Completion Form

2024

Rim to Rim Restoration (RRR): 
In the Mill Creek Restoration Partnership WRI 6518 Rim to Rim Restoration successfully implemented work across property boundaries and among agencies. Coordination took many forms, including coordinating planning meetings, as well as conducting site visits with contract crews, interagency work, and writing scopes of work.

Coordination
Rim to Rim Restoration successfully facilitated and supervised many projects this season, working across property boundaries and between different agencies, including work in Upper Pack Creek on USFS. There has also been continued progress on creating and communicating project procedures to contract crews on the ground, especially when there is limited contact with those crews.

Project work
On the ground methods were primarily:
-Hand removal and herbicide treatment to clear tamarisk and Russian Olive from around native plants including willow and cottonwood.
-Spraying knapweed and other high priority exotics along Mill and Pack Creeks.
-Mowing  and hand removing herbaceous annuals and other invasive plants along Mill and Pack Creeks between 500 W and 100 W in town (shown on map as "manual removal")
-Revegetation with longstem plantings, containerized plantings. 
-Frill cut treatment of Russian olive and elm. 
-Installing fencing and plantings around eroded springs in Upper Pack Creek on USFS units.
- lop and scatter work in and around the Pack Creek Ranch area where UCC crews cut dead trees and either scattered the debris or used it to build small dams in erosion gullies where they also seeded.  
-Instream structures in Upper Pack Creek, and bank layback work

BLM: Work completed on BLM lands included willow plantings in the North Fork of Mill Creek near the confluence with Mill Creek, adjacent to Kens Lake Campground and erosion control work on a disturbed hillslope adjacent to Mill Creek.  Work also included Ravenna Grass control throughout the year and multiple volunteer days of tumbleweed and goathead removal near the powerdam area by the Grand County Weed Dept.  Finally social trail management and trash pick up was conducted by the local non-profit organization Moab Solutions throughout the year.

FFSL: Work on private lands followed the same scope as previous years where all Russian olive and tamarisk on sites were cut, chipped, and stumps treated. Elm was typically left on sites where little cottonwood overstory was left but was otherwise cut and chipped. Chips were spread as much as feasible on sites. We also removed about 5 cords of wood from sites for distribution to wood banks in San Juan County with the Wood For Life program. Sites were typically treated with FFSL crews in conjunction with UCC crews. Team Rubicon made another appearance this year with "Operation Grand Adventure". Over the course of 7 days we had roughly 25 volunteer sawyers working on 3 sites in the valley. In addition to Team Rubicon Volunteers we had assistance from the BLM, Moab Valley Fire Department, and Rim to Rim Restoration.

GCWD: 
Grand County Weeds Department focused on removing herbaceous invasive species, including Ravennagrass (Tripidium ravennae), Kochia (Bassia scoparia), and Russian thistle / Tumbleweed (Salsola tragus), from the in-town Mill and Pack creek corridors.GCWD monitored, mapped, and treated 66 acres along the creek banks, and revisited work areas throughout the growing season. All treatments were completed using hand tools.

Rim to Rim Restoration (RRR):
The Rim to Rim Restoration portion of completed work for WRI 6518 was, 8.1 acres of flood debris removal,  20 acres of Russian olive removal (cutting, stump treatments and chipping) erosion control work, 6 acres of fine fuels mowing, 2 acres of containerized planting and 4 acres of herbicide application, for a total of 40.1 acres of total treatments.

Rim to Rim Project coordination has been fine-tuned over the course of previous WRI Mill and Pack Creek projects. Expanding upon and improving these WRI projects year after year has greatly improved coordination between agencies and other partners including Rim to Rim. Other coordination improvements that were implemented in this phase of work were increased involvement of the City of Moab and Moab Valley Fire in planning and developing work plans for the creeks after the large flood and the continued involvement of the Team Rubicon volunteer organization in both fuels removal work and flood debris work.

RRR coordination included the use of an herbaceous weed coordination plan that was reviewed by the BLM, NPS and the GCWD to help with coordination and planning for herbaceous weed treatment projects and improved post-hitch reporting from Utah Conservation Corps crews.

BLM: all the projects implemented on BLM lands were nearly 100% successful, providing important streambank stabilization, removal of invasive plant species, reduction of social trails which all allow natural revegetation to occur and water quality conditions to improve.

FFSL: Work was somewhat typical for Moab Valley Russian olive removal sites in FY24, except for the decrease in accessibility due to sand in the creek corridors. Starting in 2022 the increasing sand deposition with our large floods during monsoon season has made access significantly more difficult especially in our attempts to bring chippers into the creeks. We continued to make good headway removing invasive trees in the corridor but we may need to look to different tactics to continue removal work in future years including burning or mastication where possible.

GCWD:

GCWD's goal was to target Ravennagrass (Grand County Class 4 Noxious Weed) in the Mill and Pack creek corridors, due to the concern of it acting as a fine / ladder fuel. Removal efforts also included other herbaceous invasive species such as Kochia and Russian Thistle. GCWD was able to remove all Ravennagrass found in the project area, and also helped facilitate Americorps work days and volunteer events.

Rim to Rim Restoration (RRR):
Work on Mill and Pack Creeks has built strong collaborative relations between land managers at the local FFSL Sovereign Lands office, DNR staff, the City and County, MVFD, private landowners, the BLM, USFS and nonprofits.  With the many administrative boundaries in our area the continued communication through the SE Utah Riparian Partnership is creating continuity across these boundaries and across intra agency boundaries as well.

Coordination:
RRR coordination efforts will continue through the FY25 WRI Mill and Pack project as well as through the SE Utah Riparian Partnership.  RRR has a contract with the City of Moab to help with planning and coordination of work in the creeks and also is managing a community wildfire defense grant that will relate directly to this upcoming work. That role will increase the effectiveness of the WRI funding for FY25, including riparian restoration efforts. The ArcGIS Fieldmaps tool developed in collaboration with the BLM in the WRI Colorado 5.0 project will help refine and track future planning efforts and project reporting.

Mortality Monitoring:
RRR began monitoring the mortality of native plantings in 2019 and those efforts will continue this coming year. This data will be used to focus and improve species selection, planting timing, methods and site selection. The mortality data is available at any time to project partners and other interested parties, RRR is also happy to provide a monitoring report to any interested partners.

BLM: BLM will continue to monitor the Mill Creek Watershed and complete projects to ensure continued improvements to watershed health.

FFSL: We will continue to monitor old removal sites and prioritize for retreatments as necessary. As mentioned above with increased difficulty in access due to sand deposition we will be working with the fire department and city to see if we can burn some material instead of chipping in certain difficult to access areas. We may also need to borrow tracked equipment in future phases in order to access many of our sites.

GCWD:

GCWD will continue to monitor and treat the project area monthly through the growing season. Non-chemical treatments were shown to be effective and well-received by the public, so removal using hand tools will be the primary method going forward. Since this project was drastically impacted by flash flooding - most vegetation was buried under sediment deposits following a flash flood, and with these deposits are likely countless seeds from upstream invasive species - more planning will be focused on pre-flood season removal and post- flood response.

Duncan Fuchise

08/29/2024 11:43:53