Forestry and fire prevention: joint prescribed burning operations: watersheds.

Existing law requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to implement various fire prevention programs intended to protect forest resources and prevent uncontrolled wildfires. Existing law establishes the forestry assistance program, to be conducted by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, to encourage forest resource improvements and otherwise facilitate good forest land management through a program of financial, technical, and education assistance, as well as through applied research. Existing law authorizes the director of the department to enter into an agreement with an eligible landowner pursuant to which the landowner will undertake forest resource improvement work in return for an agreement by the director to share the cost of carrying out that work. Existing law authorizes the director to make various types of loans, including loans to cover all or part of the landowner's cost for the work. Existing law requires these loans to be made for a term not exceeding 20 years and bearing interest at the prevailing rate. This bill would instead authorize the director to enter into those agreements with small nonindustrial landowners, as defined. The bill would delete the term and interest rate requirements relating to these loans and instead require the director to establish reasonable terms relating to the length of, and the interest rate for, the loans. The bill would also authorize the director to provide the director's share of the costs described above in advance of any performed work if the eligible landowner agrees in writing to undertake the forest resource improvement work and agrees to the condition that any funds provided for uncompleted work shall constitute grounds for a claim and lien upon the real property owned by the landowner, as provided. The bill would require any money recovered from the lien to be deposited into the fund. This bill would also authorize the director to enter into an agreement with the owner or any other person who has legal control of any property, any public agency with regulatory or natural resource management authority over any property that is included within any wildland, or any nonprofit organization to conduct joint prescribed burning operations that serve the public interest and are beneficial to the state. The bill would require the agreement to adhere to specified requirements and would require each prescribed burn to be for one or more specified purposes. This bill would authorize the Natural Resources Agency and the California Environmental Protection Agency to jointly develop and submit to the Legislature a specified plan for forest and watershed restoration investments in the drainages that supply the Oroville, Shasta, and Trinity Reservoirs, as prescribed. The bill would also authorize those agencies to jointly develop and propose to the relevant policy committees of the Legislature a pilot project for the coordinated, multiagency permitting of specified watershed restoration activities. The bill would establish the Headwaters Restoration Account in the General Fund and would authorize the deposit of funds into the account for use, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for those forest and watershed restoration purposes.