The YMCA camp area is in need of vegetation management in order to reduce wildfire WUI concerns, improve safety for thousands of youth campers, restore forest health and function for big game species, increase forage for grazing allotment, and improve watershed conditions. Primary focus is terrestrial and aquatic wildlife and fuels reduction. * Hazard tree and fuel build-up: spruce beetle outbreaks in large diameter spruce have created nearly complete mortality of the overstory trees in this drainage. This creates a safety hazard from tree fall to camp personnel and youth. Furthermore, once trees have fallen to the forest floor, the increase of fuel will continue to build and worsen potential for high severity fire if an ignition occurs within the drainage. By cutting and removing large hazard trees from the camp perimeter, high severity fire potential can be reduced. Once treatment is complete, much of the surrounding forest around the camp will act as a shaded fuelbreak, improving the ability of fire suppression resources to stop fire from reaching the camp and conducting burnout operations if required. * Removal of large dead trees and downfall will increase sunlight to the forest floor of understory and increase forage for big game species and improve access to meadow forage areas for livestock grazing. * Timber sale areas often have large meadows within the forested areas that are grazed by livestock. The amount of grazing in these areas depends largely on the amount of residual trees, the amount of downfall and ease of being able to move through the forested area to more suitable range. The removal of dead trees will allow greater access to this transitional area, easing movement to adjoning pastures. * Felled hazard tree removal: Previous cutting of hazard trees in the Riparian Habitat Conservation Areas (RHCAs) and nearby uplands have created a hazardous fuel build-up and degraded in-stream hydrology. In addition to the cutting and removal of standing dead trees, some of the large felled trees would be removed and piled for burning others would be place in stream when beneficial.

* Treat 57 acres of large diameter, beetle-killed timber by cutting, decking, and removing trees by selling logs. Treatment area is located in Mill Hollow, the drainage the YMCA camp is located in. This will reduce potential watershed degradation from high severity fire by removing standing dead and future dead and down fuels. * Improving the fire outlook, increases in habitat heterogeneity and forage would benefit habitat conditions for deer, elk, and bear. * 30 acres of this treatment area is in or adjacent to Boreal toad and Bonneville cutthroat trout habitat. Removal and rearrangement of dead vegetative materials within and near the stream channel would benefit habitat condition, improve the hyrdrograph, increase flow and extend year-round habitat further up the drainage. * Improve safety conditions for the youth camp, nearby trails, recreation areas, and surrounding forest area by removal of dead hazard trees.

* Entire overstory mortality of spruce has created the high potential for high severity fire if left untreated. With time, these large dead trees will fall to the forest floor, creating very high levels of fuel loading conducive to fire that would burn for a longer duration and at a higher energy output than typical conditions. Results of this type of fire would denude the landscape of vegetation, increase the potential for soil erosion, degrade water quality as a result of runoff, and remove potential habitat for wildlife species. Additionally, existing dead trees constitute a safety hazard to camp staff and youth from trees falling. The potential for trees to fail and fall increases with each subsequent year after death of the tree. The threat of high severity fire further increases risk, due to the threats of WUI influences.

* The Upper Provo Management Area is an important area for terrestrial wildlife species because this area provides connectivity to large forested areas on the Wasatch-Cache and Ashley National Forests in the Uinta Mountains. The primary habitat types are aspen forest, conifer forest (primarily spruce/fir), and sagebrush (USDA Forest Service, Unita Forest Plan, 2003, 5-149). - See: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/uwcnf/landmanagement/planning/?cid=stelprdb5076960&width=full * Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation and fire intensity and effects are threatening boreal toad populations (UDWR. 2005. Boreal Toad (bufo boreas boreas) Conservation Plan. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, PN# 05-37, Salt Lake City, UT, pp. 12-17). - See: http://digitallibrary.utah.gov/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=9767 * Elk Herd Unit Management Plan, Unit #17 (Wasatch Mountains, 2016): Within the next five years, enhance forage production on a minimum of 20,000 acres of elk habitat, through direct range improvements to maintain population management objectives. - See: https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting-in-utah/hunting-information/big-game/118-hunting/big-game/1965-unit-elk-management-plans.html * Deer Herd Unit Management Plan- Deer Herd Unit #17 (Wasatch Mountains, 2016): Cooperate with federal land management agencies and private landowners in carrying out habitat improvement projects. Maintain mule deer habitat throughout the unit by protecting and enhancing existing crucial habitats and mitigating for losses due to natural and human impacts. - See: https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/plans/deer_17.pdf * Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan (2014) This project will help address Habitat Objectives 1 & 2: - Maintain mule deer habitat throughout the state by protecting and enhancing existing crucial habitats and mitigating for losses due to natural and human impacts. - Improve the quality and quantity of vegetation for mule deer on a minimum of 500,000 acres of crucial range by 2019. - See: https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/biggame/pdf/mule_deer_plan.pdf * Utah Elk Statewide Management Plan (2015) This project will help address Habitat Objective 1: - Increase forage production by annually treating a minimum of 40,000 acres of elk habitat. - See: https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/biggame/pdf/elk_plan.pdf * Draft Bonneville Cutthroat Trout range-wide conservation agreement and strategy, and monitoring plan (2018, p. 19) - This project will help mitigate potential threats to BCT from high severity-fire. Forty-three of the occupied sub-watersheds, primarily in the Northern Bonneville, are at high risk for both fire and flood. * Wasatch County Plan (2001, Chapter 5) This project will support the local economy by providing opportunities for harvesting forest products shall by selling decked trees removed from the area. - See: https://www.wasatch.utah.gov/Portals/0/Planning/Pdfs/GeneralPlan/6-ChapterFive2013.pdf

