Jefferson County Cost Share Programs
Homeowners in Jefferson County can apply for the
defensible space program in two ways: through the county Office
of Emergency Management (OEM) or through State Forestry. The county
uses the same treatment prescription as State Forestry (6.302).
The Wildfire Mitigation Specialist runs the county program and uses
State Forestry money to fund the program. First come, first served
is the primary way they have been running the program at the county
level. The Wildfire Mitigation Specialist tries to focus work in
a geographic area to the degree possible, but he can't turn anyone
away. He can focus community fire planning activities and that can
have an impact on a group of people applying for the defensible
space program. He also follows up on contacts provided by State
Forestry. The Wildfire Mitigation Specialist refers homeowners to
a few primary contractors including Bruce Coulter, retired from
CSFS, Bjorn Dahl, retired USFS, Joe Snyder with Evergreen Tree Consultants,
and Chris White from the Anchor Point Group. These are the four
certified contractors who can do regulatory work for the County.
In FY2002, Jefferson County Emergency Management made $50,000 available
from the CSFS Fuels Treatment Program for cost-share opportunities
for the creation of defensible space. This money funded 100 home
inspections and the creation of 31 defensible spaces. In FY2003
$75,000 was available for defensible space cost share and 50-75
homes were anticipated to be treated with this cost-share money.
CSFS Cost Share Programs
CSFS has two cost share programs. First, CSFS
makes money available to counties, communities or neighborhood associations
that apply for multiple defensible spaces or common fuel breaks
and slash treatment programs. The grant requests go to the District
offices where they are compiled and sent to the State office. The
State office ranks them and then submits them to the Western States
competition. Then the selected grants are forwarded to the USFS
and the USFS notifies CSFS once funding becomes available.

Second, Golden District has an individual defensible
space program for homeowners: $9,202 was paid out in 2002 and $16,785was
paid out in 2003 but they had $43,363 available and are hoping to
utilize those funds in 2004. In 2002 CSFS-Golden District created
21 defensible spaces through their cost share program and 29 in
2003. These defensible space grants are available on a 50/50 cost-share
basis. Funding through this program goes to existing homeowners.
In 2002 there was great interest in doing wildfire mitigation work
and CSFS had over 200 people on a waiting list. Everyone on the
list was called and given an opportunity to apply for the 2003 pool
of funding.

CSFS reimburses homeowners, counties and homeowners
associations for $1,200 per homesite for defensible space, $200
per acre for forest thinning, $75 per acre for tree pruning, $200
per acre for interface broadcast burning and $100-300 per acre for
slash disposal depending on whether it is being burned chipped or
hauled. They also reimburse at $1,000 per acre for fuel breaks.
When the work is completed, the homeowner notifies CSFS and they
go out and conduct a final inspection. The homeowners submit their
receipts and then fill out the paperwork. CSFS submits this to headquarters
in Ft. Collins and reimbursement can take anywhere from a few weeks
to months.
CSFS prioritizes applications from counties, communities,
neighborhood associations and individual homeowners based on the
level of organizational activity in a given area. Homeowner associations
are given priority if they approach the Golden District and are
already organized and 10% of their homeowners are willing to create
defensible spaces to CSFS standards. However, homeowners associations
have not been very responsive. Only five homeowner associations
requested grant packages and only one of those applied. About $4500
of FY03 funding still exists because they can't find willing homeowners
to participate in the program.
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Forest Management and Thinning Contracting Businesses
Joe Snyder manages and owns Evergreen Forest
Management, which is comprised of Evergreen Tree Consultants
and Evergreen Wildfire Consultants. Evergreen Forest Management
does large-scale implementation, insect disease surveys, and
forest management plans for sites of 1-1,500 acres and have
4-6 employees. Evergreen Forest Management is unique because
of its wide range of activities. "I always want to be
involved in the management planning side of things, whether
it's traditional forest management plans, fire management
plans, wildland urban interface planning, public education;
I want to have that component. I would consider us to be a
very unique hybrid [company]". Snyder spends most of
his time on consulting forestry and forestry management and
has crews that do the implementation. Private landowners are
his main clients. The cutting work by Evergreen Forest Management
is exclusively by chain saw, rubber tire skidder, tractor
grapple, whole tree chipper and dump truck. Costs range from
$1,500 to $3,000 per acre for treatment depending on the terrain.
