Citizen Spotlight on Mark Agee, Road Removal Contractor
In the winter of 1995-1996 the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho experienced a dramatic rain-on-snow event that caused extensive flooding and more than 900 landslides. Due to a legacy of logging and associated road-building, some areas on the Clearwater had road densities as high as 40 miles per square mile. These roads were the cause of more than half of the 900 landslides in the region that year, several of which literally carried area residents’ homes off the mountains.
The Clearwater National Forest (CNF) responded quickly, acquiring emergency federal funds from Congress to begin an extensive road decom-missioning program with the help of the Nez Perce Tribe. To date, the agency, in partnership with the Tribe, has removed more than 600 miles of unused, unsafe, and ecologically harmful roads.
Road removal provides high-wage jobs for local contractors, like Mark Agee, whose work restores watershed integrity and reduces the likelihood and severity of future landslides.
Four generations of Agees have resided in the Clearwater Valley of north central Idaho, and most of this time Mark’s family has been in the cattle and farming business. Mark grew up in Kooskia, ID and later attended North Idaho College in Coeur d’ Alene for two years. After graduating he returned to his hometown and worked for 15 years in the timber and lumber industries. During this time Mark’s brother had been doing contract road maintenance work for the Forest Service, and in 1995 Mark decided to start his own excavation business.
After the extensive flooding the following winter, Mark’s new business suddenly became very busy. There was a lot of opportunity for work cleaning up damaged forest and county roads. He began the summer of 1997 on the CNF reconstructing the main roads, and got his first road removal project that fall. On that project he worked with Forest Service employees Anne Connor and Christine Bradbury and learned a lot. Road removal was very different from anything he had done before, and he says it took him a long time to understand everything involved.
“There is a lot more to road removal than just pulling the fill and recontouring the road prisms,” Mark recalls.
Over the years he’s learned to properly remove a road, using techniques such as clump-planting (transferring adjacent vegetation to the newly restored roadbed to aid the establishment of native vegetation). Stream reconstruction with good grade control structures is also essential.
“I believe that the time has to be spent doing the best job possible to re-establish the vegetation and to make sure everything is done to prevent soil erosion into the streams to protect fish habitat and clean drinking water.”
After removing nearly 150 miles of roads throughout his career on the Clearwater National Forest, Mark doesn’t believe that road removal should be thought of as access restriction, but rather as watershed and habitat improvement.
“I feel that what I have done on the Clearwater has helped the water quality of this region, and promoted better habitat for fish as well as wildlife in general.”
One of the steps to removing a road can require cutting down trees to gain better access for equipment. Mark has received complaints about this but says the vast majority of the trees that he removes could never attain a merchantable size due to the severe compaction of the roads.
“A tree may be 10 inches dbh, (diameter at breast height) but has no tap root established and therefore can be tipped over very easily and would never actually mature. Coming from a timber-based community, I hear this comment continuously.”
The Clearwater National Forest has always had hourly contracts for this type of work, but starting this year, they switched to a fixed price contract like most of the other forests in the region. Mark preferred the hourly contract because there was an inspector on site and he was only responsible for the equipment work, while the Forest Service and Nez Perce Tribe completed all the seeding and ground work.
“I like to have an inspector on the site most of the time to discuss different ideas about how to get the best job done in the least amount of time. With the fixed price contract, I believe the quality of work can be compromised because of the lack of influence on the job site by the inspectors. It is very difficult to specify what methods and procedures should be used from site to site.”
Mark says he has been fortunate to have had the privilege to work with people over the years like Anne Connor, Rebecca Lloyd (Wildlands CPR board member), Stephanie Bransford, and Phyllis Heath to name a new, who worked with him on the road removal and restoration projects. But he says it is still a learning process every year.
“I took the Applied Fluvial Geomorphology class given by Dave Rosgen in 2001, and am very thankful that I did. I thoroughly enjoy doing stream channel reconstruction, and this class helped me tremendously. I strongly encourage anyone interested in this type of work to take the time and effort to attend this class.”
Mark has no idea what the future has in store for road removal and restoration work, but says if there are projects to bid on, he hopes to keep doing this very worthwhile work for years to come.
