Two stories about forest management in SW Oregon.
Helicopter logging project to begin in Ashland watershed and Siskiyou Mountain Park
Background on Ashland’s Forestland Climate Adaptation Project in its city watershed:
The first phase of work to help forests transition and adapt to the changing climate is reducing wildfire fuels that threaten our community and the forest’s ecological integrity. Phase 1 will utilize a helicopter to remove dead, dying, and crowded trees from Siskiyou Mountain Park and City-owned land in the lower Ashland Watershed. Helicopters have been used extensively in the Ashland Watershed over the past 20 years due to their low impact on resources. Phase II, expected to last several years, will involve replanting with species adapted to drought, heat, and frequent fire, along with ongoing use of prescribed fire for wildfire safety and ecosystem benefit.
IMHO, Ashland is being very proactive — a great example for other communities.
The Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center objects and plans a rally outside the courthouse next week:
“Integrated Vegetation Management” Is Not What It Sounds Like
It sure sounds benign, doesn’t it? The words “integrated vegetation management” evoke visions of thoughtful fuel reduction efforts designed to restore and protect public forests and surrounding communities. There’s no doubt the name was chosen for a reason. Unfortunately, BLM timber planners are using their new Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) project to target old-growth forests within Late Successional Reserves for conversion into “open seral” stump-fields devoid of trees.
The other project is on BLM land in neighboring Josephine County.
Three conservation groups challenging BLM forest plan in Medford federal court
BLM Late Mungers project info:
Why is the BLM conducting commercial treatments in Late Successional Reserves?
Fifty-one percent of all forests in southwest Oregon are overly dense and our area has the highest need for restoration, via thinning and prescribed fire, in all of Oregon and Washington. The Southwest Oregon Resource Management Plan identifies active management objectives for Late Successional Reserves (LSR), including commercial thinning/group selection harvest on 17,000 acres in LSR per decade. These commercial treatments are designated to develop, maintain, or promote northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) nesting-roosting habitat. In addition, the BLM manages LSRs to: 1) enable forests to recover from past management measures, 2) respond to climate-driven stresses, wildfire and other disturbance events, 3) ensure positive or neutral ecological impacts from wildfire, and 4) contribute to northern spotted owl recovery.
How is BLM protecting large, fire resilient trees in the Late Mungers Project Area?
Late Mungers is designed to protect and culture large, old trees. The project protects large trees by removing adjacent trees and fuels. Clumps of fire tolerant legacy trees would be retained. Conifer trees (pine [Pinus spp.] and Douglas fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii] greater than or equal to 36-inches DBH) and hardwoods greater than 24-inches DBH would be retained. In non-conifer plant communities, large conifers and hardwoods (often greater than 24-inches DBH) would be retained. Thinning also creates growing space for the next generation of legacy trees.
I think clarification would be helpful here about what the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center is objecting to. The writer’s post reads as if we are objecting to the Ashland helicopter logging and Ashland Forest Resiliency project. KS Wild has not come out against the city’s effort to address the Douglas fir die-off in the watershed, and we have often worked closely with the city on monitoring as part of the AFR project.
KS Wild and others are objecting to commercial logging components in an entirely different plan – the IVM – which has nothing to do with Ashland’s watershed.
You’re quite right — KS Wild has not, as far as I know, objected to the Ashland project.
IMHO, KS Wild mischaracterizes the BLM project. From its web site:
“Unfortunately, BLM timber planners are using their new Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) project to target old-growth forests within Late Successional Reserves for conversion into “open seral” stump-fields devoid of trees.
“Open Seral “Gap Creation” Means Clearcutting
“A common logging technique in IVM timber sale units is “gap creation” in which the BLM removes late-successional forests from the Late Successional Reserves in football field sized patches and then replaces the fire-resilient old-growth forest with a flammable second-growth timber plantation. This logging technique removes forest habitat while increasing fire hazard.”
A US football field is about 1.3 acres. Skips and gaps do not remove forest habitat, they create early seral habitat. This isn’t “clearcutting” as most people think of it.
Southern Oregon TV station has brief article and video of protesters outside the courthouse yesterday, “Hearing begins for KS Wild vs. BLM lawsuit on old-growth logging.” To the news stations credit, it includes comments from both KS Wild and ARFC. But KS Wild wins here with the “old-growth logging” as the central theme. Of course, it’s not “old-growth logging,” though some old trees may be cut.
https://kobi5.com/news/hearing-begins-for-ks-wild-vs-blm-lawsuit-on-old-growth-logging-225079/
Might have been interesting to have comments from folks in the communities near the project area, maybe students, parents, and teachers at the high school that’s a couple of miles north of the project area.
Steve, I think reporters don’t have time to investigate so stories end up being “he said, she said” and we are left to our own devices to figure it out.
