composed primarily of silty 

 glacial till soils (see APPENDIX 

 G - SOILS ANALYSIS) . 



• Moisture availability - The mean 

 annual precipitation is 

 approximately 2 8 inches. 



• Growing season - The project area 

 consists of a relatively short 

 growing season, 5 to 7 months. 



These site factors helped develop 

 the habitat-type classifications 

 used to describe successional 

 development and timber productivity, 

 among other things (Pfister et al, 

 1977) . Most of the areas within the 

 proposed harvest units are western 

 red cedar/queencup beadlily habitat 

 types. These habitat types indicate 

 a high to very high potential for 

 timber productivity. Fire return 

 intervals in cedar/hemlock stands in 

 northern Idaho have been estimated 

 by Arno and Davis (1980), who have 

 reported fire-free intervals from 50 

 to greater than 200 years. Fire 

 severities vary greatly, from minor 

 ground fires of moist sites to 

 stand-replacement fires {Fischer, 

 Bradley 1987) . 



Currently, blowdown occurs 

 periodically in small clumps and 

 individual trees throughout the 

 project area. Blowdown events occur 

 most often in the spring when 

 conditions are generally wet and 

 windy. 



Trees have regenerated well with a 

 diverse species mix of native trees 

 and vegetation in most of the 

 project area that was previously 

 harvested with regeneration as an 

 objective. A sort of the O-to-39- 

 year age class in the SLI shows over 

 75 percent of the area is medium to 

 well stocked. The most common 

 barriers to tree regeneration in the 

 area are a lack of good seed source 

 (particularly with western larch and 

 western white pine) , brush 

 competition, and competition from 

 pinegrass and beargrass. 



INFLUENCES FROM PAST DNRC HARVESTING 

 ACTIVITIES 



Historical records indicate that a 

 small amount of selective timber 

 harvesting was initiated at lower 

 elevations in the gross sale area in 

 the 1920s. These harvests targeted 

 some of the large serai dominants in 

 the stands, such as western larch 

 and western white pine, but did not 

 cover large areas. The area was 

 entered in the 1930s for harvesting 

 cedar poles; these pole harvests 

 continued through the 1940s and 50s. 

 Partial cutting was initiated during 

 the 1940s and 50s, removing some of 

 the large western larch, western 

 white pine, and Douglas-fir, 

 primarily from areas in the lower 

 elevations. This resulted in stand 

 compositions heavy in shade-tolerant 

 species (subalpine fir, grand fir, 

 and western red cedar) . In the late 

 1960s, even-aged harvesting methods, 

 primarily seedtree and clearcut 

 harvests, occurred. Some mixed- 

 conifer stands were entered in the 

 1980s with an improvement harvest 

 that removed most of the lodgepole 

 pine and other scattered individual 

 trees that were showing poor vigor. 

 This improvement cutting and some of 

 the even-aged harvesting was focused 

 on treating lodgepole pine stands 

 that were heavily infested with 

 mountain pine beetle. The species 

 mixes in the seedling/sapling stands 

 that have regenerated from the even- 

 aged treatments are predominantly 

 lodgepole pine, western larch, and 

 Douglas-fir. 



NOXIOUS WEEDS 



A survey of the road system that 

 accesses the project area and many 

 of the existing harvest units in and 

 around the project area was 

 completed. One small population of 

 tansy ragwort {Senecio jacobaea L) 

 was found and sprayed with an 

 herbicide in 2002. The road rights- 

 of-way had both patchy and 

 continuous concentrations of spotted 

 knapweed {Centaurea maculosa) and 

 oxeye daisy (Chrysanthemum 



Page C~6 



Dog/Meadow Timber Sale Project Draft EA 



