Brad Seaberg mentioned the North Yuba Forest Resiliency Project in a comment. The NEPA is an EIS linked to specific RODs. Shout out to them for their NEPA experimentation (2023 ROD), for their work with partners, and for their rapid reply to my questions. There has been no litigation.
My questions are in bold and District Ranger Tom Parrack’s answers in italics.
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Here’s some of the rationale for thinning some large trees:
A century of excluding fire’s ecological role in this Landscape has resulted in high stand densities and continuous tree canopy cover in areas that would have not historically supported these densities.
The historic role of fire as a frequent, widely occurring ecological process has been largely absent. The lack of fire, combined with human activities and management, has led to alterations in forest structure and species composition. Tree densities are higher compared to historic conditions and overall tree species composition has shifted to more shade tolerant, less fire-resilient species (Knapp et al. 2013, Safford and Stevens 2017, Stephens et al. 2018).
Generally, the number of large trees (greater than 24 inches dbh) have declined by at least 50% in the Sierra Nevada ecoregion (see Figure 1 from McIntyre et al 2015, see also Dolanc et al 2014, Stephens et al. 2018, Easterday et al. 2018). Broadly, this has led to forest management goals that prioritize retention of large trees, restricting removal of all trees greater than or equal to 30 inches dbh. However, species composition has also shifted toward shade tolerant trees, which in some stands may dominate the growing space. In these types of stands, the targeted removal of some larger shade tolerant trees can provide growing space for the shade intolerant pines, recruiting the large diameter pines of the future. Moreover, trees greater than 30 inches dbh in the dripline of even larger pine trees may pose a fire hazard to the larger trees, and their removal may bolster the potential to maintain the desired larger pines on the landscape. Finally, the ability to create heterogeneous stands with openings is challenging with strict diameter limits. Collectively, this suggests that treatment needs may be more complex than the application of a strict diameter limit allows for yet given the importance of large trees on the landscape, the proposal includes stand-level field verification, documentation and disclosure, and formal public comment opportunity prior to implementing this
plan amendment. Currently, a lack of forest diversity/heterogeneity; limited seral-stage variation; and deficiencies in very large, old trees are compromising California spotted owl habitat resiliency (Forest Service 2019). A summary of references of natural range of variability (NRV) conditions for yellow-pine and mixed-conifer forests across the Sierra Nevada can be found in PSW-GTR-256 (Safford and Stevens 2017, pages 177 to 181; table 11, pages 178 and 179). Promoting development of existing large trees into very large trees and retaining existing very large or old trees aligns with the purpose and need for this proposal.
Below is what I could find in the FEIS about 30-39 inch trees. Note that the purpose and need involved both thinning, and making 1-3 acre openings.
Treatment Units with Removal of Some Shade Tolerant Conifers between 30 and 39.9 inches
My decision includes application of TERR-NORTH YUBA-STD-01 to remove shade-tolerant conifers between 30 and 39.9 inches dbh, consistent with this standard and all other applicable Forest Plan standards and guidelines, including modified SNFPA ROD Standard and Guideline #7, on approximately 408 acres in four units in the Galloway area (Units 141, 142, 150, and 151). Figure 2 displays these treatment units in the Galloway area. Consistent with project-specific forest plan amendment TERR-NORTH YUBA-MA-01 (Final EIS Appendix B), a silviculturist has reviewed field conditions in these four units. Stands within these four units are extremely dense and at risk of imminent tree mortality. Data collected in these stands show basal area averaging 400 square feet per acre with a stand density index (SDI) of 550, which is 120 percent of the maximum SDI for mixed conifer stands.6 (To avoid substantial tree mortality, SDI levels should be below 50 percent of a maximum SDI of 450 for mixed conifer stands in
this Landscape, i.e. SDI of 225 or less.7) These stands have between 36 and 44 trees per acre 30 inches dbh or larger,8 and approximately 57 to 67 percent of the trees between 30 and 39.9 inches are shade tolerant conifers9. Large pines within these stands are either dead or at high risk of loss due to high stand densities and there is the possibility of immediate, short- and long-term mortality of fir. At least half of the largest shade intolerant pines and some Douglas-fir trees have already died in these units. White fir is experiencing disease and density related mortality as well, and will continue to see high mortality rates due to root disease as the other species die out. Extensive tree mortality in these units may result in complete large tree stand loss over time without appropriate treatment, including removal of some shade tolerant conifers between 30 and 39.9 inches dbh. Removing some shade tolerant conifers in this size class is needed to retain and promote the growth of larger shade-intolerant trees by more effectively meeting project objectives for tree species composition and forest stand density. An estimated average of 2 to 8 shade tolerant trees between 30 and 39.9 inches dbh per acre could be removed, leaving an estimated average of 30 to 36 trees per acre greater than 30 inches dbh on site. Shade tolerant trees selected for removal would generally be of low vigor (less than 30 percent crown ratio), and reductions in overstory canopy cover would be limited. Removal of some shade tolerant trees between 30 and 39.9 inches in these stands would effectively reduce stand densities within approximately 55 percent of5 Prescribed fire is not proposed as a follow up treatment for thinning on any of the 345 acres of hydraulic mine sites in the
Galloway and Rattlesnake Skinner areas.
