Road
Maintenance and Abandonment Plans (RMAPs) on WDFW lands
By Lonnie Landrie
New rules
in the Forest Practices Act approved in May 2001 specifically,
WAC 222-24-051, require all forest landowners with 500 or
more acres of forest land to develop a Road Maintenance and
Abandonment Plan (RMAP) for all their forested land by July
2006. The RMAP requires that all forest roads be identified,
their condition assessed, problems that are or pose a threat
to a public resource be identified and provide a schedule
of when the problems will be corrected. Annual reports are
required through 2015 for each plan submitted that describes
the past years work and what is scheduled for the upcoming
year.
Recent
actions by WDFW resulted in the abandonment of twelve miles
of problem road, removal of seven fish passage barrier culverts
which opened five miles of stream to fish passage and stream
channel restoration on the L.T. Murray, Wenas and W.T. Wooten
Wildlife Areas. The abandoned roads were ripped to create
a seedbed for native shrubs and grasses that will provide
additional forage and habitat for elk, deer and other wildlife
(see additional article(s) on elk management and roads). This
year (2004) additional road abandonment, fish passage barrier
culvert removal, road upgrade and improvement are scheduled
for the L.T. Murray, Sherman Creek and Olympic Wildlife Areas.
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