On a recent summer morning in the Willamette Valley, Hugh Snook, ecologist for the Bureau of Land Management, a group of Luckiamute Watershed Council members and other visitors saw the beginnings of a unique project on bureau land that combines logging, thinning, road-building, habitat restoration and other environmental improvements. It is a glimpse of things to come, Snook said, that the money generated from the harvested timber will help pay for restoring historic oak woodland and improving habitat and water quality on the public lands surrounding Maxfield Creek.

In addition to unique funding that may eventually include contributions from several agencies and groups, the 321-acre parcel of public land north of Corvallis is also uniquely located near the Willamette Valley floor, unlike other parcels of public land in the Coast Range or Cascade foothills. If this project works well, Snook said it may provide a template for other projects that combine timber operations with habitat improvement and other restoration efforts. “We hope to learn from this,” Snook said of the project that is slated to begin next year and be completed by 2007.

Tight budgets and increased rules surrounding logging have spawned some creative approaches to projects on public lands, aiming at a variety of benefits. At the center of the plan is the combination of the harvesting operation that will produce an estimated 4.6 million board feet of Douglas fir, but will be done with an eye to restoring an oak woodland and upland meadow that once existed on the property. Generating funds is no small part of the project proposed by an agency that is living with a budget that is 15 percent less than the last one, according to Randy Gould, staff supervisor for the BLM who joined the group on the tour of the property. This project will include traditional elements of commercial thinning that will increase growth and maximize wood production on the land. However, beyond generating funds, the harvesting project on Maxfield Creek will also include a variety of projects that benefit the environment, Snook said. In addition to restoring oak habitats, the road through the property will be rerouted away from the eroding and deeply-channeled stream banks, and culverts will be replaced to improve fish passages.

“It’s great to see multiple agencies and groups working together. It’s more efficient,” said Cliff Hall, a physician who owns property in the area and is also on the Benton Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Directors.

Snook said that it is important to preserve on public lands what is being lost on private lands, but at the same time projects like this one may prove that development does not have to be destructive. Standing at the edge of a hilltop meadow that is slowly being closed in by conifers, Snook pointed at the oak trees on the edges, struggling to survive. In this site, the BLM will log out the invading conifers, use some burning to clear out invasive brush and plants, preserve the native species that return or plant them. Even grazing could be used to restore oak woodlands and savannahs in upland habitats such as these, Snook said. With his visitors surrounding him, Snook pulled out a 1956 aerial photo of the area which, along with historical records, showed where oak woodlands once stood. The bureau will use these documents as a guide when it removes conifers, restoring a quickly-disappearing oak habitat type the Willamette Valley.

The same attention will be paid to the health of Maxfield Creek, which now in some places on the property is eroding into its deep trenches, no thanks to an old streamside road. Rerouting the road will allow Maxfield Creek to meander out of its confined channel. Portions of the road will be rerouted above the stream, with particular care for trees that are at least 150 years old. The largest Douglas firs and hardwoods as well as the cottonwood, ash, and maple trees that shade the creek will not be cut down in the road-building process, Snook said. “Those trees will determine where the road goes, not the other way around.” Other road improvements include installing new fish-passable culverts that are now barriers to fish. The stream that now flows into the Luckiamute River has historically been home to native lamprey, dace, cutthroat, rainbow trout, steelhead and other species.

Some of the lower-grade trees logged from the property could be placed in the creek to provide structure for fish habitat, although beaver dams in the upper reaches of the property have provided plenty of “structure.” In fact, there has been so much beaver activity in the area, that Scott Snedaker, a BLM biologist also on the tour, talked about how beaver might be controlled on lands being managed for commercial timber. Although beaver dams can help create pools, conserve water flow, create wetlands and prevent erosion, their destruction of trees young and old can change the productivity of a forest. In the past, beaver foraging on commercial timber lands adjacent to the BLM land has been controlled by trapping and other killing methods. “But we’re looking for beaver-friendly solutions,” Snedaker said. He has a list of ways to promote beaver activity where it is desired – especially those places where sediment coming from upstream may be blocked by dam-building – promoting downstream health. “Our hydrologists say ‘love the beaver,’ and that’s what we hope to do,” Snedaker said.

Snook invited local landowners and groups in the Maxfield Creek area to participate in projects on the land. Fish and wildlife counts, water quality testing and other environmental projects, for example, could be conducted by volunteers working through the watershed council. Those interested in more information about this project may e-mail Snook (hsnook at blm.gov), or call him, 503-315-5964.