Stewardship

The Tahoe Basin

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Lake Tahoe would probably be a National Park, by now, if the Comstock Lode had never been found. There was clearcutting right down to the lakshore, for mining timbers, in the silver mines. Incline Village was named for the switchback road that transported logs to a flume that went all the way down to the Washoe Lake area, thousands of feet below.

Today, there is very little “logging” next to all that blue Tahoe lake water. Newspapers especially like to describe the basin as “pristine”, apparently not knowing the actual meaning of the word.

P9123090-web

Much of the Lake Tahoe Basin is “de facto” Wilderness, with very little management happening, even when wildfires occur. Residents seem to be in denial about wildfire issues, not remembering the last drought that decimated their forests. However, it is easy enough to see the results of the last bark beetle infestation, in the form of accumulated fuels far beyond what is “natural”. Many areas of forest mortality were left “to recover”, on their own. Well, sometimes “recovery” takes decades or even centuries, as long as humans don’t intervene. That might also include multiple wildfires, opening the ground to accelerated erosion and having clarity-declining sediments flowing into Lake Tahoe.

P9123100-web

Ironically, the lake’s level isn’t all that far down, thanks to the lobbying of lakeshore land owners, putting pressure on water regulators. That can only go so far, as Reno area interests need more water to keep growing and thriving. We’ll just have to see how the battle goes, as the Truckee River drops further and further.

National Stewardship Contracting Virtual Meeting Jan 27 2015

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Sounds like quite the wonkfest….

National Stewardship Contracting Virtual Meeting

Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Eastern Case Studies: 11:00 AM EST
Western Case Studies: 12:30 PM EST
Registration required: Register now

Why should you attend?
Fresh off its permanent authorization in the 2014 Farm Bill, stewardship contracting is factoring into the activities of National Forests and BLM Districts across the country. This webinar is a great opportunity to learn more about how tribes, conservation groups, local communities, private landowners, and various non-agency stakeholders are engaging in the management of federal forests through stewardship contracting. In this virtual meeting you will get to hear stories and lessons learned from recent stewardship contracting projects and be able to reflect on your own experiences working on stewardship contracting projects.

Topics we will discuss include:

How non-agency stakeholders have engaged in stewardship contracting projects,
Whether collaboration on stewardship contracting projects changes the way the Federal agencies and external groups interact,
Differences between projects with established collaborative groups and those that do not have established collaborative groups, and
How the scope and scale of stewardship contracting projects is affected by involvement of non-agency groups.

How to join the meeting
A brief registration is required. To register now click here.

Case Studies Overview
We are offering two webinars, each with a regional focus. The first webinar at 11am EST will cover the six stewardship contracting projects studied in the Eastern US; the second webinar at 12:30pm EST will cover the nine projects studied in the Western US. You may register for either or both sessions. Themes cutting across stewardship contracting projects nationwide will be addressed in both regional meetings.

For background on Programmatic Monitoring of Stewardship Contracting:
http://www.pinchot.org/gp/Stewardship_Contracting

This meeting is hosted by the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Michigan State University, the Watershed Research and Training Center, the USDA Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.

Throwback Thursday, Yosemite-style

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I’ve found my hoard of old A-Rock Fire photos, from 1990! I will be preparing a bigger repeat photography article, after I finish selecting and scanning. Like several other fires this summer, the A-Rock Fire started in the Merced River canyon, burning northward. I really believe that this is the model of what will happen to the Rim Fire, if we do nothing to reduce those dead and dying fuels. Active management opponents never want to talk about the devastation of re-burns, as an aspect of their “natural and beneficial” wildfires. Most of those snags have “vaporized” since this 1989 wildfire. Indeed, this example should be considered when deciding post-fire treatments for both the Rim Fire and the King Fire, too.

It should be relatively easy to find this spot, to do some repeat photography, along the Big Oak Flat Road.

