District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard referred to a historical failure to secure resources for wildfire mitigation and recreation as a major reason a Good Neighbor Authority Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service would be good for Del Norte County.
In response to skepticism from county resident and frequent commenter Sam Strait, Howard said the county could use the agreement as a way to get funding to organizations spearheading projects focusing on fuel reduction, watershed and forest restoration as well as trail development. He mentioned the Del Norte Fire Safe Council and the Del Norte Resource Conservation District specifically.
“There are a lot of these Good Neighbor Authorities being put in place throughout the State of California and the Pacific Northwest right now,” Howard said Tuesday. “I’m incredibly encouraged by the open door we’ve seen now with the Six Rivers National Forest, in particular with the staff at the Gasquet Ranger district, in helping us shape what this document looks like.”
Four Del Norte County supervisors directed staff to pursue the agreement with the U.S. Forest Service. District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson was absent.
According to Assistant County Administrative Officer Randy Hooper, the idea to pursue a partnership with federal leaders came after Fire Safe Council County Coordinator Aaron Babcock proposed a broad approach to wildfire mitigation in Del Norte.
Babcock introduced supervisors to the Smith-to-Klamath Shared Stewardship Initiative in January. The concept involved working with the Forest Service and CalFIRE as well as private industrial timberland owners such as Green Diamond Resource company, Hooper said.
Following that presentation, Babcock went to Washington D.C. with Howard and saw that such broad-level partnerships with local, state and federal agencies were successful in other communities, Hooper said. But it still takes the official agreements to get them established, he said.
Established under the Agricultural Act of 2014, Good Neighbor agreements are official partnerships between the U.S. Forest Service and state forestry agencies on projects that are similar and complementary to each other when performed on adjacent state or private land.
The 2018 Agricultural Improvement Act expanded the Good Neighbor Authority program to include county governments and tribal participation.
Hooper said he worked with Babcock and Howard to determine what such a partnership could look like for Del Norte County, however the specific parameters have yet to be developed.
“If the Board directs staff today to go further, what we would then do is take the conceptual framework of an agreement, present it to the Forest Service and have those conversations, have that negotiation, agree to basic terms and then present it to you as the decision makers,” Hooper said. ”I will say this is something the Board as a group has been interested in doing for decades. I’ve been with the county since 2004. This was something that Chuck Blackburn advocated for. This was something that Gerry Hemmingsen advocated for. This was something that Mike Sullivan advocated for. And now Supervisor Howard, as the representative of the district where the majority of these public lands exist, has kind of carried that mantle forward.”
Babcock said he presented the Smith-to-Klamath initiative as a landscape scale attempt at wildfire mitigation throughout Del Norte County. Such an effort would take state and federal partners, timber companies and local communities, he said.
The Del Norte Fire Safe Council is a community organization that aims to teach residents how to protect their homes and communities from catastrophic wildfires. The organization spearheads fuel reduction projects around the Gasquet, Hiouchi, Big Flat, Low Divide and Rock Creek areas and holds regular workshops.
When he presented his idea for the Smith-to-Klamath Stewardship Initiative to the Board in January, Babcock said the goal was to show the U.S. Forest Service that there are local partners, including the county, the Resource Conservation District and his own agency that could help with wildfire mitigation.
On Tuesday, Babcock said his organization is working with residents to help them create a defensible space around their homes and “getting the communities all on board with doing what they need to do.”
“In talking with our national leadership in Washington, the Good Neighbor Authority is really our way of allowing the county to have a voice and to get some of that federal funding into Del Norte,” he said. “But it doesn’t obligate the county to do anything specific. It would still be the county’s choice on where you want to go with that.”
Becky Crockett, district manager for the Del Norte Resource Conservation District, a special district that is expanding its boundaries to include the entire county, also endorsed the Good Neighbor Authority Agreement proposal.
At a presentation before the Board of Supervisors on April 28, Crockett said the RCD’s expansion would enable more federal and state funding to come into Del Norte County.
On Tuesday, Crockett called the Good Neighbor Authority Agreement “bureaucracy at its best” and said it’s needed in Del Norte County.
“Throughout the State of California and throughout the nation, there are several of these types of agreements with Resource Conservation Districts,” she said. “So we know they work. We know the benefits. We know that when money is allocated at the federal level, it comes to the jurisdiction much more quickly if there’s a Good Neighbor agreement.”
During his public comment, Strait said Del Norte County has been trying to address wildfire mitigation and recreation issues on its forest lands for years. He said he didn’t understand how this new agreement would get anything accomplished.
Howard said he understood where Strait was coming from — despite discussion at the local, state and federal level, bringing the needed resources into the Smith River National Recreation Area has been challenging. He referred to the Agricultural Act in 2014 that established the Good Neighbor program at the federal level and said that allowed local governments to advocate for their needs.
“What we’re trying to do is use the county as the authority, as a pass-through to partners like the Del Norte Fire Safe Council who can implement projects on the ground,” he said.
