The Great Basin Restoration Initiative : a hand to nature : progress to date

BLM LIBRARY

88072232

The Great Basin
Restoration Initiative

A Hand to Nature: Progress to Date

BLM Library
Denver Federal Center
Bldg. 50, OC-521
P.O. Box 25047
Denver, CO 80225

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141
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2001

Bureau of Land Management
September 2001

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The Great Basin Restoration Initiative

A Hand to Nature: Progress to Date

Contents

Introduction: A Look Back, A Look Ahead

The Great Basin: The Situation Today

The First GBRI Meeting: "Out of Ashes, and Opportunity"

The Second GBRI Meeting: "Healing the Land"

Definition of Restoration

GBRI Funding

GBRI and Fire Management

Partnerships

Getting the Message Out

How GBRI Fits with Other Initiatives

Profiles of Progress

What Comes Next

Summary

Appendix 1 GBRI Use of Field Units of "Conservation/Restoration

Prioritization Worksheet for Watersheds"

Appendix 2 Members of the Great Basin Restoration Initiative Team ....

BLM Library
Denver Federal Center

Bldg. 50, OC-521

P.O.Box 25047
Denver, CO 80225

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The Great Basin Restoration Initiative

A Hand to Nature: Progress to Date

Introduction: A Look Back, A Look Ahead

In the summer of 1999, the Great Basin burned as it seldom had before.
About 1.7 million acres of public land were blackened, leaving behind a
landscape that was vulnerable to a takeover by non-native annual grasses
and noxious weeds. In the summer of 2000, almost one million more acres
of Great Basin rangeland burned.

The fire season of 1999 was alarming to those who care for the Great
Basin. With more than 25 million acres already dominated by annual
grasses and weeds, and with that figure increasing by some estimates at
4,000 acres per day, the signals were clear: This vast and diverse land was
at a crossroads. Little time remained to reverse the downward ecological
trend of the Great Basin, and a point of no return was close. Either a
comprehensive restoration effort unprecedented in the history of the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) would need to be undertaken or the
Great Basin would continue, at an accelerated rate, on a path toward
ecological collapse.

A small team of people met to examine the problems facing the Great
Basin and began to chart a course that would lead to healthier ecosystems.
From those meetings came two reports, "Out of Ashes, An Opportunity,"
(August 1999), which explained the threats and ecological status of the
Great Basin; and "The Great Basin: Healing the Land" (April 2000), which
proposed guiding principles and outlined goals and actions in five key
areas to help direct restoration work.

Since then, an expanded team representing many disciplines has
continued to meet regularly and work on strategies and products to assist
restoration work in the Great Basin. The overall effort has become known
as the Great Basin Restoration Initiative, or GBRI.

But two years after the devastating wildfires of 1999, it's fair to ask
some questions about GBRI. What has been accomplished? What is
GBRI's funding outlook? How does GBRI tie into the national fire plan,
efforts to improve sage grouse habitat, and other related efforts? And what
is the support level from management?

This report addresses these questions, and provides an overall update
on the GBRI effort. After two years, it's time to check in, assess and
evaluate. It's time to affirm the direction GBRI is headed, and it's also time
to pick up the pace.

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GBRI is important to all who care about this unique region of our
nation. Restoration can serve as an umbrella effort for much of the good
we want to do in the Great Basin. We still enjoy management support and
strong backing from an amazing array of interest groups. Our challenge
is to provide a clear vision and direction to the restoration work, and take
advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

So the short answer to the tough question is, yes, GBRI is alive and
well, and we're just getting started. I am optimistic about future funding.

I am optimistic that we in BLM and our partners have the skills and know-
how to take care of what needs to be done. I am optimistic that GBRI will
make a huge difference in the Great Basin, and that our experiences will
have value for other applications. The challenge is huge, but my belief is
that BLM and our partners will continue the work in an intelligent and
progressive manner.

Restoring the Great Basin is probably one of the most significant
challenges any of us will face in our careers. How we handle it will say
much to new generations about our ability, vision, and most of all, our
stewardship of the land.

Robert V. Abbey

Nevada State Director

GBRI Team Management Representative

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The Great Basin: The Situation Today

Wildland fires burned about 1.7 million acres of public land in the
Great Basin in 1999, most of the damage occurring in one five-day period
in early August. The following fire season was also destructive, with about
700,000 more acres burning in the Great Basin. By September of 2001,
another 600,000 acres had burned in the Great Basin. But the fires were
only one part of the problem, and probably not even the bigger part of it.
Non-native grasses and noxious weeds threaten the ecological diversity of
the land and jeopardize its ability to sustain natural resources. Further, the
burned acreage and subsequent invasion by non-native grasses and
noxious weeds perpetuates the downward ecological spiral. Since annual
grasses in particular cure quickly and carry fire faster, the areas they
dominate become more prone to bum. The rest of the picture is easy to
see. More fire means more annual grasses, and more annual grasses mean
more fire. With roughly one- third of the Great Basin already dominated
by annual grasses and noxious weeds, the conclusion is inevitable. The
basin's ecological resiliency is dramatically reduced, and many areas in it
are on the brink of ecological collapse. In some places especially hard-hit
by weeds, restoration efforts already would be too little, too late.

None of this is news. The ecological troubles of the Great Basin have
been recognized for decades. Cheatgrass, the most vexing of the annual
grasses, has thrived since the late 1800s in the Great Basin. The urgency of
restoration work is new. The wildland fires of 1999 and 2000 highlighted
the Great Basin's dire condition. Many people - scientists, managers,
ranchers, recreationists, environmentalists, elected officials and others -
believe that the window of opportunity to rescue at least parts of the Great
Basin is closing fast. Natural processes, left on their own, may take
hundreds of years or more to rectify the problem.

The Great Basin needs help. BLM is the agency best-suited and best-
equipped to assume the leadership role in providing it.

The First GBRI Team Meeting: "Out of Ashes, an Opportunity"

The first GBRI meeting occurred in August of 1999. Even before some
of the major fires in Nevada were controlled, the team met in Boise. A
report, "Out of Ashes, an Opportunity," summarizes the conclusions
reached by the team. Among the report's conclusions are:

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• Traditional means of fighting invasive species and restoring native
habitat are not enough to reverse the downward spiral of ecological
health in the Great Basin.

• Traditional post-fire rehabilitation, which mostly addresses soil
stability, is not sufficient to resolve the ecological problems
associated with wildland fires. A more encompassing and intensive
restoration effort is needed.

• The cost of such an effort would be high, but the cost of doing
nothing ultimately would be much higher.

• Close cooperation with key individuals, local government and
agencies, and organizations is vital to successful restoration.

• Restoration will not transform the Great Basin to what it looked like
150 years ago, before European settlement, but will restore some
areas of high resource values, reduce impacts to other areas from
annual grass and noxious weed invasion, and reverse the
destructive cycle of wildfire and weeds.

