Help Me With Sign Alabama Banking Presentation

Help me with industry sign banking alabama presentation simple

well good day everyone my name is carrie potter i'm the bmp coordinator for the alabama forestry commission and i am coming to you from our state office in montgomery where i'm recording this powerpoint presentation on alabama bmps more especially our working forest wildlife and sustainability this is for your plm training course and i will be going into talking more in depth about water quality streams types of streams and your basic bmps in general so let's talk about the importance of water because it's very important for our existence you know on an everyday basis over 50 percent of the drinking water in the u.s comes from forested watersheds that's a lot of different streams creeks and rivers flowing through our state more approximately this number is going to be 132 419 miles of creek streams and rivers this figure was increased from 77 000. just think about there's more freshwater biodiversity in the state of alabama than any other state there are certain aquatic species that are only found in alabama when you consider this think of several of the midwestern states which you know don't even compare with alabama you could take five or six different midwest states and they they do not come close to the many species or the bio biodiversity that's found within the state of alabama so what are bmps bmps are best management practices and alabama follows the bmps for forestry which are non-regulatory guidelines which means these are not mandatory guidelines but they're followed to protect water quality within the state there are 15 federally mandated bmps that are regulated and these concern the the federal wetlands that exist in alabama and what you can do as far as your best management practices within these wetland areas the alabama bmps were suggested to help alabama's forestry community maintain and protect the physical chemical and biological integrity of waters of the state as required by federal and state laws these federal and state laws that that we're talking about encompass the federal water pollution act the clean water act the water quality act and the coastal zone management act within alabama we have our alabama water pollution control act these are all acts that are very influential in keeping the waters of our state clean and and not polluted so bmps are are no longer voluntary they're suggested that you fall to protect our water quality within the state but there are certain member companies that must follow bmp standards by written contract with dealer and supplier these are mainly your pulp mills in alabama that are under the sfi or fsc or pefc standard sfi stands for sustainable forestry initiative what this means to you as a logger and landowner is that you know these meals are constantly checking the tracks that are cut on your properties or the properties that you cut to maintain to make sure that bmps are being followed uh when you're harvesting timber if you're not maintain the bmps or are in compliance with the state bmps these meals can choose to not take wood from you and that could really affect you as a company if we have any unresolved bmp complaints these are reported to the sic which is a sustainability implementation committee and member companies and consequences can be severe sis committee has meal representatives that reside on the committee and so they know about any of the complaints that happen especially if there are severe complaints that are unresolved there have been two unsuccessful court cases attempted to require a permit for all forest roads as point services right now all forestry silvicultural logging activities related around logging are non-point sources so you may ask what's the difference between a point source and a non-point source a point source is something that hey you can point your finger at and say hey that is the definite reason that pollution is entering a stream now with logging and uh practices and and best management practices of the state we have several different guidelines we use for roads uh loading decks logging sites streams smz's that protect the the water quality and make sure that you know any any any source of pollution will be a non-point source which if you're following your bmps and you're doing everything that you're supposed to be doing you don't have any problems with any pollution source getting into the stream the epa recently ruled that permitting of all forest roads was not necessary because of success in bmps and protecting water quality this is why bmp implementation is so important so we do not get the federal government involved with our state affairs with uh logging practices and start you know implementing federal laws that apply to you know how you cut your how you cut your timber because we already have bmps in place that do that so that's why following bmps is so important you know with all your your forest harvesting activities now adam states that bmps must be maintained until the site is fully revegetated that means all of your bmp work on roads whether it's water bars turnouts your grading of the roads your skid trail water retention devices your smz zones stream side management zones if you have a perennial stream do you have the right buffer you know on either side of the stream bank which should be 35 feet all these all these different bmps must be maintained until the the track is able to green up and be fully vegetated so let's talk about the endangered species act and bmps endangered species there's certain lawsuits against the u.s fish and wildlife services continue to exist at this point there are over 250 imperiled species that reside in the rivers streams creeks in alabama 13 of these are aquatic which are your your fish mussels crayfish and snails bmps especially smz's your extreme side management zones are the key to avoid regulation regulation in shus as your strategic habitat units like i said earlier following bmp ensures that you know you put you're protecting these imperiled uh and endangered species that exists within the state if you're doing everything you should do with your your your smz's your stream side management zones protecting your your your streams then you shouldn't have any problems you know endangering any of these species the trump administration administration has also pledged to revise the listing process so in the future you might see more and more species added to this list and so that's why it's so important to follow bmps uh so you don't have any regulatory issues with the