Industry vital to all

From The Oregonian Letters
 
The Aug. 21 guest column "Private timber of public concern" argues that the timber harvest on private lands represents a boon to "some" individuals. That's an understatement of epic proportions.

Despite the recession, the forest sector is a significant employer. In 2009, the sector directly employed more than 47,000 Oregonians. These are people who grow the trees, protect streams and wildlife habitat, harvest timber and manufacture and sell forest products. Collectively, these folks earned more than $2 billion.

The sector pays an average wage of $43,952, which is 8 percent more than the state's average wage of $40,742. When one factors in both direct and indirect jobs, the forest sector makes up about 8.5 percent of Oregon's total payroll, which is a lot more than "some."

MIKE CLOUGHESY
Newberg
Cloughesy is director of forestry with the Oregon Forest Resources Institute.

Protests of possible landslides push logging in Elliott State Forest back into the timber conflicts

Published: Friday, August 26, 2011, 9:45 PM     Updated: Friday, August 26, 2011, 10:02 PM

By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian

 

Thomas Boyd, The Oregonian, 2009

The Elliott State Forest has seen protests before. In 2009, Oregon State Troopers dismantled a platform after arresting the last of the protesters that blocked access to an 80-acre parcel. 

 

A couple whose property abuts a timber sale in the Elliott State Forest northeast of Coos Bay worry the logging will trigger a landslide onto their land, and they're seeking a court injunction to stop it.

Barb Shamet  and Wolfgang Schwartz  believe the Oregon Department of Forestry mishandled the Millicoma Between timber sale, ignored their complaints and improperly dealt with the company logging the land.

Department officials defend how the timber sale was handled. Nonetheless, the complaint is example of the increasingly heated dispute about how to manage the Elliott, a 93,000-acre forest in Oregon's coast range. In late July, protesters opposed to a different timber sale there climbed trees to block logging roads. Three people were arrested, and later, three more were taken into custody for disrupting work at a state forestry office.

The Eugene-based Cascadia Forest Defenders, which staged the protests, called on the forestry department to quit herbicide use and end logging of what it considers the Elliott's "native forests" -- areas that burned long ago but have never been logged.

"We feel like the Elliott is not only currently where the worst logging practices are, but they're trying to make it even worse," spokesman Jason Gonzales  said.

Meanwhile, many environmentalists criticize the proposed 10-year management plan for the Elliott that would take effect in 2012. The plan, now out for public comment, would increase clearcutting, opponents say.

"The Elliott has big, fat old trees," says Francis Eatherington, of Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands. "It's the only place where they're being clear-cut to this extent. Most have never been logged."

Documents describe the Millicoma Between timber sale, about 23 miles northeast of Coos Bay, as primarily 125-year-old Douglas fir with minor amounts of western hemlock, Sitka spruce, red alder and bigleaf maple. Logging is under way and the area is to be clear-cut, with about three trees per acre left as living "green trees" or girdled as standing snags favored by some wildlife.

The site became part of a larger nearby timber sale in 2008. Swanson Group Manufacturing bought an 81-acre timber sale for $485,000. But 36 acres was removed from the sale because they were too steep to log safely. In response, forestry officials substituted 39 acres of the Millicoma Between.

The original sale was publicly offered and awarded by sealed bid, but the substitution was more informal. State officials describe the substitution as routine and point out the Millicoma Between was listed as an alternative sale. Critics say the trade was behind closed doors with no public scrutiny.

Shamet and Schwartz, the neighboring property owners, say the Millicoma Between also has steep slopes. The logging area is above the West Fork of the Millicoma River, and a landslide could flow across their land and into the river, Shamet said.

She said the logging site is downstream from her home, but a landslide might cross her property. She said a landslide in 1996 -- when winter storms triggered floods and slides in much of the state's forests -- damaged her home, vehicles and a pumphouse.

"This mountain has come down before," she said. "They ignored me, they pretend we're a bunch of stupids."