Here is the URL for the Rogue Valley Times’ article about the IVM hearing and rally. The reporter from the RV Times was the only local media I saw go into the courthouse and sit through the entire 2 1/2 hour hearing.
https://www.rv-times.com/outdoors/speaking-up-for-the-trees-on-the-picket-line-and-in-the-courtroom/article_ad8fe40e-f20b-11ee-9f82-cf50c55942bb.html
Speaking up for the trees on the picket line and in the courtroom
Conservation groups, timber groups and government clash over BLM plans to log, reduce wildfire risk
• By SHAUN HALL Rogue Valley Times
• Apr 3, 2024
Michael Dotson, of Ashland, attends a protest concerning U.S. Bureau of Land Management logging plans at the federal courthouse in Medford on Tuesday.
Jamie Lusch / Rogue Valley Times
A U.S. Bureau of Land Management plan to speed up logging while reducing wildfire risk was challenged in U.S. District Court in Medford on Tuesday. But first, about 35 logging opponents demonstrated with signs outside the courthouse.
Among the forest of signs out on the picket line was one held by Michael Dotson, executive director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center in Ashland.
“We speak for the trees,” the sign read.
Haleigh Martin, communications manager with Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, attends a protest concerning U.S. Bureau of Land Management logging plans at the federal courthouse in Medford on Tuesday.
Jamie Lusch / Rogue Valley Times
Big, old trees in particular.
“There’s a lot of talk about the wildfire issue,” Dotson said. “We actually need to not buy the BLM line that everything’s about wildfire.”
Leave the big, old fire-resistant trees alone, he said.
Behind Dotson and the other demonstrators was the three-story brick courthouse, officially the James A. Redden Courthouse, at Sixth and Holly streets, downtown. The sun beat down on an unusually warm early spring afternoon.
As Dotson spoke around 1:30 p.m., attorneys for KS Wild and other conservation groups prepared for a 2 p.m. hearing inside over BLM logging plans near Williams. Also preparing were attorneys for the U.S. government and timber industry trade groups.
Both sides are asking U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke to rule in their favor. After more than two hours of complicated legal wrangling that afternoon, Clarke took matters into consideration.
“The whole idea is to protect old growth,” BLM attorney Alexis Romero told Clarke, a 16-year veteran of the bench.
“The court understands the need for prompt forest management,” Clarke said during his opening remarks. “I’m certainly not an expert in environmental cases, but I’ve been around a while.”
Clarke pointedly asked why the government wanted to log old-growth trees.
“Where is that authorized?” he asked.
The reply was buried in an avalanche of legal arguments from both sides. Multiple attorneys spoke for each side.
The arguments were pro and con regarding a BLM forest fuels-treatment program known as Integrated Vegetation Management that calls for logging, thinning and road building across the agency’s Medford district, which takes in Jackson and Josephine counties.
The program “creates a toolbox for the BLM to increase the scope, scale and pace of fuels treatments and vegetation management projects,” according to the agency. “This will allow the BLM to improve the health of forests, create safe and effective places for firefighters to engage and address climate change.”
A protest concerning U.S. Bureau of Land Management logging plans is held at the federal courthouse in Medford on Tuesday.
Jamie Lusch / Rogue Valley Times
According to the agency, the program calls for commercial logging of up to 4,000 acres a year, small-diameter thinning of up to 6,500 acres a year, prescribed fire on up to 7,500 acres a year and temporary road construction of up to 10 miles a year over 10 years across the district.
The conservation groups especially object to planned logging of older trees associated with two proposed federal timber sales known as Penn Butte and Late Mungers. These would be the first commercial sales to take place under the agency’s IVM program. The groups don’t object to related BLM plans for thinning and prescribed burning of fuels along the forest floor.
The Mungers project takes in 830 acres of selective logging and 7,500 acres of fuels-reduction work on multiple tracts in areas off Powell Creek Road, Mungers Creek Road, Spencer Creek Road and others, in drainages that flow into the Applegate River.
“The forests targeted for removal in Late Mungers are resilient, healthy, and most important they are designated as reserves for conservation, not timber supply,” Doug Heiken, conservation and restoration coordinator for Oregon Wild, said in a news release from conservation groups.
According to the groups, the logging would remove more than 450 acres of old-growth habitat via “open seral” logging and “gap creation” clearcutting. Gap creation is a reference to creating open spaces in the forest in an effort to replicate historic forest conditions.
The BLM’s goal is to have larger trees more widely spaced, with relatively less undergrowth than there is at present. Gaps up to 4 acres are envisioned. Trees up to 36 inches in diameter would be logged.
The timber sales are due to take place during a May 15 auction, depending on how Clarke rules.
Cheryl Bruner, of the Williams Community Forest Project, attends a protest concerning U.S. Bureau of Land Management logging plans at the federal courthouse in Medford on Tuesday.
