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STATEMENT OF DR. GEORGE G. ICE 



Mr. DeFazio. Dr. Ice. 



Dr. Ice. Thank you. 



My name is George Ice. I am a forest hydrologist with the Na- 

 tional Council of the Paper Industry for Air and Stream Improve- 

 ment and have a Ph.D. from Oregon State University and a Mas- 

 ters from the University of California at Berkeley. And I have some 

 materials that I would like to enter along with, to support my 

 statement. 



I would like to discuss five key issues. Forest management prac- 

 tices have improved due to the use of Best Management Practices 

 and the recognition of riparian areas. Watershed damage observed 

 in recent years is tied to past practices and watershed abuses can 

 and are being addressed. 



There are some important principals that should be used in wa- 

 tershed analysis and identification of management needs. Forest 

 management practices have dramatically improved practices by 

 using riparian management techniques. Riparian management 

 areas on national forests are now routinely used providing shade 

 and providing for recruitment to streams of lost weed debris. Land- 

 slides are an important process of sediment delivery to streams. 

 Seventy-six percent of the landslide volume came from 9 percent of 

 the land area. Recognition of hazards can result in improved per- 

 formance. 



A study in British Columbia found that because of cautious road 

 construction, landslides from roads were less frequent on steep 

 areas than areas of moderate gradient. A recent study of landslides 

 in the Deschutes Watershed in Washington, near Olvmpia, found 

 that most of the landslides were from roads greater tnan 15 years 

 old. 



Recommendations for maintenance and corrective actions can be 

 developed from those types of inventories. There is no shortage of 

 management/enhancement techniques to address the problems. 

 Many of these enhancement techniques need more research to de- 

 termine their value and the proper conditions for their application. 



Watersheds can recover from disturbances as a result of im- 

 proved management practices and the inherent resiliency of water- 

 shed systems to the natural disturbances. The South Fork of the 

 Salmon River in Idaho had documented improvements as a result 

 of the forest management activities in the watershed. 



A moratorium on management activities in the watershed res- 

 toration work, followed by a period of forest management under 

 new guidelines, resulted in the cleaning out of vines in the pools, 

 and reduced vines in the gravels. 



Work by Andrus and Froehlich has shown that, particularly for 

 narrow streams in productive coastal locations, any temperature 

 increases resulting from the removal of riparian vegetation by fire 

 or harvesting quickly recovers. A group of industry watershed ex- 

 perts has been working on watershed analysis to determine the 

 health of watersheds and identify watershed management needs, 

 and these guidelines are provided in some of the material that I 

 am submitting. 



Each watershed is unique. Watershed assessments need to recog- 

 nize the important hydrologic and geomorphic processes in the wa- 