A state "pre-operations report" says most of the unit meets the criteria for classification as a "high landslide hazard." Forestry department spokesman Kevin Weeks  said the classification doesn't preclude logging, but alerts staff to plan accordingly. Responses can include leaving additional trees in the likely flow path to slow debris. Trapping larger pieces of wood in the upper reaches of a stream "actually mimics nature creating good habitat for fish," Weeks said.

The department has no record of a 1996 landslide, he said. Aerial photographs in 2001 and 2003 show no evidence of a debris flow in the past decade in that area, Weeks said. But he acknowledged the agency and landowner may have differing perspectives on the size or impact of a slide.

Debate over the Elliott State Forest is likely to continue.

Although managed by the state forestry department, 90 percent of it is Common School Fund land and owned by the State Land Board -- made up of the governor, secretary of state and state treasurer. The rest is owned by the Board of Forestry.

State statute says the Elliott is to be managed to generate the greatest revenue for the common school fund while maintaining sound land and timber management. The land board will vote on the 10-year management plan in October, and opponents are gearing up against it.

 -- Eric Mortenson

Three cheers for the chainsaw

By Rick Attig, The Oregonian  

 

 What's a Timber? Portland's few props to Oregon's logging history

My grandfather surely kicked more butts than soccer balls during his lifetime, but if I could have him back for just one night, I'd take him to see the Portland Timbers.

Lou Morgan was a logger, a cusser and a drinker. He'd fit right in to the Timbers Army, at least until someone urged him to sing or put on a scarf, and then he'd let out that roar, the one I remember from the Christmas when my young cousin accidentally dumped his piece of cream pie into grandpa's open silverware drawer.

Nick Hernandez / OregonLive.com 

 

Grandpa Lou had a big voice until emphysema clenched it into a wheeze, but I can hear it when Timber Joey trots through the stands in his suspenders, gunning his chainsaw, or when I see the tools of my grandpa's trade, the double-bladed axes and chainsaws, slung over the bare shoulders of the pretty young women and tattooed men on those billboards around town. I imagine him bellowing, "What the (blank) is a Timber?"

I'm not sure, grandpa. If the name is a reference to all the great forests of the Northwest -- the "timber" -- what is it then with all those axes and chainsaws? I think a "Timber" is someone willing to pose with an axe or a chainsaw, and a "Logger" is someone willing to actually use them. It's so much easier to give the former a standing ovation.

I confess to being overly sensitive about this, but I descend from four generations of Oregon woodsmen, loggers, millworkers and carpenters. Over the years I've seen their occupations, their contributions, the stuff of their lives, politically attacked and socially devalued. My grandpa and other ancestors were real people, not mascots. They were loggers, not Timbers.

This is not meant as an attack on Portland's soccer franchise. I love the atmosphere at Timbers games, the scarves, the waving flags, the singing, the passionate fans who refuse to sit down. Still, it's striking, in the middle of a decidedly anti-logging town, to see Oregon's timber history used as a theme, its tools deployed as totems.

It's at Jeld-Wen Field where you can clearly see and feel the deep ambivalence that many people, especially in this city, have about Oregon's timber history. It's in this place known as Stumptown that 18,000–plus people roar every time a soccer mascot revs his chainsaw, while the silence in this city around the slow death of the modern timber industry is deafening.

I know it's not fair to load all this onto a soccer team. Yet I can't help but wish more people in those crowded soccer stands and all throughout this city understood what those chainsaws and double-bladed axes really represent, not just to Oregon history and development, but to tens of thousands of rural families still trying to carve out a living in timber country today.

It'd be something to bring Grandpa Lou to the next Timbers match, and follow him to our seats, him in his cracked leather boots and steel-gray crewcut. I'd buy him a beer, or six. I'd like him to smell the blue exhaust when Timber Joey strides by our seat with his chainsaw. And most of all, I'd like to show all those people a logger -- a real one -- and ask them for one last cheer.
--Rick Attig

Private timber of public concern

Published: Sunday, August 21, 2011, 12:28 PM

By Guest Columnist  Sarah Parker

In a state with so many trees, forests are easy to take for granted. Nearly half of Oregon is covered in forests that have an impact on individuals through their inherent aesthetic, recreational, economic and educational values, and through the ecosystem services they provide. While trees are a renewable resource, research shows that established forests provide many more benefits than industrial forests, including enhanced carbon storage, freshwater regulation, soil protection and wildlife habitat.

