Forest treatments recommended: Upper Monument Creek restoration initiative builds on Roundtable suggestions

The Upper Monument Creek (UMC) landscape, which has experienced increasingly severe and costly impacts from wildfire, including the record-setting 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire that burned across the landscape’s southern boundary, will be treated over the next seven to 10 years using a combination of mechanical, manual and prescribed fire methods on approximately 18,000 acres.

The UMC Landscape Restoration Initiative was launched in 2012 to accelerate the pace of urgently needed forest restoration and build on the work of the Front Range Roundtable. That group has been working since 2004 to dramatically reduce wildfire risks to communities and restore resilient ecological conditions in Front Range forests. The Collaborative Report associated with the initiative recommends the following specific strategies and forest officials say they are proceeding accordingly.

Things to know about forest treatments:

1. The greatest benefit will be accrued through a combination of mechanical thinning, manual hand thinning and prescribed fire. Each tool produces benefits, but a combined treatment approach is most effective.

2. Over the next ten years, these treatments will consist of approximately 6,000 acres in mechanical thinning, 6,000 acres in manual hand thinning, 3,000 acres of site preparation and 3,000 acres of prescribed fire.

3. The majority of treatments will be focused in the landscape’s three primary forest systems: ponderosa pine, dry mixed-conifer, and mesic mixed-conifer.

4. Treatments emphasize the creation of more open canopy conditions, and on retaining and fostering the underrepresented older age trees.

5. The ponderosa pine-Douglas fir system should receive the most thinning treatment, followed by the dry mixed-conifer system with recommended thinning treatment at approximately 5,900 and 4,300 acres respectively. Acres requiring prescribed fire are distributed across the three major forest systems.

6. Treatment is also expected in the smaller lodgepole pine and Gambel oak systems, primarily for the purposes of wildfire risk reduction and/or preparation for prescribed fire in adjacent ponderosa pine-Douglas fir, or dry mixed conifer systems.

7. Total cost of treatment for the proposed management scenario will be approximately $10 million over the next ten years.

The Upper Monument Creek Landscape Restoration Initiative Collaborative Participants:

• Rob Addington, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute
• Greg Aplet, The Wilderness Society
• Mike Babler, The Nature Conservancy
• Mike Battaglia, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station
• Ed Biery, USFS Pike and San Isabel National Forests
• Peter Brown, Rocky Mountain Tree Ring Research
• Jonathan Bruno, Coalition for the Upper South Platte
• Tony Cheng, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute
• Casey Cooley, Colorado Parks and Wildlife
• Yvette Dickinson, Colorado State University
• Missy Davis, The Nature Conservancy
• John Dow, USFS Pike and San Isabel National Forests
• Carol Ekarius, Coalition for the Upper South Platte
• Jonas Feinstein, Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Allan Hahn, USFS Pike’s Peak Ranger District
• Eric Howell, Colorado Springs Utilities
• Chad Julian, Boulder County
• Jan Koenig, The Nature Conservancy
• Paige Lewis, The Nature Conservancy
• Larry Long, Colorado State Forest Service
• Sara Mayben, USFS Pike and San Isabel National Forests
• Pam Motley, West Range Reclamation, LLC
• Aaron Ortega, USFS Pike and San Isabel National Forests
• Felix Quesada, USFS Pike’s Peak Ranger District
• Steve Sanchez, USFS Pike and San Isabel National Forests
• Andy Schlosberg, Colorado State Forest Service
• Diane Strohm, U.S. Air Force Academy
• Jeff Underhill, USFS Pike and San Isabel National Forests
• Eric Zanotto, USFS Pike’s Peak Ranger District

Problems are historic, aim is for resilience

Upper Monument Creek has experienced increasingly severe and costly impacts from wildfire

