County Land Issues

Anita Weston, Rerporter

Rich Civic Times 

RANDOLPH, Utah. February 5, 2014.  Blaine Hamp, Area Manager of the Division of Forestry Fire and State Lands, along with Dustin Richards, Area Fire Management Manager; Jennifer Hansen, Sovereign Lands/WUI Coordinator; and Morgan Mendenhall, Area Forrester; appeared before the Commission to update them on the State Programs. 
 

Morgan Mendenhall works with Forrest Stewardship Planning.  He helps individuals with their private lands to make forest plans that will increase the value of their land and increase productivity of that land as well.  He noted that he had worked with five landowners and two others are in process.  This coming summer 5,000 trees will be planted.  Last year 1,500 were planted.  There will be a diversification of the kinds of trees to be planted.  Currently the Lodge Pole Pines are not healthy and Douglas Firs had trouble last summer.
 

Jennifer Hansen reported that she has been concerned about a wildfire plan in the Bear Lake Area.  She has sent letters to individuals over the subdivisions of Sweetwater, Bridgerland, and Elk Hollow.  She got no responses from her letters.  She is continuing to make a plan to help in case of wildfires.    She thinks that the Forrest Service will want to cooperate with this plan. 
 

Jennifer noted that the sovereign land area is contributing some monies for lake access.  Wet land delineation needs to be done along the entire lakeshore.  She will be hiring a surveyor to get a definite line all the way around the lake on the Utah Side to determine the high water mark.  Currently there are 600 different landowners who are not certain of their property lines.
 

The final plan for the Bear Lake Plan will be completed.  It will be presented in May 17 in Garden City at their Bear Lake Days.  Mitch Poulsen will be spearheading that activity.  She noted that there are still issues with boat ramps.
  

She also reported that there will soon be a full time sovereign lands job position for the Bear River area and will cover Bear Lake.  That person will work out of the Logan Office.
 

Currently Jennifer is working on a project on the east side of Bear Lake.  It is critical that an area there be protected, and motor vehicle use must be limited.  The area was posted, but individuals destroy the signs.  She is now putting up a cable barrier.  This will close off the area and is in the best interest of natural resource values.  Posts have already been placed.  They will be cut off at three feet height and a cable will be strung this spring.  She had a map to show areas that are heavily used (marked in red) and other area where people group (marked in purple).  She asked that the County give her permission to finish this project.  The cable barrier is entirely on sovereign lands.  The Commissioners asked that the cable be marked in some way so that it can easily been seen and won’t trip or cause problems.  
 

Dustin Richards is the Fire Management Manager over four counties:  Rich, Cache, Tooele, and Box Elder.  He reported that cutting of dead trees around the lake is finished, and they will be burned early this spring. He talked about catastrophic wildfires may occur in the various County areas, and plans to mitigate this possibility are needed.
 

If funds are made available, there may be a fire burn on the east side of Bear Lake near the cell towers.  There are 640 acres in that area included in this project.  Dustin  is also looking at making a large water storage tank above Woodruff.  There needs to be a County-wide education program about fire suppression and fuel mitigation programs. He would like to see some fuel brakes created in several areas but will need to get land owners’ permission.
 

It was noted that there needs to be some ordinance work done.  Burning the trees and fuel around the lake is important.    He noted that most of the cutting has been done on the west side.  Most of the piling has also been completed.  The workers will need to get a few places that were missed.  If the water is lower, they may even attempt to cut a few more trees as time permits.  
 

The County Fire Chief noted that a fire workshop will be held in the County which is a good refresher course for the volunteer firemen and gets them ready for the summer season.