This project is a landscape-scale watershed restoration project that encompasses the entire Twelve-mile Watershed. This project will address many aspects of ecosystem health. One of the main project objectives is to improve summer and winter habitats for mule deer and other big game species to help support the growth of these populations. Deer and elk populations have suffered on the south end of the Manti unit in particular and the UDWR and sportsmen are heavily invested in increasing these populations. This project is phase 3 of this effort. The WRI program has invested heavily in previous phases to complete all of the necessary cultural and wildlife surveys for the NEPA permitting process to allow work to begin. We have the necessary NEPA completed to do many different treatment types to improve the habitat. In this phase of the project we are requesting funding to do hand cut and pile, feller buncher cutting and piling, as well as bullhog mastication, and BDAs. We have begun doing on-the-ground treatments the past few years and we must continue to fund this work to take advantage of the previous investments made by the WRI program and its partners to complete the NEPA. Poor habitat conditions as a result of conifer outcompeting aspen woodlands and pinyon and juniper outcompeting sagebrush communities are likely significant contributing factors to the decline in ungulate populations. The project area encompasses the entire 12-mile watershed which includes projects in both summer and winter crucial habitats. Crucial habitat areas have been identified by UDWR biologists and by using collar data that is shown on the wildlife tracker website (see photos of wildlife tracker data). During summer, ungulate diets shift to high carbohydrate sources of forage to build up fat reserves for winter. Overwinter survival, pregnancy, birth rates, and survival of progeny the following spring are significantly affected by the quality of forage available the prior summer (Bishop et al. 2005, Tollefson et al. 2010, Monteith et al. 2013a). As vegetation types shift from open meadows and aspen stands with diverse forb and grass vegetation communities to thick old-growth conifer stands with minimal understory, the availability and quality of food for deer and elk greatly diminish. Likewise, in the winter ranges the encroachment of pinyon and juniper reduces the understory vegetation and decreases the available food for deer and elk in the winter. The vegetation that is not outcompeted also declines in quality as there is less leader growth and less seed production which significantly reduces recruitment of new vegetation. In addition, crude protein declines which is important for elk and deer nutrition (Wasley 2004). Proportionately much more of the plant becomes comprised of woody material as it ages providing significantly less dietary nutrients. Furthermore, forage quality is controlled by digestibility, protein content, mineral content, and plant defenses. Digestibility relates, in part, to the ratio of plant cell wall:cell contents. Cell contents comprise readily-digestible materials whereas cell wall contains less-digestible cellulose and hemi-cellulose and nondigestible lignin (Hanley 1981). In short, late successional vegetation has reduced leader growth and high woody material of which reduces the overall high-elevation summer habitat nutrients for ungulates. All of the partners involved with this project recognize the need to promote and encourage conversion from late to early seral vegetative characteristics that have higher forb, grasses, and young shrubs on the landscape to provide the needed ungulates depend on in the Twelve-mile watershed. The UDWR has collared several deer and elk near the Twelve-mile Canyon and if you look at the data that we have (See photos of wildlife tracker) we are targeting areas where deer and elk use in the summer range, but also some areas that may not be used as much currently because of poor habitat quality. Dusky and ruffed grouse species will benefit from this forest health project to restore aspen and open meadow habitat that provides greater food sources for these species. Golden eagles, northern goshawks, boreal and flammulated owls, and other raptor (birds of prey) species will benefit from this project because their prey species such as the montane vole, squirrels, cottontail rabbits, and snowshoe hares will have more nutrient-rich vegetation and seeds to eat. Also, opening up the canopy and creating a greater diversity of habitats allows for easier hunting. In addition to the upland work, this project will also focus on restoring the health of streams and adjacent riparian ecosystems which will improve water quality and quantity as well as provide higher nutrient-rich vegetation for mule deer and elk, moose, and many other wildlife species. We will be installing post-assisted log structures (PALS) or beaver dam analogs (BDAs) throughout several of the streams in the watershed which will increase the diversity of habitat for fish and amphibian species like Bonneville cutthroat trout. The PALS will create pools and riffle habitats that will create areas where the fish can rest and spawn and feed. Other sport fish like rainbow and brook trout will also benefit from this project. There are no known boreal toad species in the area, but improving the ponding habitat will allow for other amphibian species like northern leopard frogs and chorus frogs to have slow-moving water with inundated wetland vegetation that is needed to lay their eggs in. Bat species like the little-brown myotis will also likely benefit from the stream restoration work by creating areas with larger open water that is easier to drink from and to hunt for insects. The repairing of the water pipeline from a degraded ceramic water line that is leaking to a more modern line will greatly benefit both wildlife and livestock by allowing the UDWR to spread water across the landscape more efficiently. This will increase the amount of water available and improve the quality of the water as well. The NRCS is also working in the watershed with the local town of Mayfield to complete some erosion control projects and the creation of a new reservoir. This portion of the project is in the NEPA process and we hope to begin this work in the the near future. This watershed project will not only benefit wildlife but it will provide many other watershed health benefits from reducing catastrophic fire risks, improving water quality and quantity, addressing goals for management plans, and providing continued sustainable uses of our natural resources. We will highlight the additional specifics of how this project will address watershed health in greater detail in the other sections below.