6 Silviculture/Forest Health Technical Report, pg. 20 and pp. 30 -32
7 Silviculture/Forest Health Technical Report, pg.9
8 Silviculture/Forest Health Technical Report, pg. 28
9 North Yuba Drone Based Stand Mapping (available in the Project Record)
Record of Decision – North Yuba Landscape Resilience Projectmaximum SDI, thereby largely mitigating density-related tree mortality, including loss of large pines. In contrast, applying a 30-inch diameter limit in these four units would continue to keep stand density levels in the zone of imminent tree mortality (greater than 70 percent maximum SDI) following thinning.10
Opportunities to create 1- to 3-acre openings to enhance stand structural heterogeneity are extremely limited in these four units due to the high density of trees greater than or equal to 30 inches dbh, TERR- NORTH YUBA-STD-01 could be used to create approximately four to eight 1-acre openings across the four units due to the high densities of trees (30 inches dbh and greater) in these units.
Is that enough explanation? Seemingly the same discussion (if considered sufficient) could be made (in an appendix to) an EA or a CE.
It’s also of interest that four forests to the north of the Tahoe, with similar PP/true fir combos, the forests are required to follow the E side screens “21 inch rule.”
Is that because the Forests (and scientist amicus-filers) didn’t adequately argue their case? The absence of a relevant GTR?
Or is it simply an artifact of vegetation management by courts?
First, common sense management working with science is refreshing. Second, “one size fits all” being rejected is what “diversity” is all about.
How is the existing forest measured in terms of being historically “natural?”
Is the NSO and the fisher, marten, Sierra red fox and other apex predators’ issue addressed? I don’t think “science” has looked hard enough at the prey base for the apex small predators’ food supply which is plant dependent. Plants are sun dependent. So full canopy cover feeds only tree top or ground fungi consuming prey. Edges, openings, even roads are essential to support a prey base for the raptors and mammals of the tooth and claw types.
What I read addresses the needs and looks at white fir, Shasta red fir, and other shade tolerant species that can be, and do become, victims of ladder fuels creating crown fires.
Are there any references to, or concerns of, reducing canopy cover to where there is a significant increase in snow on the forest floor where ablation and sublimation are presumed less and albedo more for reflecting solar heat back to space? All of which increases seasonal runoff at later times. And in evolved wildlife, timing is paramount for species succession.
Almost 40 years ago the forest where I live had their operators’ 10 year Forest Plan Alternative selected by the Supervisor and Regional Forester and was signed by the Chief. One of the issues was calling roads as zero in regeneration potential. Operator’s contention was the trees two deep from the right- of-way clearing had more sun (limbs on right-of-way side from ground up), water (under-the-road root systems), and nutrients (both sides’ trees shared mineral nutrients under the road bed). Any doubter can strip cruise from the road center. then another strip a chain more into the timber. And compare the half road strips and interior stand steps. Calculate the volumes per road mile for road side for half the road strips with interior same age strips. Add the number of road miles, the power line rights of way for major inter state three wire high voltage lines and lesser lines distances and along riparian zones, and compare to removing the same entirely from the “timber land acres” for over 600,000 acres of mostly fully roaded and now forested land. Chief Robertson signed it and months later POTUS Clinton signed the NW Forest Plan. From then to today has been economic nuclear winter for rural Oregon. The homeless and meth heads had to move to Portland to find cars enough, open areas enough, to steal from and camp out and scrap late model stolen cars.
