Idaho Mountain Express: Fire rehab work remains uncertain

Friday, October 18, 2013

Fire rehab work remains uncertain

Forest Service road crew has stayed in operation

By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

Two-ton concrete blocks are dwarfed by a debris flow behind the Longe family home in Greenhorn Gulch. Photo by Roland Lane

    Despite the federal government shutdown that ended Thursday, a three-person U.S. Forest Service crew has continued to clear debris from culverts and under bridges on Warm Springs and Baker Creek roads, which were heavily impacted by mudslides following the Beaver Creek Fire.
   Ketchum District Ranger Kurt Nelson said that he, too, was an “excepted employee” who has continued to work through the shutdown.
   “I’ve been out fairly often monitoring the side drainages,” he said.

“I’ve been out fairly often monitoring the side drainages.”
Kurt Nelson
Ketchum Ranger District

   A report by a Forest Service Burned Area Emergency Response team containing recommendations for erosion mitigation work in the ranger district was submitted to the agency’s regional office in Ogden, Utah, on Sept. 16, and passed on to the head office in Washington, D.C., shortly after. A decision on whether to approve the plan was expected to be made about a week later, but that all changed with the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30.
   Nelson said that even with an agreement in Congress to begin funding government operations, it’s an open question as to when the Forest Service might decide on the plan.
“There will be hundreds of thousands of employees going back to work,” he said Wednesday. “It will take some time to figure out where things stand.”
Nelson said he still hopes to award contracts to do aerial mulching and seeding this fall in preparation for spring rains, but that’s not a certainty.
   “If we aren’t able to implement it this winter, we’ll have to shoot for early spring,” he said.
Greg Moore: gmoore@mtexpress.com
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