Jamie Lusch / Rogue Valley Times
Cheryl Bruner, of the Williams Community Forest Project, sat in the front row of the gallery in the courtroom. During the earlier protest, she was out front with a sign.
“Water is life” was the message on her sign. “Trees have standing” was the message on her T-shirt.
“This is my backyard,” she said out front, referring to logging planned near her home. “Our hiking areas will be devastated.”
“The amount of trees they’re taking out is a lot.”
To learn more about the BLM’s plans, visit https://on.doi.gov/3W31c9J. To learn more about conservation group challenges, go to kswild.org.
Reach reporter Shaun Hall at 458-225-7179 or [email protected]. You can also follow him on Twitter @ShaunHallRVT.
Thanks for this, Michael. What’s your take on the BLM’s plan as shown here (which I posted previously). Are the 36- and 24-inch limits too large, in your view? What diameters would be acceptable to KS Wild and others?
Late Mungers is designed to protect and culture large, old trees. The project protects large trees by removing adjacent trees and fuels. Clumps of fire tolerant legacy trees would be retained. Conifer trees (pine [Pinus spp.] and Douglas fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii] greater than or equal to 36-inches DBH) and hardwoods greater than 24-inches DBH would be retained. In non-conifer plant communities, large conifers and hardwoods (often greater than 24-inches DBH) would be retained. Thinning also creates growing space for the next generation of legacy trees.
Appreciate the questions, Steve. It’s easiest for me right now to share our complaint filed against the BLM back in April 2023. Pages 19-23 lay out our specific concerns over LSR logging and NSO habitat removal.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58c6f8a01e5b6c87cd960db9/t/64346991ff633e4b6f89c2bf/1681156498431/show_temp+complaint+IVM.pdf
We published this about a year ago on our website with an entire array of maps, which can also be found here: https://www.kswild.org/press-releases/ivm
Michael, the link to the PDF crashed Acrobat — tried it twice. Each time I had to shut down Acrobat via Windows’ Task Manager. Ain’t technology great?
Sorry about that, Steve. If you want to send me an email (the one I submitted with this comment), I can track down the original PDF and share it directly with you. The complaint is 36 pages and might answer some folks’ questions about our concerns. My team members and I have been fielding lots of media this week following the courthouse hearing, and folks can tune in Monday morning to listen directly to our conservation director talk about the IVM with conservative talk radio host Bill Meyer.
We’re on KMED 1440 around 7:10 am Pacific Monday; and then on Wednesday, we go to JPR’s Jefferson Exchange around 9:10 am. I imagine some of that air time will be spent talking about IVM, but also other Medford BLM projects we are tracking.
[email protected]
Being a former USFS ‘timber beast’, I know there is some benefit to logging in crowded forests.
However, I support a very transparent process for the public to look at, instead of pushing the immediacy of the project(s). Diameter limits need to be the right size, and so much volume maybe shouldn’t be taken in one ‘big gulp’. Everything needs to be based on site-specific information.
Thinning projects that take half (or more) of the planned volume have benefits, too. Plus, you can go back in 20 years and take more volume. There’s nothing wrong, or overly-risky in leaving better canopy coverage and more (scattered) trees per acre. Cutting ALL of the smaller diameter stuff is what the “emergency” is all about.
Michael kindly sent me a copy of KS Wild’s (et al) court filing.
https://forestpolicypub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/KS-Wild-IVM-Complaint.pdf
Are Ashland citizens paying their own money to protect their municipal watershed infrastructure on their own lands? That would make it a less appropriate model for generic federal public lands.
Sharon asked here (https://forestpolicypub.com/2024/03/21/homes-lost-to-wildfire-its-the-grass/comment-page-1/#comment-530215) where are these “fuelbreaks in the backcountry”? please name some projects.. and then we can see the rationale in their NEPA documentation.” I don’t know if the Late Mungers project is viewed as a “fuelbreak,” but it is definitely viewed as management of fuel conditions (presumably using funds that could be used for WUI projects). And the project rationale says nothing about WUI, communities or infrastructure. And while the BLM says the “commercial” logging would help spotted owls, people who are concerned about spotted owls don’t want them to do it. Why would the government want to make it a higher priority to spend money for that here instead of in WUI somewhere?
Jon, I looked at the map https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/2018484/200519757/20059357/250065539/Late%20Mungers%20Project%20Map%20with%20Streams.pdf
There is a designation for “communities at risk” on the map and some seem to be close to the project. Now you could argue that treatments should only be “right next to” communities; or say, within 2 miles unless there’s a ridgetop or other fuel-breakish feature, but that’s different than what I think most people would call “backcountry.”
There has also been debate over the definition of WUI (this was a big thing during Colorado Roadless). My point being that I think we could have a better discussion and be clearer if we talked about distances from what exactly. We also had that discussion during Colorado Roadless “how many houses/structures and how dense” should count?