Above-Foresta-web

Urgent Action Needed to Save Sierra Forests

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This viewpoint shows more of the reasons why the desire to have larger and more intense wildfires, in the Sierra Nevada, is the wrong way to go.

In this picture below, fire crews were run out of this stand, and back into the “safety zone”, on this fire I worked on, back in 1988.

campbell_fire1-web

 

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/28/6737076/viewpoints-urgent-action-needed.html

Air quality the past two weeks has been several times worse than some of the most polluted cities in the world due to smoke from the King fire. Last year’s Rim fire emitted greenhouse gases equivalent to 2.3 million vehicles for a year.

Also, the lost habitat and recreational opportunities from major fires like these are significant. It is not an exaggeration to say that virtually all Californians are affected when these “megafires” occur.

The report points out that wildfires are getting larger and burning at higher intensity than ever before. The Rim fire burned at nearly 40 percent high intensity – meaning virtually no living vegetation is left – covering almost 100,000 acres. More acres have burned in the first 4½ years of this decade than in seven decades of the last century.

What can we do about it?

The main bottleneck in treating more acres is in implementation. The Forest Service is unwilling to increase the size of its Region 5 timber management staffs. They use some of the usual excuses, some of which are beyond their control but, not all of those issues are really significant, looking at the big picture. Yes, it is pretty difficult to implement extremely-complex plans when you are constantly training new temporary employees, hired right off the street.

UC Berkeley Gets it Right, and Gets it Wrong

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A Cal-Berkeley fire scientist shows his unawareness of current Forest Service policy but, his other ideas favor active management of our Sierra Nevada National Forests.

Canopy2-web

The situation is compounded by the gridlock between environmentalists and commercial foresters. The former favor thinning, but they want all logging plans to leave the larger trees, particularly those with trunks over 30 inches in diameter. But the timber companies maintain it is necessary to take a significant number of bigger trees to fund thinning and restoration programs.

Stephens generally favors the enviro position. Landscape-scale wildfire damage is driven by vast acreages of small-diameter, closely-packed trees, he says. By leaving the larger trees, the essential character of a natural forest can be maintained, even accelerated. And he thinks markets can be found for products produced from thinned, scrawny trees.

http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2014-09-26/brush-flame-king-fire-narrowly-misses-proving-fire-prevention

Of course, there has been a ban on the cutting of trees larger than 30″ dbh, since 1993. Ditto for clearcutting! These are two big hot-button issues for most “conservationists” but, there are still people out there who want timber sales banned, altogether. There are others who would love to go back to the Clinton rules of the Sierra Nevada Framework, which would shutdown much of Region 5’s timber management programs. A 22″ dbh tree, underneath a 36″ dbh tree cannot be considered “scrawny”.  Generally, most of the thinned trees are in the 10-18″ dbh size, averaging about 15″ dbh.

Rim Fire Salvage Logging, by SPI

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Bob Zybach and I went on a field trip to the Rim Fire. The first stop on the tour showed us the Sierra Pacific Industries’ salvage logging results. I’m posting a medium resolution panorama so, if you click on the picture, you can view it in its full size. You can see the planted surviving giant sequoias on their land which were left in place. You can also see some smaller diameter trees, bundled up on the hill, which turned out to be not mechantable as sawlogs. You might also notice the subsoiler ripping, meant to break up the hydrophobic layer. They appear to have done their homework on this practice, and it is surprising to see them spending money to do this. SPI says that their salvage logging is nearly complete, and that they will replant most of their 20,000 acre chunk next spring. They have to order and grow more stock to finish in 2016.

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Repeat Photography and Salvage Logging Recovery

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Camp-Creek-Clean-Salvage-web

My first attempt at assembling pictures, showing how quickly salvage impacts can “heal”. Here is the current aerial view of this specific area.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.4831284,-120.3639833,223m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

Here is a view of a re-burn that has already occurred, in the same area. Notice the lack of significant mortality, due to having salvaged the area, reducing the fuels of the inevitable future fires.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.4770266,-120.3464336,892m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

One of the biggest “purpose and needs” in the Sierra Nevada is fuels reduction after a wildfire. Otherwise, re-burns, like the Rim Fire will dominate the landscapes for an indefinite amount of decades.

