Summary of Recommendations 



will not degrade water quality and fish- 

 eries.This will require unqualified com- 

 mitment of large landowners and con- 

 tinual efforts to educate and encourage 

 private landowners. The education ef- 

 forts initiated by the Montana Logging 

 Association must be expanded to reach 

 small private landowners. If the "vol- 

 untary" system does not work and ex- 

 isting legal procedures are inadequate 

 to ensure prompt action on reported 

 violations, a mandatory system through 

 a forest practices act should be enacted. 



2. Land managers should utilize the new 

 riparian habitat type classification and 

 type-specific management information 

 for guidance in site-specific prescrip- 

 tions. 



3. Land managers should adopt the new 

 streamside management zone criteria 

 set by the Montana Riparian Associa- 

 tion for consistent delineation andmaric- 

 ing of streamside management zones. 



Monitoring Forest Practices and/or 

 Further Study Needs 



4. Because of the demonstrated value of 

 the audit process, it is recommended 

 that the audits continue on an annual or 

 biennial basis. 



5. A cooperative study is needed to ad- 

 dress the question of woody debris 

 recruimient for maintaining stream in- 

 tegrity. Consideration needs to be given 

 to inventory techniques for establish- 

 ing current conditions, establishment 

 of desired future conditions for differ- 

 ent sizes and types of streams, ap- 

 praisal of current streamside forest stand 

 composition and structure, and the ef- 

 fects of different practices on ensuring 



the desired rate and amount of woody 

 debris recruitment. 



6. Because data arc lacking on the hydro- 

 logic functioning of wetiand sites, land 

 managers will never have a comfort- 

 able basis for determining and defend- 

 ingreasonable access and practice stan- 

 dards. Therefore, managers and/or co- 

 operative researchers should establish 

 a program and monitor water table 

 depths throughout the season and be- 

 fore and after logging on a set of repre- 

 sentative riparian/wetland sites. 



7. Qualitative evaluation of SMZ effec- 

 tiveness relative to width and practices 

 within the SMZ should be continued as 

 part of the standard BMP audit process. 



Watershed Evaluation Recommenda- 

 tions 



8. We recommend testing the nonpoint 

 source risk matrix assessment proce- 

 dure in the Flathead Basin. In compar- 

 ing the results with those of the other 

 techniques, use GIS capabilities and 

 the data sets obtained for the other 

 watershed analyses conducted by the 

 Cooperative. 



9. We recommend adding the Sequoia 

 procedure to the package of watershed 

 assessment techniques — especially 

 for application to watersheds that have 

 a high level of activity and may be 

 approaching "threshold" levels of ac- 

 tivity concerns. 



10. Further study is needed to improve 

 watershed prediction models so that 

 they become more reliable for assess- 

 ing probable cumulative effects of a 

 range of practices for a range of site 

 conditions. 



Flathead Basin Cooperative Program Firutl Report 



Page 155 



