Kootenai National Forest

Water, Air & Soil

The Kootenai National Forest has a strong tradition in conservation and protection of these resources while providing goods and services wanted by the American public. The Kootenai Watershed and Air Management Program supports these diverse management needs through several program responsibilities.

Project Support

Each District on the Kootenai has a watershed professional in place and there is a Forest Hydrologist and Forest Soil Scientist who coordinate with them. Their task is to assure that the watersheds, wetlands, riparian areas, soils, and air quality are protected and improved. They do this by participating with other resources specialists in the development of management projects, particularly ones with the potential to negatively impact these resources.

Water Quality and Quantity

Careful administration of land-disturbing activities and application of protective conservation practices (called best management practices, or BMPs) ensure that water quality, quantity and dependent-resources are protected. One of the ways this is done is to collect field information to identify current stream channel and watershed conditions so that management does not exacerbate an existing water quality or quantity condition. Note: Over 50% of the surface water supply in the Western United States originates on Forest Service lands.

Soil Productivity Protection

The Forest Soil Scientist has been in-place on the Kootenai for over 20 years and is a wealth of information and direction. Under his direction, a soil inventory was completed and published for the Forest, providing scientific soil management and protection information. Long-term monitoring and periodic soil sampling provide information to adjust management practices that ensure continued productivity of forest lands.

Air Quality

The Air Quality program is split between Fire (visibility) and Watershed (air quality trends and monitoring). Trend monitoring includes annual evaluation of two lakes in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, one of which is the second most dilute (pure) lake in the world. The pureness of this lake makes it very susceptible to changes from air quality inputs, particularly acid deposition, creating the ideal sampling point for air quality change.

Riparian Management

Watershed and Fisheries programs work together to protect streams and adjacent uplands, managing them to ensure continued benefits to dependent resources (fisheries, wildlife and water) while providing a broad range of other resource outputs including grazing, recreation and timber. Riparian Area Management Guidelines have been in place on the KNF since 1991 (Forest Plan Appendix 26). These were amended in 1994 to incorporate the requirements of the Montana State SMZ Protection Law (HB-731). In 1995, the Forest implemented the Inland Native Fish Strategy (INFS), which automatically amended the Kootenai Forest Plan to more fully protect habitat and populations of resident native fish species. A major assumption of INFS was that additional protection and direction for streamside areas, called Riparian Habitat Conservation Areas (RHCA), would be the best tool to protect the resource. Riparian management on the Forest is thus a combination of the Riparian Area Guidelines and INFS.

Watershed Improvement

Damaged land surfaces and stream channels are carefully restored through the application of timely and efficient restorative methods. Field reviews identify locations where improvements are needed, such as where artificial structures and bank protection are needed in-channel (see photo at right). Other watershed restoration work may include removing roads to re-establish normal runoff processes [View Photos]. At the same time these roads are removed, stable stream crossings are reestablished to allow flow to safely cross the restored road segments [View Photos].

Emergency Fire Rehab

Following wildfire, lands are evaluated for damage, and protective practices are applied where review indicates emergency conditions exist or will exist. Burned Area Emergency Rehab (BAER) funding is only available where there is an emergency condition. Rehab of suppression-related conditions is accomplished using fire-suppression fund codes. The photo at left shows a fire line on the Young J Fire of 2000 where a steep and very wide tractor-line has been rehabilitated by placing lots of trees back onto the cleared area, rather than letting the powdered soils erode into a nearby stream.

USDA Forest Service - Kootenai National Forest
Last Modified: Monday, 17 November 2003 at 14:18:46 EST