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Lottery funds help remove juniper from Steens Mtn.
Sept. 24, 2007
News media contact:
- Karen Moon, Harney Watershed Council, (541) 573-8199
- Karen Leiendecker, Regional Program Representative, (541) 426-0342
Editors/reporters: A complete list by county of funded projects approved by the OWEB Board earlier this week is posted on OWEB’s Website at: www.oregon.gov/OWEB. Click on “News and Announcements.”
Project continues public-private partnership to treat large areas
The Harney Watershed Council has received about $196,000 in Oregon Lottery funds to continue projects to treat and remove juniper and to improve aspen stands and other vegetation on large areas of Steens Mountain.
The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board earlier this week approved funding for two new projects, which have a total cost of about $620,000.
The projects are the fourth phase in a plan to reduce the impact of juniper on more than 73,000 acres of public and private land on Steens Mountain in the next 7-15 years. The projects will focus on streambank areas along Deep, Yank and Drake creeks. In this phase, project partners plan to treat 3,520 acres of upland and 200 acres of streambank, to cut 565 acres of juniper and to reconstruct 20 miles of roads and trails. The efforts will prepare the area for prescribed burns of 8,300 acres scheduled for next year or when conditions allow. Following the burns, project partners will provide grazing rest on both private and public lands for two years by reducing herds, shifting cattle to neighbors’ lands, reorganizing grazing patterns or buying hay.
The goals of the work are to improve streambank and upland livestock grazing areas and wildlife habitat by decreasing the amount of water absorbed from the soil by juniper, according to Karen Moon, coordinator of the watershed council, which applied for the grant and will coordinate implementation.
Project partners include the Steens Mountain Ranch, Otley Brothers Ranch, Mann Lake Ranch, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, OWEB and the Harney Watershed Council.
Fred Otley has advocated juniper research and treatment for several years. He successfully pushed scientists at the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center to study the effects of juniper on the landscape. “Range management became increasingly difficult in the juniper-dominated landscape,” Otley said. “Our earlier best efforts to improve streambanks and range conditions were paying minimal dividends,” he said.
Otley reported that the Lottery funds allocated by OWEB are vital for both research and on-the-ground projects. None of the participants could afford to take a broad landscape approach without the state funding, he said. Private landowners and the Bureau of Land Management must be involved “so the necessary acreage can be treated at the same time in a coordinated manner,” he said.
Otley noted that earlier projects initiated about eight years ago are delivering impressive results. Aspen groves are recovering, ground cover is spreading to the point there is minimal bare ground, and springs and streambank areas have greatly improved in the hottest parts of the summer, he reported.
The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board consists of 17 members. They represent the public at large, tribes, state natural resource agency boards and commissions, the Oregon State University Extension Service, and federal natural resource agencies. The board is supported by a state agency of the same name that provides grants and services to citizen groups, organizations and agencies working to restore healthy watersheds in Oregon. OWEB actions support the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds, created in 1997. Funding comes from the Oregon Lottery as a result of a citizen initiative in 1998, sales of salmon license plates, federal salmon funds and other sources. For more information, visit www.oregon.gov/OWEB or call OWEB in Salem at 503-986-0178.
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