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Pescadero Creek County Park

Project Partners

San Mateo County Parks
San Mateo Resource Conservation District
CAL FIRE

Overview of Actions

Pescadero Creek County Park is an approximately 6,000 acre property in the Santa Cruz Mountains with rich land-use history, unique topographical characteristics, and habitat present for various sensitive species. About half of the property burned during the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire, which posed an opportunity for forest stand examinations and evaluations. ARC Forestry conducted its first iteration of Forest Trend Monitoring, installing 38 1/5th  acre plots in burned and unburned forest stands; this data collection effort and analysis results set the stage for a larger post-fire Forest Trend Monitoring effort in nearby State Parks.

Impaired forest conditions were evaluated throughout the park and led to the development of a Climate and Habitat Resiliency Plan, which provides comprehensive support of select forest management scenarios to provide a framework for ecologically restorative forest health fuels reduction and forest density reduction treatments, sensitive resource protection and avoidance, and long-term monitoring. ARC Forestry designed a set of prioritized treatment areas and prescriptions throughout the park presented in the Climate and Habitat Resilience Plan, then developed a CalVTP Project Specific Analysis (PSA)/Addendum under a CAL FIRE Forest Health Grant.

Upon approval of the CalVTP PSA/Addendum, project partners began implementing treatments across the nearly 500 acres of prioritized treatment areas. During this process, ARC Forestry supported coordinating partners, presenting to the public, negotiating with agencies for sensitive species, and completing an archaeological survey report to go operational.

Additionally, ARC Forestry developed project specifications for contracts, conducted bid tours, evaluated bids, supported contractor selection, developed ARC Field Maps for operations, conducted project layout, and supervised treatment implementation, including winter period monitoring.

Treatment Status

Completing CEQA on nearly 6,000 acres of San Mateo County Parks land with over 500 acres of treatments in progress.

LOCATION

San Mateo, CA

TREATMENT ATTRIBUTES

  • Forest Health Fuels Reduction
  • Forest Density Reduction/Large Tree Restoration
  • Roadside Treatments
  • Hazard Tree Removal
  • Invasive Species Management
  • Forest Trend Monitoring

PROJECT COMPONENTS

Documentation

  • Climate and Habitat Resilience Plan – developed
  • CalVTP PSA – developed
  • Archaeological Survey Report – developed and approved
  • Vegetation Treatment Specifications – developed
  • Contract and Request for Bid – development and support

Field & Operations

  • Operational layout and mapping completed supporting the implementation of the SPR’s
  • Conducted permit compliance on vegetation treatment implementation
  • Forest Trend Monitoring plots

STAFF INVOLVED

  • Steve Auten, Owner/RPF – project design and strategy, grant development, permit development, mapping, and operational supervision
  • Riley McFarland, Registered Professional Forester #3271 – Lead Document Development (Former Staff)
  • David Van Lennep, Chief Forester of Operations – direction, operational planning, contracting, and supervision
  • Shelby Kranich, Director of Forest Resilience – direction, grant development, permitting, forest trend monitoring, and operational supervision
  • Chloe Knowd, Senior Associate Forester – project layout and operational supervision
  • Charlie Hillis, Assistant Forester III – lead permit development, project layout, mapping, and operational supervision
  • Heath Hooper, Assistant Forester II – mapping and operational supervision
  • Daniel Auten, Lead Forestry Technician – marking trees, forest trend monitoring, verification, and layout
  • Nolan Hayes, Lead Forestry Technician – marking trees, forest trend monitoring, field verification, and layout