PNWCG Fuels Working Team Meeting
28 May 2009
Olympic National Forest Supervisor’s Office
Olympia, WA
In attendance:
Leanne Mruzik (BLM), Chair
Cyndi Sidles (USFWS), Vice Chair
Gene Lonning (BIA)
Laura Mayer (FS)
David Grant (WADNR)
Bill Aney (FS)
Agenda Items:
Review of minutes from last meeting
Update from PNWCG
Finalize Charter
The meeting started at 10:10, with a round of introductions by the participants and a few opening
comments. David Grant, the newest member of the group, shared some of the events within
WADNR recently. Peter Goldmark is the WA Commissioner of Public Lands, and he has not
yet named the head of DNR. Chuck Turley is the new State Forester.
The meeting notes of 3/26/09 were reviewed. The meeting covered the ground rules for the
working team, roles of Chair and Vice Chair, the team members, and the PNWCG liaison (Pam
Ensley), meeting schedule, our relationship with PNWCG, and our current program of work.
The PNWCG steering committee is apparently building a website for holding meeting notes,
charters, etc., of the various working teams. Leanne will check with Jim to see how this is
coming along.
David added some comments from the perspective of WADNR – see that we’re doing the right
thing for the public, across ownerships, with respect to fuels treatment. Gene also shared a BIA
perspective, that each agency still has National Fire Plan (NFP) priorities to work on, and we
need to be cognizant of this fact and focus our efforts on things we can influence. We’re likely
to be less effective if we choose to focus on making interagency policy changes.
One of the tasks the former fire use working team had been assigned was to develop a map
showing the locations of all fuels treatments in OR/WA. A challenge is that not all of these
treatments are in any database in polygon data, and many are just point data. The polygon data is
needed before we can demonstrate or evaluate whether or not projects are coordinated across
ownerships. It will be important to discuss with the GIS working team how we can eventually
have polygon data for all completed projects. Dale Guenther should be invited to a future
meeting for this discussion.
The team then entered into a work session reworking and rewording our draft charter. There is
some uncertainty remaining about how the NFP grant working team will be combined with the
Fuels working team in the future, as per the steering committee’s direction. Will the NFP
committee be a subset of our group, or absorbed into our group, or will the Fuels WT take on all
of the duties of the NFP grant WT without bringing in the team members?
After lunch, Pam Ensley joined us on a conference call. She shared several items with us:
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The NFP grants WT work will now be done by the Fuels WT, with the technical work on
the grants process being done by members of the current NFP WT as a task group. The
details are still being worked out, and there are BLM and FS folks on the NFP grants
committee who have participation in this effort as part of their job.
We may choose to award block grants to the states, or different regions of the states, and
allow the state agencies to decide specifically where projects are done.
The objectives we have drafted up in our new charter could adequately cover the NFP
grants piece of our work.
There is a NFP WT meeting on 6/17, and Leanne and Cyndi will attend will be attending
along with Pam.
We did discuss briefly the report that ODF had awarded a contract for a western states wide risk
assessment, work that had been requested by the Western Governor’s Association. We are now
aware of 5-6 different projects under way to do risk assessments or fuels treatment prioritization
models (including the PNW research Station, WETAC, and Landfire). Our group has had no
interaction or interface with these groups or efforts, and we shared that concern with Pam to
bring back to PNWCG steering committee.
Most of the work to finalize our draft charter was completed by the end of the meeting, with the
one area of uncertainty being how we bring in the work and individuals associated with the NFP
WT. It will probably be fall before this is cleared up, at which point we will take the Charter to
Pam to deliver to PNWCG.
Another work item we had assigned to us was the development or refreshing of the Collaborative
Strategy. We are free to start from scratch, and this may make more sense that trying to remodel
the outdated strategy. We can keep it simple.
Our next meeting is 6/24 or 25, and Leanne will poll members to find best date.
Gene Lonning has the note taking duties next meeting.
Respectfully submitted –
Bill Aney