United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service
Kootenai N.F.
506 U.S. Highway 2 W.
Libby, MT 59923
File Code: 2550, 1950

Date: November 21, 1997

Route To:

Subject: Kootenai Soil Monitoring Results for 1997; Monitoring Item F-4, Soil Productivity

To: Regional Forester
Attn: John Nesser

MONITORING ITEM F-4 is SOIL PRODUCTIVITY. For the Kootenai Forest Plan the action or effect to be measured is "determine the changes in site quality due to surface displacement and soil compaction". During 1997 1 monitored logging activities within harvest units on timber sales, fuel abatement activities within timber sales, and segments of roads. Following is a summary of these activities.

A. Harvest activity:	1. Thirteen sales 2. Twenty-two harvest units 3. Forty-two transects 4. Total of 766 acres
B. Roads	1. Three road segments
C. Fire	1. Five sales 2. Six harvest units that have been burned

The Kootenai National Forest harvested 12,093 acres in fiscal year 1997 in the following categories:

1. Clearcut - 2018 acres		5. Special - 568 Acres
2. Seed tree/shelterwood - 2661 acres		6. Intermediate - 1715 Acres
3. Final harvest - 663 acres		7. Select - 22 Acres
4. Salvage - 4445 acres

Of the 13 sales reviewed for harvest activities, three were "regular" sales involving 126 acres. The ten remaining sales were "salvage" involving 640 acres.  Of these ten, six were fire salvage and four were dead and down and/or down lodgepole pine salvage. The "salvage" reviews represent 14 percent of the salvage acres harvested, while the "regular" represents approximately 1.5 percent of the regular acres harvested. The acres reviewed represent 6 percent of the total acres harvested in fiscal year 1997. A total of 15,418 monitoring points were described. As noted on the forms, operations occurred throughout much of the year, but avoided the months when the soils were at or near field capacity. This is reflected in the results, where only five units had five percent or more heavy disturbance.

A total of 88 harvest units within 44 sales have been reviewed since 1992. Of the 44 sales, 22 are regular, five are pest control, 10 are fire salvage, and seven are other (dead lodgepole pine, western white pine, and/or ponderosa pine over large areas; windthrow; etc.) salvage. Attached are four tables that indicate the types of sales, number of sales, number of units, the soil disturbance categories, and a summary of all from 1992-1997.

Overall, I am very pleased with the results of our more recent on-the-ground harvest activities. If you have any questions, please call.

/s/ Louis J. Kuennen

LOUIS KUENNEN
SOIL SCIENTIST, KOOTENAI N.F.

Caring for the Land and Serving People

Purpose: This monitoring item was established to help ensure that the basic soil resource is not compromised in the production of other resources such as timber harvesting, grazing, etc. The Plan requires this item to be reported every five years. The expected accuracy and reliability of the information is moderate.

Background: Soil resource management has the goal of maintaining or improving long-term soil productivity and soil hydrologic function. Soils can be physically damaged by the displacement, compaction, puddling, and infiltration reduction due to the use of heavy equipment, especially during wet weather and wet soil conditions. They can also be physically and chemically damaged by heat during any intense burning, such as from wildfires, broadcast burning during site preparation, or by the burning of mechanically-bunched slash piles. Soils that are damaged from the above conditions incur adverse affects on their hydrologic function or sustain actual losses in soil productivity.

Ideally, the soil quality standards that would be used for measuring soil damage would be soil structure and fertility. Because these soil qualities are difficult to measure, other soil qualities are substituted. These substitutes are soil displacement and the associated soil compaction.

Region One has a policy that allows up to 15 percent detrimental disturbance (FSH 2509.18, 5/l/94). The Kootenai Forest uses the 15 percent detrimental disturbance as a measure to track the impact on site productivity. If 15 percent of an area is significantly disturbed, then we can say that it has probably incurred a decrease in long-term site productivity.

Field monitoring is done within activity areas using the line transect method. The line transect is perpendicular to the direction of the ground-disturbing activity. Usually, three transects (an upper, middle, and lower) are completed within each activity area. Each transect represents the activity that occurred within that portion of the activity area. All of the monitoring completed so far is representative of timber harvesting operations. The activities represented are cable logging, forwarder logging, and tractor logging (rubber tired skidders and tracked vehicles). Both summer and winter operational periods are included in the ground-based activities. Fuel reduction activities had occurred in some of the units.

Results: Surveys have been completed on 88 timber harvest units scattered across the forest between 1992 and 1997. These areas represent the current logging methods including the types of equipment being used for skidding, mechanical falling, yarding, and slash piling. The areas ranged in size from two to 143 acres. The 1992 report showed that 49 percent of the 501 acres surveyed to that point were above the Forest Plan variability limits of 15 percent detrimental compaction. Since then, 1,998 acres have been surveyed and only 1 percent (21 acres) were above the Forest Plan limits.

Table F-4-1 displays the types of timber sales monitored from 1992-1997. Table F-4-2 displays the number of units by harvest types monitored from 1992-1997. Areas where cable logging methods were used show little or no detrimental disturbance. The use of forwarders and winter logging, also, result in very low to low detrimental disturbance. Areas where tractors were used resulted in a higher level of detrimental disturbance, however, were still within the desired levels. In general, the amount of heavily disturbed area increased directly with the number of machinery operations.

Evaluation:

1992 Results: The 1992 Monitoring Report indicated that 49 percent of the surveyed acres, to that point, were beyond the Forest Plan variability limits. Twenty units on 10 sales were monitored. Eight units comprised of 245 acres contained more than 15 percent detrimental compaction. They ranged from 19 to 27 percent. The influence of past activities was observed in one of the units. Unit One of the Good Creek P.C. Sale only had 10 percent detrimental impact from the current activities. As the result, though, of activity in the early sixties another nine percent occurred at that time. Since the previous activity built excavated trails horizontally across the terrain and the current activities were generally accomplished vertically on the landscape, the combination of the two activity periods created 19 percent detrimental impact.

Some of the reasons for the areas beyond the Forest Plan variability limit of 15 percent detrimental disturbance were: the inclusion of small areas of steep terrain within areas of more gentle terrain, inadequate designation of the proper logging equipment, the application of an approved silvicultural prescription, and level of experience of the sale administrator(s) or logging operator(s).

Post 1992 Results: Of the 68 units surveyed since 1992, only 21 acres (one percent of measured acres) (one and one half units) were beyond the Forest Plan variability limits. This very major change is mainly a result of reduction of acres that are "dozer piled". Other reasons include more winter logging, more broadcast burning, and more use of forwarder logging equipment.

1992-1997 Summary: The total of 2,499 acres surveyed from 1992-1997 represents about seven percent of the annual harvest acres. If the areas measured are representative of the entire Forest, about 11 percent of logging and site preparation activities may be beyond the variability limit of the Forest Plan. This number, however, is very misleading since only one percent of the harvest activities since 1992 are detrimentally impactive and it appears that the number will remain this low. In support of this statement it is noted that only seven of the remaining 68 units (Table F-4-3a) were even beyond 10 percent. This represents only eight percent of the acreage (Table F-4-3b). In fact 45 units were less than five percent detrimental impact.

Based on the information stated above (the improvement that has occurred since 1992 and that no unit was greater than 15 percent in the last three monitoring seasons, also seen in Table F-4-4), this monitoring item is determined to be within the recommended range stated in the Forest Plan (no acres should measure more than 15 percent of detrimental disturbance).