Stimulus Funds for the ASNF

[chumley]

$100,000 for trail improvements! Woo hoo!
(Add $150,000 to pave the Rim Vista trail)

So, out of $20.21 million ... 1.2% to hiking trails.
The percentage seems small, but I would think that $100,000 could go a long way in improving trails. At least if you gave me $100,000, I'd hire a team of pretty good workers and make some serious headway out there. Unfortunately, something tells me not to notice any changes.

I'm not sure how important potable water at the Water Canyon administrative site is, but some of the more expensive projects are for fuels reduction, which I tend to think is a worthy cause if it prevents catastrophic wildfire in the future.

But am I the only one who thinks that the costs listed are a little bit high? I mean, how many vault toilets are there at Luna Lake? $250,000!!?
http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/asnf/news/2009/ ... oney.shtml

Springerville, AZ (September 15, 2009)…The Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests (ASNFs) have received over $20 million as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to fund projects for hazardous fuel treatments and the improvement and maintenance of forest facilities, trails, and roads.

Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Tom Tidwell, recently announced, "the purpose of the economic recovery legislation is to create as many jobs as quickly as possible." Tidwell added, "As we implement this legislation we will not increase the federal workforce; we will spend all funds on targeted ready projects; and we will begin our work promptly and complete it within 1 to 2 years for most activities."

The ASNFs will use this stimulus money to fund 36 "targeted ready" projects—or those ready to begin ground work—through the employment of several local contractors. Some of these projects began earlier this year—including two at Hoyer Campground; while the remaining projects are scheduled to begin later this fall or early next spring.

These projects will be located in various locations across the forests; these preliminary project locations may be altered due to changing conditions or priorities:

Alpine
$556,000 to surface and stabilize the soil on National Forest System Roads 26, 405, and 275 and to obliterate a user-created crossing on one of the tributaries of the East Fork of Black River (4 projects total)
$350,000 to reconstruct the Luna Lake water system
$250,000 to replace the vault restrooms and associated sidewalks at Luna Lake
$130,000 to replace the vault restrooms and associated sidewalks at Buffalo Crossing and Raccoon Campgrounds

Big Lake
$900,000 to patch asphalt, seal, and stripe roads in the Big Lake area
$760,000 to surface and stabilize the soil on National Forest System Roads 249, 249E and 24 (3 projects total)
$750,000 to replace restroom facilities and associated sidewalks in the Big Lake area
$375,000 to repair the Big Lake waste water collection system
$100,000to place aggregate surfacing on the roads in Grayling and Cutthroat Campgrounds

Eagar
$722,000 to install potable water lines from the Water Canyon administrative site to the town of Eagar
$416,000 to place aggregate surfacing on the Saffel Canyon OHV trail and install signage, cattle guards, and structures to protect watershed

Greer
$948,000 to treat 1,450 acres near Greer for hazardous fuels
$800,000 to reconstruct the water system and other improvements to meet accessibility guidelines at Hoyer Campground
$750,000 to repair the roads and spurs at Hoyer Campground
$480,000 to replace the restroom facilities at Hoyer Campground

Heber-Overgaard
$1,400,000 to treat 3,000 acres in the Brookbank area for hazardous fuels

Pinetop-Lakeside
$2,272,000 to treat 2,800 acres for hazardous fuels near the Los Burros Campground (3 projects total)
$1,000,000 to treat 1,000 acres and prepare another 3,000 acres east of Pinetop-Lakeside, near the White Mountain Apache Reservation and ASNFs boundary, for hazardous fuels reduction

Nutrioso
$3,403,000 to treat 6,100 acres for hazardous fuels reduction (2 projects total)

Rim Lakes
$1,370,000 to treat 2,422 acres for hazardous fuels reduction near Chevelon Canyon Lake (3 projects total)
$150,000 to pave the Rim Vista trail to meet accessibility guidelines

