The foothills of the eastern Stansbury range have experienced a tremendous amount of pinyon/juniper (PJ) encroachment in the last century and was subsequently designated as a priority area of concern for incidence of catastrophic wild fire by the Utah Division of Forestry, Fires and State Lands Wasatch regional work group. The FFSL identified 178,453 acres of eastern Stansbury Mountains as a priority area for fuel reduction. In 2015 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that Utah would receive $1.1 million through an RCPP grant to reduce the size intensity and frequency of catastrophic fire. Soon afterwards, Grantsville Conservation District facilitated discussions between FFSL, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Utah Division of Natural Resources, GIP and land owners to encourage participation in a catastrophic fire project. From this partnership, $1,306,299 in grants were submitted and almost all was approved to reduce the fuel load on the Stansbury foothills. This amount will only treat 3,556 of the 178,453 acres. Proposals include reducing fuel load (PJ) by at least 80%; increasing perennial herbaceous cover to 15%; reduce the threat of fire from high/extreme to low/moderate; reduce fire suppression difficulty from extreme to moderate or less; improve livestock management and distribution using fencing and water.

1. Reduce fuels and fire risk 2. Reduce exotic weeds 3. Increase native species biodiversity 4. Increase native animal habitat 5. Make it possible to establish an extra grazing pasture that will support proper grazing regime 5. Increase pasture AUMs

1. Fire - there is an elevated risk of fire in the project area from both Juniper and cheatgrass fuels 2. Invasive species - there are both listed noxious weeds and cheatgrass established within the project area. Weeds are already starting to degrade the habitat and increase the risk of fire. With continued establishment there is also a risk of community turn over from native to exotic. 3. Juniper invasion - in about 500 acres of the project area there young juniper trees are establishing within a sagebrush habitat. If this area is not treated the sagebrush habitat with threatened with being turned into a Juniper habitat, which will increase the fire risk and decrease biodiversity.

With the EQIP contract prescribed grazing management will be established along with a conservation plan that will adhere to practice standards, along the guidelines of the SITLA grazing management plans and standards.

Fuel reduction is one of the main objectives of this projects. In Phase 1, there is 300 acres of treatable mature juniper that will be removed with a 2 way chaining and reseed with a mixture of native and introduced grasses, forbs and shrubs. There is also another 280 acres of juniper establishing into sagebrush habitat that will lopped and scattered. Phase 2 removes 600 acres of mature juniper.

Juniper stands release larger sediment loads during storm events as compared to other habitats; converting a juniper stand to a grassland can reduce the sediment load from a 25-year storm event by 75% (http://juniper.oregonstate.edu/EC1417.pdf). Reducing sediment load from storm events will improve water quality and decrease soil erosion. Juniper also uses large quantities of water, which is used to out complete other vegetation. Removing juniper would release that competition, increasing the amount of available water in the soil. (http://juniper.oregonstate.edu/EC1417.pdf)

As part of the planning process with an EQIP application NEPA is completed within the SCA-52 of the NRCS document. The project manager will coordinate with the NRCS staff archaeologist to complete the appropriate archaeological clearance. This is also required for the UCC State funding used at the project site.

- Young juniper invasion - Lop and scatter contracted out by the permittee - Fall 2017 - Aerial herbicide treatment in field 5 and 2- helicopter aerial application of herbicide contracted out by permittee - Fall 2017 and Spring 2018 - Juniper stand removal in field 5- Two-way chaining completed by the permittee - March 2018 - Fence building - completed by permittee September 2017 - Aerial seed application in field 5- helicopter aerial application contracted out by permittee - October and December 2018 - Field 5 will be rested for two growing seasons - In Fall of 2019 field 5 will be grazed and Field 4 will be closed to grazing and 2 way chained for juniper - Fall 2021 all fields will be grazed and rest/rotational grazing will be implemented

Quantitative and qualitative monitoring will be conducted in spring 2017, before any treatment starts, in spring 2018, during treatment, spring 2019, 2020 and 20201, after treatment. Plots will be established in the mature juniper stand, cheatgrass stand, juniper invasion stand and in a control. Plant species diversity, abundance, cover and frequency will be taken, as well as, AUM and range condition scores. Photo plots will also be established in each plot.

Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (funding and planning) - Natural Resource Conservation Service - (funding and planning) - Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (landowner) - Hunt Ranch LLC (permittee) - Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (consultant) -

One of the objectives of this project is to create pastures that will enable the permittee to implement a rotational grazing schedule that will allow a pasture a year's rest. SITLA and the permittee have agreed to incorporate this as part of their grazing management plan, which SITLA is responsible to enforce.

This project area is grazed. Currently the Utah State GIP program is helping the permittee to install a fence and another fence will be installed with the funding of the EQIP application, resting a 5 pasture grazing system. The fifth pasture is mostly cover with a mature juniper stand that does not provide enough forage to be able to support grazing within that pasture. With juniper removal and reseeding the fifth pasture will be able to be grazed, which will create a grazing rotational schedule that will allow one pasture to rest for a year. This will increase the AUM's as well as rangeland health that will increase long term sustained grazing.

10/27/2017

05/18/2018

2018

Toter Truckin was awarded the bid for two way chaining which began 27 October 2017 for the first pass and then completed the second pass after the seed was flown on and finished the chaining on 17 November 2017. Seed was flown on 363 acres by fixed wing plane from Morris AG Air on 13 November 2017. Cutting Edge Forestry began a 300 acre lop and scatter on 6 November 2017, they finished the L&S on 15 Oct 2017. Golden Eagle Fencing won the award to build 5,809 feet of fence within the project allotment they started May 7th and finished May 18th.

Jessica Delph (UDAF) started this project and had most of the treatments bid out and then took another job and handed the remainder of the project to Boyd White (UDWR). The bids came in and were awarded and work began. In October 2017 with the chaining, then the lop and scatter, aerial seeding and the back chaining. There were details with the fence that needed to be worked out between SITLA and the permittee so the fence was postponed until the UDAF employee was replaced. Katie Potter took over the project as a new conservation planner/partner with the NRCS and she bid out the fencing and saw the project through to completion in May 2018.

This project site will be managed for livestock grazing and will be rested for two growing seasons while the seeded vegetation matures.