Senate Requests GAO Review of Forest Management, LM Planning, and Firefighting Equipment

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Today, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY), Chairman and Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting a review of the U.S. Forest Service’s practices concerning forest management, land management plans and firefighting equipment.

Below is the letter, with my comments.

America’s wildfire crisis continues to worsen. As your office recently reported, wildfires destroyed more than 12,000 homes, businesses, and other structures each year, on average, between 2017 and 2021. This is more than three times as many than the preceding 5-year period. These wildfires have killed hundreds of people, including 85 fatalities in the 2018 Camp Fire alone, and burned millions of acres. The cost of suppressing wildfires has also risen, from an annual average of $371 million between 1985 and 1990 to $2.85 billion between 2018 and 2022 (an increase of approximately 300% after inflation). 

The increasingly devastating outcomes from wildfires in the United States requires a change in how the federal government prepares for, responds to, and recovers from wildfires. Federal agencies have long recognized the need to significantly increase the pace and scale of forest management to reduce the extreme risk posed by wildfires. Nevertheless, efforts to reduce wildfire risk have not been undertaken at the scale necessary to address the crisis. The Forest Service is now recommending that hazardous fuels reduction treatments occur on 50 million acres across the United States over the next 10 years. Although the federal land management agencies have been provided with significant resources to enable this work, both in additional funding and new authorities, increases in proactive forest management have been modest. 

In this context, we are writing to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct assessments of the following issues:

  • Forest management. Active forest management can improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk—all while supporting local economies. Congress has provided authorities and funding to the Forest Service in an effort to speed up these projects. However, the agency continues to face questions about the scale and pace of its timber and hazardous fuels management program. We have heard concerns about the extent to which the Forest Service is using the available resources. For example, the Forest Service’s treatment target for Fiscal Year 2025 is lower than the number of acres treated in Fiscal Year 2023. We ask that your office conduct a review of the Forest Service’s use of existing authorities and existing programs that support forest management projects across ownership boundaries. We also request that your office identify improvements to increase the flexibility of federal funds to facilitate cross-boundary forest management work.

It seems to me that there are several questions:

1. Why are targets lower in 25 than 23? Are these timber and fuels reduction targets (both) or only fuels reduction? ( I could look it up, but someone out there probably knows).

2. Where did the funding go that was intended (perhaps “concerns about the extent to which the FS is using resources” is the same question)? Some rumors suggest that increased staffing happened at the WO and Regional level, not at the Districts where work gets done.

3. What has the Forest Service accomplished with the funding? While stashing the funding in Agreements is useful, it is not the end desired result on the ground.

4. It seems like the Westerman bill has ideas to facilitate cross-boundary work. Perhaps GAO will look at those.

FWIW, my previous experience with GAO reports has been uneven, including giving feedback from the agency.  It seems sometimes they have an specific axe to grind.

  • Land Management Plans: Of the 128 Land Management Plans maintained by the Forest Service, approximately 100 are more than 15 years old. These plans provide overall management directives and lay out guidelines for appropriate activities and uses in the forest. It is critical that the Forest Service regularly revises these plans to reflect changing forest conditions, public uses, and Congressional direction. The Forest Service has created new regional teams dedicated to updating land management plans, rather than asking each National Forest System unit to lead the efforts individually. We ask that your office review the Forest Service’s new model for updating land management plans and compare it with strategies employed by other federal land management agencies to identify options for improvement and streamlining.

I’ve heard that there are as many as 150 people employed on those teams. Also I’m sure there are documents describing exactly what the new organization is, although I don’t think that they are public.  I think the only other agency that does similar kind of planning is the the BLM, so it shouldn’t take GAO long to look at this.  And I don’t agree, of course that getting them done is “critical.” If Congressional direction changes, conceivably the FS would follow it without requiring all units to do plan revisions (!).  And then there’s the planned national OG amendment..

  • Firefighting equipment. Technology such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and communications devices are critical safety equipment for firefighters working to suppress wildfires or conduct prescribed fires. However, these systems have not been universally implemented or adequately maintained. A recent report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology identified improved communications and situational awareness tools as the number one technological priority for firefighters. Congress provided federal agencies with funding to purchase such equipment, including $15 million through the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act (P.L. 116-9) and $40 million through IIJA. However, it is unclear if the Forest Service has purchased any equipment with these funds. We ask that your office review what steps the agency has taken to assess and acquire this equipment and any reasons for delay. 

I think it’s a bit odd for this request to refer to the PCAST report– here are the leads on that…

Co-Leads
John O. Dabiri
Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering
California Institute of Technology
Kathryn D. Sullivan
Former NASA Astronaut
Former NOAA Administrator
Members
Ash Carter (1954-2022) Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Belfer Professor of Technology and Global Affairs
Harvard University
Inez Fung
Professor of Atmospheric Science
University of California, Berkeley
Steve Pacala
Frederick D. Petrie Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Princeton University
William Press
Leslie Surginer Professor of Computer Science and Integrative Biology
The University of Texas at Austin

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I’d have more confidence in “what technology is needed” from people doing the work. Not that the Congress’s Wildfire Commission had many firefighters on it, but here is what they came up with: Recommendation 118.

While not a comprehensive review, the Commission notes a particular need for the following technologies be prioritized for greater development and adoption:
Chapter 6: Integrating Modern Science and Technology 213
• Expanded adoption of interoperable communication systems and extended field connectivity to all firefighting resources.lxii
• Incentivized and improved fire detection technologies including along electric utility corridors.
• The development of dynamic risk maps for the wildland environment that are updated regularly to better reflect changes in the natural environment, such as post-flood or fire alterations. While this process may take time, the development of such dynamic maps is important to better reflect rapidly changing environmental conditions.
• Improved resource tracking on wildfire incidents.
• Continued investments in innovative wood products and biomass utilization to help defray mitigation costs in the wildland environment.
• Rapid remote detection of vegetation change to inform fire risk and fire behavior models.
The Commission emphasizes that modernizing the wildfire mitigation and management space requires exploring and integrating new technology as well as more fully supporting and implementing existing technologies.

