Item 3: PH on Ordinance Prescribed Wetland Management Burning

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Special precautions will be taken for burns at sites that are adjacent to manufacturing facilities where smoke is a special concern. A number of the burn sites are adjacent to existing manufacturing facilities, and any burns done on those sites would accommodate any concerns regarding potential smoke impacts for potentially affected facilities. Burns would be conducted with prevailing winds that carry the smoke away from these facilities, and at a time when the manufacturing process is not in operation (such as on a weekend) and the air intake system is not turned on. 4. Reasons for When, How Often, and Where Burning Will Occur Prescribed burns will be conducted in the late summer or early fall. Burns will occur only on days when the weather conditions (temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed) provide the proper window to conduct a safe burn. Generally prescribed burns are conducted after the first fall rains have reduced regional fire hazards somewhat but fine fuels such as grasses are still brown and dormant. We anticipate that most sites will be burned once or twice during this five year time interval. It appears, from our experience to date, that the optimal burn frequency for meeting site ecological goals is once every three to four years. Areas that might be burned more frequently would be sites where test plots have been established to compare the effects of different burn frequencies, or sites where stated management goals require more frequent burns, for example, to reduce woody plant growth in prairie habitats. The areas selected for prescribed burning include the highest quality native prairie remnants under protective management. These are typically the sites that will benefit most from such prescribed burns. Many of these prairie sites contain endangered plant species which have also been shown to benefit from such burns. 5. Description of Burning Procedures The prescribed burns would be conducted by trained personnel from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), The Nature Conservancy, City of Eugene, and contract crews. The BLM- Eugene District has been involved with Willamette Valley ecosystem prescribed burning since 1988. Agencies for whom the BLM has provided prescribed burning services include The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Fern Ridge and Dorena reservoirs and adjacent lands), US Fish and Wildlife Service (Finley National Wildlife Refuge), City of Eugene, and Lane County. The Nature Conservancy and City of Eugene began providing trained staff for prescribed burns in west Eugene since 2004. The State of Oregon has delegated to the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority (LRAPA) the authority for management of air quality within the Eugene-Springfield area. In order to conduct wetland management burning, the BLM or TNC must submit, prior to the burning season, a permit application to LRAPA that includes all of the planned burn sites for the next year. LRAPA reviews and forwards the application to the Eugene Fire Department, who in turn reviews the burn plan and issues a special letter permit. In addition, both LRAPA and the Page 2