Multiple Areas
$1,170,000 to improve wildlife habitat by thinning pinon-juniper forested areas
$525,000 to prepare 4,000 acres in the Rodeo-Chediski burn area for reforestation by removing hazardous fuels
$401,000 to demolish five buildings which pose health and safety risks and contribute to unnecessary maintenance costs
$132,000 to remove hazardous trees from recreation areas on the Alpine and Springerville Ranger Districts
$100,000 to improve and maintain several trails across the ASNFs

In all, the national forests in Arizona received approximately $40 million in ARRA funding. The distribution of this funding was based on local economic conditions and the availability of targeted ready projects on the national forests. The ASNFs received a large portion of this funding because it is situated within two of the most economically depressed counties in the state—Apache and Navajo—and it had several projects ready to begin ground work.

[Jeffshadows]

It's about time they used my tax dollars for something other than rescuing scumbag bankers and paying people to take on more debt by trading in their cars for a "dope ride."

[hikeaz]

$800,000 to reconstruct the water system and other improvements to meet accessibility guidelines at Hoyer Campground
$750,000 to repair the roads and spurs at Hoyer Campground
$480,000 to replace the restroom facilities at Hoyer Campground

Holy Crap! Over 2 Milliion just for upgrades at one campground - but $100K for ALL the trail maintenance of the AS Forest.!? Like Stossel says... "Give me a BREAK".

[Jim]

How large is this campground, how much conduit and hardware are they going to use for water improvements? Is there a filtration system, well, or other supply system that needs replacing or improving? How much material and many man hours are they going to need to repair roads, what kind of restroom facilities are they going to replace, or replace with? 2 million sounds reasonable to me. Have you looked at a budget for a highway improvement. Nothing is cheap. John might think the world is cheap and easy, and that's great and wonderfully idealistic, and if you want to half pumpkin everything then it go for cheap all the time.

You would be surprised how expensive somethings can be. Back when I was delivering construction supplies, I would have a load that I didn't think would be worth very much, but it actually was very expensive. $1000's of dollars for what I thought would be 100s. Trails are cheap to maintain because other than summer labor, there isn't much required for it. Often volunteers or low paid college kids are used. Tools and materials aren't much, and there is almost no equipment to use.

[Jeffshadows]

HBack when I was delivering construction supplies, I would have a load that I didn't think would be worth very much, but it actually was very expensive. $1000's of dollars for what I thought would be 100s.

We frequently get loads of cabling and other infrastructure materials that are probably worth more to a hijacker than an average armored car would be. It is kind of scary what some things, especially copper, are worth nowadays...

[Dschur]

The Payson roundup has it broken down a little bit different not sure where they got their info but is here...

The projects funded in the Apache-Sitgreaves include:

• $1.2 million to provide new facilities at the Hoyer Campground.

• $132,000 to cut down dead and dying trees that pose a hazard to visitors at several sites.

• $760,000 to resurface 19 miles of roads, including Forest Roads 249, 249E and 24.

• $1 million worth of improvements to facilities and campgrounds at Big Lake.

• $56,000 for improvements to 12.5 miles of roadways along the Black River.

• $416,000 to maintain 26 miles worth of hiking and ATV trails

• $150,000 to make improvements on the Rim Vista Trail on top of the Rim.

• $800,000 to make improvements in the sewage treatment system that serves the Hoyer Campground, which is currently based on a 40-year-old lagoon system the Forest Service closed down three years ago.

• $400,000 to tear down five buildings at various sites.

• $350,000 worth of improvements to facilities at the Luna Lake Recreation Area.

• $375,000 for a wastewater collection system at Big Lake.

• $750,000 to improve rest room facilities at Big Lake.

• $722,000 to install a new water system for the Water Canyon Administrative Site.

• $130,000 to make improvements at the Buffalo Crossing Recreation facility on the East Fork of the Black River.

• $100,000 to do trail maintenance on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.

• $1.4 million to thin 3,000 acres in the Brookbank area near Heber-Overgaard.

• $593,000 to thin overgrown forest to create a fire buffer around the community of Nutrioso, which has 289 year-round residents.

• $1.2 million to slow the spread of pinyon-juniper into grassland areas.