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It’s interesting how DC-centric this all seems to be.  We will have DC people (GAO) take a look at what the FS is doing in forest management with the funding we gave them.  To me that makes some sense, although I would ask different questions.   They tell us that more plan revisions are …”critical”.  Not everyone thinks that.  And finally looking to PCAST instead of the Wildfire Commission for direction on what to fund. I’d just ask the Forest Service these questions directly, and maybe ask a panel of us regulars from across the country to review -and compare with the BLM plans for example on the planning side.  Not as written about,  but as experienced from both the public and the practitioner side.

 

Intertribal Timber Council Testimony on Westerman Bill Includes Support for Some Litigation Reform

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The E&E News article on the hearing did not mention Mr. Desautel’s testimony, and I didn’t see it covered elsewhere other than Tribal news sources, so I thought I’d focus a post on it.

Thanks to Nick Smith for the link to this video of Cody Desautel on Indianz.com.  Below is an excerpt from the Indianz.com story.

Cody Desautel, president of the Intertribal Timber Council and executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, testifies about federal forest management at a hearing on April 17, 2024.

Desautel, a Colville citizen, spoke of the need to include tribal governments in federal forest policy. He specifically pointed to the risks that tribes face from wildfires on federal lands, many of which include treaty territories. Federal lands also lie adjacent to a number of reservations.

“When these lands don’t receive adequate management, or are severely damaged by wildfires tribes feel the impact,” Desautel stated in his written testimony.

Desautel appeared at a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands, which is part of the House Committee on Natural Resources. The hearing was called to discuss a Republican-led draft forest management bill that has not yet been introduced in the 118th Congress.

Let’s take a look at which of the ideas in the Westerman Bill that the ITC supports. Here’s a link to his written testimony.

The legislation primarily uses a combination of priority firesheds identified in the “Wildfire Crisis Strategy” and existing national Fireshed Registry ratings to prioritize fuels reduction projects. The ITC recommends adding a provision that allows states and Indian tribes to identify and request additional areas for assessments and treatment. Wildfire is a complex phenomenon that can be unpredictable. Many of the areas most devastated by wildfire in recent years do not appear on the Registry at all. Likewise, areas that have burned in recent years are treated at a lower risk of future wildfire. While that may be true in the very short term, large areas with standing dead snags may pose a much greater risk of catastrophic fires as time goes on. We recommend more research about how to calculate wildfire risk from these massive dead zones on federal lands

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Treat Tribes the Same as Other Governments for Implementation (NEPA) Authorities

The ITC appreciates that the bill authorizes tribes to request participation in producing the fireshed assessments. Tribes are best situated to define risks, strategies for reducing the threat of those risks, and determining the benchmark goals for their communities. For the sake of parity, we request that Tribal Forest Protection Act projects on federal lands be provided the same implementation authorities, such as emergency NEPA procedures and categorical exclusions. This would be helpful in accelerating TFPA treatments across the country.

A prime example of this is the Tule River Tribe’s TFPA project in the Sequoia National Forest in California. The NEPA process for the project, intended to protect giant sequoias from stand-replacement fire, took roughly a decade to get through. By the time of implementation, wildfire was already affecting the sequoia stands. Congress ultimately stepped in to create emergency authorities for fuels treatment.

ITC would recommend that the Bureau of Indian Affairs be included as a member of the Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program. The BIA is included as a  representative in the Fireshed Center and Public-Private Wildfire Technology Deployment and Testbed Partnership, and should serve in the same capacity to protect tribal interests in this program.

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The Colville tribe is working through a similar situation where a TFPA project that shares 10 miles of boundary with the reservation was approved in 2014, later reduced because of the 2015 Northstar fire, and had the NEPA decision litigated in 2023. Now –10 years later—we are working on a new version of the project with no treatment accomplished on the ground to date. While tribes understand the importance of environmental review, we also understand that we must live with those decisions and justify our actions to our tribal membership. Decisions that impact natural and cultural resources are not things we take lightly.

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The ITC appreciates the inclusion of traditional ecological knowledge in the definition of “Best Available Science” used in the fireshed assessments. This can be a critical tool to better understand the historic forest characteristics and fire behavior. It will be important to respect the tribal sovereignty of our 574 federally recognized tribes, and ensure we have a process for collection and protection of this data that meets the needs of each tribal government. The ITC also appreciates the inclusion of cultural burning as a designated fireshed management project. For many tribes this will be a critical tool to accomplish their risk reduction goals.

The ITC supports the bill’s provisions that address full tribal inclusion in Good Neighbor Authority, and adding the National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to that authority. We also support extending the length of stewardship contracting authority. To ensure we have the infrastructure needed to accomplish these fireshed management goals we will need a healthy forest products industry. To achieve this, we must have long term commitments to forest products supply chains. The Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission also recommended investments in wood processing facilities and the wood utilization sector more generally.

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Litigation Reform

The bill’s provision on litigation reform mirrors existing direction from Congress in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. Since federal forests are often managed by the whim of federal courts, we believe it is reasonable for Congress to direct courts to weigh the long-term effects of fuels reduction versus wildfire impacts to untreated areas. With approximately half of the reservation burning over between 2015 and 2021 we have firsthand experience with fire effects on untreated areas. Although we have an active forest and fuels management program, we are not funded to work at the pace and scale needed for our forest types. The consequence is high severity wildfire in many of untreated areas. It would be irresponsible to assume “no action” means “no impacts” as we continue to see the growing impacts past management practices and climate change.

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Better Accounting of Accomplishments

We also support better reporting of fuels reduction projects by type and effectiveness. A true accounting of footprint acres with a quantified risk reduction will help track our success, and inform future investments and projects. We would recommend the work done by the Department of the Interior to consider the “avoided costs” of various fuels treatments.

The ITC also supports the creation of an interagency group focused on technology development and deployment. The Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission had 16 recommendations dedicated to the integrating modern science and technology. By collaboratively combining the resources of the federal agencies, academia, and private industry we can utilize existing tools, and develop new tools that improve our effectiveness in achieving these wildfire risk reduction goal.

