The purpose of this document is to
help guide the Council toward its goals of improving, maintaining and
protecting watershed health, and fostering stewardship and
understanding of the watershed.
This biological assessment (BA) documents the potential effects of existing Forest Service (FS) Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMPs), or 'Forest Plans' and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Land Use Plans (LUPs) on the Canada Lynx (Lynx canadensis), hereafter referred to as the lynx. LRMPs and LUPs are collectively referred...
Watershed assessment is a process for evaluating how well a watershed is working. The purpose of this assessment was to determine how natural and human-induced changes have impacted the sustainability of salmon populations in the Nehalem River Watershed. Both historical and current information is included regarding the watershed’s ability to...
On March 24, 1999, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published its final decision to list the Upper Willamette River evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) of chinook salmon as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The effective date for the final listing was May 24, 1999, and the ESU is...
The authors varied the number of red alder retained with 300 Douglas-fir per acre on a high-quality site in coastal Oregon. Alder densities of 0, 20, 40, and 80 per acre were tested. The authors' fifth treatment eliminated nitrogen-fixing alder, but substantial nitrogen fertilizer. Treatment 6 had neither thinning nor...
The Oregon Department of Forestry, in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, offers this publication as a guide for cities and counties to use in the development of urban forest practice regulations.
Local (Country) variations in key social and economic indicators are important in Oregon and Washington. Covered employment, wage and salary, unemployment, and population data for 1987 through 1997 showed regional trends in these indicators, which are compared with national trends. Future updates will be published in the 'Production, Prices, Employment,...
The objective of this Biological Opinion (BO) is to determine whether the action to restore emergent vegetation to wetlands on Sauvie Island is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of Upper Willamette River chinook salmon and Lower Columbia river chinook salmon or destroy, or adversely modify proposed critical habitat.
The Northwest economic adjustment initiative (NWEAI) provides economic assistance to a region including western Washington, western Oregon, and northern California. Timber harvests have fallen markedly in this region since 1990. The forest products industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the region, and employment has followed the downward trend in...
This project, commissioned in 1998, is part of the MidCoast Watersheds Council's efforts to better understand the status and condition of the area's natural resources and to work with interested landowners to enhance and protect important areas.
This paper reports prices for aggregations of lumber grades that are representative of the quality and volume of lumber produced from small-diameter timber stands in the Intermountain West area encompassing Idaho and Montana and land east of the Cascade Mountain range in Oregon and Washington. Price data are reported for...
We describe concepts, rationale, and analytical procedures for characterizing physical habitat in wadeable streams based on raw data generated from methods similar or equal to those of Kaufmann and Robison (in PB99-139156). We provide guidance for calculating measures or indices of stream size and gradient, sinuosity, substrate size and stability,...
Repeated thinning to five growing-stock levels resulted in widely differing tree sizes and volumes per acre after 30 years. Largest trees but the least cubic-volume yield per acre were produced in the heaviest thinning level, whereas highest board-foot yields were found in intermediate thinning levels. partial defoliation by larch casebearer...
There are many parallels between the 1978 legislation to expand Redwood National Park and the Northwest Forest Plan, which together with the Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative formed the 1993 Pacific Northwest Initiative. In both situations, the Federal Government sought to promote retraining for displaced workers, to undertake watershed assessment and...
As the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management turn toward ecosystem and adaptive models of forest stewardship, they are being called on to develop meaningful and lasting relations with citizens. These new management styles require not only improved strategies for public involvement but also methods to examine the...
On February 11, 1998, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) requested that a representative of NIOSH conduct a health hazard evaluation (HHE) to evaluate and compare timber marker's (also called Forestry Technicians) exposures to a new waterborne formulation of tree marking paint developed for use by the U.S. Forestry Service. NIOSH...
Coho salmon have been the most important variety of salmon caught commercially in Oregon. Until recently, coho were also the most common variety in most coastal streams. Based on records from salmon canneries, coho in Oregon north of Cape Blanco (near Port Orford) numbered about 1.25 million adults annually 100...
Anglers and naturelovers prize steelhead trout for their mystique and power. Oregon has two subspecies of steelhead (so-called because of the metallic appearance of maturing adults) or rainbow trout: a coastal form and an inland form.
This report presents results of an investigation of water and streambed-sediment quality in selected tributaries of the South Umpqua River. Concentrations of inorganic constituents in water (major and minor ions, nutrients, and trace elements) and streambed sediment (primarily trace elements), along with standard field parameters, are tabulated for samples collected...
Coastal cutthroat trout is one of three cutthroat subspecies found in Oregon. The coastal subspecies, which is closely related to steelhead/rainbow trout and Pacific salmon, displays the most diverse and flexible life history of any of the Oregon salmonids. Coastal cutthroat can be found in streams and rivers from the...