[Dschur]

The rest of the article

Grants proved windfall for Rim forests
Tonto gets $4 million, Apache Sitgreaves gets $17 million as federal funding used to thin 8,000 acres in Rim Country
By Pete Aleshire

September 22, 2009

Tom Brossart/Roundup

The Apache-Sitgreaves Forest got $150,000 to improve the Rim View Trail just 30 miles north of Payson, one of the most scenic and popular hiking trails in the state. Views from the trail extend as far as the eye can see.
Forests in the Southwest collected some $40 million in federal stimulus funding, including $4 million that went to the Tonto National Forest and $17 million to the Apache Sitgreaves.

The federal, job-producing stimulus program proved a windfall for two of the forests that comprise Rim Country, although Coconino National Forest came up with nothing, according to figures released this week by the regional office.

A total of 44 projects received a total of $40 million, including $3.1 million to thin overgrown brush and trees that posed a serious fire danger to 13 different Rim Country communities.

All told, those “wildland urban interface” projects thinned some 8,000 acres on the outskirts of forest settlements.

Other Tonto National Forest projects funded included an effort to root out two invasive grasses at Saguaro Lake and the Salt River Recreation area. Such non-native grasses can easily catch fire and kill saguaro and other cacti, which have little protection from fire since the Sonoran Desert lacks grasses that would normally carry such ground fires.

In addition, the federal stimulus money provided more rest rooms and other facilities at recreation sites on the lower Salt River near Phoenix, which attract up to 50,000 visitors each week.

However, the Apache-Sitgreaves managed to lay claim to nearly half of the money allocated to the region. The sprawling forest runs from just east of Highway 260 on top of the Rim all the way to New Mexico, and has taken the lead on finding ways to work out long-term harvesting agreements with timber companies to thin large stretches of forest.

Stewardship project

The projects funded with stimulus money in the Apache-Sitgreaves Forest included $2.4 million for the White Mountain Stewardship contract to provide wood to loggers to make lumber pallets, wood pellets for stoves and power generation.

The grant will underwrite the thinning of 3,200 acres. Another $5-million grant will help lay the groundwork for a 10-year contract covering 7,625 acres with timber companies that can use small trees.

Two other grants totaling $1.5 million will pay for restoration work on the White Mountain Apache Reservation and elsewhere to restore 5,000 acres charred by the Rodeo-Chediski Fire.

The grant noted the projects will hire as many tribal members as possible, since the unemployment rate on the reservation tops 80 percent.

In addition, the Apache-Sitgreaves Forest got $150,000 to improve the Rim View Trail just 30 miles north of Payson, one of the most scenic and popular hiking trails in the state.

Region-wide, the grants “will restore forests and grasslands, reduce wildfire risks, develop wood to energy technology and improve public facilities while providing private sector jobs,” said Regional Forester Corbin Newman.

All told, the federal stimulus legislation included a huge lump sum for the Department of Agriculture, which administers the National Forest Service, said Dave Clark, a spokesman in the regional office in Albuquerque.

That included $27 billion for “rural development,” $21 billion for nutrition, $1 billion for farm investments, $272 million for infrastructure and $1.5 billion for conservation and forestry.

Wildfire buffers will be created

The unexpected windfall helped the local forests make welcome progress on a desperate effort to create wildfire buffer zones around Rim communities.

A century of grazing and fire suppression has spurred a dramatic increase in tree densities across some five million acres of forested lands between Flagstaff and Alpine. Tree densities have increased from 30 to 50 per acre on the average to more like 800 to 1,500 trees per acre in many areas.

Studies on fire danger facing Rim Country after the massive, 500,000-acre Rodeo-Chediski Fire led to the development of a regional plan to reduce fire danger and protect forest communities.

The Forest Service has been struggling to implement that plan, hand-thinning thousands of acres every summer on the outskirts of developed areas and often letting fires further from towns burn whenever conditions allow.