Logical Inconsistencies in Some Selected Positions Taken by those Who Oppose Sound Forest Management

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Position 1: Management by foresters has a consistently negative impact on the global environment and is therefore an unacceptable alternative to letting nature take its course.

Logical Inconsistencies:

– Management of endangered/threatened species by biologists is necessary to save them in spite of the evolutionary process of survival of the fittest.

– Management of non endangered/threatened wildlife through hunting and fishing is perfectly acceptable as is the use of formerly forested areas for managing the production of most food sources.

– Destruction of seed source, destruction of endangered species, sterilization and increased erosion potential from baked soil; all resulting from catastrophic wildfires is preferable to scientifically sound forest management activities that can significantly reduce the risk and extent of such catastrophic wildfires.

 

Position 2: Corporate greed and lust is destroying our nations forests.

Logical Inconsistency: ‘The total forest area in the US is within one percent of what it was 100 years ago. During the last 60 years, per acre production of forest resources have increased by more than 50% in the US and 94% in the Southeast’

– Page 5 – http://www.watreefarm.org/Dovetail2012.pdf as cited in – http://www.envivabiomass.com/faq-wood-pellet-demand-in-europe/

 

Position 3: Alternative Energy sources like solar and windfarms are far superior to fossil fuels including nuclear energy. Even non-renewable fossil fuels that introduce new carbon into the atmosphere are superior to renewable biofuels which simply recycle the existing above ground carbon.

Logical Inconsistencies:

– Forest clearcuts are unacceptable even though they mimic the natural process of death and regeneration but it’s ok to permanently clear the large acreages required to produce significant quantities of wind and solar energy.

– Don’t place wind and solar energy farms anywhere that they would interfere with aesthetics like they would if they were placed on ridges along the west coast where sufficient wind power is fairly common and especially not in any forests in my favorite recreation area like a state park or national forest.

– Don’t sweat the loss of endangered/threatened raptors, migratory and other birds and bats due to windfarms but one dead skink in a clearcut is a national tragedy. Windfarms supply only 3% of US grid electricity yet they already kill a significant but arguable quantity of birds and bats. What will the mortality be and what will the aesthetics look like when 20 to 30% of our energy comes from windfarms? What will the aesthetics look like when Solar Power production rises to a significant level from its current 0.1% of production? What environmental impact will occur in providing all of the rare earth elements necessary for a significant portion of our energy production to come from solar power?

—- http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/?no-ist

—- http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/01/birds-bats-wind-turbines-deadly-collisions

—- http://www.windenergyfoundation.org/about-wind-energy/faqs

—- http://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/solar

 

Beware of logical inconsistencies (AKA think before you leap).

Logging to Conserve a Conservation Easement

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Logic and an open mind shows a conservationist with a strict conservation easement and the land trust Montana Land Reliance the need for modifying their agreement to save a forest through sound forest management. This is an example of tailoring sound forest management to accommodate strong conservationist viewpoints while recognizing the shortsightedness of their original “blinders on” “no harvest and no logging” agreement in order to reduce the risk of loss and improve aesthetics. Where there is a common goal and a true love for the forest, blinders come off and the environment wins. See the Bitterroot Star.

Some quotes include:

– “The sixty-acre tract of land, located up the Tin Cup Creek drainage west of Darby, is owned by Stewart Brandborg, a longtime conservationist. A conservation easement was placed on the land to preserve it in its forested state. “It was a pretty strict easement,” said Brandborg, “to the extent of no harvest and no logging.” So why are they in there logging now, you might ask. To preserve the forest would be the short answer.”