While logging on public land has decreased, timber yields on private land have remained steady. The 1971 Oregon Forest Practices Act regulates logging on private land. Today it is evident that this obsolete law is failing citizens of Oregon by allowing detrimental harvest practices that endanger public safety and damage the surrounding environment.

The rights of private landowners must be respected, but the extent of their freedoms should be examined, especially in terms of their implications to the landscape and neighboring communities. In Williams, Oregon, the shortfalls of the Oregon Forest Practices Act are blatant. Currently in Williams, private timber harvests are pending on 1,700 acres. Many of these acres will be clear-cut, and harvests that meet legal qualifications for "partial cuts" are deceptive; the trees that remain might as well be marooned on a deserted island.

One parcel that has recently gained a lot of attention is the Williams 320 (W320): 320 acres situated on a highly visible ridge slated to be clear-cut by a private landowner from Idaho. The Oregon Forest Practices Act allows clear cuts of up to 120 contiguous acres. On the W320, 250 acres will be clear-cut, separated into three sections by two 300-foot buffers. With so much habitat lost, the Northern Spotted Owls, Pacific Fishers, and other wildlife that use the land will be displaced.

Additionally, the Act gives no regard to the three freshwater streams that flow on the property; buffers are not required to protect them. These waterways will sustain heavy sediment loads as the topsoil erodes away, and the reduced canopy cover will likely cause them to dry up in the summer months. Downstream local families and farmers use the water to irrigate crops, but herbicides sprayed on the W320 to suppress competing vegetation will contaminate the streams (these herbicides can also be measured in rain). Unsightly clear-cuts increase the risk of catastrophic fire and spread diseases like Phytophthora lateralis, which is deadly to the threatened Port Orford cedar.

Economically, harvesting on private lands does represent a boon to some individuals. Private cuts employ road builders, tree fellers and truckers, but their salaries are subsidized by the loss of a major environmental resource and the negative impacts experienced by local residents. In many cases the benefits end there, as wood is increasingly transported to China to be processed.

In one fell swoop the Oregon Forest Practices Act allows a resource that has taken years to mature on Oregon soil to be removed, leaving behind a paltry gain for few and an overwhelming loss for all. With so many detriments, it is time to rewrite the Oregon Forest Practices Act so that it supports our communities by promoting ecological forestry practices on private lands.

Sarah Parker is project manager of the Williams Community Forest Project.

 

Don’t split land: There are better ways to manage the checkerboard

By Doug Robertson Douglas County Commissioner and President of Association of O & C Counties

For The Register-Guard

Published: (Sunday, Aug 21, 2011 05:00AM) 

Recent news articles have described a “land-­splitting” proposal for the O&C lands in Western Oregon that would place these already-­fragmented lands under two completely separate management authorities. The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, or FSEEE, organization has advanced the concept, and U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio has expressed interest.

The Association of O&C Counties appreciates leadership in addressing the current lack of management on the O&C lands, which once belonged to the Oregon & California Railroad but reverted to federal ownership a century ago. While the counties find the land-splitting plan intriguing, we have identified difficulties that give us reservations.

Last year, the counties also proposed splitting the O&C lands, with half dedicated to timber production, but we gathered information and feedback that told us splitting the lands is not the best solution.

Based on what we learned, the counties have been working on a new approach to management on the O&C lands that incorporates several key concepts supported by FSEEE, but with modifications to avoid issues that would arise from splitting the lands.

The employees’ plan would divide the O&C checkerboard into two groups of parcels totaling approximately 1.1 million acres each. The division would be based on the age of the timber. One would contain older stands and would have very little management except what is provided by “natural processes.” It would be under the control of a board of trustees made up of members from environmental organizations.

The second, separately managed group of lands would contain younger timber and be leased for 99 years to a private corporation for management under the Oregon Forest Practices Act. The corporation would be required to pay for the lease upfront with an amount reflecting the value of the timber that would be harvested over the next 99 years. The payment would total approximately $3 billion, which would be invested. The interest earnings would provide payments to the counties approximately equal to the amount they currently receive from the Secure Rural Schools Act safety net.