1. Reduce overgrown and decadent conifer stands to promote aspen regeneration and understory establishment for the benefit of big game, water quality, fire risk reduction, sustainable uses, and other wildlife species. 2. Reduce pinyon and juniper tree cover to protect surviving understory vegetation and promote the growth of new vegetation to reduce risk of PJ crown fire, increase water quantity, and improve and protect wildlife habitat. 3. Improve the riparian zones and the health of ponds and streams throughout the watershed with the use of BDAs or PALS, for the benefit of increased food and water for big game and other fish and wildlife species, additional water quality and quantity, fire risk reduction, enhanced sustainable uses, such as fishing. 4. Partner with the NRCS, USFS, and the community of Mayfield with their work to build infrastructure to address their water erosion, mudslides, and poor water quality concerns. 5. Showcase how partnering among different government agencies and landownership boundaries; the WRI program can achieve great success at improving the overall health and value of the 12-mile watershed. 6. Help keep the 12-mile canyon watershed from crossing ecological thresholds, defined as "boundaries in time and space between two states that are not reversible on a practical time scale without management intervention" (Friedel 1991). 7. Help achieve the strategies and objectives that are outlined in a variety of management plans that pertain to this 12-mile watershed. 8. Reduce significantly the risk of catastrophic wildfire from additional fuel loading and/or continuity of hazardous fuels to the community of Mayfield and Sterling and all other infrastructure and significant watershed values. 9. Address through multiple ways the threats to water quality and work to increase the water quantity in the watershed. 10. Utilize the wildlife surveys, cultural clearances, and NEPA that has been funded with the first phase of this project to meet all necessary compliance challenges and begin returning value for that work that has been completed in the form of on the ground watershed improvements. 11. Monitor the effectiveness of our treatments and learn how to improve them moving forward into the future for other treatments. Also, be able to identify where we did not meet our objectives as outlined above, through effective monitoring. Utilize new technology and data such as the wildlife tracker, photo points, and drones to monitor and determine project success and help to showcase that success. 12. Where objectives are not met or are lacking establish a way to ensure that future management continues to build upon the gains that were achieved through this project. 13. Improve the quality or quantity of sustainable uses such as grazing, hunting, fishing, recreation, etc

This project is located in the Twelve Mile Canyon area. The project is being done on public lands managed by the USFS and UDWR. The USFS and the UDWR have an obligation to manage their lands responsibly. There are serious concerns about the health of the land here and so we need to address these issues to ensure that the land is being managed properly. One of the main purposes of this project is to increase the struggling deer and elk herds in this area. The UDWR in recent years has focused on reducing the predators in the area to allow populations to return to a level that can handle predation pressure. A key component of this is to ensure that habitat quality and quantity do not become the limiting factor to healthy populations. Therefore, now is the most critical time to implement these projects as the populations begin to rebound after predator control. We do not want the populations to get so big that they begin to starve to death from the lack of habitat. Also, we have recently invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete all the cultural and wildlife surveys necessary to complete the NEPA. If we do not continue to fund the on the ground work we will be wasting the investment that we made to get the NEPA done. As identified in objective number six, we want to ensure that ecological thresholds are not crossed in the Twelve-Mile canyon watershed. NEPA has been completed for all acres within the project area making it a shovel ready project with multiple years of planning. The high elevation conifer treatments of planned for this year are structurally classified as VSS 4 and with a stand index classified as closed or greater than or equal to 60% cover. These numbers indicate mature conifer stands with canopy cover exceeding desired hiding cover and forest floor sunlight ratios which greatly reduces the understory productivity. Preferred treatment would be to cut-and-pile all dead and down conifer with a DBH of 12" or less then burn the piles at a later date. The pinyon and juniper mastication work done in the lower elevations is important to do now rather than later because it is essential that we thin the trees to help create a fire break that will allow us to do prescribed burn next year on the Order Mountain. The continued erosion and degradation of streams that has partly resulted from the removal of beavers will continue unless we install BDAs. Every year the cost and time to restore these stream systems increase. Also, our fish populations are dropping lower and lower every year that we do not restore these beaver dam structures to help provide the habitat necessary for survival. The work that the NRCS is planning will help stop the continued mudslides and massive erosion that if not addressed can lead to crossing an extreme ecological threshold.

