KVRI looks at past restoration projects, plans for the future

BONNERS FERRY — The Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative (KVRI) convened for its monthly meeting on Monday, Feb. 13. One of the highlights from Monday night’s meeting was a presentation by Forester Kevin Knauth focusing on the CFLRP program that the Forest Service and the KVRI is currently implementing.

CFLRP, Knauth explains, is an acronym for a “collaborative forest landscape restoration project”.

According to Knauth, the Forest Service has special funding available for restoration work, but in order to access those funds, the agency has to work with a collaborative group to formally submit a proposal regarding how the funds will be utilized. The KVRI is that collaborative element, and they have worked hand-in-hand with Knauth and his colleagues with Idaho Panhandle National Forests in order to formulate a plan for how to effectively fund the various restoration projects that are needed in area forests.

According to Knauth, the kind of restoration work varies depending on the situation. One example of a restoration project would be logging non-native trees and replacing them with endemic species that are more appropriate for that particular site. Other examples are re-planting vegetation along stream courses, which helps to mitigate erosion, as well as prescribed burning.

“A lot of it is improved road maintenance and culverts and things,” Knauth says. “Fixing roads that, as the phrase usually goes, ‘leak dirt’ into the creeks.”

Part of the Forest Service’s role in the CFLRP, Knauth explains, is to look ahead and determine what exactly can be accomplished with these federal funds: “As a proposal, [the CFLRP] says, ‘if you were to give us this amount of money, this is the kind of restoration work we could produce each year with those type of funds,’”

Of course running these numbers is easier said than done. There are dozens of factors that can affect these projections, including the weather, which can halt or slow down a project before the work on the ground even begins.

The CFLRP report that Knauth shared with the KVRI last Monday night focused on what projects were accomplished with CFLRP funds during 2016, including exactly how those funds were distributed. For example, the Forest Service was able to restore or enhance approximately six miles of stream habitat last year, and the cost of those restoration/enhancement projects amounted to approximately $150,000.

The other side of Knauth’s report looked to the future, toward what projects might be feasible in 2018.

Referring to the CFLRP report, Knauth says, “It kind of allows the collaborative, who sees this report, to see that things are on track and that there’s no real trouble coming over the horizon. But it also makes us think out ahead so that we can better anticipate some of those speed bumps that might be out there.”

This “thinking outward mentality”, as Knauth describes it, helps ensure that the funds are used as effectively as possible. In other words, planning is everything.

“It’s sort of like planning a trip overseas,” Knauth says. “You build a list of things you need to do as part of that planning, and then you check that list. And then you add things to it. And then you make sure you’ve caught everything...and before you know it, it almost took you longer to plan the trip than it did to take it.”