Treatment of large diameter spruce fuels would be beneficial for: * Mitigating the potential of high severity fire given an ignition by reducing fuel loading * Creating what closely resembles shaded fuel breaks through vegetation treatment and removal * Improving access through Forest Service in-kind road improvements to aid fire suppression resources * Improving ingress-egress for camp personnel and public in emergency fire circumstances

These vegetation treatments are expected to result in an overall improvement to wildfire resiliency in the watershed and in Riparian Habitat Conservation Areas (RHCA) located in Mill Hollow, in addition to improving stream process and function by removal of large dead fuels (Uinta National Forest Plan, 2003), including: * Improving conditions so that soil, air, and water resources provide for watershed health, public health and safety, long-term soil productivity, and ecosystem sustainability, and meet applicable laws and regulations (FW-Goal-1, p. 2-1). * Improving conditions so that biologically diverse, sustainable ecosystems maintain or enhance habitats for native flora and fauna, forest and rangeland health, watershed health, and water quality (FW-Goal-2, p. 2-1). * Maintaining or improving soil productivity by preventing potential detrimental impacts to soil from severe fire (S&W-1, p. 3-8). * Maintaining habitat for aquatic species, including fish, wildlife, and riparian plant communities (S&W-9, p. 3-9). * Maintaining channel stability and capacity for passing flood (S&W-9, p. 3-9). Additionally, the treatment will result in an increase in ground cover and a subsequent reduction in erosion potential, improving and protecting water quality. In channel treatments (LWD placement) will benefit the hydrograph by lowering peak flows and extending the duration of the runoff period and increasing bank storage, increasing water quantity during late summer months. Down-system benefits also include helping Deer Creek Reservoir, a receiving body of Mill Creek drainage waters, reach attainment of goals identified in its 2002 TMDL. Water Quality will not be impacted during project implementation as BMPs will be utilized to remove, or at least reduce, potential short term impacts.

NEPA is complete for the YMCA camp. Archaeology clearance will be completed before implementation - scheduled for July 2019.

Vegetation would be cut with mechanical equipment and chain-saws. Cut fuels and additional dead and down fuels already on the forest floor would either be shovel logged or skidded to landings and be sorted into piles to later sold by competitive bid, opened up to public for firewood, or burned as a last option. Merchantable material sold would be loaded onto logging trucks and shipped to nearby mills. The existing road to the camp would be renovated to USFS standards. Any temporary road or water-crossing structures built for vegetation treatment would be rehabilitated using mechanical equipment before project close-out.

* Forest stocking and temporary roads will be monitored to ensure adequate re-vegetation and the absence of weeds. Reseeding or weed treatment will be completed, by USFS, if they are needed. * Fish and amphibian sampling will be conducted before and after project for presence/absence data to document expanding occupation. USFS will implement all monitoring. Data will be uploaded to database.

* USFS - Conducted planning, layout, building contract specifications, sale and disposal of decked and residual material from cut trees, and will provide project oversight and monitoring * YMCA - Camp coordinates with USFS personnel that oversee special use permit. YMCA also takes care of hazard tree removal within the camp footprint. Coordination has already occurred for camp shutdown to facilitate proposed vegetation treatment. * Allotment Permittee - Will coordinate to avoid conflicts with livestock due to mechanical equipment and vegetation treatments. * Wasatch County - Already have an agreement in place for road maintenance with the county that provides access to the YMCA camp and Mill Hollow drainage. * DWR - USFS has communicated with DWR to run the proposed vegetation treatment contract to expedite contracting and implementation due to the time sensitive nature of this project.

This project proposal would be the first of a multi-year vegetation treatment plan within Mill Hollow drainage. Subsequent years would have increased acres treated. The YMCA camp area will continue to be monitored for fuel build-up and for over-stocking. Future treatments would include thinning of the small diameter trees in 10-20 years. Grazing will be delayed until ground has healed sufficiently.

* Removal of fuels and shading will improve understory grass, forb, and shrub production available for grazing. This treatment area is located within a current allotment. * Recreation use of the YMCA camp. Nearby trails, dispersed recreation, fishing, and hunting for the general public. * Commercially viable timber will be sold from the decked material, benefiting local economy.