Copies of "Out of Ashes, an Opportunity," may be obtained through
the BLM Office of Fire and Aviation's External Affairs staff, at the National
Interagency Fire Center, in Boise, Idaho, or at the GBRI website, at
www.fire.blm.gov/gbri/

The Second GBRI Meeting: "Healing the Land"

In November of 1999, the GBRI restoration team met again in Boise,
Idaho. The results of that meeting, and the recommendations that came
from it, are found in a report called, "The Great Basin: Healing the Land."
Highlights of the report include:

• It provides background on the ecology and changes within the
Great Basin, and explains why existing practices fall short of a true
restorative effort.

• The report defines restoration.

• It outlines seven main objectives and guidelines for restoration.

• Ten "guiding principles" of restoration are listed.

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• The report proposes a way of organizing and managing restoration
work.

• It outlines goals and actions for five critical areas in restoration
work: planning; inventory and assessment; implementation;
monitoring and evaluation; and science.

Much of this progress-to-date document will be devoted to reporting on
the goals and actions listed in "The Great Basin: Healing the Land."

Copies of "The Great Basin: Healing the Land" are also available from the
Office of Fire and Aviation's External Affairs staff in Boise, Idaho, or at the
Great Basin Restoration website, www.fire.blm.gov/gbri/

Definition of Restoration

Restoration, as defined by the GBRI team in the report, "The Great
Basin: Healing the Land," is:

"Implementation of a set of actions that promotes plant community
diversity and structure that allows plant communities to be more resilient
to disturbance and invasive species over the long term."

This definition gives field offices the latitude to conduct a wide range of
activities under the label of restoration, as long as the actions promote
diversity and the ability of the restored community to better resist or
recover from disturbances such as weed invasion or repeated wildland
fires. Use of native plants in restoration projects is emphasized where the
seed is available and adapted to the site being restored. Many activities
(fire rehabilitation, wildlife habitat restoration, and so forth) currently
funded under other programs meet this definition, and therefore may be
included under the umbrella of GBRI.

GBRI Funding

No permanent account exists for restoration, and the Great Basin
Restoration Initiative (GBRI) is not a separate line item in the budget.
Restoration funding, therefore, arises through several avenues including
numerous subactivities and the National Fire Plan, and can appear to be
done on a piecemeal approach. Efforts such as GBRI are a mechanism to
regionally integrate these funding appropriations. Regionally integrated

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approaches such as GBRI are more suited for the long-term planning and
research critical to successful restoration across large landscapes, which
cross administrative boundaries, for example, state and district or field
offices.

FY 2000

About $2.81 million in funding was applied to projects and programs
that were restoration-related, and were primarily conducted within the
GBRI area. Of this $2.81 million, about 62% (almost $1.74 million) was
applied to projects that are directly related to GBRI (weed management
projects). The remaining $1.08 million was applied to such things as
riparian restoration, implementation of standards and guidelines on high
priority allotments, and GIS mapping of sagebrush habitat, all of which
are restoration-related, but not directly tied to on-the-ground restoration of
uplands, the primary focus of GBRI.

FY 2001

Congress provided Emergency Supplemental Funding for restoration
of $17.1 million. Of that, $7.35 million was applied to projects conducted
within the GBRI area. Breaking down the $7.35 million, $4.02 million was
on-the-ground restoration work. Much of the $9.75 million remaining
from the original $17.1 million was applied to wild horse care after wildfire
($4.7 million), and control of grasshoppers ($1.4 million). Including the
wild horse care as at least indirectly benefitting long-term restoration of the
Great Basin, about $8.7 million of the $17.1 million appropriated by
Congress was applied to on-the-ground restoration efforts within the GBRI
area.

Here is a breakdown of the $7.35 million:

1 . Cheatgrass and weed control - $3,819,000 for on-the-ground
restoration work.

2. Fence repair/replacement because of wildfires - $2,71 1,000.

3. Reseeding/fuels reduction/seedbed preparation - $175,000 for on-
the-ground restoration work.

4. Road repair - $ 145,000.

5 . Vegetation treatment environmental impact statement supporting
restoration projects - $137,000.

6. Watering structures (pipelines, guzzlers) - $108,000.

7. Boise Regional Seed Warehouse - $102,000.

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8. Great Basin Restoration Initiative, coordinator position - $75,000.

9. Miscellaneous - $79,000 (i.e., native plant seed research, tree and
riparian shrub plantings, on-the-ground restoration work).

Additional funding, separate from the Emergency Supplemental
Funding, in the amount of $1.02 million, out of a $1 .5 million
appropriation for invasive species control, was allocated to the GBRI area.
Here is the breakdown of the $1 .02 million.

1 . Northeast Califomia/Northwest Nevada, Sagebrush Steppe/Sage
Grouse Recovery Project - $159,000.

2. Nevada Great Basin Restoration Project - $812,000.

3. Western Utah Sagebrush/Sage Grouse Restoration Project -
$50,000.

These projects were under BLM's "Restoration of Threatened
Watersheds" budget theme.

Additional funding, in the amount of $1.37 million, was allocated to the
GBRI area for sage grouse/sagebrush habitat restoration and native plant/
seed development. Here is the breakdown of the $1 .37 million.

1 . Nevada sage grouse recovery in Great Basin initiative - $1 68,000.

2. Nevada native seed banking agreement - $278,000.

3. Idaho greater Owyhee sagebrush ecosystem restoration - $375,000.

4. Oregon special status seed banking/sage grouse habitat restoration/
Jack Creek restoration - $345,000.

5. Oregon native plant restoration on Steens Mountain - $85,000.

6. Development of native plant material for restoration - $1 1 7,000.

These projects were under either BLM's "Restoration of Threatened
Watersheds" budget theme, or the "Public Land Treasures" budget theme.

Finally, there are benefits to restoration in the GBRI area attributable to
hazardous fuel reduction treatments implemented under the Department
of the Interior's National Fire Plan. Hazardous fuels treatments include
prescribed fire, mechanical, and chemical treatments designed to reduce
hazardous fuels and/or to restore fire to its natural role in ecosystems.

BLM received $17.0 million in Title I funds (available for immediate use)
and $74.7 million in Title IV funds (requires the declaration of an
emergency by the President before they are available for use) for
hazardous fuel treatment. BLM expects to achieve the following acreage

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targets (as of 5/22/01) for hazardous fuel treatment in FY 2001 in Oregon,
Idaho, Nevada, and Utah, the "core" states within the GBRI area.
Included in the National Fire Plan budget for BLM was about $5 million
for the "Native Plant Materials Development Project," of which $1.7
million was allocated to GBRI states in FY 2001. These funds will be used
to increase availability of native plant seed through both research and by
involving private growers in production.