While dividing the lands sounds appealing, we learned from our own previous proposal that there would be great practical difficulties. Stands of timber are not arranged in neat rows of pre-surveyed parcels, lined up like city blocks according to age class.

A stand map shows many thousands of irregular shapes with no fixed boundaries. It seems nearly certain that a corporate bidder would require that the stands be surveyed, and then that the timber volume be determined by an on-the-ground appraisal. That preliminary work would take several years, at least.

Even if these preliminary difficulties could be overcome, there are other problems with dividing the land.

By taking half the O&C acres out of active management and putting them into a preservation trust, logging on the remaining, leased half would of necessity be extremely intense. A private corporation that pays $3 billion up front for a lease will harvest the timber as fast as possible to recover its investment and make a profit — and the sooner it harvests the timber, the bigger its profits.

We’re not convinced the public would accept the rapid cutting of timber that would occur.

Conversely, the half of the lands in environmental reserves would have little management. Owners of neighboring interspersed private property would have concerns about fire, disease and other conditions on the reserved parcels.

In addition, the O&C checkerboard and interspersed private lands are laced with a road system that is subject to a web of reciprocal rights of way. These rights of way would require not only cooperation between current private owners and the new environmental trust, but also financial participation for road repair and maintenance. Even if there were a will to cooperate, it would be difficult for the environmental trust to participate financially with little or no management on its portion of the land.

The Association of O&C Counties thinks there is a better way. The counties propose to keep the lands in one piece. Management authority would be transferred to a board of trustees representing broad stakeholder interests, much like the current Resource Advisory Committees that manage projects on federal lands.

That model has been very successful nationally and in Oregon. The committees’ model has been supported by the entire Oregon congressional delegation. The counties’ proposal would adopt it as the structure for the management authority for all of the O&C lands.

The O&C board of trustees would adopt a scientifically sound plan developed by leading experts under the Oregon Forest Practices Act. The plan could, on a portion of the lands, incorporate the concept of integrated forest management, which comes in large part from DeFazio’s initiative that led to the current pilot projects on the O&C lands under the direction of professors Norm Johnson and Jerry Franklin.

Tens of thousands of acres proposed for wilderness would be excluded from trust management and remain available for wilderness designation. The counties’ plan would require minimum and maximum annual harvest levels sufficient to pay the management costs and make payments to the counties approximately equaling the Secure Rural Schools payments in 2008.

The board of trustees would include environmental representatives who would have a veto over any proposed timber sales, so long as the trust sold an amount of volume annually that fell within the required minimum and maximum range. Instead of harvest levels set by a private corporate leaseholder to service debt and maximize shareholder profits, the counties propose to give a local stakeholder board of trustees the authority to decide the amount and the how, when and where of timber harvests.

The counties have examined carefully the land-splitting proposal. We hope the employees group, DeFazio and other stakeholders will give the counties’ proposal an equally close examination. We share many common concepts and are seeking the same goals: Jobs, environmental balance and economic sustainability in our communities.

Carbon ‘sinks’ a meager silver lining to forest plan

Published: August 09. 2011

The Bulletin, Bend

Nature can be allowed to decide the fate of Oregon forests — come wildfire, come disease, come what may. But most people don’t want that. So the debate is over how public forests should be managed.

The Northwest Forest Plan, adopted in 1994, was one major attempt at management. Now scientists from Oregon State University and elsewhere say they have found an unintended benefit of the plan: it’s helped with carbon. Not harvesting public forests means the forests have become a carbon “sink” — a place that absorbs more carbon than it releases. It’s called carbon sequestration.

Governments and scientists have been looking at how forests might be used to offset or reduce carbon emissions. If the carbon storage of a forest can be accurately modeled and a price put on that, it could become part of the debate over whether public forest land is harvested.

But this consequence must be weighed against what else the Northwest Forest Plan has done. The goal of the plan was to save species, especially the Northern spotted owl, and to “produce a predictable and sustainable level of timber sales.” It didn’t work out as planned.

