Manton Fuels Reduction - Tehama County (388-5)

2025060466

Resource Conservation District of Tehama County (RCD-TC)

NOE - Notice of Exemption

6/11/2025

6/11/2025

Drew Barnhart

Resource Conservation District of Tehama County

Project Manage

Lead/Public Agency / Project Applicant / Responsible Agency

202 Walnut Ave
Red Bluff, CA 96080

(916) 525-5510

dbarnhart@tehamacountyrcd.org

Missi Elliott

Resource Conservation District of Tehama County

Project Coordinator

Project Applicant

202 Walnut Ave
Red Bluff, CA 96080

(530) 727-1280

melliott@tehamacountyrcd.org

40°25'28.1"N 121°49'7"W

Forward Road & Hazen Road

96059

31

10

Not Applicable

Highway 44, Highway 36

Union Pacific, BNSF, CFNR

Not Applicable

Manton Elementary School

Digger Creek, South Fork Digger Creek

30N

2E

30

MDB&M

This project will complement and build upon work completed last year as well as a preexisting PG&E shaded fuel break. The aspiration of the project is to enhance the community of Manton's safety and wildfire resilience by mitigating the threat of high severity wildfire.The project will treat 31 acres along 3.4 miles of power lines/roadways.Prescription: Work will be completed utilizing a combination of hand crew and herbicide. Hand crew will be utilized for overgrown areas adjacent to powerlines/county roads for tree removal and limbing. - All brush and trees under 16” DBH will be removed. Woody debris and brush will be removed and chipped on site.Trees greater than 16” DBH will be limbed 8-10ft from the ground. Annual grass and area under powerline will undergo herbicide treatment to guarantee perpetuity/holding of treatments.

The RCDTC will manage, operate, and maintain chipper unit along with the masticator with forestry cutter head and mower deck during roadside fuel treatment projects. In addition, the RCDTC will conduct photo monitoring as well as prepare field progress reports and mapping which will be incorporated into project status reports submitted to the funder by the RCDTC Project Manager. Treatment areas will extend up to 75’ along both sides of the road edge depending upon terrain type and site conditions. High traffic volumes along the roads proposed for treatments create a significant risk of roadside ignition and fire spread into numerous publicly and privately maintained parcels as well as adjacent healthy mature oak woodlands that contain permanently inhabited structures. Specific treatments to be completed in connection with this project include the cutting and chipping of ground fuels along with shrubs and small, poorly developed trees (oaks < 16” in diameter) that create ladder fuels extending into the crowns of mature oaks. Herbicides approved by the State and the Tehama County Agriculture Department will be applied to treatment areas dependent on funding constraints. The removal and control of target vegetation will reduce roadside ignition risk, reduce the rate of fire spread and intensity as well as removal excess trees and other vegetation thus improving conditions for larger, more mature trees particularly oaks that are currently in good health and continue to sequester Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). The goal of this project proposal is to reduce the risk of roadside ignitions and rate of fire spread into adjacent grasslands, shrublands and high-quality oak woodlands that contain many permanently inhabited structures. In addition, project work would result in the continued expansion and maintenance of an in place fuel break network that is used during wildfire events to protect homes and developed parcels and create a space from which backfire operations or future landscape scale vegetation treatments not affiliated with this project can be conducted

Categorical Exemption

Class 4 §15304 (e) Minor Alterations to Land

Public Resources Code, Division 13, Chapter 6, Article 19, Section 15304 allows minor alteration of vegetation including fuel management activities to reduce volume of flammable vegetation provided the activities do not result in the taking of endangered, rare, or threatened plant/animal species, or cause significant erosion and sedimentation of surface waters. This project is considered low impact given that the nature of the project work occurs on already disturbed and developed roadsides and biomass chips will be broadcast onsite. A current California Natural Diversity Database search was conducted, and it has been determined that Project activities will have a low impact on the environment and low potential to effect cultural resources. Water Courses will be flagged and/or avoided.