On the whole, the ITC supports the intent of this legislation to accelerate the pace and scale of high priority fuels work on federal lands. The ITC requests that the Committee review additional recommendations to Congress from the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission report, particularly those that involve tribes and tribal forest and fire management

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How much sovereignty do Tribes have over different National Forests (I assume it varies by Forest)? How would the Tribal rights be balanced, say if a Tribe were concerned that a project to protect their hunting and fishing or other rights were held up by litigation in court?  This seems like an interesting legal area.. maybe someone knows more about this.

The Forest Service Responds on Keystone Agreements: Guest Post by Dave Mertz

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I earlier posted a piece on the Forest Service’s Keystone Agreements with a variety of  NGOs.  These agreements are meant to accomplish a wide variety of tasks that would normally be done either by the Forest Service itself or through normal contracting procedures.  I said that we had submitted several questions to the Forest Service and we were awaiting their response.  Last week, we received that response from the Forest Service’s Office of Communications.

The following shows our numbered questions along with their responses in bold:

(1) We have obtained copies of the Master Agreements with the various NGO’s through FOIA’s.  We are interested in the details contained in the associated SPA’s, particularly the financial information.  Shouldn’t this information be available to the public?  We believe it is important to know how the Forest Service is spending federal dollars through these agreements.  Do we need to file FOIA’s to obtain this information or could it just be available online?  If not, why not?  We realize there would be some proprietary information that would need to be redacted.

Each Forest and Region that has executed agreements that are tied to the Master Keystone Agreements has specific plans to implement those projects. Some are at various stages of implementation and readiness and a financial plan does not depict the context necessary to appreciate the implementation of the agreement goals fully. Due to the constantly changing nature in the status of work, we don’t post this information online, as it is not static.  We suggest working with individual units to understand their Forest’s or landscape’s holistic partnership and collaborative goals so that entire project areas and landscape goals from A-Z can be seen rather than a snapshot of one financial plan. Those program managers will also be able to speak to financial planning and other relevant plans and appendices or modifications the agreements have associated with them so that these iterative agreements can be fully understood.

(2) How are accomplishments being tracked through these agreements?  Who is providing oversight, Grants and Agreements?  Partnerships Office?

Accomplishments are being tracked at a local, regional, and national level through our agency’s authoritative data sources. We are monitoring financial burn rates and programmatic outputs, among other things. Forest staff, program managers, and grants and agreements staff collectively provide oversight to ensure the successful implementation of the agreement with our partners.

(3) What is the process of awarding the NGO’s funding?  Do they receive the dollars and then projects are developed?  What are the overhead rates of the various NGO’s?

The need to treat hazardous fuels across the United States has been identified in great detail and is addressed in the Wildfire Crisis Strategy outlined by the FS Wildfire Crisis Strategy published in 2022.  Regions and Forests with identified needs have received funds to implement project work through contracts and agreements.  Some of these agreements are with partners that have a Keystone Agreement, who may have established relationships with the region or forest to address these needs. While the “umbrella” or Master “Keystone” Agreements with partners are held at the Washington Office, the actual project work and funds that are added to the agreements are often done at the regional level, Wildfire Crisis Strategy landscape level, or at the Forest level. The projects are developed at the local level and then appropriate funds for the work, once identified, are awarded to the Supplemental Project Agreements in conjunction with inputs from the partner.  Each NGO has its own Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (NICRA). Each NICRA is negotiated with the cognizant agency for the partner. The federal agency that provides the most in direct funding is normally the organization’s cognizant, unless specifically assigned by the Office of Management and Budget.

(4) Are the Keystone Agreements being used to avoid Federal Acquisition Regulations and federal hiring difficulties?

No, the Keystone Agreements are not being used to avoid Federal Acquisition Regulations nor federal hiring difficulties. Keystone agreements were developed to implement projects at a pace and scale aligned with the objectives of the Forest Service. The Forest Service is taking this opportunity to achieve our mission in new ways, building on long-standing partnerships and creating large, national-level agreements—or Keystone Agreements—for BIL and IRA implementation. These agreements will allow us to execute priority projects quickly and efficiently while we grow Forest Service institutional capacity. Importantly, these Keystone Agreements facilitate new local agreements or complement existing agreements at the region and unit levels, creating a suite of partnership arrangements that collectively give our national forests and grasslands a range of tools for program implementation. These agreements can increase capacity, to help accomplish crucial work on the ground in an expedited manner. 

 

(5) We are hearing that Forests are having budget difficulties this fiscal year and that it will impact their ability to hire employees.  In hindsight, was it wise to put so much funding into the Keystone Agreements rather than into NFS?  Could a lot of this funding have been put into IDIQ contracts instead?

The agency has invested a tremendous amount of BIL and IRA funding in the WCS landscapes, high risk-firesheds, and to a much smaller extent, funding for state agencies, tribes and Keystone Agreements.  Some of the BIL and IRA funding did go into IDIQ contracts.  Due to the significant workload and goals of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, an array of tools were utilized to help accomplish the work.  In addition, a large number of new employees were hired within the agency to address the workload.

(6) Are Keystone Agreement accomplishments being claimed when the funding is awarded rather than when the work is actually accomplished?

Accomplishments are recorded when the work is completed. The exception is when timber is sold through a contract or stewardship agreement.  The “timber volume sold” accomplishment is recorded when an agreement or contract is fully executed.  Funding obligations and are also tracked for budget expenditure purposes.

Understanding that you may want additional documents that are not publicly available, we recommend you request the data through the Freedom of Information Act. This link provides contact information for the WO processing center: FOIA Contact Service Centers | US Forest Service (usda.gov). The more detailed the request the better.

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I certainly appreciate the Office of Communication responding to our questions and I feel that I have somewhat of a better understanding of these Keystone Agreements.  However, I think those of us who are interested in Forest Service operations should still have some concerns regarding their implementation.