Owl habitat was saved. But instead of a spotted owl paradise, the barred owl thrives in the same habitat and threatens to drive the spotted owl out. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has considered killing thousands of barred owls in another attempt to save the spotted owl.

Then there’s the timber harvest. Whether or not you believe too many trees were cut down on federal forest land before the plan, the harvests have only been about half the level the plan itself saw as sustainable. It’s made it more difficult to do the thinning necessary to reduce the danger of wildfire. And it wiped out jobs in Oregon’s timber industry. Counties depending on proceeds from timber revenue are still struggling with how to make up for it.

“From 1990 to 2000, private-sector forestry and logging declined from 15,774 jobs statewide to 12,887, a loss of 2,887 jobs, or 18 percent,” the state Employment Department says. Timber harvests dropped from 6.2 billion board feet to 3.9 billion board feet over the same period. By 2009, it was down to 9,391 jobs and 2.7 million board feet.

The Northwest Forest Plan didn’t do all of that, but nobody believes it hasn’t played a major part.

The new study will be used by some to further the argument that there is more reason to not harvest trees on public land. But the Northwest Forest Plan has sequestered more than just carbon. It’s sequestered jobs. It’s sequestered necessary thinning. It’s meant that the trees to build homes are cut far away where there is little regulation and oversight. Managing our forests should not mean the only trees that can be cut are from somewhere else.

Carbon-gobbling trees in Northwest forests change the forest equation, a new study finds

Published: Thursday, August 04, 2011, 4:53 PM     Updated: Thursday, August 04, 2011, 4:53 PM

By Brandon Blakeley, The Oregonian

View full sizeThe OregonianThe ability of a forest to absorb carbon dioxide could help slow the pace of climate change, according to a new study.

Trees will mop up our carbon, if left alone.

A near halt to logging in the Northwest's federal forests has left a lot of trees standing in the past two decades, and a new study shows a robust forest can help combat climate change by trapping carbon dioxide emissions. And it soaks up more than we knew.

Researchers from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University show for the first time just how much carbon unharvested Northwest forests can trap. These forests now constitute a carbon "sink" for the first time in decades.

The controversial 1993 Northwest Forest Plan, aimed at preserving the endangered northern spotted owl, slashed timber production by 80 percent in northern California, and western Oregon and Washington. While the upshot of the plan remains hotly debated, an unanticipated side effect isn't: Powerful forest "sinks" store the carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion for heat, transportation and power generation.

"The original goals of the Northwest Forest Plan had nothing to do with the issue of carbon emissions, but now carbon sequestration is seen as an important ecosystem service," David Turner, a professor in the OSU Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society who led the research, said in a press release covering the research.

In recent years, governments and corporations have raced to develop carbon-capturing solutions. Turner's new research quantifies the value of a forest as a carbon sink. With that information, the forest's economic worth could be higher than its use for logging.

In previous work, Turner and colleagues found that carbon sequestration in Oregon forests balances almost half the carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion by state residents.

This newest forest research dovetails with other recent reports that highlight ecosystem damage caused by ocean acidification, a result of increased atmospheric carbon.

Researchers from The University of California at Davis reported in mid-July that more acidic oceans could weaken the shells of California mussels and diminish their size. Other reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicate coral is at increasing risk. More acidic conditions greatly slow coral growth and accelerate coral bleaching, often leading to death. Coral reefs shelter a quarter of all marine species. Economically, NOAA estimates coral reefs' worth at up to $375 billion a year when coastline protection, fishing and tourism are added up. By holding carbon, trees pitch in to help oceans and marine life.

Turner's study helps put a number on the carbon value of Northwest forests. While trees alone are not the solution to climate change, it appears they can slow the pace because they handle more carbon than expected. It changes the equation for figuring out the best use of the forest.

-- Brandon Blakeley

It is time for a change on the O&C lands

The Oregonian 

By Guest Columnist Doug Robertson

Published: Thursday, August 04, 2011, 4:15 AM

Recent news articles have described a "land splitting" proposal being considered by Congressman Peter DeFazio. The land splitting plan is to further divide the already-fragmented O&C lands and place them under two completely separate management authorities.