Arsenic concentrations exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) current Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 50 micrograms per liter are widespread in ground water in the Willamette Basin. The Oregon Water Resources Department and the U.S. Geological Survey began a cooperative study in the Willamette Basin in 1996. One goal...
The Lower Alsea River Watershed Analysis contains information which characterizes the processes and trends for resources of concern, and provides a context relating the function of this lower portion of the watershed to the Alsea River Basin as a whole. Critical problem areas both inside and outside federal lands are...
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has worked cooperative with the Unified Sewerage Agency of Washington County (USA) since 1990 to assess water quality in the Tualatin River Basin. The objectives of this study were to: assess the occurrence and magnitude of trace element and selected organic contaminants in streams of...
Chinook salmon are the largest of any of the salmon in Oregon. Mature fish range from less than 2 pounds to more than 70 pounds. In the late 1800s, chinook salmon were almost the only species taken for canning in the Columbia River, with production peaking at 43 million pounds...
The purpose of this pilot program was to determine whether or not forward looking infrared (FLIR) videography could be used to develop thermal maps of the mainstem Klamath River to access habitat limitations due to high stream temperatures for fall chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).
This analysis was performed for two reasons: 1) the KWG needed a way to focus and synthesize the results of applied research on the condition and trends of natural resources, and the factors affecting those resources; and 2) a detailed watershed analysis was needed to supplement watershed assessments planned for...
An analysis of lumber prices provided regressions for price trends during the period 1971-95 for composite lumber grades of major timber species found in the Pacific Northwest west of the crest of the Cascade Range. The analysis included data for coastal Douglas-fir and hem-fir lumber; coastal and inland Pacific Northwest...
A pandora moth (Coloradia pandora Blake) outbreak began in 1991 in a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex. Laws) spacing study area that also included scattered sugar pine (P. lambertiana Dougl). The relation of defoliation to five tree spacings (with and without understory vegetation) was examined, and stand growth reduction...
Experimental prescriptions compare agroforestry systems designed to increase financial returns from high-elevation stands in the southern Oregon Cascade Range. The prescriptions emphasize alternative approaches for joint production of North American matsutake mushrooms (also known as North American pine mushrooms; Tricholoma magnivelare) and high-quality timber. Other agroforestry byproducts from the system...
Mixed-conifer stands of grand fir (Abies grandis (Dougl. ex D. Don) Lindl., Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco), and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) were fertilized with nitrogen and combination treatments of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur to test their effects on trees and associated insects during...
An interagency project demonstrated the feasibility of integrating Federal surveys of terrestrial natural resources and offers a vision for that integration. At locations selected from forest inventory and analysis, National forest system Region 6, and national resources inventory surveys in a six-county area in Northern Oregon, experienced teams interpreted and...
Seedlings were thinned to spacings of 5, 9, 12, 15, and 18 feet and measured periodically. Twenty-seven years after treatment, quadratic mean diameters increased curvilinearity (p < or = 0.05) as spacing increased, but total height did not differ significantly (p < or = 0.05) with spacing. Corresponding basal areas...
This book is a guide to the plant associations of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. It includes general descriptions of the physical and biological setting of the Recreation Area: its climate, geology, landscape; soils, wildlife, and ecological processes. Analysis of quantitative field data identified 52 plant associations occurring in...
Corvallis scientists report on a multi-organization study that looked at biodiversity as a two stage problem. The first stage is finding those places over a region of study that have the greatest combined biodiversity, and the second stage is studying those important places to see what effects changes in land...
This report presents the concentrations of major ions, nutrients, and trace elements in water and bottom sediments collected in the four-tributaries during the low-flow condition of September 9-13, 1996. Stream-water chemistry results are contrasted, and trace-element concentrations compared with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chronic aquatic life toxicity criteria. Bottom -sediment...
The Airborne Data Acquisition and Registration (ADAR) remote sensing system captured one-meter resolution imagery of 25 different riparian sites in drift Creek Basin of coastal northwestern Oregon, USA. The multispectral, digital data characterized riparian areas with the intent to develop ecological indicators for long-term monitoring.
The goal of this project is to recommend a broadly-acceptale efficient and effective methodology for characterizing streamside riparian attributes in forested settings at the site grain for regional monitoring. The authors consider monitoring design in the context of three interacting constraints: ecological functions, capabilities of technologies, and user needs. The...
Metro received grant funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1995 to gather digital, or computerized, geographic data for the Clackamas River watershed. This atlas was produced as one way to share the information collected with resource managers, policy makers, and people living in and interested in the Clackamas...
The purpose of this document is to summarize the best scientific information presently available for bull trout (Salvelimus confluentus) throughout Oregon and to review their historical and current status. What started out as a relatively simple exercise to review and update the status report by Ratliff and Howell (1992) based...