On June 23rd Asotin County hosted a group of international producers from Australia, New Zealand, and Germany highlighting direct seeding efforts in the County. The group was sponsored by their governments as an effort to share ideas and technology advances across the oceans. The group of approximately 60 dry land growers, including some folks from the Palouse, toured the Claassen Brothers farm, the Mark and Susie Greene farm, and the Tom and Vicki Petty farm. They looked at equipment and visited with our folks about production concerns as well as environmental issues that are directing and shaping farm program policy. It was a great opportunity to exchange ideas, and listen to the concerns of dryland producers from around the world. After discussion with several producers it was clear we were dealing with a lot of the same issues and challenges. A great lunch was served up by Vicki Petty and Susie Greene. Thanks again to their hard efforts for making the tour a big success.
Johnson Farm
Entrance to the Field Trials
WSU - Variety Testing Program
On June 24th the CD held their annual tour in conjunction with WSU Cooperative Extension Service variety tour at the Johnson Farm. Stops in the morning included a glimpse of wildlife habitat development efforts at the Scheibe farm on Montgomery Ridge.
Sheibe Farms
Ron has planted miles of hedgerow plantings utilizing fabric mulch and interseeding rows with native grasses and forbs. These areas have been fenced to protect them from livestock grazing. That was followed by a stop at Dallas Dodd’s direct seeded cropland.
Dallas Dodd
Dallas utilized C & L Farms’ flexicoil drill to seed fall wheat. Dallas’ efforts look as if they have paid off with great looking stands in fields that have been no-tilled for ten consecutive crops. Before lunch the group stopped at Vaden Floch’s to see what he had planned for his expired CRP acres on Weissenfels Ridge. Vaden told the group he is looking into the possibility of harvesting brome seed from some of the better fields. He also intends to make hay and graze some of the acres this summer while USDA determines what the new CRP program sign up will look like.
Nick Waldher FSA told the group there looks to be a chance of maintaining a few more acres of CRP in the county due to a decision from national not to remove crop base acres from the county operated by producers from another county. The afternoon was spent looking at forest stand improvement work at the Keith Ausman, Jerry Hendrickson and Bob Kuther Farms.
Mike Miraglio, ACCD took the group up the West Mountain Road to explain the shaded fuel brake practice being implemented. A specially adapted mulching head mounted on a trac hoe will thin and chip immature trees and wood on the forest floor reducing ladder fuels and the rate at which a potential fire could spread into the forest. The fuel break will extend from the East-West Mountain Road to the US Forest Service boundary.
West Mountain Fuel Break
DISTRICT AWARDS
ACCD District Manager, Sandy Cunningham
was acknowledged at a meeting in Dayton, WA as the recipient of the 2009 Southeast Area Manager Of The Year Award.
This award was given to recognize managerial contributions to the Asotin Conservation District. Ongoing efforts in working with the rest of the staff to make improvements to the District’s operations made the District’s program of work more effective. Sandy was thanked for bringing her experience and work ethic to the Asotin County District and the Washington State Conservation Commission was pleased to recognize her work with this award.
Jerry Hendrickson, ACCD District Supervisor,
was selected by the Washington Association of Conservation Districts
for the Eugene Schloz Memorial Award
presented at the
2009 WACD Annual Meeting in
Spokane, WA.
This award is given to an outstanding Conservation District Supervisor who has made an especially valuable contribution to District Conservation Programs and to the State Conservation movement. The award is meant to publicly thank an outstanding Supervisor for their many contributions.
FORESTRY COST SHARE PROGRAM
The ACCD has two programs that can assist forest landowners in improving their forest health and /or reducing the risk of wildfire.
One program is the Western States Grant which is a 50% cost share match. The grant is available to landowners who have 1 to 5,000 acres of forested ground. It is also for multi-homeowner associations, county/local government entities, and nonprofit groups. The program is administered thru the Washington DNR and the ACCD can help you get started with this grant.