The O&C counties appreciate Congressman DeFazio's interest and leadership in addressing the current lack of management on the O&C Lands. We agree wholeheartedly that federal management has failed. And while the Counties find the land splitting plan intriguing, we have identified difficulties that give us reservations.

Last year, the counties also proposed splitting the O&C lands, with half dedicated to timber production, but we gathered a lot of information and feedback that told us splitting the lands is not the best solution. Based on what we learned, the counties have been working on a new approach to management on the O&C Lands. Our new proposal incorporates several key concepts supported by DeFazio, but with modifications to avoid issues from splitting the lands.

The land splitting plan by DeFazio is to divide the O&C checkerboard into two groups of parcels totaling approximately 1.1 million acres each. The division would be based on the age of the timber. One would contain older stands of timber and would have very little management except what is provided by "natural processes." It would be under the control of a board of trustees made up of members from environmental organizations.

The second, separately managed group of lands under the plan would contain younger timber and be leased for 99 years to a private corporation for management under the Oregon Forest Practices Act. The corporate leasee would be required to pay for the lease up front with an amount reflecting the value of the timber that would be harvested over the next 99 years. The upfront payment would total approximately $3 billion, which would be invested, with the interest earnings providing payments to the counties approximating the amount they currently receive from the Secure Rural Schools Act safety net.

While dividing the lands sounds appealing, we learned from our own previous proposal that there would be great practical difficulties. Stands of timber by age class are not arranged in neat rows of pre-surveyed parcels lined up like city blocks. A close examination of a stand map shows many thousands of very irregular shapes that have no fixed boundaries. It seems nearly certain that a corporate bidder on a proposed lease would require that the stands be surveyed with legal coordinates, and then the timber volume be determined by an on-the-ground appraisal. This preliminary work would take several years, at least. Even if these preliminary difficulties could be overcome, there are other problems with dividing the land.

By taking half the O&C acres out of active management and putting them into a preservation trust, logging on the remaining leased half would of necessity be extremely intense. A private corporation that pays $3 billion upfront for a lease will harvest the timber on the leased land as fast as possible in order to recover its investment and make a profit, and the sooner it harvests the timber, the bigger its profits. We are not convinced the public would accept the very rapid cutting of timber that would occur.

Conversely, the half of the lands in environmental reserves would have very little management. This raises concerns from the neighboring, interspersed private owners about fire, insect infestation, disease and other conditions on the reserved parcels that would threaten the adjacent private lands. In addition, the O&C checkerboard and interspersed private ownerships are laced with a connected road system that is subject to a web of reciprocal rights of way. These rights of way would require not only cooperation between the current private owners and the new environmental trust, but also financial participation for road repair and maintenance. Even if there were a will to cooperate, it would be difficult for the environmental trust to participate financially with little or no management on their portion of the land.

The O&C counties think there is a better way. Instead of splitting lands, the counties propose to keep the lands in one piece. Management authority would be transferred to a board of trustees representing broad stakeholder interests, much like the current Resource Advisory Committees (RACs) that manage projects on federal lands. This model has been very successful nationally and in Oregon. The RAC model has been supported by the entire Oregon congressional delegation. The counties' proposal would adopt it as the structure for the management authority for all of the O&C lands.

The O&C board of trustees would adopt a scientifically sound plan developed by leading experts under the Oregon Forest Practices Act. The plan could, on a portion of the lands, incorporate the concept of integrated forest management that comes in large part from Congressman DeFazio's initiative that led to the current pilot projects on the O&C lands under the direction of Dr. Norm Johnson and Dr. Jerry Franklin.

Tens of thousands of acres proposed for wilderness would be excluded from trust management and remain available for wilderness designation. The counties' plan would require minimum and maximum annual harvest levels sufficient to pay the management costs and make payments to the O&C counties approximately equaling the Secure Rural School's payments in 2008. The board of trustees would include environmental representatives who would have a veto over any proposed timber sales, so long as the trust sold an amount of volume annually that fell within the required minimum and maximum range. Instead of harvest levels set by a private corporate leasee to service debt and maximize shareholder profits, the counties propose to give a local stakeholder board of trustees the authority to decide the amount and the how, when, where of timber harvests.