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

What many organizations and government agencies call the the Upper Monument Creek (UMC) landscape has been identified as a potential problem area for some time by several groups. Historically in fact, it has experienced increasingly severe and costly impacts from wildfire, including the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire that burned across the southern edge.
The Front Range Roundtable (a collaborative group that has been working on such initiatives since 2004) identified this area as a high priority treatment area to reduce the risk of large severe fires and to increase the function of the watersheds.
The UMC landscape is located on the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) Pike National Forest and participants in the UMC Landscape Restoration Initiative (the Initiative) worked together for more than a year to develop collaborative, science-based management recommendations aimed at restoring forest resilience and reducing wildfire risks to communities in the area.
Among those agencies and groups working on the initiative are: Coalition for the Upper South Platte, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Colorado Springs Utilities, Colorado State Forest Service, Colorado State University, Rocky Mountain Tree Ring Research, The Nature Conservancy, The Wilderness Society, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, West Range Reclamation LLC.
The Initiative submitted their report and recommendations to the USFS in early 2014. The Report provides background on the natural and human history of the UMC landscape, describes current forest conditions and challenges, and details the spatial and non-spatial analyses conducted by the group through their collaborative process.
Based on these analyses, the UMC Collaborative recommended that the USFS use a combination of mechanical, manual and prescribed fire treatments to manage conditions on approximately 18,000 acres within the 67,000 acre UMC landscape over the next 7-10 years. The estimated ten-year budget needed to implement these recommendations totals slightly over $10 million, or about $1 million average cost per year.
According to reports developed by the Roundtable and the organizations involved, the area's history is partially responsible for some of its challenges.
"The Upper Monument Creek (UMC) landscape was used seasonally by several indigenous groups, human settlement in the area did not begin in earnest until approximately 1860. Early settlers established and expanded timber operations in conjunction with mining activity. By 1867, several large-scale saw mills were operating in the area in response to the rapid pace of development. General William Jackson Palmer, anticipating railroad-driven economic growth, initiated development of the Colorado Springs area in 1871. A full-scale timber boom ensued as harvesters raced to meet the needs of the rapidly growing community and associated mining and railroad industries," according to the Roundtable's report, and they referred to other previous report examining the area.
"By the 1890s, much of the UMC landscape and surrounding area had been extensively logged and badly burned by both human and naturally ignited wildfires. A 1900 report by U.S. Geological Survey employee John G. Jack noted that at least 75% of the forests around Pike’s Peak had been logged, burned or both. While regular cycles of natural fire had occurred in lower-elevation forests for centuries, the increase in human activity led to larger, more severe and more frequent fires in all forest types," according info put together in early 2014.
"In his report, Jack described these forests as among the most damaged of any he had seen in the nation. A map accompanying the Jack report shows much of the UMC landscape occurring in areas designated as “badly burned” or “much burned over.”
Accordingly, concern about the condition of the forests and the potential negative impacts on water supply led President Benjamin Harrison to designate the Pikes Peak and Plum Creek Timberland Reserves in 1892. These reserves were consolidated, along with the South Platte Reserve, in 1907 to form the Pike National Forest, one of the first two National Forests in Colorado.
The federal government launched an aggressive reforestation initiative throughout the Pike National Forest shortly after its establishment. As a result, more than 2 million trees were planted in the area between 1912 and the early 1920s. The most significant planting in the UMC landscape occurred from 1924-1932 when the U.S. Forest Service’s now-defunct Monument Nursery oversaw the planting of seedlings across more than 7,000 acres. Current conditions in the UMC landscape reveal the lasting impact of these ambitious planters."
Though well-meaning, but probably misguided, federal policy of the last century mandating aggressive prevention and suppression of fire. This policy (it is now thought) led to the further disruption of natural fire cycles and promoted the growth of dense, even-aged forests that became stressed by competition for resources and vulnerable to unnaturally large-scale wildfires and insect and disease outbreaks.
No significant fires occurred in this particular area between 1916 and 1989, when the Berry Fire (aka Mount Herman Fire) burned 850 acres in proximity to the USFS’s Monument Fire Center.
In 2002, the Hayman Fire burned approximately 137,000 acres in an adjacent area Northwest of UMC, spreading 19 miles and growing by 62,000 acres in one day. In 2012, the Waldo Canyon Fire burned 18,247 acres northwest of Colorado Springs, destroying 346 homes and forcing 32,000 residents to evacuate.
"After a brief increase in logging during the 1950s, very little systematic timber harvest has occurred in the area surrounding the UMC landscape apart from smaller scale thinning and fuels reduction projects. Current forest management projects are complicated by the difficulty of operating in a largely urbanized environment, the relatively low value of products to be removed and the high cost of transportation due to a lack of local wood processing facilities," according to the UMC Collaborative Report.
"Rapid population growth and development in Colorado Springs, Woodland Park and surrounding communities has been a significant driver of conditions in the UMC landscape and, in fact, the entire Pike National Forest. The UMC landscape includes portions of El Paso and Douglas counties, two of Colorado’s fasting growing municipalities. The economic base of the area has shifted from one driven by resource extraction to one dominated by high tech businesses, higher education and the federal government. As a result, the UMC landscape is now highly valued for aesthetics and as a recreational outlet for urban dwellers," the report says.
"Hikers, cyclists, equestrians, hunters and anglers, wildlife enthusiasts and off-road vehicles all frequent these forests, placing increasing pressure and stress on the natural systems. Of particular concern are illegal shooting ranges, refuse dumping, and illegal creation of roads and trails. The USFS monitors these uses and periodically restricts access to the most heavily impacted areas to allow for revegetation and repair. Human use is particularly high on and around the Rampart Range Road and Mt. Herman Road. Unfortunately, due to staffing and resource constraints, resource degradation from illegal recreation use is not adequately addressed in some areas," the group working in collaboration noted.
"Of related concern is the expansion of homes, business and related infrastructure into previously wildland areas, a zone also known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI).
The presence of people and homes in the forest contributes to fragmentation of the landscape, dramatically increases the values at risk from wildfire, and adds to the difficulty and cost of wildfire risk reduction and other management efforts."
The project currently involves work related to Environmental Impact Statement which is expected to be release to the public later this year. Carin Vadala, NEPA Planner for the Forest Service is the lead for the Upper Monument Creek Initiative, and sees nearly a decade of before project completion. "Once the EIS is finalized it is anticipated that projects will continue for about 10 years,” Vadala said.
"The UMC Landscape Restoration Initiative is an ambitious and hopeful endeavor. It reflects the Collaborative’s belief that it is possible to change the trajectory of our high-risk forest landscapes – resulting in a brighter future for both people and nature. The development of these recommendations is a first step in that direction," according to the conclusion of the UMC Collaborative report.