The second program is new and it is a grant administrated by the conservation district. This grant has basically the same purpose to reduce fire risk and improve forest health. This grant can also be used for water development in conjunction with wildfire protection. Cost Share Rates will be set soon for this grant.
FIREWISE PROGRAM
ACCD is now conducting FREE “Wildfire Risk and Hazard Assessments” for rural homeowners. FIREWISE is a voluntary wildfire protection program that recommends measures to be implemented
before your property is in the path of a wildfire. It begins with our ACCD technician Mike Miraglio coming to your property to do a site assessment of the outside of your home and the immediate surrounding area. He then develops a “plan” that identifies things you can do to improve the probability that your home survives a wildfire. FIREWISE is not just for homeowners with property in forested areas. All rural homeowners are welcome to have this assessment done. Please call Mike @ (509) 758-8012 for further information and to schedule an assessment. Hurry, slots are filling fast!
Showing Off Some Projects
The Society of Range Management held their winter meeting in Clarkston and rangeland specialists from NRCS, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, WSU and U of I spent one of their days touring projects in Asotin County. The tour included the George Creek meander and riparian enhancement project, Headgate Park riparian improvement project, Thiessen’s alternative livestock watering project and WDFW Smoothing Iron Ranch grazing project. Society members had the opportunity to talk to landowners and producers involved in projects. This tour reminded us how important it is to get funding agencies and technical staff out to projects. We need to continue showing key partners the good work the District, NRCS and landowners have accomplished and remind them why they should continue funding our projects.
The Asotin County Conservation District projects have been highlighted in two recent tours. On June 25th WSU Extension, NRCS and the District hosted a conservation and variety plot tour. The tour included Jon Coe’s project to convert expired CRP acres to grazing lands, Gene Thiessen’s remote site water development, Dr. Steve Van Vleet’s Ventenata Herbicide Trials on Last Homestead Ranch’s property, direct seeding methods by Johnson Farms, Browne Ranch and C&L Farms and the WSU Asotin County Winter Wheat Variety Plots. The tour ended with a BBQ at Ken and Janine Weiss’ farm.
INTENSIVELY MONITORED WATERSHED (IMW)
The IMW is a 10-12 year federally funded program that is intended to answer the question “are the habitat restoration projects producing more fish?” The Asotin Creek watershed was selected as the preferred location for conducting an IMW in southeast Washington. The approach is to use the south fork Asotin Creek as a control, the north fork Asotin Creek as a reference and Charley Creek as the treatment area. Monitoring will continue for the duration of the project and at its end, we expect to be able to answer the question “are habitat restoration projects producing more fish” with empirical data, not speculation that links fish numbers and health with specific restoration actions. To view the IMW plan go to www.snakeriverboard.org (Resources, Document Library, Documents, IMW), or for questions contact Sandy at ACCD or the project manager Steve Martin, SRSRB at (509) 382-4115.
NEW WFFA BLUE MOUNTAIN CHAPTER FORMED
The Washington State Farm Forestry Association inaugural meeting of the Blue Mountain Chapter was held in Dayton, Wa. on September 26, 2009. The Blue Mountain Chapter of WFFA was formed to provide private land forest owners in southeast Washington a forum to share forestry related topics on their ground. The chapter represents Asotin, Garfield, Columbia, and Walla Walla counties and would love participation from all forest land owners.
Membership dues to join WFFA are sixty five dollars a year. Besides getting to meet great people the WAFFA provides educational information to the landowner thru a news letter and on line. They can help with forest management planning and forest certification thru the American Tree Farm certification plan. WFFA has a representative in Olympia to look out for private landowners forestry issues in the state legislature.
The Blue Mountain Chapter plans to meet quarterly and hopes to rotate meetings between counties. They also are planning to do forestry tours. Elected to president and secretary respectively were Greg and Susan Kelly who have timber ground above Dayton. Tom Beechnoir was elected vice-president and his farm and timber ground are outside of Walla Walla.
