2020-12-14-minutes-public-works-study-session

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ak APASH Sustainable Forest Collaborative December 2, 2020 Mark R. Cook, Director Kittitas County Department of Public Works 411 North Ruby Street, Suite 1 Ellensburg, WA 98926 Dear Mr. Cook, This letter expresses the support of the Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative for the Kittitas County Department of Public Works submittal of a 2021-2023 Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP) grant to replace the Kittitas County owned Swauk Creek bridge on Liberty Road. The Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative has a purpose to improve ecosystem health and natural functions of the eastern Cascades landscape through the use of the best available science, community input and adaptive management. We pursue this purpose through a collaborative process that engages five entities' and other associated stakeholders that have a diverse expertise in forest restoration, management, and protection. This combination of partners in the Collaborative creates a unique mix of public, non-profit, and tribal land managers working together to create ecologically sustainable healthy forests on the east side of the Cascades. A century or more of wildfire suppression, intensive harvesting, grazing, and mining have resulted in widespread degradation of terrestrial and aquatic habitats and made the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest (OWNF) susceptible to uncharacteristic fire, insect, and disease outbreaks. As a result, there is a need for restoration efforts and stakeholder engagement across the landscape. Time is critical, and the size and scale of the forest restoration need is growing. In response, the Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative utilizes a collaborative process to move forward priority forest restoration projects on the OWNF. The Swauk Pine Priority Project area was identified in response to the high risk of habitat loss resulting from high fire risk, the critical use of the watershed for various fish species including Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed Steelhead, forest management, providing access to popular recreation areas, and to the high ratio of Wildland Urban Interface associated with the Town of Liberty. The purpose of the Swauk Pine Project is to improve resilience to wildfires and other disturbances by returning the forested landscape to a state that is within or closer to the historic range of variability, and improve the resilience and function of aquatic systems that have been degraded by previous and ongoing human actions. The Swank Basin Wildfire Protection Plan outlines efforts to reduce wildfire risk, reestablish natural fire regimes, reducing wildfire management costs and better protecting late successional and old forest structure. The FLAP grant proposal supports efforts outlined in the Swank Basin Wildfire Protection Plan, which cannot be fully implemented without the funds for design and replacement of the County's load limiting bridge on Swank Creek. The bridge has been found to be structurally deficient and currently limits access to the Liberty and Williams Creek Watershed without replacement. The load ' The Nature Conservancy of Washington State, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Yakama Nation.