No excuses, perhaps understanding

Bad is never good, until worse happens.
Difficult times are relative. In order to grasp how a particular attitude may have developed, it is important to know the history surrounding it. The history offers no excuses, but perhaps understanding.
“I was about ten years old when the Utes were moved to western Colorado,” wrote Margaret Benn, longtime Douglas County resident and historian in the early 1960s. “So, as a youngster on the ranch, I had several personal experiences that made me very sad to think I was not big enough to kill an Indian. In fact I will confess I was 35 or 40 years old before that desire finally faded entirely out of my mind.”
From 1860 to 1875, families living in the settlements near Glen Grove School on Upper West Plum Creek in Douglas County were compelled to protect their own scalps if they wished to continue wearing them, according to Benn’s letters.
“They formed the practice of keeping each other posted on the temper and location of all Indians, who might be roving the hills. Any sign of danger in any region was quickly communicated to others,’ she said,
“But settlers did not live in terror, as many imagined they did. They could cope with the primitive, elemental savagery of pioneer life in pretty much the same spirit of native birds who sang and nested happily, even though the hawks and eagles constantly soared overhead.”
Benn had come to Colorado from Missouri at the tender age of three and her family settled near an uncle’s homestead on Spring Creek.
“My Uncle George (Dakan) had helped build Fort Washington and was a member of the cavalry troop under Captain John A. Koontz. Very naturally, I grew up in that neighborhood, from early childhood to maturity among the original settlers, I heard their experiences often told and retold, by the men, women and children that made Fort Washington their haven of refuge,” Benn wrote.
Today, although there are no visible remains of the log stockade that enclosed a homestead cabin and a large well near Larkspur, the Ben Quick ranch, which was built later in 1885, marks the spot of Fort Washington. The site has been on the National Register of historic places since 1974.
“And when my family took up life in that community, the Ute Indians still roamed the hills and valleys for many miles both north and south of us. The east slope of the mountains from near where Fort Collins now stands, to Canon City was their home and their original hunting grounds,” according to Benn’s letters.

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