This project will help meet objectives and strategies from the following plans: 1.The San Pitch River Watershed, DWQ Water Quality Management Plan (See Documents) Objective a: Improve stability of the stream channel and tributaries to enhance the riparian corridor and buffer zones to proper functioning condition. Objective b: Obtain funding to implement BMPs for greatest improvement in the San Pitch River Watershed. Objective c: Improve and conserve wildlife habitat in the watershed. 2. The Utah Statewide Elk Management Plan: * Habitat Objective a. Maintain elk habitat throughout the state by identifying and protecting existing crucial elk habitat and mitigating for losses due to human impacts. * Habitat Objective b: Improve the quality and quantity of forage and cover on 250,000 acres of elk habitat with emphasis on calving habitat and upper elevation elk winter range by the end of this plan. 3. The Utah Statewide Mule Deer Management Plan: * Habitat Objective a. Maintain mule deer habitat throughout the state by protecting existing critical habitats and mitigating for losses due to human impacts. * Habitat Objective b. Improve the quality of forage and vegetation for mule deer on 200,000 acres of critical range. 4. Mule Deer Management plan for herd unit 16 Central mountains: HABITAT MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES - Deer Plan * a) Protect, maintain, and/or improve deer habitat through direct range improvements to support and maintain herd population management objectives. b) Continue to improve, protect, and restore sagebrush steppe habitats critical to deer. c) Cooperate with federal land management agencies and private landowners in carrying out habitat improvements such as pinion-juniper removal, reseedings, controlled burns, grazing management, water developments etc. on public and private lands. Habitat improvement projects will occur on both winter ranges as well as summer range. 5. Elk Management Plan for Central Mountains Manti Unit: a) Manage for a population of healthy animals capable of providing a broad range of recreational opportunities, including hunting and viewing. b) Maintain an elk population consistent with the available range resources and which is in balance with other range users such as domestic livestock, other big game and the need for watershed protection. c) Maintain and enhance existing elk habitat through vegetative manipulation, sound domestic grazing practices, and other management techniques that will meet habitat objectives 6. The Division of Wildlife Resources Strategic Management Plan: Resource Goal: a) Expand wildlife populations by protecting and improving wildlife habitat. b) Protect existing wildlife habitat and improve 500,000 acres of critical habitats and watersheds throughout the state. 7. South Sanpete County WMAs Habitat Management Plan: a) Improve browse communities. b) Maintain previous restoration projects. 8.The Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP), as amended, for the Forest recognizes the need to: a) Maintain or improve habitat capability through direct treatment of vegetation, soil and/or water b) Maintain fuel conditions which permit fire suppression forces to meet protection objectives for management units c) Use preplanned prescribed fire resulting from planned or unplanned ignitions to accomplish resource management objectives, such as reducing fuel load buildup, range or wildlife habitat improvement, etc.

Catastrophic wildfire is a major concern for this watershed. There are nearby cabin communities as well as the town of Mayfield that are at risk. Areas where we will be removing pinyon and juniper trees, are identified as a very high threat on the fire threat index. This threat is mainly to the town of Mayfield and the homes that are in the foothills on the edges of town. This project will help to reduce these direct fire risks by removing pinyon and juniper trees and thinning oakbrush and other shrubs which will reduce fire risk and make it easier for firefighters to protect homes. In addition to the direct threats of fire, there is extreme concern about post-fire flooding and mudslide potential, especially in the higher elevations. With the soils that are already eroding, there is an extreme risk of a major mudslide and flooding that would be devastating to infrastructure and threaten life and property if a wildfire were to burn across the entire watershed. Our project will work to remove fuel loads in these areas of concern little by little so that a large fire would not be able to travel as well and burn as large of areas. Our treatments will allow the USFS to feel more comfortable letting natural fires burn without the risk of catastrophic fire damages. The unnatural fuel loads and fire risk in the 12-mile canyon area have occurred because of more than 100 years of fire suppression. This has resulted in old, diseased, and dead stands of conifer forests throughout the project that are more prone to burn with greater intensity as well. This project will begin the process of thinning the forest and reducing the fuel loads to reduce the fire danger and make it safer for firefighters and communities. This project will also pave the way for future fire risk reduction efforts including possibly controlled burns through the USFS. The BDAs and stream restoration will also help increase riparian wet areas and green vegetation which will act as green strips or fire breaks to slow and stop catastrophic fire spread.

