Community’s input into any recommendations. And we encourage the community to respond to that outreach and to zoom into the Committee meetings.
Meetings of this Committee are expected to be once a month and are open to the public. Meetings will be posted on the main page of the Arch Cape Water District site. (https://www.archcapewater.org). It is important to provide your perspective during the public comment section at the end of the meetings.
Supporting material for the information contained in this conversation can be found in; 1) Zoom recording of the May 19 Board Meeting, 2) Zoom recording of June 14 Work Session, 3) Zoom recording of June 27 Public Access Committee and in the linked materials.
NCLC-related Supporting Documentation
A.C. Water District Board (Go to Home Page) 
2 responses to “#12 – Overview of Planning Activities: Setting Expectations”
NCLC does not have an ecotourism revenue stream or any goal or desire to promote ecotourism or recreation in the Rainforest Reserve. This blog continues to say otherwise, but they are false statements.
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Thanks for engaging Katie (Katie Volke, Exec Director, NCLC). We would like to correct any false statements. How does 1) NCLC’s easement request for vehicular access for their “guests” across all roads in the Watershed, 2) the Raffle for the Rainforest Rendezvous, 3) the Public Access Guidelines posted on the Reserve’s web site, and 4) the presentations about recreation since 2018, align with the statement “no goal or desire to promote ecotourism or recreation in the Rainforest Reserve”? (See links at the bottom of the blog for Supporting Documentation for #2, #3 and #4 above.)
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