By: Jake Donellan, BMP Forester (Ret.), Texas Forest Service
Q: I am an industry
forester and my company believes in and adheres to the Texas forestry BMP
guidelines. I am conducting a harvest in a bottomland area and need some
clarification on a specific situation we have encountered. Years ago when this
stand was planted, the land was low and saturated for long periods of time so
we installed drainage ditches to help get the stand established. These ditches
have, over the years, apparently become the primary drains for this area of
land. These ditches carry water most of the year and now they look more like
streams than ditches. My question is, "Do we need to protect this
ditch/stream with a streamside management zone (SMZ) or is it still just a
ditch?"
A: Wow, this sounds
like a complicated situation you have on your hands. The first thing I would
recommend on a situation like this is that you find out if you are operating in
a wetland. If
you
are not sure, you can always ask for assistance from the Natural Resource
Conservation Service (NRCS formerly the Soil Conservation Service or SCS).
Those folks are experts in the area of wetland delineation and should be able
to tell you for sure if you are operating in a wetland. The reason this is
important is because there are 15 mandatory road BMPs that you must follow when
operating in a wetland. Those 15 mandatory BMPs can be found in the bluebook in
the Forest Wetlands section on pages 93 & 94.
This is an interesting situation
and it is difficult to make recommendations without visiting the site for
myself however, this is an area that is covered in the bluebook. The Forest
Wetlands section mentioned previously also covers drainage ditches (on page
92). The book says,
"Drainage ditches that were formerly natural streams and have dredged and/or straightened need the protection of an SMZ only if they meet the flowing water criteria for a perennial or intermittent stream."
You may or may not know whether
these ditches were formerly natural streams but, based on the situation
you described, it sounds like you have, at the very least, an intermittent
stream.
An
intermittent
stream is defined as a stream that flows for at least 4 months of a typical
year. Given that you have what sounds like an intermittent stream then I would
say that you should
leave
an SMZ. Since this ditch has apparently become the natural stream then it
should
definitely
be protected by a SMZ.
You can get a copy of the Blue
book at your local Texas Forest Service office or you can view it online at http://txforestservice.tamu.edu/water.
If you have any questions regarding BMPs please contact me.
* This article was published in the December 2003 issue of the Texas Logger
