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McKenzie Watershed Stewardship Group
Within Our Reach Conference, Dec 9, 2016
Nancy Toth, Eugene Water & Electric Board
McKenzie Watershed Stewardship Group
• Convened by EWEB in 2012, meets monthly
• Includes representatives from the following groups:
• Cascade Pacific Resource Conservation & Development
• EWEB
• McKenzie River Trust
• McKenzie Watershed Council
• Oregon Wild
• US Forest Service
• Upper Willamette Soil & Water Conservation District
• Whitewater Forests LLC
• Forum for information sharing, coordinated
planning and collaboration around common
restoration goals.
• Opportunity to align funding and resources to
work in priority areas.
McKenzie Watershed Stewardship Group
Purpose: to enhance the ecological functions
within the McKenzie Watershed and promote the
economic viability of local communities.
Stewardship Contracts
• 7 Thin just completed and we are expecting around
$110,000 in retained receipts
• Begun to discuss priorities for retained receipts
Facilitation
• Received a grant to hire an outside
facilitator to help us develop a
‘zone of agreement’ around
restoration and develop a model
stewardship contract within the
Green Mountain Planning Area
(OWEB Federal Forest Healthy
Collaborative Project Development
Technical Assistance)
Green Mountain Planning Area
• Harvest proposed on 4,398 acres
near Cougar Reservoir
• Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) released this
summer; final decision in spring
2017
• US Forest Service in process of
planning sales within the area
Evaluating Potential Stewardship Projects
Stewardship Group toured potential sale areas in
Green Mountain this fall and selected a couple to
recommend as stewardship contracts.
Evaluating Potential Stewardship Projects
• Simple Excel spreadsheet looking at a variety of criteria
in order to evaluate potential stewardship sales
• Points given for each characteristic and added up
Criteria include:
• Volume of stewardship sale
• Harvest type (ground-based, helicopter, etc.)
• Regeneration/shelterwood harvest
• Riparian areas treated
• Potential for embedded service work
• Time frame until retained receipts would be available
• Amount of retained receipts
• District opinion
Recommendation Memos
1. Areas for potential stewardship sales and proposals for
new planning areas
2. Treatment types used in stewardship contracts
3. Use of retained receipts
The group created three types of ‘recommendation’
memo templates to send to the USFS which address
the following:
Next Steps/Future Goals
• As a group, we’d like to work more on defining
restoration in a way that everyone can accept or at least
identify ‘zones of agreement’
• Work with the USFS to plan more stewardship sales
within the McKenzie district, but also more broadly
across the whole Willamette NF
• Develop a more formal process for making
recommendations on where to use retained receipts
• Work to incorporate ‘local benefit’ piece
Watershed size = 1,300 sq milesElevation ranges from 10,358’ to about 450’Average annual river flow at confluence: 5,809 cfsAverage annual precipitation: 40 – 110” (mostly snow in higher elevations)
McKenzie River Watershed