“I honestly feel that I am making a positive contribution to the land that I was raised in, and hope that my grandchildren can have the opportunities to enjoy this country as much as I have.”
The Clearwater National Forest (CNF) responded quickly, acquiring emergency federal funds from Congress to begin an extensive road decom-missioning program with the help of the Nez Perce Tribe. To date, the agency, in partnership with the Tribe, has removed more than 600 miles of unused, unsafe, and ecologically harmful roads.
Road removal provides high-wage jobs for local contractors, like Mark Agee, whose work restores watershed integrity and reduces the likelihood and severity of future landslides.
Four generations of Agees have resided in the Clearwater Valley of north central Idaho, and most of this time Mark’s family has been in the cattle and farming business. Mark grew up in Kooskia, ID and later attended North Idaho College in Coeur d’ Alene for two years. After graduating he returned to his hometown and worked for 15 years in the timber and lumber industries. During this time Mark’s brother had been doing contract road maintenance work for the Forest Service, and in 1995 Mark decided to start his own excavation business.
After the extensive flooding the following winter, Mark’s new business suddenly became very busy. There was a lot of opportunity for work cleaning up damaged forest and county roads. He began the summer of 1997 on the CNF reconstructing the main roads, and got his first road removal project that fall. On that project he worked with Forest Service employees Anne Connor and Christine Bradbury and learned a lot. Road removal was very different from anything he had done before, and he says it took him a long time to understand everything involved.
“There is a lot more to road removal than just pulling the fill and recontouring the road prisms,” Mark recalls.
Over the years he’s learned to properly remove a road, using techniques such as clump-planting (transferring adjacent vegetation to the newly restored roadbed to aid the establishment of native vegetation). Stream reconstruction with good grade control structures is also essential.
“I believe that the time has to be spent doing the best job possible to re-establish the vegetation and to make sure everything is done to prevent soil erosion into the streams to protect fish habitat and clean drinking water.”
After removing nearly 150 miles of roads throughout his career on the Clearwater National Forest, Mark doesn’t believe that road removal should be thought of as access restriction, but rather as watershed and habitat improvement.
“I feel that what I have done on the Clearwater has helped the water quality of this region, and promoted better habitat for fish as well as wildlife in general.”
One of the steps to removing a road can require cutting down trees to gain better access for equipment. Mark has received complaints about this but says the vast majority of the trees that he removes could never attain a merchantable size due to the severe compaction of the roads.
“A tree may be 10 inches dbh, (diameter at breast height) but has no tap root established and therefore can be tipped over very easily and would never actually mature. Coming from a timber-based community, I hear this comment continuously.”
The Clearwater National Forest has always had hourly contracts for this type of work, but starting this year, they switched to a fixed price contract like most of the other forests in the region. Mark preferred the hourly contract because there was an inspector on site and he was only responsible for the equipment work, while the Forest Service and Nez Perce Tribe completed all the seeding and ground work.
“I like to have an inspector on the site most of the time to discuss different ideas about how to get the best job done in the least amount of time. With the fixed price contract, I believe the quality of work can be compromised because of the lack of influence on the job site by the inspectors. It is very difficult to specify what methods and procedures should be used from site to site.”
Mark says he has been fortunate to have had the privilege to work with people over the years like Anne Connor, Rebecca Lloyd (Wildlands CPR board member), Stephanie Bransford, and Phyllis Heath to name a new, who worked with him on the road removal and restoration projects. But he says it is still a learning process every year.
“I took the Applied Fluvial Geomorphology class given by Dave Rosgen in 2001, and am very thankful that I did. I thoroughly enjoy doing stream channel reconstruction, and this class helped me tremendously. I strongly encourage anyone interested in this type of work to take the time and effort to attend this class.”
Mark has no idea what the future has in store for road removal and restoration work, but says if there are projects to bid on, he hopes to keep doing this very worthwhile work for years to come.
“I honestly feel that I am making a positive contribution to the land that I was raised in, and hope that my grandchildren can have the opportunities to enjoy this country as much as I have.”