u.s fisheries and wildlife service because if you go in and you start you know threatening these streams by you know making your smz's smaller where they should be wider and causing problems with these endangered species or imperiled species the u.s fish and wildlife service can come in and issue some pretty significant fines which are really going to hurt and these threatened and endangered species and the water quality concerns are not going away these these concerns are and issues are going to get worse and worse as time goes by unless these bmps are adequate adequate quickly followed so what are some of your pollutants well some of your silvicultural non-point source pollutants would be sediment organic materials temperature trash pesticides and nutrients these are some of the main pollutant sources that can get in your streams temperature is more of a water quality or water temperature issue where if you cut too many trees along a major stream or creek it's going to change the temperature of that stream and it can endanger some of this aquatic species that live there trash that would be you know just trash from logging operations hydraulic buckets you want to keep those in a container and off the property you know and away from these streams where they can and up on sites where they can get into the streams nutrient flow that's some of your your fertilizers um all these contribute you know to you know polluting the waters of the state we'll make sure that we keep these out of the the streams and creeks and rivers and away from you know causing any source of pollution so bnp standards in alabama are alabama's best management practices for forestry involve several different core areas these are your stream side management zones or smz's these are the buffers on either side of a perennial stream bank your stream crossings your forest roads timber harvesting reforestation stand management forested wetland management where you have federal wetlands where they exist and then re-vegetation and stabilization this is some of your remediation work in case you have any bmp issues or problems remember always think and plan before you act always have a plan in place before you start your logging operation a good idea is to have a pre-harvest plan in place to where you know where all of your loading decks should be where your roads should be if there's a stream that exists on the property and it's a perennial stream intermittent stream or ephemeral which we'll get into later on make sure that these are properly marked you know before you start your your timber harvest so always think and plan before you act so what is the stream side management zone this is a strip of land immediately adjacent to the waters of the state where soils organic material matter and vegetation are managed to prevent pollutants from forestry operations this is kind of your buffer that keeps all of these materials out of your your stream this is required for perennial the smz is required for perennial and that's a 35 foot buffer on perennial streams per side so 70 feet total and this is recommended for intermittent streams as well so what is a stream a stream consists of a bed a bank and a high water mark your bed is where the water flows through and your banks contain the water it's always recommended that a consultant forester a registered forester mark or flag of the smz's before harvest i always suggest this with a lot of tracks that i do inspections on you know do is the smz marked um have they made an effort to go in and paint or mark the lines with flagging where the smz exists it's always a good idea to have this policy in place before you start harvesting a track and you also need to keep your roads and log in decks outside the smz's another main point i'll expand on is do not skid parallel with your smzs try to come in at perpendicular angles to your smz's where you have to harvest timber and whatever you do do not skid right down the bank of an smz i've seen this a lot in the past and it's sort of becoming a problem that i found with a lot of tracks that i look at so here's a an aerial photo of an smz in the middle of the photo you can see the perennial stream this is a main creek or stream that goes through that property and these little feeders off of it are either intermittent or ephemeral streams that tie into that main stream it's always good to protect those ephemeral and intermittent areas too because you know any source of pollution that can get into those streams these little feeder streams are going to go straight to your major perennial stream and cause pollution problems down the road so let's talk a little bit more about perennial streams and smz's perennial streams flow year round under normal weather conditions they'll have a definite bed a bank and a high water mark these are usually specified or are found on as a solid blue line on a topo or usgs quad map you should leave a 35 foot minimum smz width on either side of the bank and when i when i state or emphasize minimum if you have a lot of slope uh involved with the the stream the smz you should probably allow for a little bit wider smz especially where slope is involved this smz width can be increased if with the landowner objectives on-site conditions and stream sensitive sensitivity excuse me you also need to take into consideration soil erodeability soil equipment limitations slope like i've talked about in topography another thing to consider is where these streams may exit you know if you have a major stream going into a major tributary a waterway such as a river it might be a good idea to leave a wider smz just to ensure that you don't have any chance of any sediment or pollution getting into the stream and going straight to the river within these peritoneal streams you should leave 50 you can leave a 50 crown cover and and harvest timber within within these uh buffer areas just remember that you need to selectively uh mark the trees out of these buffer areas and make sure that 50 50 of the crown cover is left also it's important to take out all the any any uh residual logging debris that may have found its way into the water of the stream so whatever goes in the water must come out this is a photo of an smz that has been selectively harvested you can see in the photo that the stream bed and the bank is none of the trees have been cut along the edge of the bank and you have trees you have a good vegetative layer and a good good crown closure left within that buffer zone this is an incorrect smz that was left on a perennial stream on the far left side of the slide you can see