It’s just my opinion but these huge funding bills have had a really mixed outcome regarding the Forest Service.  I remember the National Fire Plan in 2000, which promised a significant increase in funding into the future, but much of that increase dried up after a couple of years.  The 2009 Recovery Act provided a lot of money and we were scrambling on how to get it spent.  I know some good things were funded, but personally, I saw some projects that had the appearance of just spending money to get it spent.

Is the Forest Service doing the right thing with these Keystone Agreements?  I don’t know but if they are resulting in a significant bump in accomplishments, the Forest Service is not doing a great job in telling that story.  You would think with all of the money being spent, the Forest Service would have an excellent public relations plan regarding these agreements.  It should not be difficult to find out what is happening with them.  Do you think the Forest Service has done well at explaining their value?  Are they a good use of taxpayer dollars?

The Peoples’ Wood Wide Web: Interconnections and Some California Innovations

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New Tahoe Forest Products Sawmill (courtesy of Bloomberg)

There were many interesting things to explore with the hearing on the Westerman Bill yesterday. As we saw in previous posts, it’s a compendium of many different ideas we can explore in greater depth. What I thought was one theme in Chris French’s testimony was what we might call another Wood Wide Web (broader than the mycological one discussed here a few weeks ago), this one of people, workers and organizations making useful products of wood.

Certainly mycorrhizal fungi help trees. But also people help trees, at least around here, by thinning them and protecting them from fires, planting them and so on. And trees provide us with useful products, often more environmentally friendly than those produced from minerals of various kinds. So, in fact, we as humans have some mutualism going on here with trees. And within that mutualism, we have a complex interrelationship of businesses and workers (from sawmills to CLT to paneling to furniture to horse bedding to sawdust to biochar to bioenergy) that depend on each other. And people who depend on the products they produce, plus employment, plus taxes. So indeed people have their own Wood Wide Web, and while Chris didn’t talk about it in those words, he made the point that this Web is important to forests surviving and thriving into the future, come climate change, wildfires and a variety of other stressors. Or at least that’s how I heard it. We are, indeed, all in this together.

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Housing is a crisis in many places in the US.  And the US is allowing large numbers of migrants in (at least 2.5 million according to NPR) (not judging, just observing).  It seems logical that we would need even more housing.  Housing tends to be built using wood for various reasons, including cost.  We have lots of extra wood from fuel treatment and restoration projects, but it tends to be small.  Will new materials like CLT help us build our way out of the housing crisis? Certainly if we look at the Wood Utilization grants of USDA, there is much effort (and funding) going toward Mass Timber, CLT and other efforts. Maybe the future is small, local mills, with local employees scattered through the landscape. Which is kind of what we had, previously, except in the past they focused on larger dimension lumber.

I’m not a fan of top-down industrial policy, but if the wildfire folks can have a Cohesive Strategy, I don’t see why, given the massive amounts of biomass to be otherwise burned, we can’t have a Coherent (and what the heck, let’s throw in Cohesive also) Strategy.

Current Dimensions Used (from AFRC)

I was curious about the size of material being used by current timber industry (including CLT mills). I know there are university and Forest Service experts out there, so hopefully they will add information here or you all can add good contacts.

AFRC generously provided me with their perspective on dimensions:

Log utilization is an ongoing point of contention between the federal agencies and AFRC.  The Forest Service in Region 6 generally classifies minimum specifications for sawtimber as an 8-foot log with a small-end diameter of 5-6 inches for most conifer species.  The only exception is ponderosa pine where they use a 16-foot log.  AFRC has been advocating that the Forest Service use a 16-foot log for all conifer species for several years since most all of our members assert that 8-foot logs with 5-6 inch diameters do not get processed as saw material, but rather end up as pulp or chip material.  Most of our members whose mills are designed to utilize small logs are capable of sawing or peeling down to 5-6 inches, but some minor variations exist.  However, when delivered as an 8-foot piece, the economics of doing so becomes marginal—hence our advocacy to change that length.

The CLT facilities that I’m familiar with (Freres in Lyons and DR Johnson in Riddle) do not actually process raw logs—instead they secure veneer that has previously been peeled or boards that have previously been cut at other mills and then manufacture them into larger products by gluing them together.  Generally speaking though, the products that are delivered to CLT facilities can be cut/peeled from small, medium, or large logs.

From loggers to end users – all of whom are currently involved in a complex exchange of material and value. Fiddling with a part may cause a series of consequences throughout the web. And 16 foot logs with 5-6 inch diameters are pretty small.  With, no doubt, transportation costs being a big thing. Again, the web. Again, the need for a Double C (cohesive and coherent) strategy.

Academic Horsepower and Successful Industry-Chicken or Egg?

If your state has a prominent forest industry, generally (but not always) universities hire experts to help them, and conceivably the rest of us who use wood or want to get rid of biomass.  But if your state doesn’t, then they probably don’t have experts.  Which could be a problem if you want to support new industries, in that there are no/few experts to help entrepreneurs.

As I was writing the above on transportation costs,  I received an announcement of a webinar by Drs. McConnell and Tanger who seem to be forest economics/wood utilization/operations experts.

Wood-using sawmills prioritize availability of raw materials, their accessibility, and associated transportation costs as the main drivers of new mill constructions and financial viability of existing mill operations. One of the major hurdles faced by the forest sector is hauling costs. Hauling costs have commonly been cited as comprising 35 to 45% of the delivered cost of round wood. Join us to learn how road network repairs could benefit both the forest sector and the broader Mississippi economy.

California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force Market Development Program

I don’t know how many economics and utilization professors California has (I know there’s some in Extension) but they have a market development program that’s interesting.  They have five pilot programs:

to establish reliable access to forest biomass through a variety of feedstock aggregation mechanisms and organizational innovations. The pilots will develop plans to improve feedstock supply chain logistics within each target region through the deployment of a special district with the authority and resources to aggregate biomass and facilitate long-term feedstock contracts. Each pilot will assess market conditions, evaluate infrastructure needs, and work to enhance economic opportunities for biomass businesses in their project regions. The pilots are distributed across 17 counties in the Central Sierra, Lake Tahoe Basin, Northeast California, North Coast and Marin County.

