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RECREATION Red tape slows plans to remove blow-down trees at Howard Prairie Red tape slows plans to remove toppled trees at Howard Prairie Comment By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Posted May. 11, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Posted May. 11, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News As wind gusts nearing 80 mph turned the tall and aged Douglas firs into twitching overhead sticks, RV space E-18 never had a chance. The Feb. 7 winds racing across the Dead Indian Plateau snapped a large fir 20 feet from its base, hurtling the 5-foot-long trunk that shattered a picnic table in this site within Howard Prairie Resort's South Campground. Four other large firs crashed into that space during the morning windstorm, tearing out water pipes and electrical wiring, shrouding E-18 and other nearby sites under a mountain of wood fiber and boughs fit only for sprouting morels and certainly not campers. "Nothing survives something like this," says Manager Steve Lambert of the Jackson County Parks Department, which owns and manages the resort. Now the only thing bigger than this blowdown mess that has closed almost half of the resort's camping sites this season is the red tape that so far has yet to see one campsite cleared for use. That could change as early as today when two federal agencies are expected to sign off on a plan to remove the nearly 100 blown-down trees as well as damaged ones still standing from the resort's South Campground, as well as from nearby Willow Point Campground, also shuttered by damage from the same storm. The federal Bureau of Land Management, which owns the trees, has been negotiating a nearly $100,000 agreement for its sister agency, the federal Bureau of Reclamation, to pay for the removal of the trees and many of their upended root balls and buy the wood from the BLM. Reclamation officials, in turn, plan to use some of that wood and root balls to build complex wild salmon habitat in Little Butte and Bear creeks as required by a different federal agreement for helping in-stream habitat. The upper Rogue River Basin tributaries are breeding waters for wild coho salmon, which are protected as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. It's taken more than three months to assess the damage and forge the interagency agreement "Government contracting takes time," says Douglas DeFlitch, manager of reclamation's Bend office. "The reason it takes time is there are a lot of things we have to ensure for the betterment of the public. A lot of things have to be checked and followed and rightfully so." But Lambert says he's long grown weary of all the i-dotting and t-crossing the two agencies have done while the entire South Campground's 103 spaces are off limits to campers since the resort opened a month ago. The 154 spaces in the resort's North Campground remain open, but it looks like the resort won't be ready for full capacity until early June at best, Lambert says. "If the county would have come in and cleaned it up without the federal bureaucracy, we'd have been done two months ago," Lambert says. "Here we are three months later waiting for the feds to figure it out. "It's not the people," Lambert says. "We all want to be good stewards. But when the process gets in the way of getting things done, it's a bummer." Lambert says it will take a contractor hired by the BLM nearly two weeks to remove the downed and hazard trees, then the holes left behind by the root balls will be filled in and graded. County community correction crews will finish the work by removing the smaller branches, cones and other debris before opening the South Campground, he says. When it opens, the two bathrooms will have water and electricity, but none of the campsites will, Lambert says. The sites will rent for $18 apiece, $10 off the price with electrical hookups, for the remainder of the season, he says. The county already received about $525,000 in state and federal grants last year to replace and bury that campground's electrical and water lines that ended up destroyed by the Feb. 7 windstorm, Lambert says. "If we had to take a hit, we got hit in the right spot," Lambert says. There is also a silver lining for the bureau, which will spend a fraction of the money on the blow-down logs than if the agency had to buy logs on the open market for its in-stream habitat work on Little Butte and Bear creeks, DeFlitch says. By next year, the South Campground will be better for it, Lambert says. "On the lighter side, there will be more sun on the campsites next year, and there'll be a few more morels to pick," he says. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected] . Follow him at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman . By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Posted May. 11, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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