GNA Spotlight, Montana, October 2024
The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (MT DNRC) is partnering with the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest through the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) to carryout Basin Creek Municipal Watershed fuels reduction. This is a series of projects to facilitate fuels reduction in the municipal watershed for Butte, Montana which is at high risk damage in the event of a high severity wildfire.
Mountain pine beetle outbreaks that occurred approximately 15 years ago resulted in standing dead and jack-strawed timber and high fuel loading across the Basin Creek Municipal Watershed south of Butte, Montana. Fuel loading of this nature can lead to high-severity fire, which can result in loss of soil stability and run-off. A single storm event following a high-severity fire may introduce large amounts of soil and woody debris from fire-affected areas of the watershed into reservoirs, increasing the potential for having to take a water treatment plant offline. If this were to happen to the City of Butte, they would have insufficient water to serve residents and would need to draw water from the Bighole River watershed that is used for agricultural irrigation, recreation, and provides critical aquatic habitat for the Arctic Grayling. This would cause additional environmental and social impacts on natural resources in the area.
“It is very critical that the fuels situation in the Basin Creek Municipal Watershed is addressed as soon as possible,” said Jim Keenan, Chief Operator of the Butte – Silver Bow Water Utility. “Given the immense quantity of beetle-killed lodgepole pine in the watershed along with the steep slopes and erodible granitic soils, our concern is that a high severity wildfire in the watershed could render the Basin Creek Municipal Water Supply (and recently constructed $30M Basin Creek Water Treatment Plant) unusable for up to a decade, maybe longer.”
The following GNA projects have been completed:
- Basin Creek Corner Surveys - Contract to survey 40 corners in the planned project area.
- Basin Creek Non-commercial Fuels Reduction – Contract to complete seven acres of slashing and piling.
- Basin Creek Road Engineering Survey – Contract to engineer and design of 1.5 miles of road reconstruction necessary to access watershed for mechanical fuels reduction work.
Additionally, MT DNRC is actively working or planning to work on the following GNA projects:
- Basin Creek Road Reconstruction – Contract was issued to reconstruct the forest road that will serve as the primary access and haul road for equipment treating Butte Municipal
- Basin Creek Non-commercial Fuels Reduction: 300 acres of non-commercial slashing and hand-piling near reservoirs.
- Basin Creek Mechanical Fuel Reduction – 1,557 acres of timber removal and mechanical slash treatment that will yield an estimated 2.5 MMBF of sawlogs and 32,700 tons (1,250 log truck loads) of firewood and other forest products.
To learn more, contact Gary Ellingson, MT GNA Program Manager, and Ann Parks, GNA Supervisor Forester.