As part of our partnership with the NRCS on this project, there will be the construction of a new reservoir at the mouth of 12-mile canyon. This project will dramatically increase the amount of water that is able to be stored in the watershed before it drains down into the valley bottoms. The reservoir surface area will be 12- 15 acres and will hold 465-acre feet of water. This reservoir will be located at the bottom of all of our other efforts that will be upstream and will serve as the last catchment of water and sediments before it enters the culinary and irrigation systems of the community of Mayfield. Erosion and poor water quality are major concerns for this watershed. There have been several large landslides in recent years and the ground continues to be unstable. The BDAs will be able to store additional water as well as catch sediments that would otherwise end up in the reservoir. Outside of the stream and riparian areas the work that WRI is funding in the uplands will also improve soil stability as additional grass and other understory vegetation's roots hold the soil in place better. The new pipeline portion of the project will help to improve the water quality that downstream users are getting. Also, it will allow us to better distribute water across the landscape for wildlife and livestock. This project will also significantly increase water quantity by preparing to remove juniper trees which can use around 32 liters of water per day. That savings in soil moisture can be used by other plants and recharge springs and aquafers. The reduction in tree cover will also reduce bare ground and allow for grass and forbs to stabilize the soil with their roots, which will result in a decrease in soil erosion potential and improve water quality.

All required NEPA has been completed in signed regarding treatment in the acres identified for treatments and BDA structures. Additionally, archeological clearance concurrence has been completed.

Multiple different treatment types are being conducted on this project. Starting in the lower elevations we will be masticating juniper, pinyon, and oakbrush with a bullhog mastication machine. A bullhog contractor will be hired to remove juniper trees within the proposed bullhog treatment area on the 12-Mile WMA. Pinyon pine trees will be retained. About 25 to 30% of the Gambel oakbrush will also be treated to create some stand diversity. We will aerially seed a mixture of mostly grasses and forbs on the bullhog areas prior to mastication so that the bullhogs can drive over the seed and help incorporate it into the soil. Second, we will improve the summer range by removing conifer species from locations that should be primarily aspen stands and meadows. This will increase the amount of available ground vegetation that big game utilize for food. We will also rejuvenate old decadent aspen stands with young saplings that provide high nutrition value for big game. We will accomplish this by utilizing bullhog masticators to target the smaller diameter conifer trees that are encroaching in more level areas. Then with hand crews, we will cut, pile, and burn the areas that are too steep for heavy equipment and where we want to take out bigger trees. Lastly, we will work to increase the available water and high nutrient content riparian vegetation that is associated with stream floodplain habitat. This will be done with the construction of man-made beaver dams (BDAs) or in-stream habitat restoration structures. These BDAs will serve to replace the function that beavers would provide for the ecosystem until we can re-introduce actual beavers. We will hire contractors to first pound in 2" diameter wood posts, spaced 2' apart, into the stream beds. Then we will come in with either volunteers or contractors to cut branches and weave them between the posts until it forms a beaver dam-looking structure. We lastly, will apply a biodegradable blanket on the upstream side of the dam to better capture sediment. This will be held in place with rocks and mud. The cultural surveys and design of the reservoir and the pipeline will be done by Jones and DeMille engineering and their subcontractors. In later phases, the work to construct the pipeline and reservoir will be done by engineers and contractors. .