I would argue that priority for treatments should decrease as you move away from communities, so yes we should talk about distance (as a primary factor in risk, which could include other things besides distance). I did used the term “backcountry” in this context to cover anything outside of “WUI” (recognizing that there is some ambiguity in both terms).
I wonder how many Ranger Districts actually have acres in the WUI that either 1) hasn’t been treated yet, or 2) is in a protected area, or 3) is too steep to do the work that is needed. How many years have people been focusing on doing work only in the WUI? The Forest Service still needs to do work that boosts resilience and forest health, OUTSIDE of the WUI.
Adding to what Steve wrote, from BLM’s link
Late Mungers is designed to protect and culture large, old trees. The project protects large trees by removing adjacent trees and fuels. Clumps of fire tolerant legacy trees would be retained. Conifer trees (pine [Pinus spp.] and Douglas fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii] greater than or equal to 36-inches DBH) and hardwoods greater than 24-inches DBH would be retained. In non-conifer plant communities, large conifers and hardwoods (often greater than 24-inches DBH) would be retained. Thinning also creates growing space for the next generation of legacy trees.
Is the BLM proposing to “clearcut” and conduct “regeneration harvest” in LSR?
BLM is not “clearcutting” or implementing regeneration harvests in Late Mungers. The BLM is proposing skips (untreated areas) and gap openings of variable sizes (all under 2 acres) in portions of the stands to:
• Create growing space to regenerate fire-adapted species.
• Increase heterogeneity/layering.
• Disrupt fuel profiles and create variability in litter fall and surface fuel accumulations.
• Decrease competition in insect and disease patches and low vigor forested areas.
• Develop future cohort of trees.
Here’s the wildfire part.
Why here? How does Late Mungers benefit the communities of Murphy and Williams?
Consistent with the IVM-RL EA and described above, Late Mungers would create conditions that reduce the potential for stand-replacing crown fire (i.e., stand level hazard) and set stands up to better receive fire (prescribed or wildfire), and reduce flame length. These conditions would indirectly improve safe and effective wildfire response and improve opportunities for direct attack of a wildfire. The Late Mungers project design provides the opportunity to tie strategic “linear feature” treatments into “area based” treatments grouped together and extends to adjacent private lands, meeting neighbors at their fence. This approach provides greater influence to modify fire behavior and slow fire spread and create safer opportunities to limit large fire growth. Between 2008-2020, there were 219 fuel treatments intersected by 57 fires. Sixty percent of the time, the treatment contributed to wildfire control. When it comes to moderating fire behavior, the BLM found that 68 percent of the time, fuel treatments moderated fire behavior. In the 12 previous years, 30 fires started, and were contained, within a fuel treatment.
Pretty minimal and vague, apparently defining “communities” as “private lands.” (These could even be lands that would benefit from fire.) If there were serious concerns about humans or their infrastructure (which should be the priority), I think the FS would have said more than this to make that case.
The BLM’s DETERMINATION OF NEPA ADEQUACY WORKSHEET for the project says:
The BLM estimates that annual small diameter thinning and prescribed fire treatments (i.e., fuels treatments) would be implemented at approximately 800 acres per year, beginning with treatments along Potential wildfire Operational Delineations (PODs), adjacent to commercial actions, and adjacent to private lands. Within the Late Mungers project area, there were 488 acres of hazardous fuels treatments implemented by the BLM within the past 20 years that are proposed for fuel reduction retreatment to maintain low-moderate loading surface fuel profiles.
…
Lands within the Late Mungers project area are comprised of all ownerships and lie within strategic “linear feature” (e.g., POD boundary), local “area-based” (e.g., ¼ mile around Communities at Risk), and landscape “area-based” (i.e., POD polygons) wildfire risk reduction extents, consistent with the IVM-RL EA treatment area (BLM 2022a, p.36). The POD boundaries (linear features) were buffered by 150 feet on either side to provide a reasonable estimate of the “eligible treatment footprint” of strategic areas for wildfire containment (BLM 2022a, p.22). There are six PODs which the Late Mungers project fall within (see Late Mungers PODs Map for POD boundaries). The BLM used GIS to calculate the distribution of BLM-administered lands within the wildfire risk reduction strategy extents. The BLM-administered lands comprise 54 percent of the total PODs acreage (39,083), 61 percent of the strategic “linear features”, and 16 percent of the local “area-based” extent (Table 11). The project is also near the community of Williams, listed as number 13 in the top 50 wildfire communities with the highest cumulative wildfire risk (BLM 2022a, Map 8 and p.37).
https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2018484/570
Kind of a word salad, but the “oh, by the way, the project is also near the city of Williams” is kind of telling. This project is being driven by the location of PODs, so the question is the rationale for those decisions, which I hope included public participation when they put PODs into their land management plans.