State Acreage of Hazardous Fuel Treatment Projected-FY 2001

Oregon 30,377 acres in wildland urban interface
29,623 acres of hazardous fuels elsewhere

Idaho 37,700 acres in wildland urban interface
48,306 acres of hazardous fuels elsewhere

Nevada 14,565 acres in wildland urban interface
30,435 acres of hazardous fuels elsewhere

Utah 5,510 acres in wildland urban interface

15,191 acres of hazardous fuels elsewhere

FY 2002 Budget Justifications

Funding provided by the FY 2001 Emergency Supplemental Funding
for restoration that came through several subactivities: rangeland
management, soil, water and air; riparian management; public domain
forest management; wild horse and burro management; wildlife
management; and threatened and endangered species management.
Funding will continue to be channeled in FY 2002 and FY 2003 to
complete restoration activities started in FY 2001.

BLM plans to continue making progress toward achieving its resource
conservation and restoration goals by directing funding to the highest-
priority areas. BLM identified priority subbasins - geographic areas that
range in size from 250,000 acres to 2.5 million acres - that will receive the
most attention and funding in FY 2002. The intent in these subbasins is to
begin resource protection projects designed to address multiple resource
objectives on an integrated basis. The GBRI area is a hotspot for these
priority subbasins, because 40 of the identified 82 high-priority subbasins
in the 11 western states lie within the GBRI area.

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The following table lists specific projects within the GBRI area planned
for expenditure of FY 2002 funds; most of these projects lie within high
priority identified subbasins previously mentioned:

Utah

Project: Kanab Subbasin Weed Control and Upland Vegetation Treatments

Potentially Funded By: Soil, Water, and Air

Project: Southeast Great Basin Sagebrush Restoration

Potentially Funded By: Rangeland Management, Wildlife Management

Project: Southwest Utah Endangered Species Habitat Restoration
Potentially Funded By: Threatened and Endangered Species Management

Nevada

Project: Eastern White Pine Native Shrub Restoration

Potentially Funded By: Rangeland Management, Wildlife Management

Oregon

Project: Upper Malheur Subbasin Forest and Woodland Treatments
Potentially Funded By: Public Domain Forest Management

Idaho

Project: Shoshone Basin Sage Grouse and Meadow Habitat Restoration
Potentially Funded By: Wildlife Management

Project: Owinza Shrub-Steppe Enhancement for Special Status Species
Potentially Funded By: Threatened and Endangered Species Management

As stated previously for FY 2001, there are benefits continuing into FY
2002 for restoration in the GBRI area attributable to hazardous fuel
reduction treatments implemented under the National Fire Plan. Acreage
targets for hazardous fuel reduction treatments - BLM-wide and therefore
not restricted to the GBRI Area - are 100,000 acres in wildland urban
interface areas, and 200,000 acres elsewhere, for a total of 300,000 acres.
BLM is requesting $86 million in FY 2002 for hazardous fuels operation,
$57 million of which is targeted to wildland urban interface fuels reduction,

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with the remaining $29 million targeted for hazardous fuels reduction
elsewhere. The "Native Plant Materials Development Project" is expected
also to be funded in FY 2002.

GBRI and Fire Management

Efforts to restore the Great Basin and BLM's overall fire management
program are closely linked in several ways. The complementary nature of
fire management and restoration is being recognized within BLM, the
Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture as never
before.

The importance of restoration and rehabilitation was stated clearly in a
report to former President Clinton, "Managing the Impacts of Wildfire
and the Environment: A Report to the President in Response to the
Wildfires of 2000." In the section entitled, "Key Points and
Recommendations," restoration is featured prominently. The report reads,
"Restoration activities include longer-term actions to repair or improve
lands that are unlikely to recover naturally from severe fire damage.
Examples include planting or seeding native species ... and other efforts to
limit the spread of invasive species. Priorities include preventing
introduction of non-native invasive species, promoting restoration of
ecosystem structure and composition, rehabilitating threatened and
endangered species habitat, and improving water quality."

The vital nature of restoration is echoed in other key documents. For
example, the report, "Review and Update of the 1995 Federal Wildland
Fire Management Policy," states, "The full range of fire management
activities will be used to sustain ecosystem sustainability, including its
interrelated ecological, economic, and social components." Later, the
document reads, "Rehabilitation and restoration efforts will be undertaken
to protect and sustain ecosystems, public health, safety, and to help
communities protect infrastructure."

In the Department of the Interior's draft report "Integrating Fire and
Natural Resource Management - A Cohesive Strategy for Protecting
People by Restoring Land Health, " restoration is portrayed as vital to
successful land management. Ecosystem restoration is one of three
priorities listed for the Department of the Interior in the strategy. "The
invasion of non-native plants has negatively affected ecosystems in many
ways, including native species endangerment, reduced site productivity.

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and degraded water quality. In some areas, non-native species have also
greatly increased the fuel loadings, resulting in fire occurring both more
frequently and more intensely," the document says in its "Background,
Land Use History, and Condition of the Land."

Further, the document warns, "Without increased restoration
treatments in these ecosystems, wildland fire suppression costs, natural
and cultural resource losses, private property losses, and environmental
damage are certain to escalate as fuels continue to accumulate and more
acres become high-risk."

These and other documents affirm the integrated nature of fire and
resource management. They also illustrate the awareness and importance
credited to restoration at the highest level of the federal government.
Restoration, intertwined with fire management, is a concept and practice
judged as vital to the future health of public land.

Partnerships

GBRI is supported by an impressive list of organizations. Not only is
the number of groups impressive, but the diversity of interests they
represent is remarkable. That's a good indicator of the widespread
backing enjoyed by GBRI.

Among the groups that have expressed support for GBRI are:
Agencies

U.S. Geological Survey (USDI)

Agriculture Research Service (USD A)

Natural Resources Conservation Service (USD A)

Forest Service (USD A)

Bureau of Indian Affairs (USDI)

Bureau of Reclamation (USDI)

National Park Service (USDI)

Fish and Wildlife Service (USDI)

Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Nevada Department of Agriculture
Nevada Division of Emergency Management
California Department of Fish and Game
Lassen County Fish and Game

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Universities and Colleges

University of Nevada Reno
Community College of Southern Nevada
Utah State University
Oregon State University
Brigham Young University
University of Utah
Idaho State University
University of California (Berkeley)

Great Basin College

Interest Groups

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

The Nature Conservancy

Mule Deer Foundation

Nevada Cattlemen's Association

Nevada Woolgrower's Association

Society for Range Management

Red Rock Audubon Society

National Cattlemen's Beef Association

Northwest Chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration

Native American Tribes

Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe
Walker Lake Paiute Tribe
Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe

Others:

Western Governors Association
U.S. Senator Larry Craig (Idaho)

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn

U.S. Rep. Michael K. Simpson (Idaho)

U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Nevada)

U.S. Rep. James A. Gibbons (Nevada)

State Senator Dean A. Rhoads (Nevada)

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This is only a sampling of the organizations and individuals who have
demonstrated support for GBRI. Dozens of briefings and meetings have
taken place among GBRI team members and interested individuals and
organizations. GBRI is one of those unusual efforts where support is
widespread and represents a diversity of interests and viewpoints.