The counties have carefully examined the land splitting proposal, and we applaud Rep. DeFazio for stepping forward with it. We hope Rep. DeFazio and other stakeholders will give the Counties' proposal an equally close examination. We share many common concepts, and are seeking the same goals: Jobs and economic stability in our communities.
 
Doug Robertson is president of the Association of O&C Counties.

FORESTS: 'Intense' thinning minimizes wildfire risks -- USDA study

Greenwire (08/02/2011) Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

The United States can minimize the risk of severe wildfires in dry Western forests by thinning them to no more than 100 trees per acre, according to a new Forest Service study.

The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, is the largest of its kind and provides a scientific blueprint for reducing tree densities and surface fuels, which are largely to blame for massive wildfires this year in Arizona and New Mexico, the worst ever for both states, the agency said.

The study explored the likely impacts of various thinning levels on the potential for crown fires, a particularly deadly and unpredictable type of wildfire that burns into the canopies of trees.

Computer simulations of more than 45,000 stands of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir in 11 Western states found that densities of between 50 and 100 trees per acre would minimize the risk of crown fires. The study also considered densities of 300 and 200 trees per acre.

Intensive thinning, combined with the removal of post-treatment "slash" debris, both reduces the risk of initiating a crown fire and blocks their spread, the study concluded.

"This study proves once again that an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure," Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said in a statement. "Thinning dense forests reduces the impacts of the catastrophic wildfires we've already seen this year and expect to see more and more of in the future."

The research will help forest managers protect communities that abut forests while providing timber harvest jobs and promoting better forest health, Tidwell said.

The study comes on the heels of the massive Wallow fire in Arizona, which burned more than 538,000 acres but claimed only 38 structures thanks in part to a collaborative forest restoration project that had previously treated some 35,000 acres.

The White Mountains stewardship contract, part of the "Four Forests" collaborative in the Apache-Sitgreaves, Kaibab, Coconino and Tonto national forests, seeks to restore up to 150,000 acres of degraded forest over 10 years by strategically thinning small trees in overgrown ponderosa forests.

The thinning allowed firefighters to halt the fire's spread in many areas and protect thousands of structures, according to the Forest Service.

Thinning is also credited for providing a buffer to a separate fire this summer around the city of Los Alamos, N.M., which is home to a sprawling federal nuclear weapons lab, officials have said (Land Letter, July 7).

"Our findings now give a sense of just how much thinning is required," said Morris Johnson, a Forest Service fire ecologist and lead author of the study. "We found that thinning at this level reduced tree density, raised the canopy base height and reduced canopy density."

The Forest Service, which manages nearly 200 million acres of forests, last year treated more than 2 million acres for hazardous fuels reduction, mostly near communities in the wildland-urban interface. The agency had already treated 900,000 acres by mid-June, Tidwell said.

Lawmakers in Arizona and New Mexico have recently introduced legislation that would expedite the removal of hazardous, dead and dying trees surrounding communities near the Wallow fire area.

The bill, S. 1344, by Arizona Republican Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain, would direct the Forest Service to identify forested areas near residences where dead or fire-prone trees could be harvested to spur economic development and gird forests to withstand future fires. It will receive a hearing tomorrow before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (E&E Daily, Aug. 1).

Similar legislation has been introduced in the House by Reps. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

"We must reevaluate our forest management policies at all levels of government because the status quo is detrimental to our region's ecological health, our safety and our local and national economy," Gosar said in a statement today. "The recent fires, some of the largest forest fires in recorded history, simply add further urgency to this work."

From:
Caitlin Sause
Government Relations Advisor
t 503.944.6117
f 503.295.1058
csause@balljanik.com

Professor challenges pilot project in Applegate Valley 'Their ideas don't match up with forests that were there'

August 02, 2011

By Paul Fattig
Medford Mail Tribune

A University of Wyoming professor is challenging the assumptions of two leading Pacific Northwest forestry professors spearheading a pilot project on public forestlands in the Applegate Valley.