the stream bed the bank and then actually a tree right in the middle of the slide that was cut right there close to the edge of the bank the big difference in this picture between the last you see that you know 50 crown closure was not left uh that tree that was cut in the middle probably should have been left or definitely should have been left excuse me and you should have marked your buffer to where you leave these trees and you know where your buffer zone is i see this a lot with a lot of the complaints that i have within the state so number one always mark your perennial smz buffers number two it's a good idea to go in if you're going to selectively remove trees within that buffer just go ahead and mark those trees either paint them or flag them so you can get an idea of what's going to come out of that smz buffer it's another picture of an incorrect smz buffer that was left you see that 50 of the crown closure was not left uh within this buffer you know he they left a few trees but this is going to cause problems with sediment getting into the stream it's going to cause temperature problems which i talked about earlier that can change the temperature temperature of that stream and endanger you know any of the aquatic species that are living there so you run into risk of having really big problems not only with water quality but also with the u.s fish and wildlife service you know coming to you and saying hey you've just put another species on the extinction list we we have some fines that we want to deal out to you so what what are you going to accomplish from you know cutting a few trees within that smz or cutting most of those out what is that maybe uh a quarter of a load per acre or every five acres so it's a good idea just to leave these buffers intact at all possible so we we've talked about perennial streams let's talk about intermittent streams intermittent streams flow part of the year uh and they'll have a a bank and a bed but may not have a high water mark uh these show up as a dash blue line on your topo map or usgs quad and they may or may not show up you know a lot of these maps are kind of outdated and you you don't see some of these that exist there is a you can have a partial cut or regeneration cut within these with these intermittent streams if the water quality you know for the stream is protected that means you can you can actually cut the timber on either side of these intermittent streams but you must protect that buffer area and make sure there's a vegetative layer that's left we've got to have this vegetative ground cover and organic debris to protect the forest floor and to keep that buffer that exists to keep any sediment from flowing into the stream if there's no canopy cover that is left make sure that your vegetative ground cover is left and if you do cut within these intermittent streams and and you remove soil or you disrupt soil make sure this is fixed before you leave these areas you have to put in some uh hay bales uh spread some hay some grass seed uh put in some silt fencing just make sure that sediment cannot get into the stream in any way here are some examples of incorrect smz s that were left a lot of these are dealing with perennial type streams the upper the top left you can see that some sediment some debris was left within within that stream bed um same thing on the middle slide plus you can see where they've disrupted that vegetative layer that buffer right next to the stream and by running a skidder right next to it and this opens up the possibility of sediment getting into the stream you can actually see in that middle slide on the bottom part of the slide where sediment is actually getting into the stream and causing it to be silted in or turbine on the bottom right that's another example of an intermittent where they're leaving debris within the stream that's going to have to come out that water's got to be able to flow to move the water off that property and it's got to be in a state where you don't have sediment getting into that intermittent stream so ephemerals are streams are our last type of stream that we'll talk about uh ephemeral streams your shallow ditches or depressions they're usually dry most of the year usually only the only time you see these are within wet areas or flooding type areas and these transport the water you know off the track you know into probably intermittent or perennial stream they may or may not have a defined bed or bank and will not have a high water mark these are usually not identified on a topo but you can stay the observe the the contour lines on the on the topo maps and see where these these uh ditches and cuts are you know by your v-shaped lines on the topo map these ephemeral streams do not require an smz or canopy cover cover you do still need to use keep a vegetative cover or litter layer you know as a buffer on either side of the stream bed remove any debris material within these ephemeral streams that could dam up and cause water to stop flowing and another thing to consider is these streams can cause severe water quality issues if the banks are beaten down to bare mineral soil what we're talking about there is you know these streams are transport vessels these ephemerals are transport vessels that lead to intermittent and perennial streams so any sedimentation movement that goes that is is carried by these ephemeral streams can still reach these intermittent and perennial streams and cause problems if if not managed properly here we have a slide of ephemeral stream with uh no smz uh as you can see in the slide there's still a lot of debris left uh within within this femoral you see there's a you know the slope changes on either side of this ephemeral and you know a lot of this debris was left in here and you can see some uh some movement of sedimentation in the middle of that slide here's some more examples where uh top left you left a lot of logging tops and debris within the ephemeral and a lot of times you're going to stop these up and cause problems with water flow you know this should be pulled out and these these buffers along these femoral is protected try to make sure that you leave a good uh buffer area it's always a good idea to leave you know a stringer of trees on either side you know just to make sure you have adequate protection for these ephemeral streams like i said earlier uh you know these femoral intermittent streams uh they're going to flow to a major water source you know most of the time they're going to go to a river uh they're going to get a tributary that a lot of times these are feeding into ponds