Their rationale is:

Diverting forest residues for productive use can help increase the pace and scale of forest restoration efforts in California, reducing vulnerability to wildfire, supporting rural economic development, and promoting carbon storage. The Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan identifies the development of, and access to, markets for these residues as a key barrier to conducting necessary treatment activities across priority landscapes in the state. The development of such a market for residues has been hampered by the lack of any centralized broker capable of entering into long-term feedstock supply contracts.

Washoe Sawmill Opens

I posted about this last year, The Tahoe Fund, Tahoe Forest Products LLC, and the Washoe Development Corporation worked together to build a new mill.  Here’s a link to a Bloomberg story.  Region 5 has a good story about it opening, with some interviews and a historical perspective. Shout out to writer Andrew Avitt!

“The truth is, the forest, it needs our help,” said Serrell Smokey, Tribal chairman for the Washoe Tribe of Nevada & California, at the Tahoe Forest Products sawmill opening Dec. 18, 2023, “Our people have intervened in these areas since the beginning of time, because otherwise, if we don’t take care of it, it will take care of itself.”

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There is a mutually beneficial relationship here – land management agencies need to treat landscapes and the timber industry needs timber. There used to be an old saying of “trees paying their way out of the woods.” That meant the value of the timber would help offset the cost of treating an area. While that’s not the reality on the eastern side of the Sierras, having a mill infrastructure in proximity drastically improves the economics of the type of work that’s needed to restore landscapes in the West.

When timber business makes assessments about when and where to take on a contract, they look at a number of factors — fuel and labor costs, and market prices for timber. But there is one factor that tends to be the most prohibitive — distance.

The further a log has to travel to arrive at the nearest mill increases fuel and labor costs and decreases a business’s profit. Depending on all the variables, the breakeven distance is about 50-80 miles from forest to mill.

Before the opening of Tahoe Forest Products mill in Carson City, the closest mill was in Quincy, California. That’s more than 100 miles from many of the areas that need work on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

“Since the mill has opened the conversation has definitely changed,” said Monti, “Now contractors are calling and saying, ‘hey, I heard this new mill went in. I’m really interested in doing work on this side of the mountain.’…  We have not had that option for the last several decades.”

Note the transportation costs, and the shimmering of the beginning of a new working-wood-wide-web. I always wonder why California seems to be different from Oregon in its appreciation of the Web- maybe the Timber Wars are still resonating.

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BLM Conservation Rule Finalized- Kept Controversial Leases But Renamed Them

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Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Strategy to Guide Balanced Management, Conservation of Public Lands

Public Lands Rule will help conserve wildlife habitat, restore places impacted by wildfire and drought, expand outdoor recreation, and guide thoughtful development 

A skeptic might wonder how the Forest Service could possibly “conserve wildlife habitat, restore places impacted by wildfire and drought, expand outdoor recreation, and guide thoughtful development” without such a rule? Here’s a link to the Rule. There are also fact sheets and other information here.

So let’s take a brief look to see what has changed based on the comments received. Hopefully, paid legal folks will look more intensively at it. Just in case you’re curious, they received “over 200,000 comments, the vast majority of which supported the effort. In response to the substantive comments received, the BLM clarified and refined concepts laid out in the proposed rule.”

Kind of sounds like they didn’t change anything, just clarified and responded.

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I’m not a fan of the temporary ACEC idea, from the FAQS:

If the BLM finds the area meets the criteria for ACEC designation and determines that the relevant and important values could be irreparably harmed if not protected, then the BLM may implement temporary protections that could maintain the condition of identified resources until a potential ACEC can be fully evaluated through land use planning. The public would be notified of any temporary protections.

In response to comments received from individuals, state, Tribal and local governments, industry groups, and advocacy organizations, the BLM clarified that ACECs should typically be evaluated in land use planning because their designation is intended to be a proactive decision made in concert with other considerations that affect the same lands and resources. The Final Rule also refines procedures for ACECs that are nominated outside of the land use planning process, recognizing that the BLM can defer consideration of those areas and, in the rare instances when it may be necessary, can also implement temporary protections.

So the response to the comments was to state that they expect it to be used rarely? And so some group of whatever location and funding could nominate the area, and the public would be “notified”.
This does not sound like a robust public involvement process with considerations of Tribal view; I guess that would be OK because it’s “temporary” only until the next RMP.. and what is the RMP schedule, again?

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I also wonder about the offsite mitigation idea. It doesn’t sound like there’s a role for both sets of communities to weigh in. Of course, the communities near the siting will weigh in, but what about the community receiving the mitigation lease?

Let’s look at an example in the FAQs

Appropriate places for restoration and mitigation leasing on public lands include degraded habitats in need of restoration, as well as intact landscapes and functioning ecosystems that can serve as compensatory mitigation for a particular action. For example, as part of authorizing a renewable energy project on public lands, the BLM and the project proponent may agree to compensate for loss of wildlife habitat by restoring or enhancing other habitat areas on public lands. A mitigation lease could be used to protect the restoration and enhancement actions.

But who and what are the lessees protecting the “restoration or enhancing” from, other than existing users? Just logically, if the project doesn’t need to be protected from existing users, why do you need a lease? If it does need to be protected, then from whom or what exactly? Some other new use such as another solar or transmission line? This puzzles me. But if it’s a new use, it would have to go through permitting and perhaps the “restored or enhanced” area could have been avoided (or mitigated elsewhere, perhaps via chains of mitigation..).

The Bird Example

The environmental analysis for an interregional transmission line finds the project would have unavoidable impacts on a bird species that is managed as imperiled by the BLM and by state governments where the transmission line is proposed. The authorizing agencies determine that compensatory mitigation is warranted to address impacts to the species, and the best remaining habitat is found on BLM-managed public lands.
In this case, the BLM could consider an application for a mitigation lease to conserve the bird’s habitat on public lands. The lease would identify conservation measures that address the unavoidable impacts to the bird species and would help ensure that these measures remain effective for the duration of the transmission line’s impact. The mitigation lease could be terminated or modified in response to changing habitat conditions.