The UDWR has already established very detailed range condition monitoring sites in the high-elevation conifer treatment areas with the range trend crew. UDWR will request that the range trend crew establish another monitoring site in the low-elevation pinyon and juniper treatments as well. For details on what data is collected through the range trend go to this link: https://dwrapps.utah.gov/rangetrend/rtstart. Additional monitoring will be done by the USFS biologists, foresters, geologists, and by UDWR habitat biologists, and by utilizing the wildlife tracker data. We will mostly utilize photo points taken at representative sites in the treatment areas to compare before and after. We will also monitor collar data movements over time to see if we are impacting the movements and behavior of collared mule deer. Big game biologists will continue to monitor big game populations in the 12-mile area and report increases in populations as detected in relation to our project. We have already completed goshawk surveys and no nests were detected in the treatment areas. The USFS will continue to monitor if new nests are created. USFS staff will continue to monitor whether we are increasing soil moisture and how we are impacting soil stability. The BDAs will have photo points taken to show the progress we make over time to aggrade the stream and reduce downcutting.

We have multiple partners involved in this project. The NRCS has a PL 566 watershed planning grant and has already received $500,000 for the NEPA and 30 percent design. The plan is to receive an additional $3million for design and $25 million for the total construction of the reservoir and landslide prevention pipeline and infrastructure. Jacob Hall our NRCS/DWR biologist is also working on this project to help facilitate cooperation between NRCS and DWR on this project. Jones and Demille Engineering has been hired by the NRCS to conduct the NEPA and design and we have been working closely with them to collaborate our efforts. The USFS is the major landowner for all of the BDA and higher elevation conifer removal work. DWR habitat biologists have had multiple meetings with the USFS over the past couple of years to plan all the necessary surveys, permitting, NEPA, and to plan treatment areas and techniques for the work on the USFS lands. Dru Crane, from the USFS has been working hard along with many other specialists from the USFS and the district ranger Johnny Collin to get the NEPA completed. Sportsman groups have been highly interested in this project and provided significant funding for the first phase of this project and we anticipate that they will be big contributors of funding again for this next phase of on-the-ground treatments. The community of Mayfield has been working closely with the NRCS and Jones Demille Engineering on their portion of the project as well. We have reached out to all landowners within the watershed and are working across boundary lines to do a landscape-scale watershed restoration project.

The12-Mile WMA is covered by the South Sanpete WMAs Habitat Management Plan and will continue to be managed for wildlife with an emphasis on mule deer and elk winter/spring habitat. This comes with an assurance of funding and manpower from the UDWR of active management to ensure the success of this project and to invest in further work as needed to achieve the desired goals for the WMA. Similarly, the work we are doing on the USFS brings with it the added assurance that there is funding and personnel available to monitor and are heavily invested in achieving the goals of multi-use management for their lands. As was indicated above we will have lots of monitoring that can help inform us whether we need to do added actions in the future.

In Utah, we strive to have sustainable uses of our natural lands and watersheds. One of the goals of WRI is to help achieve this goal. Responsible livestock grazing on our public lands is one of these sustainable uses of our public lands that can help provide additional funding revenue for low-income families, especially in rural Utah. This livelihood is threatened as our watersheds and landscapes are degraded, from the loss of feed that results from PJ and conifer encroachment. This project will work to remove these threats and increase the available forage to livestock. The work to restore beaver processes through BDAs will also help disperse water across the landscape for livestock and will increase the amount and quality of forage for livestock. The pipeline to divert water from high-risk erosion areas will also have water troughs to help disperse water across the landscape. Another very important sustainable use of our natural resources is hunting and fishing. As I just mentioned the use of BDAs and the restoration of beavers will help increase hunting and fishing opportunities. Restoring and enhancing the summer ranges big game species will be able to transition to their winter ranges with higher body fat and body condition. This will help them survive through the winter. Also, by improving our winter ranges the body fat will not diminish as quickly and that is the final key to helping big game survive very harsh winters. In addition to surviving the winter they will not abort fetuses and may be able to have twins. Fawns and calves will be born with better health. This will greatly increase their populations, which will provide enough food for predators and allow more hunters to have the opportunity to harvest animals. The quality of mule deer and elk with larger antlers and more meat will also increase. The UDWR may also be able to release more moose to the area and have better success of them staying and surviving. This will increase hunting opportunity for this once in a life-time species. The Ponds created by BDAs and potential future beaver releases will create habitats where we can stock fish and increase opportunities for anglers. Also, the construction of the reservoir will create a large opportunity for anglers and other outdoor recreational opportunities, like non-motorized boating. This project will pave the way for large areas of timber harvest to be conducted. We will mostly be targeting areas and trees that will not be good for timber harvest and allow for greater access to those trees that are desired for timber harvest. Also, there will be lots of biomass material that can be used if there is a market for it.