Getting the Message Out

The GBRI team was successful in getting the word out about the plight
of the Great Basin and potential for restoration through a variety of
mediums. Presentations at conferences such as the Department of the
Interior's 2001 Conference on the Environment, the Society for Range
Management, Society for Ecological Restoration, National Wildlife Society
and others, provided information to and helped develop additional
partnerships. GBRI team members participated with the "Bom of Fire
Consortium," a group of academics, research agencies and interested non-
government organizations assembled after the 1999 wildfire season to
assist in helping further the objectives of GBRI.

Briefing papers and presentations were given to key congressional
staffs, upon request. The information was also used by other non-
government organizations to further describe the plight of the Great Basin,
and increase support for GBRI goals. For example, the National Wildlife
Federation published, in its magazine, a story entitled, "America's
Forgotten Ecosystem."

Besides the previous two documents mentioned earlier in this report,
the GBRI team completed and distributed a brochure, poster and portable
display about the Great Basin. A Great Basin website has also been
launched. It will serve as an information source on the Great Basin for
both the public and for BLM.

How GBRI Fits With Other Initiatives

A fair question to ask is, "How does GRBI fit in with all of the other
programs and initiatives BLM is involved with?" Does GBRI conflict,
supersede or take a secondary role to the Sagebrush Ecosystem
Conservation Initiative, noxious weed reduction, or the direction provided
by the Interior Columbia Ecosystem Management Plan (ICBEMP)? How
does GBRI fit in with land-use plans? How does it fit in with the National
Fire Plan?

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The short answers to the questions above are GBRI fits well with the
other BLM efforts, and no, no, no, and yes, it should be compatible with
existing and new land-use plans and the National Fire Plan. The overall
objective of GBRI, as explained in "The Great Basin: Healing the Land," is
to "... maintain or reestablish plant communities that are healthy and
capable of sustaining wildlife populations, clean water and air, recreation,
and traditional multiple uses of the land. It will increase plant
communities' resiliency to disturbances such as fire." The objective of
other efforts and initiatives, in general terms, are in harmony with what
GBRI aims to achieve.

In other words, what's good for sage grouse, or what's good for a
threatened plant species, will be provided for through restoration efforts
associated with GBRI. These efforts, while they may sometimes overlap,
will work in concert to produce needed results.

Coordination among the leaders of the various initiatives is a must, to
minimize duplicate work, extend resources, and identify which areas
should be treated first. This coordination will be helped when the GBRI
coordinator is selected and begins work.

Watershed prioritization is one example of how GBRI and another
initiative support each other. The GBRI restoration team has embarked on
a process that will allow the field to prioritize watersheds - the 5th level of
the Hydrological Unit Hierarchy, ranging in size from 40,000 to 250,000
acres - for restoration and conservation. (For more detail, see "Profiles of
Progress - Watershed Prioritization Worksheet" on page 17.) Prioritizing
restoration for large land masses, which contain numerous landscapes,
rather than prioritizing restoration to disparate tiny parcels, is a concept
that sprang from ICBEMP. ICBEMP promotes use of a multi-scale
approach to ecosystem management, with use of broader-scale, context-
setting for prioritization of restoration at finer scales. For the Great Basin,
it means that biological, social and economic conditions within each
watershed with the GBRI area are assessed, so that the most critical
watersheds in need of restoration and conservation can be identified and
drive project prioritization. The watershed prioritization process will
dovetail nicely with BLM's ongoing national level identification of
conservation/restoration priority subbasins - the 4th level of the Hydrologic
Unity Hierarchy, ranging in size from 250,000 acres to 2,500,000 acres.

The Great Basin Restoration Initiative

A Hand to Nature: Progress to Date

In summary, GBRI is intended to be one of the regional pieces of multi-
scale restoration/conservation planning in BLM. As a regional piece, it is at
a finer scale than the national level, but at a broader scale than the project
level.

GBRI's restoration concepts will be plugged in to the Conservation/
Restoration Working Group, one of the elements of the Sagebrush
Ecosystem Conservation Initiative. The Sagebrush Ecosystem
Conservation Initiative includes restoration because BLM realizes that
long-term conservation of sagebrush ecosystems and habitat can only be
sustained with periodic restoration where needed. Without periodic,
strategically located restoration, threats from noxious weeds and other
undesirable plants, such as cheatgrass, will go unchecked and lead to the
unraveling of all conservation efforts.

Profiles of Progress

What follows is a sampling of restoration projects that have been
completed or started in the Great Basin. The list includes an array of
activities, from field accomplishments to mapping and organizational
work needed to support GBRI.

GBRI Coordinator Position

Progress has been made on the GBRI coordinator position. The
position description was completed, approved by the personnel
management committee, and the vacancy announcement is now being
advertised. The coordinator will work under the supervision of the Nevada
state director and work in the Nevada State Office, with reporting
responsibilities to all state directors in the Great Basin. Funding for the
position is secure.

The chief duties of the coordinator will be:

• Ensures coordination and consistency of restoration and
conservation activities in and among the Great Basin states and the
Washington Office.

• Coordinates and guides development and refining of criteria at the
scale of watersheds and at the scale of projects within watersheds.

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• Monitors GBRI accomplishments and expenditures.

• Conducts and coordinates outreach activities.

• Maintains a perspective of inventory and research needs
throughout the Great Basin.

• Provides technical expertise and technology transfer.

• Coordinates and monitors development of plant materials and
plant production programs.

Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Units (CESU)

CESUs are a network of cooperative study units designed to provide
research, technical assistance and education to agency managers and other
resource professionals. Each CESU is organized to work in partnership
with federal agencies. CESUs are based at universities and focus on a
particular biogeographic region of the country. Some federal agencies
contribute research scientists and/or other professionals to work at CESUs
under five-year agreements, subject to renewal.

A Great Basin CESU was approved, hosted at the University of
Nevada/Reno, becoming operational in August 2001. Other partners in
the Great Basin CESU include Utah State University, California State
University at Fresno, Desert Research Institute, D-Q University, Great
Basin College, Haskell Indian National University, Idaho State University,
Oregon State University, University of Nevada at Las Vegas, University of
Utah, and the White Mountain Research Station in California. Federal
partners besides BLM include the U.S. Geological Survey, the National
Park Service, and the Forest Service. The Great Basin CESU could be of
great assistance in helping with the research, inventorying, monitoring
and other related science needs of GBRI.

The BLM contact for the Great Basin CESU is John Haugh of the
Washington Office.

