Nov. 21, 2002: Reach repair to start

Reach repair to start

This story was published Nov. 21, 2002

By Mike Lee
Herald staff writer

The Hanford Reach National Monument will get a $6 million makeover starting Friday, when the first restoration team plans to start chemically clearing weeds off 10,000 acres.

Next up is replacing 30 miles of fences, followed by hand-planting 700,000 sagebrush and the aerial seeding of 10,000 acres with native plants - all in one month.

The project marks substantial progress for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had just adopted the monument when it was gutted by fire in June 2000.

"This kind of brings closure - like losing a loved one or something that has such impact," said Greg Hughes, project leader at the agency's Richland office. He has been planning rehab efforts for about two years while waiting for money and proper biologic conditions.

"We are excited about getting going and finally doing something to effect some change on the landscape," Hughes said. "Normally, what you are able to do is a postage stamp - an acre here and an acre there - and you don't get much bang for the buck."

Because of the monument's prominence, the project cost and the size of the burned area - 163,000 acres - the rehabilitation effort is expected to draw interest from conservation scientists from across the arid West.

"Restoration work is still a very new science, and you can plant a whole bunch of new plants and have a couple of years with very low rainfall and lose them," said Leslie Brown, spokeswoman for The Nature Conservancy of Washington. "There are no guarantees. We do our part, Mother Nature does her part, and we see what happens."

The inherent risks of nature already have pulled $4 million away from the rehabilitation work. Officials in Washington, D.C., recently shifted that much money from the Hanford site to other fire sites.

"That's unfortunate because (monitoring and reseeding) is exactly what needs to be done," said Mike Lilga of Richland, who sits on the monument advisory committee. "These things are not one-shot deals. You really have to be persistent."

Slashed funding creates more pressure to get the job done right the first time, said Dave Smith, a natural resource supervisor with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Richland. However, it's likely that The Nature Conservancy of Washington will monitor recovery and the Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking more money for plantings next year.

"We will have to do it in little chunks and build on initial successes," Hughes said. "I guess it's too early to say 'success.' We will wait and see."

The project includes restoring 1,600 acres of what was high-quality sagebrush, the likes of which have been gobbled by development in the last 100 years, thereby limiting habitat for sage-dependent species.

Most high-quality stands of big sagebrush on the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve - an environmental centerpiece of the monument - were destroyed in the 2000 fire. Where the fire consumed sagebrush, it burned hotter than elsewhere and often destroyed native plants and the soil crust, leaving the land vulnerable to erosion and noxious weeds.

"The purists would say it will come back by itself, and part of me agrees with that," Lilga said. "But the other part of me says it really doesn't have a chance by itself because the frequency of fire is so much higher than it used to be before man was here in great numbers."

Approximately 45 workers are expected to help with what is expected to be less than two weeks of work to plant the 700,000 sagebrush seedlings. It is the largest such effort in the Northwest this year and by far the largest post-fire effort on the monument.

"We figure that one person can plant between 500 and 1,000 (seedlings) per day," said Bill Mast, owner of Richland-based WildLands, an environmental restoration company. "They hit it hard and they are good."

Mid-Columbia businesses such as WildLands, Tri-City Fence and L&H Seed won approximately $4 million in contracts.

Plans also call for replacing 30 miles of wire fencing with one-strand fence that collects fewer tumbleweeds, thereby reducing the danger that a fire will spread rapidly in quick-burning brush caught in the fence line.

This week's weather conditions are about as good as possible, given the region's prolonged drought, making project managers optimistic about their chances.

"It's looking good for the planting effort that we will have moisture to plant in," Smith said after a series of small rain showers this week. "It was hard to believe, but (moisture) was there."

Just as important, cheat grass is starting to flourish in the recent warm and wet weather, creating a relatively easy target for aerial applications of the herbicide Roundup scheduled to start Friday.

"If we don't move in quickly, cheat grass will take over, and cheat grass is what has ... made this a more fire-prone landscape," Brown said.

The project is expected to be done by the end of the year, but fire management and restoration will remain central topics for agency managers and the advisory committee. "The big fire is behind us, but there are always new fires ahead," Lilga said.