values during the process of accessing, harvesting, and 

 regenerating timber. Committee members have reviewed 

 forestry BMPs used in Montana and other states and are 

 developing a set of BMPs that can be readily understood by 

 Montana landowners and timber operators. A draft version 

 was issued in September 1988. Management practices for 

 riparian zones, the final topic on the committee's agenda, 

 were be addressed in a fall 1988 meeting. 



The Watershed Effects Working Group has developed a 

 written questionnaire that seeks to identify areas in Montana 

 where forest practices have caused watershed damage and areas 

 where logging has been conducted in environmentally sensitive 

 sites without affecting watershed values. This questionnaire 

 was mailed to about 1,000 foresters, water quality special- 

 ists, biologists, and other professionals involved in 

 forest/watershed management in Montana. This group also 

 coordinated a series of on-site audits of forest management ' 

 practices on private industrial, private nonindustrial, 

 state, and federal lands. The audits were conducted by 

 teams of five specialists who visited a total of 38 randomly 

 selected timber sales, some of which were in the Clark Fork 

 Basin. Team members evaluated whether best management 

 practices were used and how effective these practices proved 

 in preventing soil erosion into adjacent streams. Evaluation 

 of BMPs has been used successfully by a number of other 

 states to indicate the degree of compliance by operators and 

 to determine where to focus limited state resources to avoid 

 watershed damage. 



Results of questionnaire and the on-site audits are 

 included in a draft report released in November 1988 (EQC 

 1988) . The Council is focusing on the work of the Cumulative 

 Watershed Effects Cooperative, a vtSluntary state-private- 

 federal group that is developing a method to assess and 

 respond to potential cumulative effects in multiple-ownership 

 watersheds. A study report and recommendations from EQC's 

 study will be submitted to the 1989 Legislature. 



Cumulative Watershed Effects Cooperative . The Cumula- 

 tive Watershed Effects Cooperative was formed in 1986 under 

 the direction of the Montana Department of State Lands, 

 Division of Forestry. The cooperative is composed of the 

 major landowners involved in forest management in the Lower 

 Clark Fork and Flathead Basins, including U.S. Forest Service 

 (Region 1, Lolo, Flathead, and Kootenai national forests) , 

 Bureau of Land Management (Garnet District) , Bureau of Indian 

 Affairs (Flathead Indian Reservation) , Champion Inter- 

 national, Plum Creek Timber, Department of State Lands, an4^ 

 the Conservation District Division (DNRC) as well as the 

 Water Quality Bureau (DHES) , the Department of Fish, ---'i 



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