For more information to learn, share, and promote forest management in our area contact Greg and Susan Kelly at 509-520-4579 or the WFFA at 360-736-5750
My name is Mike Miraglio and it is my pleasure to be writing this letter to you as the newest member of the Asotin County Conservation District. My goal is to provide you with information and service and to assist you in anyway I can with your property goals. My primary focus will be forestry and wildfire related issues. Currently I’m working to implement the FIREWISE Program, to reduce structure and property loss in the county.
My education includes a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Nevada Reno in 1974. After graduation I came north to work for the Forest Service in Avery, Idaho. I presently serve on the Southeast Washington Resource Committee as well as the Columbia County RAC.
My work experience includes: ten years in the woods as a sawyer, four years as a forester for Weyerhaeuser in Kamiah, Idaho, and the last thirteen years as a forester for Guy Bennett Lumber Company in Clarkston. At Bennett Lumber my duties included managing company timber ground in the Blue Mountains and assisting private landowners with their timber management or timber harvest plans.
My wife, Carol and I married and moved to Clarkston in 1980.We feel fortunate to have raised our three children, Michael, Sophie, and Angelina in Clarkston. Michael is a WSU graduate, Sophie is attending LCSC, and Angelina is beginning her first year at Walla Walla Community College in Walla Walla.
I look forward to working with you and urge you to contact me with your forestry or wildfire prevention questions.
Sincerely,
Mike Miraglio
ACCD Forestry
Casey Scott, CREP Coordinator
Hello, I’m Casey Scott and I’m the newest member of the Asotin County Conservation District. I haven’t had an opportunity to meet many of you, and those I have met don’t know much about me, so I wanted to take a brief moment to give a little background information about myself. I’m originally from Southern Idaho where I grew up with an agriculture lifestyle. We had a family farm and harvested alfalfa, barley, and sugar beets, and when we weren’t busy farming we always had 50 to 150 cows to take care of. Between farming and ranching I did have time to do other things I enjoyed which included: high school sports, hunting, fishing, and most important of all rodeos on the weekends. Through my high school years I did spend part of the summer in the Boise area with my father. There my days were spent working at a local feedlot, practicing my rodeo events, and helping my dad put on jackpot team ropings. It was hard work, but I enjoyed it.
After high school I attended Treasure Valley Community College on a partial rodeo scholarship. There I spent two years on the rodeo team and three years in the classroom. I graduated with an Associates Degree and a Welding Certificate. I started welding for a living right after and later decided I wanted to further my education, so I enrolled at Boise State University. Throughout college I realized that I definitely wanted to stay to my roots and find myself a career in the agriculture field and figured that if one day I have a small farm and ranch of my own, a Business Management Degree wouldn’t be a bad thing to have. Currently I’m very close to finishing that degree and am planning on receiving it from Lewis Clark State College.
Now I find myself working in Asotin County at the Conservation District. I am the new C.R.E.P Coordinator and am looking forward to educating myself and helping landowners utilize the opportunity of these great programs. I’m eager to see what improvements we can make, and excited to start working with all of the landowners of Asotin County.
Like most people in the agriculture field I enjoy the satisfaction of a hard days work, and knowing I’m doing what I can to maintain and improve the agricultural lifestyle we all enjoy. So, if any of you can find a spare moment please stop in, have a cup of coffee and say hello.
*This application form is provided for your
convenience in applying for a spot burn permit. Please complete the form and
either mail it to DOE (address on form) or bring it by the Asotin County
Conservation District (ACCD) office in Clarkston at 720 Sixth St. Suite B. The
fee is $25.00 (non-refundable) and must be submitted by check with the
application form. Please review the instructions carefully and provide all the
information on the application form. A map or aerial photo must be attached to
the application form which includes a legal description to identify where the
spot burning will occur. For additional information or assistance, call the
Clarkston ACCD at 509-758-8012.
HEADGATE PARK REVEGETATION PROJECT Page 1 Page 2 The interesting work in progress at Headgate Park, with pictures!
