2014 Citizen Road Survey and Monitoring Report
In 2009 OFCO initiated a citizen road survey and monitoring project for the Olympic National Forest (ONF). In 2010, 2011 and 2014 we continued to train volunteers to collect information on roads and trails. This continuing project provides an excellent opportunity to educate citizens about road conditions and land management practices that have the potential to harm aquatic systems. In 2014, more than 25 hikers and conservationists from the nearby area and the local chapter of Great Old Broads for Wilderness volunteered to participate in the road and trail surveys for this project.
Throughout the Olympic Peninsula, the ONF is planning a number of large thinning harvest projects (4,000 to 5,000 acres each) over the next several years, including the Queets Vegetation Management Project (QVMP). Associated with these projects will be the construction of “temporary log-haul” roads. In this process, unclassified roads are brought up to log-haul standards by the logging contractor and then typically decommissioned by the contractor to the pre-logging condition (pull culverts or sidecast dirt that were necessary for log haul) at the end of their contract.
Information gathered from this project will be provided to the ONF and other interested parties to assist in assessing the potential impacts from re-opened roads that have not been used for decades and for determining how adequately these roads can be treated post-logging in order to prevent sediment delivery to streams. This information will be also be useful to forest conservation organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest where similar “thinning” projects are being planned.
To read the full report, please click below.
https://olympicforest.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Citizen-Monitoring-Project-218.pdf
Appendix, Summary and Letter Sample:
https://olympicforest.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2014-Appendix-Roads-Report.pdf