Come spring, Ely and Mount Wilson Community Guest Ranch residents can expect to see new life sprout from the ground where mostly pinyon-juniper once grew.
“By April, we anticipate that some of the native grasses will be pushing up from the soil. Native shrubs take longer, but they too will flourish over time,” Shane DeForest, BLM Ely Field Office fuels management specialist, said Monday.
DeForest and other BLM employees last week used a helicopter to scatter native seed across two fire hazard reduction project sites in eastern Nevada. One site is near Ward Mountain, barely south of Ely. The other site is adjacent to the Mount Wilson Community Guest Ranch, about 30 miles north of Pioche.
The 345-acre project near Ward Mountain began in March 2003. The approximately 750-acre project adjacent to the Mount Wilson Community Guest Ranch started the following July. Both projects were the result of a settlement agreement reached in October 2002 by the BLM Ely Field Office and environmental groups.
The field office had planned to implement at each location a much larger landscape restoration effort that staff felt would better protect residents’ lives and property, and watershed health. The Ely Urban Interface Project would have selectively thinned pinyon-juniper from approximately 7,200 acres of sagebrush plant communities. The Mount Wilson Community Guest Ranch Urban Interface Project would have removed selected pinyon-juniper from about 22,000 acres of sagebrush.
The field office chose not to implement the urban interface projects rather than jeopardize residents’ lives and safety while undergoing lengthy and time-consuming litigation that would have had an uncertain outcome.
According to DeForest, however, the larger landscape restoration projects are far from dead.
“We have every intention of completing both of them,” said DeForest, noting each project’s inclusion in the Ely Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement, currently under development. When complete, the plan will provide management direction for all BLM Ely Field Office programs for 20-plus years and help to implement the Eastern Nevada Landscape Restoration Project, a key component of the Great Basin Restoration Initiative.
Meantime, said DeForest, some progress has been achieved through the fire hazard reduction projects.
“The Eastern Nevada Landscape Coalition is, through its partnership with The Nature Conservancy, monitoring the recently-applied treatments. The data they collect will help guide us in future landscape restoration efforts,” explained DeForest.
The Eastern Nevada Landscape Coalition, or ENLC, is a community-based partnership of 80-plus members that is working with the BLM to restore Great Basin landscapes in eastern Nevada. The ENLC assists in project planning and implementation by establishing broad-based goals and objectives, determining processes, and advising and providing the best available science.
DeForest said a large-scale landscape restoration project is still needed in both communities.
“A healthy, self-sustaining watershed in which wildland fire plays a natural and beneficial role is necessary to protect not only the watershed itself, but also the residents of Ely and the Mount Wilson Community Guest Ranch,” he said.
DeForest said the fire hazard reduction project near Ward Mountain has been completed. The project adjacent to the Mount Wilson Community Guest Ranch is scheduled for completion in June 2004, he said.
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