MEMORANDUM

TO: Pete Sprague, Assembly President

Members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly

THRU: Dale L. Bagley, Borough Mayor

THRU: Jeff Sinz, Finance Director

THRU: Max J. Best, Planning Director

FROM: Roberta Wilfong, Spruce Bark Beetle Program Manager

DATE: April 24, 2003

SUBJECT: Ordinance Accepting and Appropriating $38,800.00 from United States Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for a Challenge Cost Share Project on Vegetation and Fuel Loading on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (KNWR).

This Cost Share Agreement requires KPB to provide in-kind technical services. The purpose of this Agreement is to complete an ongoing vegetation classification/fuels map of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

The U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressed an interest in funding the completion of the vegetation mapping on the KNWR. The completed vegetation map of KNWR will be used to determine existing fuels on the KNWR that are adjacent to the Wildland Urban Interface of the Kenai Peninsula and will be used to predict wildfire behavior for any fires that start in spruce bark beetle killed forests on the KNWR.

The Borough's participation will be to provide the vegetation/fuel classifications necessary for fire/fuel modeling analysis of the KNWR. The project work will occur during the spring, summer, and fall of 2003.

Funding of the project will total $163,800 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service share being $38,800.00 and the Borough's share being $125,000.00. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will provide the Borough $38,800.00 for its share of the overall project costs. The project is to be completed by December 31, 2003.