so any sediment movement you have coming from a track that you're cutting is is going off of that track onto your neighbors and this can be a major problem in silting in your neighbor's prawn and next thing you know you have a lawsuit because he stocked his pond with uh you know florida trophy bass and bluegill and you've you've killed all his fish within that pond well now he's got an issue with it and a lot of times they're going to hire attorneys and they're going to pursue it i see a lot of complaints each year where the same thing happens uh an adequate bmps weren't being followed as far as streams and smz's especially smz width and this is what happened your neighbor a quarter mile half mile downstream had their ponds silted in so it's always a good idea to keep this under consideration when you're planting stages before you cut the track look at what's downstream from some of the smz's that you're going to have some of the major streams that go through the track that you're cutting do they end up in someone's pond do they go to a major tributary or river where they could cause problems and these these instances it's probably a good uh idea to leave a little bit wider smz than you normally would just to make sure that you don't cause any of these problems down the road uh like i just discussed avoid these disturbance disturbances where these drain areas join intermittent perennial streams we've seen what they what kind of problems they will cause adm or alabama department of environmental management will consider old ag canals ditches and streams if they have been on the long landscape long enough to develop a distinct bed and bank uh another telltale sign is if the ag canal or ditch has aquatic you know fish species snails uh all those different critters and vegetation within it usually your fresh cut canals will not have these it's always good idea to protect the vegetative layer on these regardless but if you have an old ag ditch that's been there for a long time and you noticed uh minnows and and uh aquatic species within it it's probably a good idea to leave a good buffer or a good uh tree tree buffer along these ditches these are certain slides of ag ditches that were ephemeral streams i don't know if you can see the top left slide this ephemeral stream is all clogged up there's actually an old bridge that goes across it you can see the tops that are in it right there that bottom left uh that that one actually had some menace species in it uh aquatic species and uh the middle right that's that's an old bridge going across another old uh ag ditch that ended up being an ephemeral stream and uh it was it was pretty clogged up on either side so i always plan and uh plan for these these situations where you know where all your your streams are whether they're perennial intermittent or ephemeral and have a logging plan adjusted to that all right stream crossings everybody has them at some point in time the best thing is to avoid them if possible if you're cutting a 40 acre block and there's a smz right through the middle a big a major stream right through the middle of that 40 acres and you can access it on either side of that stream it's a good idea to to do so just make just to make sure you don't have cause any problems by crossing the stream so if if you find where you can't access you know each side of the smz in some way or another it's a good idea to try to go ahead and do that try to locate these stream crossings where the the bank and the smz will be least disturbed if you have to if you actually do have to put in a crossing so you must allow for the normal passage of water and these aquatic species to make their way up and down the stream so what i'm saying here is do not pile in a lot of dirt slash logging debris into these streams where you dam up the stream until you're done logging make sure that water can flow while you are pulling wood back and forth across an smz so some of these log these straight string crossings that we do or log crossings forwards or low water crossings um culverts that we put in bridges bridges are probably your least intrusive form of crossing they can be a little costly sometimes but they actually pay for themselves in the end instead of having to come back and do extra work pulling out crossings you can pull these bridges out as you go or these ramps that some people use and you haven't affected the the stream banks as much you haven't put any debris into the streams and that's the biggest thing i'm talking about here is not putting any more debris into the streams and you have to make sure uh you know all that is pulled out of course any temporary crossing must be removed and when i say it must be removed it should be completely pulled out in the stream bank stabilized on either side if there's a slope involved going down to these crossings you may need to put in some water bars some turnouts put in a lot of extra slash you may even have to put in some silt fencing just depending on you know what topography of that track suggests but definitely all these permanent and temporary crossings must be stabilized some of the material you can use for stream crossings uh log crossings is probably one of your easiest things to do is take your hollow or solid logs and put into the channel and then come over the top of it with some type of skid bridge or mat if at all possible but whatever you do do not use limbs brush or dirt and remember what with any of these crossings what goes in must come out excuse me uh this is a slide of one of your well implemented crossings these are logs that were put in uh you know linear linearly or lengthwise across the stream a lot of times you see them just put in a parallel within the stream bed and then a mat put over the the logs to cross the biggest thing is not to impede the water flow so that you know aquatic species on either side of that crossing can't go back and forth this is an example of a pore crossing this is just logging slash debris dirt that's put in and it has dammed up this this stream and this will be a major pain to remove and this is going to cost you extra time and money to make sure all this debris is pulled out of the stream bed and each individual approach on either side of the stream is stabilized here's another example of a poor crossing this is one from north alabama this is just a lot of sticks tops logging slash that was put in to cross over this would probably been a good example of when to use a bridge or you know culverts that you can put in and pull out this is another example of a poor crossing forwards a forger can