– “The Brandborgs went to the Montana Land Reliance, the company that holds the easement on the property, and worked out a solution that was satisfactory to all concerned. It would allow some light-on-the-land forest thinning to take out the bug killed trees. A prescription was designed by John Wells, a professional forester, that would make for a healthier stand of trees and lessen the fire hazard while preserving the values which the conservation easement was designed to maintain. It was not designed for profit.” –> Note: Profit here is “Landowner Profit”

– “Two small landing areas were cleared where the down trees were hauled to be de-limbed, cut to length and sorted. There was a pile that would go to a small sawmill in Corvallis, a couple of other piles of #1 and #2 house logs, a pile to go to Porterbilt for posts and rails, a pile for Pyramid Lumber, a pile of firewood, and a pile of slash that could be chipped or burned on the spot when the job was done. Stoker said that keeping the destination of the product as close to the logging site as possible was the key to making the small operation profitable.” –> Note: Profit here is “Logger Profit” to keep his business going.

– ““The big thing we try to do is to see what we want it to look like in the long term,” said Stoker. “Then, like Michelangelo and the rock, we take out everything that doesn’t look like that picture.”

All the big yellow pines and the big fir trees were left. In fact, almost all the larger living trees on the place were left untouched. Lots of dead snags were also left for the benefit of wildlife. Big patches of thick growth were also left scattered through the area as refuge and bedding spots for big game and other animals.

“What I like is that you can see a lot of individual trees now,” said Stoker. He pointed to one large 400-year-old pine and said that close to 50 small Douglas fir trees from 15 to 30 feet tall were removed from around the base of the big pine. It not only gets more air and light, it might even survive a fire now that the “fire ladder” surrounding it has been removed.

Stoker said that the woods were so thick on this piece of land that it was hard to see anything.

“We also opened up some views,” said Stoker. “Now you can see some of those big yellow pines on the cliff and see the cliffs themselves. Before, the canopy was so thick that you couldn’t see anything from down here. I think it’s cool seeing the ice coming off the cliff like that. It’s beautiful.”

Stewart Brandborg remains an ardent conservationist. But he also believes that local loggers can still be put to work doing sound management for the health and well-being of the forest, and, with the right machinery, at the right time, and with the right amount of care, they can do it without destroying the landscape.”

Plantation Thinning Success on the Rim Fire

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Derek tipped me off about the new BAER fire severity maps, yesterday, and I was happy to see that the efforts to thin plantations has resulted in lower fire intensities. Here is the link to both high and low resolution maps. It is not surprising that fire intensities outside of this thinning project I worked on were much higher, and I doubt that there was much survival in the unthinned plantations. Those plantations were the within the 1971 Granite Fire, and is yet another example of forest re-burn. This part of the fire has terrain that is relatively gentle, compared to the rest of the burned areas. To me, it is pretty clear that fuels modifications reduced fire intensities.

This photo below shows a boundary between burn intensities. The area east of road 2N89 was thinned and burned much cooler than the untreated areas to the west. The areas in between the plantations had moderate to high burn intensities, due to the thick manzanita and whitethorn. Those areas were left to “recover on their own”. The SPI lands did not fare as well, as they didn’t thin their plantations.

Rim-Fire-plantations

The highest burn intensities occurred in the old growth, near the Clavey River. Activists have long-cherished the areas around this river, and I am assuming that these were protected as spotted owl/goshawk PACs. As you can see, this area has very thick old growth, and it shows on the map as high intensity. This same scenario is one that Wildlife Biologists have been worrying about for many years, now. These wildlife areas have huge fuel-loading issues and choked understories. Prescribed fires cannot be safely accomplished in such areas, without some sort of fuels modifications. Last year, I worked in one unit (within an owl PAC) on the Eldorado where we were cutting trees between 10″ and 15″ dbh, so that it could be safely burned, within prescription.

Clavey-old-growth

Nearly all of the Groveland Ranger District’s old growth is now gone, due to wildfires in the last 50 years. What could we have done differently, in the last 20 years?