Why would a lease be preferred to something more flexible? Suppose BLM goes to all the work of doing a lease for an area for some bird. But then the area is burned over. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have something more flexible and robust to change? Or maybe it makes more sense to make one intervention for a species in one place, and then make that same intervention in another place as opposed to making a series of interventions in the same place.

I am reminded of my first run-in with ideology. I was working in US Congresswoman Carrie Meek’s (17th District Florida) office in the mid-1990s. The issue was deregulation of power in Florida. No matter what questions I asked, deregulation was always the answer. It was impossible to engage with the proponents in a down-to-earth way- it was like pragmatism vs. ideology. Deregulation is great. Deregulation is better than sliced bread. Deregulation will only have positive effects. If you point out negatives, let me assure you the positives will outweigh the negatives. No, we don’t need those protections included because… Deregulation is great. It is better than sliced bread…

I have the same feeling about these leases, even if they changed the name.

E&E News Story on the Westerman Bill Hearing : Focus on the 10 AM and Out Idea

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Chris French, the Forest Service’s deputy chief, on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Natural Resources Committee/YouTube via E&E News

The Westerman bill is a compendium of policy ideas from various sources, some of which have been floating around for a long time. I think this E&E News story did a pretty good job of focusing on some of the main themes of the hearing.

I don’t think the 10am idea is going anywhere. I fully respect individuals who disagree, and I hope they move on to more detailed ideas for “being more careful.” If this Xprize or other technological innovations are successful, people will have to choose for every ignition and what will inform that choice? Human safety would seem to be less of a factors with unpersonned aircraft and so perhaps that will change the possibilities and choices of suppression as well.

What can we learn from fire with benefits that worked vs. those that didn’t work? How can we reimburse people who suffer when they don’t work? When wildfires are likely to hit private land, should landowners have a voice? It seems to me that there are many questions to be worked out. Perhaps with forest plan amendments or other pre-planning. Here at TSW we have seen a variety of people with concerns (Sarah Hyden and Michael Rains) and even Jon and I agree on the utility of plan amendments, which is fairly rare. Anyway, I think there’s a conversation around “if not 10 AM and out, how can FWB (fire with benefits) proponents build trust with impacted communities?”; a conversation that would be more complex than “10 AM or not.” Maybe the appropriate Congressional committee (perhaps not this one) can examine why FEMA seems to be uniquely unsuccessful at getting relief to impacted individuals after the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon escaped prescribed fires, as reported on in detail by The Hotshot Wakeup. I know that fire folks and academics are working on the trust issue.

Meanwhile, there’s a big story from NPR KRCC this morning on wildfire smoke health risks..

New research shows that the health consequences of wildfire smoke exposure stretch well beyond the smoky days themselves, contributing to nearly 16,000 deaths each year across the U.S., according to a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) analysis released in April. The analysis warns that number could grow to nearly 30,000 deaths a year by the middle of the century as human-driven climate change increases the likelihood of large, intense, smoke-spewing wildfires in the Western U.S. and beyond.

“This really points to the urgency of the problem,” says Minhao Qiu, a researcher at Stanford University and the lead author. “Based on our results, this should be one of the policy priorities, or the climate policy priority, of the U.S., to figure out how to reduce this number.”

Another analysis, led by researchers from Yale University, finds that the human death toll every year from wildfire smoke could already be near 30,000 people in the U.S. Deaths from cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems, kidney disease, and mental health issues all rise in the days and weeks after smoke exposure.

Together, the studies point to an underappreciated threat to public health, says Yiqun Ma, a researcher at Yale and an author of the second study.

“It’s a call to action,” she says—outlining the real, and significant, human stakes of failing to rein in further human-caused climate change.

Wildfire smoke is bad for people but fire is good for forests. How best to manage the trade-offs? How will climate change and the new technologies above balance out in terms of new future “large intense smoke-spewing wildfires”? How does planned prescribed fire, compared to Wildfire With Benefits fit into that? I don’t know, but I’m fairly certain health researchers don’t know either. Interestingly, it looks like the Wildland Fire Commission did not include folks from CDC?.

Anyway, here’s what Marc Heller reported on this.

Fire suppression debate
Westerman’s draft combines many ideas that haven’t advanced far in Congress, in some cases because Democrats won’t support them, but in others because they haven’t been attached to legislative vehicles that can get through the congressional logjam. The farm bill, for instance, covers the Forest Service but has languished for months on unrelated issues.

The quick extinguishing of wildfires has become a rallying point for some Republican lawmakers but would face hurdles with forest policy groups. It would place the requirement on drought-inflicted areas and on places the Forest Service has designated among the most at-risk landscapes, for instance.

One witness at the hearing, Kimiko Barrett, a member of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission, said the 24-hour proposal goes against recommendations the panel made in a report to Congress several months ago.

“Calls to return to a 24-hour suppression policy are antithetical to allowing more beneficial fire, supersede local decisionmaking and are in direct opposition to the commission’s recommendations,” said Barrett, a senior wildfire researcher at Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Montana.

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The chilly response to the fire suppression provision contrasted to more positive views of other aspects of Westerman’s draft, which calls for creation of “firesheds” that would receive expedited thinning and prescribed fire to reduce the threat of wildfire, as well as updates to shared stewardship arrangements that allow the Forest Service to partner with outside groups for forest improvement projects.

Westerman, the only professional forester in Congress, said the draft resulted from years of work and bipartisan cooperation on a number of issues.

A proposal to streamline consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service on endangered species issues has some Democratic support as well, and the community-based wildfire risk reduction programs and research have broad appeal.

In addition, the proposal would incorporate 10 of the nearly 150 recommendations the federal Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission made to Congress several months ago and adopt other policies that align with the commission’s findings — although it veers from that commission on the scope of fire suppression.