be used when the creek beds firm a lot of people use these uh when there's a lot of rock that exists you know on streams really rocky uh bottom streams it's a good idea to use these where the banks are low you don't have any steep incline coming up to the the stream banks where these are used the banks should be back bladed away from the channel and and used to improve the approaches that means using these to divert a lot of any sediment sedimentation that can make its way into these crossings to keep it away from there always use rock to stabilize the stream bed you can use a good policy or procedure to use is have your rip wrap put in and with some smaller rock on top where the water can flow through naturally here's a good slide example of a well-implemented ford so you want a whole lot of water in this creek anyway but it's able to flow across the bottom of this ford it's not impeded in any way so that's that's a good example of afford to use got lots of rock there shouldn't have a problem with sediment getting into the stream culverts should be used to reduce the potential for road washouts and impoundments of water culvert's usually best to use in permanent crossing type situations or i know a lot of loggers carry around the metal or plastic covers where they can put in in intermittent or perennial crossings where needed and then they can just pull them out when they come out if you look in our bmp manuals you'll see the the minimum size covert that's recommended uh in each individual use and a lot of that's determined by the amount of watershed flow in it per area uh one one good idea or one great idea to use when using culverts is put in a one large uh size one bigger size than is recommended uh when you're using the culvers y'all you probably want to have one that's has a larger diameter uh compared to one that's smaller uh just to make sure that uh you know the water flow is is is being allowed where these crossings exist these culverts when they're put in should extend a minimum of one foot beyond the field the field material should be stabilized with sandbags rock or veg vegetation one one things i see the most is using rock you know with these crossings uh it's a good idea to stabilize or seat these culvert crossings with rock sandbags can be used i've seen hay bales that are staked out and used just make sure you don't get any of the sediment you know from the crossing into the stream here's an example of a couple of permanent crossings that culverts that were put in extremely well you see they're extending a foot or more you know past the field the feel is usually rock around the facings of those culverts that's keeping a lot of sediment from getting into the stream and you have a good base over it you don't want to put your your feel over the top of the crossing excuse me the culvert and have it less than a foot you want at least a foot or more of feel over the top of that culvert when you put it in just make sure number one you don't crush your culvert when you go over it and you have a good pad where your your traffic or your log trucks can get over and i have to worry about causing any problems or any cave-ins you know with that culvert installation and this is several examples of culverts that have failed the one on the top left it was not packed in get it it didn't have it wasn't stabilized very well all they used was a loose feel around this culvert and you know your first major rain this is what happens it's going to wash out a lot of that feel and it's going to get into that stream and you're going to have some major pollution problems sedimentation problems on the bottom right is a culvert that you didn't have adequate feel on top the the culvert and it was crushed so what i was talking about earlier make sure they're stabilized good uh use proper stabilizing agent whether it's rocks and bags uh whatever but do not just use loose soil to pack it in and make sure your cover on that culvert over the top of it is at least a foot or more deep bridges are probably your your easiest crossing to use uh one of the best that you know in my opinion to use because they create the least amount of disruption of stream flow you still have to stabilize your banks and fill material to prevent erosion with these when they're put in and taken out but you don't have to go through all the effort of you know packing in a culvert or putting in several logs you know for a log crossing these can be just put in you know in one one move and then you know when you're done pull them out stabilize your your bank areas and you know you're gone i mean everything's taken care of one thing to remember on these the spans must be installed to permit passage of expected high water flow make sure that you know they come far enough across that the stream bank to where in case the water comes up that you don't have to worry about these bridges floating off here's an example of a portable bridge as you see in this slide you know they extend pretty good ways on either side of the the stream bank this is a pretty heavy duty bridge i don't think you'll have any problems out of that and and you're not really disrupting a whole lot of the you know the buffer area the vegetative area that exists you know on either side of that crossing so and these last a long time so if at all possible you know get a portable bridge that you can take around from job site to job site i promise you it will pay for itself you know with work and effort that you would have to do with some of these other crossings you know definitely pay for itself in the future all right let's talk about forest roads now as with any of your bmps proper planting and location should be used to minimize the potential for pollutants you know coming off of these forest roads with adequate drainage is the most important factor consider you know when you put these forest roads in uh it's a matter of getting uh you know make sure the sedimentation is is not taken from these roads and can go into a stream so several of the different ways to build these roads maintain adequate drainage is crowning your roads everybody's heard a crowned and ditched roads uh you know water's able to flow off the top of these roads and stay in ditches and then go down into turnouts which can be put into you know any any sediment flow can be put within a vegetative area that way you have outslope roads which slope away into you know an area of vegetative area in slope roads which usually you know have a ditch that and turnouts involved with that broad baits dips you know these are your you know smaller water bars