Joint Fire Science Program Project Proposal

Three GBRI team members participated with representatives from
academia and other federal research agencies in the four major states in
the Great Basin to develop a "broad-scale regional experiment on using

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surrogates for fire in managing fuels and achieving restoration in the
Intermountain West" proposal. The proposal was submitted to the joint
Fire Science Program ( JFSP) by a subgroup of the "Bom of Fire
Consortium." The overall objective of the proposal was to develop and
implement a standard protocol that incorporates site-specific fuels
management and restoration treatments into a multi-scale design for
landscape restoration on Intermountain rangelands. GBRI representatives
provided guidance relative to the research needs identified in the "Healing
the Land" strategy, plus, they assisted in writing the proposal.

The request is similar in intent to a current study of eleven forested sites
in various locations in the United States.

The funding proposal, however, was denied. It is expected that the
proposal will be resubmitted in the near future.

Other JFSP proposals that had help from GBRI team members
included one dealing with the hydrological effects of prescribed burning in
the Owyhee Mountains and post-fire recovery of good condition
sagebrush-steppe rangelands in eastern Idaho.

Watershed Prioritization Worksheet

One product of the GBRI team is the "Conservation/Restoration
Prioritization Worksheets for Watersheds." The worksheet is an analytical
tool that assigns a numerical value to watersheds. (See Appendix 1 for a
sample of the worksheet and more details on how it works and has been
used in BLM.)

The numerical value of a watershed is derived as a cumulative rating
for the following conditions:

• Wildland-urban interface (public health and safety concerns)

• Similarity of existing wildland fire regime to the historic range of
variability of wildland fire regime

• Special status species and species/habitats of concern

• Integrity of current plant communities or plant associations, relative
to invasive species abundance

• Riparian area function and condition (includes water quality)

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• Soil properties (e.gv erodibility by water, erodibility by wind,
salinity, sodicity)

• External partnerships/collaboration

• Cultural and historical resources and cultural landscapes

The worksheet further provides a means to assess the functionality of a
watershed (functioning, functioning at risk, improperly functioning with
potential for recovery under reasonable costs, or improperly functioning
with uneconomical recovery costs).

Taking into account the numerical rating and assessment of the
functionality of a watershed allows for the final step: determining if the
watershed is a candidate for conservation, a candidate for restoration, or a
candidate for neither conservation or restoration.

The worksheet should prove to be a good means of helping to set
priorities about which watersheds need the most and quickest restoration
attention in the Great Basin. GBRI team members may schedule training
in the future at field locations regarding how the worksheet should be
used.

Identifying Subbasins in the Great Basin

A project to produce an objective and definitive means of identifying
the geographic extent of the GBRI area (using subbasins as the component
hydrologic units) was completed by Mike "Sherm" Karl, Bruce Durtsche
and Karen Morgan. Using a GAP Composite Vegetation Data Theme, the
percentage of each of seven vegetative types present was calculated for the
GBRI area, plus a buffer along the outside of the boundary, as determined
by members of the restoration team. The total percentages ranged from
zero (subbasins that had no acreage classified among the seven vegetation
types) to 98.5 percent. All subbasins containing at least 20 percent of their
area within the seven GAP vegetation types were identified as part of the
GBRI area. This GBRI area includes portions of previously unaffected
states (Montana, Wyoming and Arizona). It is anticipated that the final
GBRI area boundary will shrink slightly and the final number of included
subbasins likely will be 151 . The results of the work provide a common
delineation of the GBRI area, plus a description of the different vegetation
types located in the GBRI area.

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National Science and Technology Center (NSTC) Contributions

NSTC has developed several other products supporting GBRI, one of
which is the delineation of the GBRI area and the included subbasins,
mentioned previously. Other products include:

• General GIS support in preparing mid- to broad-scale digital data
bases and maps. For example, one product is a map that shows the
change in cheatgrass areas in the Great Basin on a landscape basis.
The primary objective of the task was to produce quantifiable data
and a map showing changes, both increases and decreases, in
cheatgrass over time. The satellite imagery used for this mapping
effort is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
"Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer" (AVHRR) satellite
data.

• Several specific remote sensing and GIS-related products.

• Support toward developing the GBRI conservation/restoration
prioritization worksheet for watersheds. NSTC specifically
provided criteria for soils and special status species.

• The GBRI team requested information on existing inventories of
eight specific weed categories (all thistles, all knapweeds, leafy
spurge, cheatgrass, tamarisk, medusahead, skeleton weed and tall
white top). Based on the collected data, the goal was to prepare a
map showing the degree of infestation in Great Basin counties.
Despite difficulties in obtaining data, the product was delivered in
December of 2000. The GBRI team requested that where noxious
weed data existed for a specific county, that the entire county be
highlighted as having that weed. The subsequent map underscores
the need for consistent, reliable data.

• The GBRI team also requested historical change detection mapping
for cheatgrass and pinyon-juniper communities. A study area in
Utah was selected for the pinyon-juniper project, and another in
Idaho was selected for cheatgrass. In Utah, aerial photography
from 1938-1939 was compared with aerial photography from 1997-
1998 to interpret and produce 16 USGS 7.5 minute topographic,
digitized quadrangles. Change detection analysis will be
completed at NSTC, with the results delivered to the GBRI team. In
Idaho, the aerial photography used as a basis for comparison is

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from 1950-1951, 1987 and 2000. The work will also result in a series
of 7.5-minute USGS topographic quadrangle maps, which will be
subsequently digitized and interpreted. The final product is
expected to be finished in the fall of 2001 .

Emergency Fire Rehabilitation in Nevada

In FY 2000, rehabilitation was conducted on 500,000 acres, with
another 300,000 acres planned for FY 2001 . The rehabilitation projects
included applying diverse seed mixtures on more than 50 different bums
in northern and central Nevada during the two-year period. More than
2.5 million pounds of native seed was used in this effort. The work of the
field offices represents a good first step in restoration of these burned areas.
An additional 1.5 million acres of burned area are being protected to allow
for natural recovery.

Cheatgrass Control Efforts in Elko, Carson City, and Winnemucca

Efforts to refine control strategies for cheatgrass in areas where it has
established monocultures are currently being conducted in the Carson City
and Winnemucca field offices. Both districts applied an herbicide and will
be seeding the treated areas this fall. Additionally, the Elko Field Office
worked with the University of Nevada-Reno Cooperative Extension
program on a sheep-grazing trial to determine the effectiveness of using
sheep to reduce cheatgrass competition.

California Funding for Weed Treatment and Sage Grouse

Habitat Improvement

California's Eagle Lake Field Office received $158,000 for weed
treatment and sage grouse habitat improvement work. A weed abatement
and treatment program received $100,000; a cooperative soil survey with
Natural Resource Conservation Service was allotted $25,000; and a sage
grouse habitat assessment, conducted jointly with the California
Department of Fish and Game and the Nevada Division of Wildlife was
funded at $28,000. A challenge cost-share for $5,000 with the Lassen
County Fish and Game Commission allowed purchase of materials and
tools to repair damaged sage grouse water developments.