For some reason, Westerman said, forests have become politically divisive even though healthy forests benefit everyone through cleaner air and water, recreational areas and economic rewards of the wood products industry.

“It’s something we should all work toward,” Westerman said, adding that he took a bipartisan delegation to his alma mater, the forestry school at Yale University, last year to see how researchers manage its lands in Connecticut.

“People realize this shouldn’t be a divisive issue,” Westerman said.

French said a number of provisions in the draft that have been proposed in earlier legislation align with Forest Service goals. In the case of expedited environmental reviews for forest projects, he said the agency would want to clarify Westerman’s intent.

But in exchanges with lawmakers, French also acknowledged that tasks such as endangered species consultations, litigation and environmental reviews sometimes add substantial costs to forest management projects.

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Like I said, since this bill is a lengthy mix of different ideas, and the folks testifying had many interesting things to say (also in their written testimony), I’ll be posting in depth about some of the testimony and my observations.

Forestcast- Forest Service Podcast Season 4 with Fire Researchers

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I think if you click on the blue arrow below you will get the trailer for this series of podcasts.

A New Biochar Research Program? Part of Westerman Bill

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The Westerman Draft bill wants to support biochar research. It seems that many folks are already studying biochar. An idea would be to round these up, and look for gaps and overlaps before we send any more funding.

I tried the search terms forest and biochar for a variety of federal research organizations. Apparently, search terms select a broader group than I intended.

I looked at NSF (National Science Foundation) and searched on biochar and forests and got this.. but many of them don’t seem to have biochar or forests, so maybe my searching is at fault.

I looked at Department of Energy and found these, which are about biochar but the forest one is about biomass for energy 🙁 not biochar.

Here’s the list from National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA extramural research), again the search did not seem to restrict to biochar and forests.

I could find many biochar projects with the Forest Service, but not in a format that shows the funding and a link to the abstracts (which might exist, and I hope R&D folks will point that out.)

US Geological Survey of the Department of the Interior also doesn’t have project by dollars as far as I could tell, but does have this..including one on the effect of biochar on maize yield in Zambia. But it appears the last one was in 2015.

Speaking of agriculture, ARS (in-house USDA R&D) has a list of biochar projects.

This ongoing study is pretty interesting.

Through this project, we expect to demonstrate that applying biochar in agricultural lands for soil modification and remediation would be a climate-smart solution for sustainability in forest management, timber/biomass har- vesting, and economic growth of bioenergy, bioproducts, and crops. [2] Wood Fiber Insulation: The proposed solution is to evaluate several (underutilized) species in the region as feedstock for wood fiber insulation. Spruce (Pices spp.) and white pine (Pinus strobus) will serve as controls or “benchmarks”; other species to be investigated include: eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), bal- sam fir (Abies balsamea), red maple (Acer rubrum), and aspen (Populus tremuloides). [3] Wood Fiber Foam Packaging: Most available literature around foam forming is focused on rectangular shaped panels with no specific 3D shape. A process that can produce true 3D shaped lignocellulosic foamed structures by foam forming is currently lacking. In addition, low-density packaging foams are bulky and occupy a lot of space, making them difficult to ship and transport. Innovation is needed to develop foamed materials that can be compressed into high-density thin sheets for easier transportation and used upon 3D shape recovery after exposure to a stimulus. Finally, a clear understanding of the foam forming process in the presence of additives and various types of lignocellulosic feed- stock is required. Use of LCNF derived directly from wood sawdust as a binder in the formulation of such foams is another innovation that needs to happen to reduce costs and enable commercialization.

Sounds like something the FS could be funding?

I didn’t query NOAA, NASA or DOD. Conceivably biochar is related to climate and everyone studies climate (and researcher are creative in rationalizing what they want to do) so who knows?

Wouldn’t it be terrific if the research agencies would feed into a centralized database of all federal research? That included abstracts, and who is funding, how much and how long. Plus links to products. Then those interested could analyze gaps and overlaps. It appears that the Congress is interested in saving money.. but, I guess, not so much in spending it better. Especially when fixes would go across Committee responsibilities. Where is the Admin’s Office of Science and Technology Policy when you need it?

Researchers develop better way to make painkiller from trees

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Here’s a link, thanks to Forest Business Network.

 

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable way to make a popular pain reliever and other valuable products from plants instead of petroleum.

Building on a previously patented method for producing paracetamol—the active ingredient in Tylenol—the discovery promises a greener path to one of the world’s most widely used medicines and other chemicals. More importantly, it could provide new revenue streams to make cellulosic biofuels—derived from non-food plant fibers—cost competitive with fossil fuels, the primary driver of climate change.

 

Paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, is one of the most widely used pharmaceuticals, with a global market value of about $130 million a year. Since it was introduced in the early 1900s, the drug has traditionally been made from derivatives of coal tar or petroleum.

In 2019, Karlen and UW–Madison biochemistry professor John Ralph showed how it could be made instead from a compound in  using a well-known chemical reaction.

Now Karlen’s team has improved the process for making paracetamol as well as other drugs, pigments, textiles, and  with a cumulative market value of more than $1.5 billion, a portfolio of products that Karlen says could support dozens of small biorefineries feeding into larger hubs without saturating the market.

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The process is available for commercial licensing through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the nonprofit organization that commercializes university discoveries to support ongoing research.

The paracetamol molecule is made of a six-carbon benzene ring with two chemical groups attached. Poplar trees produce a similar compound called p-hydroxybenzoate (pHB) in lignin, the part of the cell wall that binds plant sugars together and provides structure.

Lignin is chock full of valuable aromatic compounds that could replace many petrochemicals and provide biorefineries with additional revenue streams to make plant-based fuels cost-competitive. The challenge is breaking down the complex and irregular chain of molecules into useful components.

From Frivolous Litigation to Western Headquarters Via Many Other Ideas: Westerman’s Bill: What’s In it and What Do You Think?