with the dips to channel water off the road into vegetative areas one of the things you see most often as water bars with turnouts we consider with water bars is putting these in at a proper angle like a 45 or 50 degree angle and the right height to make sure that you know water is adequately diverted off the roads into areas of vegetative cover another real important fact to think about on water bars is packing these water bars in just so when it rains it just doesn't wash your water bar out and one of the main things is just controlling non-essential traffic uh this may require putting up a cable gate or a uh a steel gate you know just keeping unwanted traffic off those roads so you can maintain the integrity of your roads you don't want to spend a whole lot of money uh doing all this road work make sure you have these great roads and then have joe blow come in and mud ride all over your property and destroy all the work that you've done and believe me i've seen this where it's happened so try to control the traffic on and off these roads whether it's using a cable or a gate and some way to keep people out uh it's good i did i always put rock at the entrance on your login site that's that's to keep a lot of mud off the road and i get calls all the time hey this guy's got a major problem over here he's he's pulling all this mud out on the road and you know that that happens in a lot of different logging sites uh it's a good idea to rock you know these entrances to where you can clean your tires off before you get out onto the road i know in georgia in the past when i was doing some logging uh jobs uh d.o.t required that you put in rock at every entrance where logging trucks were going to come out and this had to be 150 200 feet of rock you know to clean the tires off before you you came out on the main road so it's always a good thing to consider you know when when you have one of these logging jobs and you're coming out into a main road make sure you rock it really good here's an example of a in service forest road that was put in uh so you probably in when you're done with this you need to come back and crown this road and ditch it a little bit and put in water bars where you can invert water off this road you know into the stand into just different vegetative areas within a stand here's an example of a crown and ditched road water's able to run off these roads very easily keeps them from rutting up a lot so that water's moving off the top of that road into the ditches and going away from the road into that vegetative layer so crowned and ditched roads are a good way to keep that water off roads here's a very steep forest road that was put in you can see there were pretty major water bars turnouts that was put in and the steeper uh the slope on these roads the more water bars you're going to have to put put in if you look in our bmp manual you'll see just how many uh per feet in between water bars you'll have to use you know depending upon slope so you see where there would be the potential for bmp problems or sedimentation problems on this road because usually at the bottom there's going to be a stream or major waterway that exists you want to keep that sediment out of out of that stream here's a road where they use mats for stabilizing uh the road um you know a lot of people use these coming in out of tracks to keep mud off the main road but it also helps protect that road uh while you're there logging and these are these are easy to remove once you uh you're finished and pack up and move on you just pull those up and take them with you now here we're going to get into some slides involving forest road problems you see in this slide you have some major rutting uh on this road crossing uh an smz a stream no doubt all that sediment is going to flow down that that road into that stream and and you're going to have some major problems another example of a steep road or skid trail going down into an smz as you see in this skid trail there weren't any water diversion devices put in um no turnouts uh no slash put in so all that loose sole sediment is going to be able to go straight down the hill into that stream a lot of time brush piles are not good substitutes for water bars or turnouts especially if there's a lot of slope involved in the approaches going to these smz stream side crossings it's better to use where you have a lot of topography a lot of slope to use silt fencing using a lot of larger water bars you know on these four water diversion devices and where you have your turnouts have hay bales and silt fencing to turn that water out into hay bale to where it doesn't make its way down into a stream like say you know putting a pile or two isn't going to help slow that uh movement of sediment down into a stream uh this would have been a better situation this slide to use a couple of big water bars going up there and and turning that water into that vegetative layer on either side and this is what happens uh when you don't put in these water diversion devices that once you have a good rainfall all this loose soil or sediment is able to move down these slopes into these streams and this is what's causing your pollution problems into the streams and eventually into somebody's pond or actually into the river so that's why it's so important to put these water diversion devices in to keep this sediment out of the the streams like saying some of your remediation work after after you're done may involve putting in hay bales silt fencing water bars turnouts all these to control any movement of sediment from roads skid trails interior roads into streams where they're going to cause pollution problems and you see as you can see in this slide you have silt fencing hay bales put in it's a good idea to put put down some hay some grass seed i tell people all the time you know it's very very inexpensive to use hay and grass seed to help stabilize some of these areas along with hay bales to make sure you have a good vegetable layer that keeps that sediment from moving into these streams here's another example of using hay and grass seed you know it's in the bottom part of that slide that's been had and grass seeded very well along with the silt fencing to keep sediment from moving you know into these low-lying areas here's some of your grass mats or environment enviro mats that can be used to put be put down and put down those and put grass seed on top of those and help stabilize the soil surface the biggest the biggest thing i'm trying to get across to everyone here is to stabilize these surfaces if you see an area that exposes exposed