Thanks to the preliminary work done on that overall fire protection plan, the Tonto National Forest had already completed the studies on thousands of acres of forest in need of thinning when Congress began handing out huge slabs of money in an effort to give the floundering economy a jump start to keep the Great Recession from descending into a new Great Depression.

“When the Recovery and Reinvestment Act came out and Washington asked us for potential projects, the forests pulled these projects off the shelf and submitted them,” said Clark.

Grants create jobs

The grants were supposed to create as many jobs as quickly as possible, so projects that could start immediately went to the head of the line. Ironically enough, in the Tonto National Forest, that meant initially using the crews of private contractors who had done thinning projects for the past couple of years. Many of those private thinning crews all set to start work were comprised of workers from El Salvador.

“We had to use contractors already on the list,” said Clark, although the federal money also provided the funds to hire additional crews and contractors later in the season.

The Apache-Sitgreaves Forest grabbed the great bulk of the funding, thanks to an active program seeking to make use of the timber industry to restore and thin forest lands.

Throughout the region, the timber industry has all but shut down due to a lack of the big trees on which its profit margin once depended and a snarl of appeals and lawsuits which the Forest Service often loses when judges rule they haven’t followed their own rules.

[chumley]

The Payson roundup has it broken down a little bit different...
The projects funded in the Apache-Sitgreaves include:...

• $416,000 to maintain 26 miles worth of hiking and ATV trails
• $100,000 to do trail maintenance on the White Mountain Apache Reservation...

Funny, cause I always thought that the White Mountain Apache Reservation and the Apache-Sitgreaves were different. In fact, I believe that if I want to hike on the Reservation, I have to pay the WMAT for a permit. Why would the WMAT be getting $100k from ASNF for trail maintenance? This can't be correct.

The $416k was listed in the ASNF Press Release with no reference to hiking:

Eagar
$416,000 to place aggregate surfacing on the Saffel Canyon OHV trail and install signage, cattle guards, and structures to protect watershed

[azbackpackr]

Hank Rogers, president of the local ATV club, is going to be helping administer part of these funds, and myself and Eric Krueger, a local realtor, but a greenie, are going to try to work with him on use of the money for the hiking trails. Eric and I are members of the White Mtn. Conservation League. I'm not really sure how this money is going to be used, but I talked to Hank who is hoping there will be volunteers from a hiking club to do some trail work. I need to talk to all the people involved, some I have not talked to yet, and I'm not sure where I fit into the picture as yet. Hank seems quite open to working with the non-motorized crowd, according to what he told me.

[big_load]

I might not understand that correctly. Which pot of money will the ATV club president administer: the $416k, the $100k, or both?

[azbackpackr]

I don't know. The prez of the White Mtn Conservation League, who tapped me to do this, says he's going to find out more from the FS about it. I am not sure I'm up for this--I'm working all the time, not feeling well lately, etc. Hopefully the other guy he also tapped will have some ideas and some negotiating skills.

[Vaporman]

When I first read the millions being spent on hazardous fuels reduction, I was like HOLY COW who's dumping all the gasoline & diesel in the National Forests. And then it finally clicked what that meant...

[Dschur]

From the document there is a lot more projects there for the state of Arizona and I see where each source has paraphrased it a different way...
USDA Forest Service American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Projects
September 9, 2009

Saffel Canyon Trail System
Date of Announcement: July 21, 2009
Estimated Funding: $ 416,000 for Capital Improvement and Maintenance
Partners: Apache County Roughriders ATV Organization, Town of Eagar
Counties: Apache and Navajo
The project occurs on the Springerville Ranger District and will address health and safety concerns and reduce deferred trail maintenance. It will be completed by local contractors and includes the following: purchase and installation of regulatory and informational signage for the trailhead and along the trail; construction of erosion control structures to provide watershed protection; surfacing of 26 miles of trail with aggregate; and repair and/or replacement of fifteen cattle guards.

Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest Trails Improvement
Date of Announcement: August 18, 2009
Estimated Funding: $ 100,000 for Capital Improvement and Maintenance
Counties: Apache and Navajo
Several trails throughout the 2+ million acres of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest are covered with fallen trees, overgrown with brush, and have eroded surface conditions, which have impaired visitor' ability to use them. This project will improve the condition of these trails by removing these obstacles. The work to maintain and improve these trails will be done through contracts or agreements to trail crews from the White Mountain Apache Tribe (Tribe) and an area youth conservation group. The economic benefits of this project are two-fold. First, it will provide much needed jobs to the Tribe, whose unemployment rate is now over 80%. Second, it will provide greater recreational opportunities to forest visitors, and in doing so, encourage tourism to local areas.

Here is something in Southern AZ..

Forest Wide Trail Maintenance (YCC Crews)
Date of Announcement: July 21, 2009
Estimated Funding: $ 850,000 for
Partners: YCC, Arizona Trail Association
Counties: Graham, Pima, Santa Cruz
Work entails reduction of deferred maintenance and improvement of the forest-wide trails program on the Coronado National Forest. A safer experience will be provided to visitors due to an easily identifiable and traversable trail system. Health and safety will be improved overall through a reduction in lost/overdue visitors, fewer injuries (due to reduced hazards within trails), and public health relating to mind, body, and spirit which are associated with increased fitness, reduced stress, spiritual connection, etc. Fire risk reduction will be a secondary benefit as trail systems provide a fuel break and limit the spread of wildfires. Additionally, fire line is frequently constructed utilizing existing trail systems for both containment lines around the fire and access into wildfire areas.

[BobP]

Health and safety will be improved overall through a reduction in lost/overdue visitors, fewer injuries (due to reduced hazards within trails), and public health relating to mind, body, and spirit which are associated with increased fitness, reduced stress, spiritual connection, etc.

Give me a break...It should read. blah..blah..blah..yada..yada..yada..

I'm all for improving trails but that my friends is BS.

[Jeffshadows]

Health and safety will be improved overall through a reduction in lost/overdue visitors, fewer injuries (due to reduced hazards within trails), and public health relating to mind, body, and spirit which are associated with increased fitness, reduced stress, spiritual connection, etc.

Give me a break...It should read. blah..blah..blah..yada..yada..yada..

I'm all for improving trails but that my friends is BS.

I agree

[chumley]

I love our government. :sarcasm:

Since when did Washington give a crap about increasing my spiritual connections? :roll:

[Jeffshadows]

What's more, these are just the kinds of things that make the rest of us who are actually serious about the conservation movement in this country look completely ridiculous to those viewing conservation from without. I think it goes without saying that I am going to make a "Spiritual connection" with the forest when I'm there. That connection will have absolutely nothing to do with wacko bongo-beating, religious nonsense, or any other superstitious garbage. When we tag things this way we give people looking for ammunition for their arguments one of the biggest shells in the arsenal in this country - a religious objection. I can hear it now: "Spiritualism? They better mean there's going to be a evangelical church out there or I'll raise Hades!!" and "They want to spend my tax dollars so hippies can go and get naked in the forest and practice satanic rituals!!" which will lead to: "They're going to perform abortions in the forest - we knew it!!" Can't we just say we're going to make the trails better and leave it at that?! ;)

[azbackpackr]

;) Let's make sure there are some New Age rock circles out there...

Sooo...Hmmm.... Now, getting more serious here...I wonder if the people who write these proposals are supposed to come up with reasons for hiking, such as public health, etc. etc. I mean, aren't there going to be a lot of people out there who are taxpayers who don't know why money is being spent on hiking trails? Don't the people writing the grants have to give reasons for the hiking trails to satisfy these kinds of questions? So maybe they just brainstorm, come up with as many reasons they can think of as to why people would go hiking, and for their proposals then they narrow them down to what they think will sell. Hiking is good for you, etc., etc.

[Jim]

I love how in this day and age hiking is not needed by the public, but campgrounds, ATV trails, and all other motorized uses are absolutely necessary.

[big_load]

I think it goes without saying that I am going to make a "Spiritual connection" with the forest when I'm there.

Doesn't this belong in the Naturist thread?