Snyder helps with the regulatory markings
for new construction in the county. Snyder implements the
6.302
standard for the new development. The fee for the regulatory
marking is paid by the homeowner. Snyder also does prescription
burning, but only on a limited basis. "The problem with
prescription burning is that the money traditionally hasn't
been there and the treatment per acre money is not very high,
so I don't think from the private level it makes it worthwhile.
And as you might imagine it is a huge liability issue".
Snyder does prescribed fire training in the county and sometimes
can position a burn as a training exercise. Then the local
fire agency or district takes responsibility for the burn,
making it financially feasible.
Tree Musketeers, owned by Jason Bullis,
is a small thinning contract business. Bullis is on the contractor's
contact list for CSFS. He gets calls to do private property
work and at peak times he can have two other employees working
for him. In 2002, he treated 80-85 acres and the biggest job
was 27 acres. In 2002, about 25% of Bullis' business was for
the regulatory program and 60-75% of that was funded through
the county grant program. Bullis will take large diameter
trees to the mill, but generally mills don't like trees that
come from around homes because they have too many nails in
them. Aspen is taken to furniture places like TEC Woodsmithing,
Medicine Wolf or Lakewood Furniture. If the customer does
not want the firewood, and it will fit through the chipper,
generally it is chipped. It costs anywhere from $1,500-3,500
to treat an acre of property, depending on the size and other
attributes.
Darwin
and Cindy Babcock are the owners and operators of Everlasting
Tree Services. They treat 100% private landowners, and about
3-4% is cost share work. 50% of their work is on new property
or rebuilds and 50% is tree service. There are five employees.
Pikes Peak Lumber is a portable mill company that comes on
site. Everlasting works with Pikes Peakon their treatment
sites to salvage everything from 6 inches in diameter and
up. P ikes
Peak uses their portable mill and so only finished products
are taken off the sites. Utilizing the lumber enables Everlasting
Landscapes to save $10,000 per year in hauling costs. Defensible
space treatments cost $2,500-3,500 per acre, depending on
slope.
Competition is getting stiffer among all
the operators in Jefferson County and there is growing concern
about fly-by-night operators. Utilization of materials coming
off treated property is another great concern. According to
Snyder, "Biomass disposal/utilization is the number one
problem facing every small contractor. If you talk to thinning
contractors that is their number one problem". Contractors
can't sell small diameter timber and they have to deck the
logs so people can drive up, cut it and put it in a truck.
Consequently utilization is very limited. "We will make
a decision on some projects that everything that's 18 inches
and below is chipped."
Biomass Utilization
Jefferson County, national forest managers,and
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden
are exploring a plan that would generate electricity with
biomass. A semi-mobile facility, which could be placed in
the forest, would generate 3-5 MW, enough for 5,000 households.
Jefferson County Commissioner, Rick Sheehan, is spearheading
the project. Federal and state agencies, Xcel
Energy and the governor's office are considering a feasibility
study, which would cost about $60,000. If the project is feasible
and if federal grants are available, the first biomass generator
could be generating power in late 2004 or 2005. In the summer
of 2003, it appeared that a Memorandum of Understanding would
be signed between Jefferson County USFS, CSFS, NREL, Xcel
Energy, DOI, Colorado Office of Energy Management and Conservation,
and DOE to undertake a feasibility study and pilot project.
Each partner was asked to contribute a minimum of $5,000 to
the project. A 3-megawatt semi-portable plant could consume
all dry mass from thinning projects on 5,200 acres per year.
There are two small saw mills in Jefferson
County, a number of firewood producers and some specialty
wood product industries that are manufacturing furniture,
posts and beams, and interior decorative wood specially used
for home construction such as mantel pieces. The specialty
furniture operations are by TEC Woodsmithing and David Greist.
Wood also is bundled up for firewood and sold at the 7-11
stores by United Wood Products and Sweetman Enterprises, but
these are non-Jefferson County operations.
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