and has a lot of bare soul visible these areas need to be stabilized especially where they're on a slope and they're going down into a stream side area whether it's a perennial or intermittent stream make sure you stabilize these approaches or slopes going down into these streams where you have steep roads make sure they're they're stabilized efficiently all right this is another part of our bmps one of the core areas is timber harvesting uh it's great idea to make sure that you plan or have a pre-harvest plan in place before you ever ever move on to the track of timber that you're cutting make sure that you know where all your roads and landings will be located what's going to need to be stabilized when completed where your bad slopes are probably where you need to put in some skid trails where your crossings may be biggest thing is to minimize your running compaction and ponding you know on these logging sites especially where the the loading deck is located um make sure that you dispose of all the trash that is left that's one of the my biggest pet peeves is pulling up to a harvest track and noticing a bunch of bright yellow hydraulic buckets laying around everywhere i promise you my inspection is going to get a lot more detailed if i see a lot of buckets laying around and of course this is one telltale sign of fuel spills if i see a lot of hydraulic buckets i know you had a i know you had a hydraulic leak at one point in time during this operation whether it's minor or major i'm going to find it and that goes in to protecting our streams from any any pollutant getting in there an adm requires anything less than 25 gallons be treated on site and removed if it's more than 25 gallons and you have a major spill you need to contact adm and let them know so that proper steps can be taken to remove these fluids and number one make sure they don't get into a waterway a main creek or stream that can transport these into rivers and ponds we want to stay away from logging or harvesting when it's very wet i see this quite a bit with a lot of complaints that i have excessive rutting you know when it's too wet to to not be logging stay stay away from the tracks and stay away from cutting and harvesting when the conditions are too wet you want to always go back to these tracks later you know when conditions are drier these problems like this these slides right here they're hard to fix but they they do need to be fixed because these can transport water into streams and carry sediment as well so you know when it's too wet to log so don't do it like i was talking about earlier with the hydraulic buckets i hate to see this on logging jobs and i will make a thorough inspection if i see a lot of hydraulic buckets laying around doesn't take long to load these in the back your truck and take them with you not only the buckets but the filters the the lunchtime trash you know wrappers cans bottles you know it's a good idea to have a on-site big trash can which you can just put all this stuff in and when it's full take it home with you put it into a trash receptacle and get it off that property a lot a lot of times i tell loggers where they have these problems you don't want people putting trash on your property so why leave your trash on theirs just be considerate and if someone else's property and take this trash with you going on to fluid spills and this happens on a lot of logging operations you might have a hydraulic hose bus it's a good idea to immediately shut that equipment down replace that hose so that you limit the the the fluid spill on that that property if you know you've got a a hose that's leaking don't sit there and continue to you know run that skidder run that cutter or loader go ahead and get that that hose fixed where you don't leak fluid all over uh someone else's property like i said just replace the hose don't quit bandaging up a problem that could be fixed properly if you know you have a leak go ahead and repair it another part the main core of our state bmps is reforestation uh this takes in uh consideration your mechanical site prep chemical site prep um make sure this is done properly on your mechanical sight prep make sure that this is done on a contour you know you stay away from the smz areas make sure your machine planting is on the contour if you're using herbicides or pesticides make sure they're the right mixtures are applied do not over spray into your smz areas always check your your weather conditions make sure there's not a it's not a real windy day if you're going to apply herbicides or pesticides so that it drifts over into your smz areas and kills you know the trees that you've taken all that time to leave make sure your fertilized fertilization is done properly you don't want that nutrient flow into the streams so you want to have a buffer where you put your fertilizer and make sure it is kept away from your smz's if you're putting in fire lanes if you have slope make sure you're still using uh fire breaks where you're putting your fire off excuse me let me go back where you're putting in your fire lanes make sure that you're using your water diversion devices water bars properly to where you have if you're putting in fire lanes where there's a lot of slope involved make sure that you have the proper water bars put in uh so if you go back and you do some prescribed burning um you have to refresh some of these fire lanes or fire breaks make sure these water bars are put back in here's an example of improper site prep this was this was actually site prep good to begin with then the land owners side he wanted to take his dozer back in and run his dozier up and down the slope and smooth it out a little bit better what he did was cause you know ruts you know where he left his traps going up and down the slope and you know your first couple inches of rain with a significant rainfall is going to cause that sediment movement you know down that slope because there was no stabilization efforts put in at that time and you got a major problem all right let's talk a little bit about conversions conversions are not covered by the section 404 exception with the exception that a landowner must get a permit if you're converting a forested area to a residential or commercial area of course you must contact adm or core engineers and get the proper 404 permit for that conversion if if you're converting a wetland to an upland you definitely need to get uh that permit it's a good idea not to even attempt that to begin with but if you're you know all these upland conversions uh you should get an mpds permit from adm and