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Great Basin Native Plant Selection and Increase Project

A working group of the Great Basin Restoration Initiative cooperated in
developing a funding strategy to increase availability of native plants for
rehabilitation after wildfires and restoration of disturbed wildlands. The
strategy, using an applied science approach, integrates several state
proposals to increase native plant production, knowledge and use within
the Great Basin. Partners in the collaborative approach include BLM
offices in Utah, Idaho and Nevada; USDA Forest Service Shrub Sciences
Lab; Utah Crop Improvement Association; Agricultural Research Service
in Logan, Utah; Utah Division of Wildlife Resources; and the Natural
Resources Conservation Service. Other cooperators may join in the future.

The proposal integrated native plant development submissions
previously prepared by Idaho, Utah and Nevada BLM offices that were
consistent with the "Goals and Actions" contained in the GBRI report
"Healing the Land." The project represents a regional approach to native
plant enhancement encompassing the majority of the Great Basin desert,
the largest block of public rangelands (about 75 million acres) in BLM.

The proposal meets an important objective of the GBRI strategic plan, also
outlined in "Healing the Land."

Priorities for funding include selection of native seed sources to their
culture, seed increase, and use on degraded rangelands. The proposal has
four categories and includes 54 native plant species. The categories are: (1)
Increasing native plant materials for restoration; (2) Managing re-
establishment of seed sources and technology to improve the diversity of
introduced species monocultures; (3) Technology transfer; and (4) Genetic
research of native plants. Studies and activities will focus on maximizing
the increase in native plant materials available for rehabilitation of burned
rangelands and restoration of degraded rangelands in the Great Basin.

Total funding for the project is $4.6 million over five years. The
majority of the funds will be transferred to the USDA Forest Service's
Rocky Mountain Research Station, Shrub Sciences Lab in Provo, Utah,
through an interagency agreement. The expected funding to begin the
project in FY 2001 is $800,000.

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Cheatgrass Control Projects in Washington

All the necessary planning and clearances for the Rattlesnake
Cheatgrass Control Project will be completed this year, with the field work
scheduled for next fiscal year. The 20-acre project site is about 15 miles
southeast of Yakima, Washington, an area subject to frequent wildland
fire. The area is virtually a mat of cheatgrass. Plans are to treat the site
with a chemical, followed by seeding with native plants. Funding for the
project totals $40,000.

In the Border Resource Area, 300 acres of cheatgrass were treated with
chemicals and then re-seeded.

Chemical Treatment Cooperative Program in Oregon

The Bums District entered into a three-year cooperative program with
Oregon State University to assess the impacts of fall application of the
herbicide, "Oust," where native vegetation has been invaded by
medusahead. The study will evaluate the impacts on the associated species
and provide a scientific basis for the decision to use or not use Oust, after
an injunction on herbicide use is lifted. Heavy infestations of medusahead
are occurring in habitat of threatened and endangered species, as well as in
areas of forb species critical for sage grouse. Total funding for the project is
$44,000.

Also in the Bums District, several small sites infested with medusahead
were treated with an herbicide and removed manually in the last two
years.

Variety of Restoration Projects in the Vale Field Office

Planning for restoration work has been completed on Succor Creek
(2,000 acres) and Bully Creek (3,500 acres), and is in progress for the
McDermitt Complex, totaling 30,000 acres. Rehabilitation work was
augmented by spraying 1,000 acres of rush skeleton weed on the Jackson
fire. Also on the Jackson fire, the Vale Field Office seeded 2,000 acres with
sagebrush, and planted native vegetation on an additional 11,000 acres.

On the Kern fire, 326 acres were seeded with non-native plants, 1,630
acres were seeded with native species, and 3,700 acres of sagebrush was
seeded. The Vale Field Office seeded 600 acres with non-native vegetation
and 600 acres of sagebrush on the Wildhorse fire. Alkali Flat was a burn-

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and-spray project of 1,000 acres, which was seeded under the Jackson
emergency site rehabilitation after it was burned over.

In addition, the Vale Field Office seeded about 5,500 acres of non-
native species and 2,500 acres of native vegetation as part of the
rehabilitation of the White Mule fire. Finally, a 600-acre experimental site
was sprayed and seeded as part of an effort to determine which chemicals
are most effective in reducing competition with annual grasses while not
harming native vegetation.

Restoring A Former Agricultural Site in the Prineville, Ore., District

In 1992, the Farmers Home Administration transferred title to 512 acres
near Clarno, Oregon, to BLM. Experts from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service found unusually high values for fish, wildlife and other resources.
The land was transferred to BLM, in part, because it manages adjacent
public land in the federally designated John Day Wild and Scenic River. A
70-acre agricultural field, now in public ownership, had been leased to
grow crops.

In 2001, a Record of Decision was signed for the John Day Wild and
Scenic River Management Plan. The plan directed the 70 acres be taken
out of commodity production and planted with perennial vegetation.

Land surrounding the parcel have weed problems, and the risk of the field
being infested was high unless BLM took quick action.

The Prineville Field Office, under the auspices of GBRI, planted
perennial grasses, irrigated to establish the grasses, and sprayed weeds on
the 70 acres. Although spraying to control weeds occurred three times, the
results are promising.

Fillmore Field Office (Utah) Completes Fire, Weed and Sage Grouse Work

The Fillmore Field Office completed a variety of restoration projects.

On the Railroad Fire, 20,100 acres were seeded, and 10,500 acres were
treated for knapweed with better than a 95% control rate. Two-hundred
acres were treated for Scotch thistle and low white-top. Seed mix
comparison trials were conducted on the site, using two rates of native seed
mix, a BLM seed mix, and Agricultural Research Service seed mix, and
control plots.

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On five separate fires, more than 23,400 acres were seeded, all of which
appear to be successful thus far. More than 200 acres of white top and
squarrose knapweed were treated as part of the West Mona emergency fire
rehabilitation (EFR).

Other investigations in the Fillmore Field Office examined knapweed
competition. These investigations included planting of desirable species
planted into plots of established knapweed; planting knapweed into
established plots of different species; and planting knapweed with
desirable species. The results of the investigation will provide information
about how to slow this aggressive invasive species. On another project,
investigations were directed toward controlling cheatgrass with four
herbicides. Yet another promising investigation concerns release of the salt
cedar leaf beetle, a potential biological control for salt cedar.

In 2000, noxious weed control was completed on 800 acres outside of
EFR sites, with another 700 acres completed to date in 2001.

In conjunction with the Cedar City Field Office, an inventory of sage
grouse populations and habitat was completed following disturbance of
habitat by wildland fire.

The Fillmore Field Office is planning to restore 2,100 acres of a
cheatgrass monoculture through prescribed fire, herbicide application, and
reseeding in the fall of 2001.

This is a sampling of work being done. Other restoration projects are
being completed or planned in the Fillmore Field Office.

