The Ellis Integrated Vegetation Management Project on the Umatilla National Forest has been in the plans since 2018 and has moved at a painfully slow pace. The original purpose of the project was to bring active management to 105,000 acres of Forest Service lands. The objective is to address forest health, wildfire mitigation and resiliency,
and improve big game habitat.
One of the key early communications on the project area was to improve elk forage, habitat and security cover to help address the ongoing concerns of elk damage on nearby private lands, particularly during the wintering period. OHA weighed in early on the project planning in support of the actions to improve habitat and security cover specifically for elk.
In May, the Umatilla National Forest issued its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) which selected an alternative that was subsequently modified at the last minute and doesn’t come close to meeting the needs of elk security, and in fact makes no attempt to improve elk security cover, even though that was a stated objective of the USFS for doing the project.
OHA has entered an official Objection to the FEIS, a step we have seldom used in the past. Other organizations (RMEF, ODFW) have also entered objections. In the end, one of the major needs/objectives of project that the USFS identified themselves is now being ignored. OHA is simply pushing to have the USFS do what they said they would do.
—Mike Totey
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