At the September 10th Community Conversation meeting with the Board, a community member asked … “what are our contractual obligations for logging and recreation in the Watershed?”
The past Board Chair responded that the Forest Legacy Program (FLP) contract wasn’t finalized but related information could be found on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) website.
I volunteered to do Public Records Requests, review all related materials and write a synopsis of the District’s obligations.
To date, I have reviewed 10 documents obtained from Public Record Requests and on public websites, including the USDA’s. Of those, only two documents specify any real or potential obligations related to public access, recreation and/or logging in the Watershed. (However, when it is completed – no known date – the final FLP Intergovernmental Agreement is likely to be a very important third relevant document that specifies real obligations.)
The existing relevant documents with real or potential obligations are:
1 Access Easement for NCLC: The easement with NCLC requires the District to allow NCLC employees, contractors and guests to have pedestrian and vehicular access to all roads in the Watershed.
2. Forest Legacy Program (FLP) Application: Forest Legacy Program funding was awarded in the amount of $3,500,000 and used to purchase the Watershed. Those funds were granted based upon a Forest Legacy Project application that was written and submitted by the District in 2018-2019. (click here to see application). That application proposed an ‘Arch Cape Watershed Forest Legacy Project’ and lays out a list of Project Features – Important’ that includes the following:
Public Access & Recreation (taken directly from the application):
- “PUBLIC ACCESS – The property currently provides limited and informal public access. Public access will be formalized and expanded upon Project completion, including improving accessibility, walking trails and enhanced access to nearby public lands which collectively see 2.4 million day users.”
- “A 2018 survey by the University of Oregon and Travel Oregon found that half of the estimated 4.5 million annual visitors to the North Coast were from outside the state. The Property will help fill the need for publicly accessible recreation areas sought by national and international tourists.”
- “ECONOMIC BENEFITS, NON-TIMBER–Phase 2 supports an active hunting season for Roosevelt elk and black tailed deer. Phase 2 along with adjacent public lands contribute 10,686 days hunted in 2018, generating up to $512,000 in spending. Maintaining access to these acres supports a robust hunting culture.”
At the Sept 14th meeting of the ACWD-NCLC Public Access-Recreation Committee, one of the National Park Service facilitators stated that since the District took public money, the Watershed was a public asset, it will need to be open to the public and the District needs to ask the public from Seaside to Wheeler and recreationalists what type of recreation should be allowed in the Watershed. Their statement was a bit disconcerting. I asked the Board about it during the Public Comment section of the Sept 15th Board Meeting. As is sometime the case, they do not respond to Public Comments. So it’s not clear where the Board stands on this.
Logging (taken directly from the application):
- “Historically, the Property was actively managed, with the roads well maintained for a 2016 harvest. The inventory conducted in 2018 revealed at least $1M in merchantable timber remaining. The District plans for future harvests to be certified and the draft forest management plan is FSC compliant.”
- “Envisioned as a working community forest, the Project will employ services of a forester, crews for roading and brush clearing, and local logging outfits. As a rare model of community forestry on the Oregon Coast, this demonstration site will balance multiple uses while generating timber revenue.”
Per the FLP Implementation Guidelines, if actions related to logging are important to the property owner, those actions are to be documented in a Multi-Resource Management Plan that is written by the property owner (click here to see page 44 of Multi-Resource Management Plan). The Multi-Resource Management Plan that was developed and approved by the previous Board pertaining to logging states:
“HARVEST LEVEL POLICY: The Arch Cape Forest will be managed with harvest equal to or lower than growth across commercial forest acres. To comply with this, spatial analysis has been used to remove non-commercial acreage and stream buffers (approximately 33% of the total acreage). The remaining 67% of the property will be harvested at a rate of approximately 3% per year, based on current standing inventory, with the rate updated to reflect a normalization of age distribution over the initial 20 years of ownership.”
We will not know actual FLP obligations until the final Intergovernmental Agreement pertaining to the FLP grant money is received (no known date yet). Public access, recreation and logging in the Watershed depends, in large part, on how strictly the FLP holds the District to the Project Features that were written into the Application.
It is the Board’s perspective that Most our documents are agreements and not contracts and are amendable. This would be good news. Perhaps FLP will give the District lots of latitude and keep open the possibility that the ratepayers and taxpayers in the District might have some say in public access, recreation and logging.
A new post will be added when that FLP Intergovernmental Agreement is available.
Supporting Documentation:
A.C. Water District Board (Go to Home Page) 
2 responses to “#15a – Our Contractual Obligations for the Watershed?”
Thanks for this review!
LikeLike
Thanks for the review.
LikeLike