Idaho Sagebrush Seeding After Wildfires

Sagebrush and wildlife, especially sage grouse, are closely linked in
Idaho and other western states. Over the last ten years, wildfires have
burned an average of 250,000 acres of public land in Idaho, much of it
sagebrush. Concerns about sagebrush loss due to wildfires resulted in a
concerted effort to reseed sagebrush after wildfires, where sagebrush was
present prior to the fire. This concern is well-illustrated in southeastern
Idaho, in a 700,000 acre area called the "Big Desert." Since 1996, 76
percent of the sagebrush in this sage grouse stronghold have been lost to
wildland fire. In 2000, of the 117,000 acres burned, 101,000 were aerially
seeded to sagebrush. To protect these seeded areas from future fires,
greenstrips (strips of fire-resistant vegetation) were seeded along 24 miles

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The Great Basin Restoration Initiative

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of roads to reduce the risk that a future wildfire will wipe out all of the
current sagebrush restoration. Monitoring and evaluation is continuing to
determine the success of the current effort and to modify treatments in the
future, if results are unsatisfactory.

What Comes Next?

GBRI has been around for two years, yet it remains a work in progress.
The effort is beginning to show results, some of which are highlighted in
this report. But it's also fair to say that not enough has been done, and the
majority of the work looms ahead for years. As Nevada State Director Bob
Abbey said in his introductory statement, it's time to pick up the pace.

BLM and its partners need to do that, if for no other reason than the
ecological deterioration of the Great Basin is accelerating. Maybe it's a
race, and if it is, it's a race that the Great Basin and BLM cannot afford to
lose.

< 1

Some steps that must be taken in the near future are clear.

• The Great Basin coordinator position must be filled.

The work of the GBRI team has progressed about as far as it can go
without a coordinator. The effort needs a full-time coordinator to take care
of the day-in, day-out details, to promote the work, to provide the vision
and technical support, and work with partners. The GBRI coordinator also
must provide the all-important link to the state directors, field managers
and specialists in the Great Basin, who will be responsible for carrying out
much of the work. With the position advertised, this important step is
much closer to being taken.

• A consistent source of funding must be established.

The Great Basin biogeographic region contains the highest
concentration of land managed by BLM, and it is imperiled. Piecing
together a budget works only for awhile. What is needed now is a
consistent source of funding that will allow the proper prioritization,
planning and project work to be accomplished.

f

ft*. *

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• Coordination among other programs and initiatives within BLM
must improve.

GBRI, on a regional scale, has the same aim as other initiatives in BLM.
All of them seek to improve the health of ecosystems. A concerted effort to
work closely and pool resources must be made to make all of these efforts
as efficient and as effective as possible. It's vital that restoration work in the
Great Basin needs to be approached in a holistic manner, and not
competitive, fractured efforts varying according to jurisdiction or resource
program. Also, more base resource information needs to be obtained to
help ensure maximum cost-effectiveness and success in restoration. Soil
information and potential plant community information is an example of
where more information is needed. Ensuring that the necessary
coordination within the agency takes place will be a primary responsibility
of the GBRI coordinator.

• Work with partners, educational efforts, and overall visibility of
GBRI needs to accelerate.

GBRI enjoys wide support among interest groups, elected officials,
academia and many other organizations and individuals. Yet the support
remains undirected in many ways. It needs to be translated into
restoration work at the field level. At the same time, there is a striking
need for more education about the ecological challenges facing the Great
Basin, for both internal and external audiences. While the visibility of
GBRI has been good, and several information products have been
produced, an overall long-term communication strategy needs to be
developed, soon after the coordinator is selected.

• Restoration planning must be completed.

Restoration work takes time and planning. One area manager in the
Great Basin said his "reserve of restoration projects is exhausted." He
suggested it takes a minimum of three years to properly conduct
restoration work - a year to design the project, with appropriate
consultation; another year to meet the conditions of the National
Environmental Policy Act and other requirements; and the third year to

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The Great Basin Restoration Initiative

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conduct on-the-ground restoration. The time and planning factors must
be accounted for as restoration work is considered and budgets prepared.

Summary

GBRI has made progress since its inception in the wake of the 1999
wildfire season. The effort has a mixture of products and field work to its
credit. Public and employee awareness is increasing, both of the ecological
problems confronting the Great Basin, and some of the steps being taken
to address those challenges. The very term "restoration" is becoming more
understood and accepted, both within BLM and among cooperators and
interest groups. Restoration is prominently featured in several key
documents, including the report to former President Clinton, "Managing
the Impacts of Wildfire and the Environment: A Report to the President in
Response to the Wildfires of 2000," which became the starting point for the
National Fire Plan.

GBRI, though, needs to gain more momentum. The difficult fire
season of 2000 accentuated the restoration needs in the Great Basin. GBRI
must take root and become a part of the BLM mainstream. Selecting a
coordinator and securing funding are two important steps toward that
achieving that goal.

Challenges in the Great Basin will be resolved in one way or another. If
restoration work withers and dies, nature will provide the resolution, with
harsh and unacceptable consequences. If BLM and its cooperators
continue the work and allot the attention and resources required by the
problems of the Great Basin, then the story will have a much more
acceptable outcome.

As Bob Abbey wrote in his opening introduction to this progress report,
restoring the Great Basin is the perhaps the most significant challenge any
BLM employee will face, and how we react says much about our ability,
vision and how we chose to care for the land.

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The Great Basin Restoration Initiative

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Appendix 1

Great Basin Restoration Initiative (GBRI)

Use by Field Units of "Conservation/Restoration Prioritization
Worksheet for Watersheds"

Background

The "Conservation/Restoration Prioritization Worksheet for
Watersheds" has its origin in the BLM report "The Great Basin: Healing
the Land." In "Healing the Land," seven objectives are identified for
restoration. One of them is:

Develop Criteria for Prioritizing Restoration Work and Funding

Common criteria for setting restoration priorities would ensure
consistency in allocating funds for the work. They would also provide clear
guidance to field and resource area offices regarding what restoration work is
considered most important. The criteria should be developed in consultation
with field representatives.

During the course of several Great Basin Restoration Initiative (GBRI)
meetings, eight criteria were identified by GBRI team members, several of
whom are field representatives. The eight criteria are listed below, and
include biological, physical, social, and economic considerations.

1 . Wildland-urban interface (public safety and health concerns)

2. Similarity of existing wildland fire regime to the historic range of
variability of wildland fire regime

3 . Special-status species and species/habitats of concern

4. Integrity of current plant communities or plant associations, relative
to invasive species abundance

5. Riparian area function, including water quality

6. Soil properties (e.g., credibility by water, credibility by wind,
salinity, sodicity)

7. External partnerships/collaboration

8 . Cultural and historical resources and cultural landscapes

The eight criteria were identified with the expectation that they would
be assessed and ranked at a landscape scale, in this case watersheds. That
way, watersheds can be ranked for their restoration and conservation
priority.