you can you can read about this more in our alabama best management practices uh manual uh it goes over all your section 404 exemptions when you need a permit and when you do not need a permit all right so switching gears a little bit we're going to talk a little bit about the state bnp complaints for the last two years in fiscal year 2018 we had 39 total bmp complaints received these complaints were either phony complaints sent from concerned landowners or complaints that were sent into adam which were forwarded to the outbound forestry commission there were 36 bmp complaints and three u.s army corps engineer wetland complaints that were made in 2018. out of these different complaints there were 13 valid standard complaints the two complaints involving wetlands were also valid you had two ag conversions and 22 of these total complaints were not valid a lot of times that's just a disgruntled landowner adjacent landowner that doesn't like the fact that his neighbors cut and timber and calls in and makes a complaint so we get a lot of those every year most bmp violations in 2018 were minor minor and quickly remediated so it was a pretty fairly easy year you know in 2018 not a whole lot of complaints we started seeing a different trend in 2019 a few more complaints 21 i mean excuse me 41 that were received of these 15 were valid 18 were not valid and there were eight conversions which did not require afc involvement most the valid bmp violations in 2019 appeared that so folks were getting in a little bit of a hurry getting too much in a hurry to finish the track they're cutting and move off and not doing the remediation work that was involved to implement your bmps or just cutting too many corners or they could have just been totally negligent and some of these were pretty atrocious so when you finish your track when you finish harvesting your track make sure you with your planning go through all your bmp implementation procedures what do we need to remediate what kind of work do we need to do to close out the track before you leave and move on to the next track some of the recurring problems that we see on a lot of these timber harvests or timber operations uh or the roads not being stabilized you know if you've got a road on a steep slope uh make sure you put your water bars in your turnouts um saw a lot of different roads that did not have any water bars turnouts anything uh we're seeing still seeing a lot of muddy ponds where you have improper smz's and you have silt getting into these perennial and intermittent streams that go to someone your neighbor's pond first thing they're going to do is call the adm or the forestry ommission and complain about their muddy pond and before you know it you have a lawsuit on your hands so make sure with your planning that you protect these smz's or streams by providing the proper stream side management zones and if anything else go above and beyond and make your smz's wider still seeing a lot of fluid spills on some of these logging operations around the loading deck so repair those hydraulic fittings hoses when they're leaking as soon as possible to make sure that you don't have a recurring leak and you know probably our biggest complaint involves string crossings or creek crossings and a lot of what i've seen in this past year are crossings that are put in using dirt logging slash debris just packing it in and not removing it or improperly removing it and stabilizing those crossings so just remember as a rule of thumb anything that you put in has to be pulled back out of the stream and those crossings stabilized 2019 these are some of our numbers for our random closed out track inspection year and i'll briefly go over that out of all of our counties we have so many inspections that we have per county and this is all dependent upon how much wood production is is made by each county where you have you know a lot of meals within counties or close to these different counties like clark butler moringo you're going to have a higher amount of inspections that should be done each year up in north alabama you might have one one or two inspections per county that are done this is what we did last year we were 98.7 percent implementation on harvesting 97.5 percent on forest roads 97.6 percent implementation on stream crossings 98.3 implement implementation on smz's so uh all the loggers out there you're doing a great job keep up what you're doing uh you know it seems like our bmp complaints are starting to get a little bit lower each year now i know as of currently we have 32 bmp complaints for this year i expect and this you know our fiscal year runs out the end of september so we're probably going to be around that mid 30s level so they're starting to slowly go down and that's that's because of you because what you do attending these classes and learning more about bmps and bmp implementation you're taking this that you learn and taking it out into the field and using it and i applaud you for that and i applaud you for that and i appreciate all your hard work and what you're doing to help protect the bnps so keep it up everyone uh everybody's doing a great job especially when you can get 98.2 percent overall implementation rate for the year so congratulations so if anyone has any questions uh any comments i will i'll actually be on this call i know this is kind of a weird way to do it and it beats anything i've ever seen because i'd rather be in front of everyone and talking and cutting up and having a good time and making sure you know everything about bnps but we're not able to do that right now during these crazy times so any any questions any concerns here's my office number my cell phone number my email any any any bmp material that you have that you need you can contact our afc site but feel free to call me if you have any questions on logging jobs and uh you're not quite sure you know about the bmps uh with what you're what you need to do to finish out your bmp remediation work feel free to call me this that's my job that's what what i do best i go out and and give you advice on technical advice and uh on how to fix these issues or how to keep them from becoming problems so please call me if you have any questions or concerns you know when you're out there logging and please everyone stay safe hopefully we'll be done with this cover 19 stuff before long and everybody can get out and you know intermingle and it'll get back to usual but in the meantime everybody say stay safe and wear those masks when you need to and and hope the best for you and your families and have a great day take care