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Subtitle C actually says “addressing frivolous litigation” and Section 121 is titled “Commonsense Litigation Reform”

Here’s the text. We’re going to need help from lawyers out there..

a) IN GENERAL.—A court shall not enjoin a fireshed management project under this Act if the court determines that the plaintiff is unable to demonstrate that the claim 7 of the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits.
8 (b) BALANCING SHORT- AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES IN CONSIDERING INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—As part of its weighing the equities while considering any request for an injunction that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act, the court reviewing the agency action shall balance the impact to the ecosystem likely 15 affected by the fireshed management project of—
16 (1) the short- and long-term effects of under taking the agency action; against 18 (2) the short- and long-term effects of not undertaking the action.
20 (c) TIME LIMITATIONS FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—
21 (1) IN GENERAL.—Subject to paragraph (2), the length of any preliminary injunctive relief and stays pending appeal that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act shall not exceed 30 days.

1 (2) RENEWAL.—
2 (A) IN GENERAL.—A court of competent  jurisdiction may issue one or more renewals of any preliminary injunction, or stay pending appeal, granted under paragraph (1).
6 (B) UPDATES.—In each renewal of an injunction in an action, the parties to the action shall present the court with updated information on the status of the fireshed management project.
11 (d) LIMITATIONS ON CLAIMS.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a claim arising under Federal law seeking judicial review of a fireshed management project  shall be barred unless—  such claim is filed not later than 120 days after the date of publication of a notice in the Federal Register of agency intent to carry out the proposed agency action;

This sounds like a time limit for filing.

19 (2) such claim is filed after the issuance of a record of decision or other final agency action with respect to the relevant proposed agency action; and

How could it be filed before the ROD is issued?

22 (3) such claim does not challenge the use of a categorical exclusion under this section.

I’m kind of lost in the negatives here. “a claim shall be barred unless it does not challenge the use of a CE? So claims about CE-hood would be barred? Under “this” what (?) section.

Section 122 sounds like the Cottonwood fix but maybe not.

ARBITRATION PILOT PROGRAM

This is always one of my favorites. People learn a lot from pilots. This one has a ceiling, no more than 15 projects per year per FS Region or BLM States. You could lower the numbers, but is anyone really against it? Apparently the results would not be subjected to judicial review, except “as 16 provided in section 10(a) of title 9, United States Code.” Maybe someone knows what that is.

COMMUNITY WILDFIRE RISK REDUCTION PROGRAM.

Then there’s a section on WUI. My friends who are involved in community wildfire programs tell me that this would be very useful

create a single, uniform application and portal for local communities seeking to apply for Federal financial assistance or 23 technical assistance programs targeted at reducing fire risk to communities

Also these:

SIMPLIFICATIONS.—In creating the portal under paragraph (1), the Secretaries and the Ad1ministrator shall seek to reduce the complexity and length of the application process.
18 (3) TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE.—The Secretary of the Interior shall provide technical assistance to communities looking to apply for financial assistance under the streamlined application and portal created under paragraph (1).

Of course, Congress can’t do that, but a really wild and crazy idea would be for States to try to simplify  procedures for funding as well and maybe try to harmonize with the feds..

Then there’s section 202 which seems to be about controlling management of fires for resource benefits. That’s probably worth its own post, if anyone wants to take a look.

A Community Wildfire Defense Research Program (expanding JFSP to include):

(1) different affordable building materials, including mass timber;
5 (2) home hardening;
6 (3) subdivision design and other land use planning and design;
8 (4) landscape architecture; and
9 (5) other wildfire-resistant designs for structures or communities, as determined by the Secretary.

And a Community Wildfire Defense Innovation Prize

A new CE for power line operation and maintenance:

“the development and approval of a vegetation management, facility inspection, and operation and maintenance plan submitted under section 512(c)(1) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1772(c)(1)) by the Secretary concerned; and 11 (2) the implementation of routine activities conducted under the plan referred to in paragraph (1).

Plus a change to FLPMA from 10 to 50 feet of a power line for hazard trees.

Seeds of Success

I imagine Defense is included here as federal lands include Forest Service, some Interior agencies and DOD. The point seems to be enhance the domestic supply chain of native seeds, in a manner coordinated across agencies. It seems like it’s about native plants perhaps not including trees, as it appears to be BLM focused. I’d put them (trees and other natives) together somehow and get them coordinated.

Biochar Demonstration Projects and Biochar Competitive Grants. (more on this later)

Accurate Hazardous Fuels Reduction Reports

This approach sounds plausible to me, certainly it needs clarification and consistency. Many other groups, of various persuasions, have pointed out the problems with the current approach.

Public Private Wildfire Technology Deployment and Testbed Partnership
This seems like a mechanism for coordination among agencies to ensure real-world testing of new technologies. Hopefully, this will ensure that less USG funding is spent on random “sounds plausible” technologies, and gets them to field testing. Note that it includes say, thinning as a hazardous fuels reduction, so all our friends interested in mechanizing and improving marking and harvesting would be included.

(A) hazardous fuels reduction treatments or activities;
5 (B) dispatch communications;
6 (C) remote sensing, detection, and tracking;
8 (D) safety equipment; and
9 (E) common operating pictures or operational dashboards; and
11 (3) partner with each covered entity selected to participate in the Pilot Program with the appropriate covered agency to coordinate real-time and  on-the-ground testing of technology during wildland  fire mitigation activities and training.

GAO Study on Forest Service Policies

(A) the effectiveness of Forest Service wildland firefighting operations;
(B) transparency and accountability measures in the Forest Service’s budget and accounting process; and
(D) the suitability and feasibility of establishing a new Federal agency with the responsibility of responding and suppressing wildland 2 fires on Federal lands;

What happened to C? Also I’d have two studies, one that looked at the Interagency wildland firefighting and the idea of a new Federal Agency (why just FS?) and a separate one for FS budget transparency and accountability.

Forest Service Western Headquarters Study

It’s not clear to me whether this is to substitute for Regions or to add another layer of bureaucracy. Perhaps it will be clear in FS testimony tomorrow.

Summary: there are lots of interesting ideas in this bill.  It will be interesting to see the FS testimony.  What do you think?