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Watersheds were selected as the geographic area for prioritization for
two reasons. First, the BLM Washington Office, in the FY 2001 Annual
Work Plan General Directive, states that priority subbasins for
conservation/restoration will be identified, and within those subbasins,
priority watersheds will be identified. Watersheds are nested hierarchically
within subbasins, with watersheds conforming to the 5th level of the
Hydrologic Unit Code and ranging in size nationally from 40,000 to
250,000 acres, whereas subbasins are the 4th level of the Hydrologic Unit
Code and average about 450,000 acres in size, ranging from 250,000 to
over 2 million acres in size. A national level assessment of biophysical and
socio-economic conditions suits identification of subbasins for
conservation/restoration prioritization, whereas a regional level assessment
- for example the Great Basin Restoration Initiative - suits identification of
watersheds for conservation/restoration prioritization within the subbasins
for the region.

Secondly, consistent with language in "Healing the Land" and the
BLM's FY 2001 Annual Work Plan General Directive, restoration is to be
focused on ecosystems that are larger than the site-specific scale, and that
deal with all biophysical and socio-economic issues in an integrated
manner.

Use of the Prioritization Worksheet by Field Units within GBRI

Idaho, Nevada, California, and Oregon have made some use of the
Prioritization Worksheet to date. It is still premature to expect the field
units to use the Prioritization Worksheet for its intended role, because the
priority subbasins for conservation/restoration at the national level have
yet to be finalized by the Washington Office, though that is expected to
happen soon. The Prioritization Worksheet then will be ready to use for
the GBRI area.

Here is a summary of how Idaho, Nevada, California, and Oregon
have used the Prioritization Worksheet to date:

Idaho

Idaho received $1.2 million for "cheatgrass and weed control" in FY
2001. The Prioritization Worksheet for watersheds was used by the Upper
and Lower Snake River field offices to prioritize watersheds for "cheatgrass
and weed control" restoration, within the restoration priority subbasins
identified in the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project's
Final Environmental Impact Statement. In addition, all field offices were

r* '

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I* y- ~i

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29

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The Great Basin Restoration Initiative

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directed to use the Prioritization Worksheet to assist in prioritizing fuels
management projects on the landscape.

Nevada

An earlier, October 2000, version of the Prioritization Worksheet was
used to prioritize projects across Nevada. The thinking was that the
criteria contained in the Prioritization Worksheet seemed applicable to the
project scale, as well as the watershed scale. Each field office attempted to
apply the Prioritization Worksheet to their proposed projects. Difficulties
with the Prioritization Worksheet's use at that time centered on two points:

1 . A lack of narrative descriptions for the criteria, which if present,
would have assisted the field in its interpretation of how to rank the
criteria; and,

2. Because of the lack of narrative descriptions, there were broad
differences in rankings for individual criteria among field offices.

These difficulties tended to skew the results of project prioritization,
and caused a general feeling of discontent in some field offices. To lessen
the discontent and provide a greater basis of commonality, the criteria
were changed to broader criteria, which were noxious weeds, cheatgrass,
wild horse and burros, special status species, watershed quality, and soils.
Each field office then compared and ranked their projects based on these
criteria. This process was deemed more subjective than if the Prioritization
Worksheet had been used in full.

In February 2001, the Prioritization Worksheet surfaced again during
deliberations based on the FY 2001 Annual Work Plan General Directive to
identify watersheds within conservation/restoration priority subbasins.

The field offices were given direction in the General Directive to use water
quality, special status species, public health and safety, rangeland health,
and wild horse and burros as five criteria for prioritizing subbasins. The
field offices performed this operation but did not further identify
watersheds within these subbasins. The perception was that the
Prioritization Worksheet was complex, with numerous rankings, and the
data that would be required to populate the Prioritization Worksheet was
suspect.

Training on the Prioritization Worksheet may be provided to address
the concern about complexity.

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California

To date, the Prioritization Worksheet was introduced to the field offices
and its importance for consistency was stressed. In addition, the
Prioritization Worksheet was presented at the annual GIS workshop as a
tool for prioritization. One difficulty raised was that California has yet to
delineate all of its watersheds, so it is premature to expect the field offices to
prioritize watersheds with the worksheet. According to the General
Directive in the FY 2001 Annual Work Plan, states have until March 31,
2002, to delineate their watersheds.

Oregon

The Vale District used the concepts of the Prioritization Worksheet,
rather than the worksheet itself. The other eastern Oregon offices (Bums,
Lakeview and Prineville) do not have team representation yet on GBRI
and have not used the Prioritization Worksheet. Vale used most of the
criteria in the Prioritization Worksheet during its priority-setting
deliberations over which Geographic Management Areas (GMAs) in their
Resource Management Plan should be prioritized for rangeland health
assessments and rangeland health evaluations. GMAs are contiguous
groupings of watersheds (and also livestock grazing allotments) that share
similar resource potential and land-use issues, and are comparable to
subbasins in geographic extent. The message is that the criteria contained
with the Prioritization Worksheet were used in the intended manner, to
prioritize actions within watersheds or livestock grazing allotments within
theGMA.

A difficulty expressed by the Vale District in its use of the Prioritization
Worksheet is that issues such as livestock grazing are administered at a
management unit (that is, allotment) that differs from a watershed unit.
When watersheds are ranked through the Prioritization Worksheet entail a
change in livestock grazing management to achieve restoration, the
changes in livestock grazing management must be done at the allotment
unit level, allotment by allotment. Watersheds have yet to be mainstreamed
into the BLM as management units. The GBRI Prioritization Worksheet is
a useful tool to help focus on the watersheds and areas that need attention.
However, use of the Prioritization Worksheet for prioritizing funding
allocations at the watershed scale is problematic, because not all
management changes (for example, livestock grazing) can be
administered at the watershed scale. Therefore, not all units of
accomplishment can legitimately be tied solely to a watershed unit, either.

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In the context of livestock grazing, watersheds are merely unfenced areas,
within which are pastures or allotments. Or, watersheds might actually lie
within an allotment or allotments, and watersheds need to be considered in
context when management adjustments or restoration projects are
proposed.

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Appendix 2

Members of the Great Basin Restoration Initiative Team

Robert V. Abbey,

Nevada State Office

t

Management Team Representative

Diana Brink

California State Office

Bruce Durtsche

National Science and Technology Center

m

Pat Fosse

Dillon Field Office

Carl Gossard

Office of Fire and Aviation

John Haugh

Washington Office

Mark Hilliard

Washington Office

Meg Jensen

Nevada State Office

>

Mike "Sherm" Karl

Washington Office

A.J. Martinez

Utah State Office

Dianne Osborne

National Science and Technology Center

Mike Pellant

Idaho State Office

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Tim Reuwsaat

Washington Office

Don Smurthwaite

Office of Fire and Aviation

Jerry Taylor

Vale Field Office

Duane Wilson

Nevada State Office

Sheldon Wimmer

Utah State Office

Bill Ypsilantis

National Science and Technology Center

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