Professor Bill Baker, a fire ecologist who has conducted research in the Applegate Valley, says historical data he has uncovered shows the pilot project proposed by professors Norm Johnson of Oregon State University and Jerry Franklin at the University of Washington would create a forest that never existed.

"They are envisioning the forests were more open with fewer trees," said Baker, who communicated with the Mail Tribune via email and telephone.

"But if we look back, the new evidence shows the forests were quite dense," he added, noting that his conclusion is based on historical survey data. "They were not particularly fire-resistant forests, either. Their ideas don't match up with the forests that were there."

But Johnson and Franklin are standing by their ongoing work on the project that includes 80,000 acres of largely U.S. Bureau of Land Management forestland in the mid-Applegate Valley. It is one of three such projects in Oregon that could change the way timber is managed on federal forestland.

Other pilot projects are under way on BLM land in the Myrtle Creek drainage in Douglas County, as well as on tribal land in Coos County. Franklin and Johnson also are heading up those projects.

Baker's 19-page report was one of 17 comments, many of them lengthy, received by the BLM's Medford District during the 30-day comment period on the project's environmental assessment, which ended last week, according to district spokesman Jim Whittington.

"We have not yet studied Dr. Baker's report in detail, but his work appears to describe a complex and heterogeneous historical landscape — a landscape with a mixture of oaks, pines, madrone and Douglas fir — some open areas, some areas with dense, young trees and significant shrub communities," stated Franklin in an email to the Mail Tribune. "This is very different from the forest ecosystem that exists there today."

The forests where Johnson and Franklin want to demonstrate their restoration strategy is overwhelmingly dominated by maturing Douglas fir trees, he said.

"Diversifying these stands by thinning — allowing pines, incense cedar, oaks and madrones to reproduce and thrive — is an important part of our restoration strategy, as is increasing the growth and resilience of the residual Douglas firs," he said.

The restoration strategy leaves more than 40 percent of the landscape untreated, providing dense forest patches needed by northern spotted owls, he added.

"Overall we think that the goal should be to reverse the simplification of this landscape that has occurred over the last 150 years by restoring some of its historic biological diversity, heterogeneity and resilience," said Franklin.

"The vision should be forward, looking toward the desired future of this landscape and potential threats to it, including effects of climate change, even while recognizing the important knowledge derived from historical studies," he concluded.

All the comments on the pilot project will be analyzed in the coming weeks, said Whittington, adding that many of the comments urged a larger chunk of land be included in the local pilot project.

Noting that the debate among the professors is more about academic approaches, he noted he would let them address that issue.

"Scientists love to argue about data, and sometimes it can get a little bloody," observed Johnson.

A member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's northern spotted owl working group for dry forest landscapes, Baker said he was offering his observations to further science.

"The goal of science is to gather new information and bring it to bear," said Baker, noting the pilot project need not be rushed.

"I think that Norm and Jerry's general principles are a good start but needed extensive and deep, scientific, peer review and more public discussion and refinement before we get to the stage of the pilots," he said. "We want to be much more sure that these principles truly can achieve the admirable goal of bringing together forest restoration and wood production before they have to face a test on the ground."

Dominick DellaSala, a forest ecologist and chief scientist at the Geos Institute, an environmental think tank in Ashland, agreed.

"You do pilots because you want to scale them up to something bigger," he observed. "We need to hone this pilot so it is based on the very best science possible."

Following the uncertainty of forest management on BLM lands after withdrawal of the Western Oregon Plan Revisions by the Obama administration, Franklin and Johnson last year proposed the large-scale restoration projects to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

After studying the proposal and being lobbied by such groups as the Applegate Partnership and the Southern Oregon Small Diameter Collaborative, two broad-based groups that include both conservation and timber-industry representatives, Salazar gave his go-ahead.

The goal is to preserve the largest trees while improving forest health, including northern spotted owl habitat, while producing wood for mills and reducing wildfire danger.

The goal of the pilot is to have demonstration units to offer for sale by September, said BLM officials.

All of the comments on the project's environmental assessment are available at
www.blm.gov/or/districts/medford/forestrypilot/pilot-projects.php.

 (From Ann Forest Burns
American Forest Resource Council)