The idea for challenge to removing the roads and rivers, lakes, from the timberland base came to me while remembering my grandfather’s litigation for the General Land Office against the SPRR for the Natron cutoff from Goshen to Chemult, Oregon. Trespass charge for timber removed along the right of way in excess of their charter. Depression era. My memory from 65 or more years ago was the levy against the SPRR seemed large for cutting a few feet wider that the right of way calculated from remaining stumps. “Stump cruised.” But for more than 100 miles on each side of the right-of-way. Such a big deal over such a small distance wide to miles in length. Road side trees blowing down always across the road or power line. The “heavy”side and lean of the tree seeking sun. And a conversation with a Sisters Ranger district wildlife biologist at some meeting. Subject we discussed while eating a cookie at a break. Why is every tree bigger and dies more often if roadside? My reply was plowing snow that melts under those trees. Auto emissions with CO2. Grease and oil are organic, carbon based. Fertilizer? If so, what about other stuff like dirt , dried mud and mud/snow mix, all falling on a crowned road where the water drains ninety degrees to the road direction. And old tree mortality from vehicle damage to them at speed.
I once saw pictures (or actual units–bad memory) of a north slope series of long, narrow clear cuts at elevation in the noble fir-mountain hemlock, Alaska Yellow cedar, Silver fir, alpine fir belt. Plan? To increase the amount of snow later into spring with more water content for the downstream watershed. Each maybe 5 acre clear cut had a shade and wind leave timber belt on east and west side and ridge top down to the road on the south. Logged by no more than three skyline roads with a clamping carriage spooling out slack to choker dogs below. Two men logging and the hook tender and Sherpa laying out the next unit with haywire and twister tied stumps.
When most of the snow was gone in standing adjacent timber, 10″-14” of snow was still reflecting solar energy to eternity in clear cuts. And added water a bit longer and more to the watershed later in the spring. Don’t ask me where. I will note those were the only I ever laid eyes on. And that was because the road was plowed through the top of the clear cuts with some serious drifts while under the timber was no snow at all.
Now not possible because most of that kind of land in the West has since been designated Wilderness or Roadless. “Habitat” for great bears. And wolves. Yeti. Environmental Law feeding habitat. EAJA feeding NGOs. I can only imagine how many good ideas from bright folks in federal civil service have been buried by the above in the last 50 years?
Best example of what can happen is the Yurok or Karok Tribal government that hired a respectable forest consulting outfit to survey for Northern Spotted Owls. Evidently burned out employees just sat in the office and winged it, billed a bunch time, because the issue had killed company growth. Were found out. The planning-surveying-inventorying grind makes fine coffee it you are able to throw some beans into it. Kills the BS taste. The treadmill they are on and the angle and speed controls are in NGO offices in and around Washington DC. Suddenly the belt goes vertical and the persons on it fall off. Now they jump off before NGOs have a chance to rig it steeper. Nobody defines good planning and bad planning. We get what is asked for: planning. What is lost is time and treasure. Somali Shorcuts is what is gained. (If I were at all competent the screen would now show a white flag rippling in the wind.)
I think the Yuba plan and actions are strides in a good direction. There is ten times the capacity for sawing small diameter timber as for trees producing logs over 22″ diameter on the large end of the cylinder. Industry moved to that because that was the primary age and size of market available logs. 5″ top and 22″ butt. Veneer lathes and a few tarted up remanent sawmills. My short term fallible memory says 7 of those mills closed and were sold for scrappers in 2025. Have any been built since 1990? Better, who in their right mind would construct a new mill in 2026 based on federal rumors of federal land managers able to sell stumpage? They can’t even sell log decks in “Resist Oregon.” If someone did build one, please name it Charley Brown Lumber. Purchasing sales from Lucy National Forest.. Or did they build the mill to saw trees planted in 2025 for harvesting in 2125 or later?
To that point, in the 1970 a man named Bob Straub was running as a Democrat for governor in the primary. He said the first thing he would do as governor was get all the unplanted lands in Oregon back to growing timber. Day 1. Later, an aide told him slash needed burning, site prep happening, and seed collected to grow the trees for two years to be big enough to survive being planted out from the comforts of the tree nursery.
You will need to be re-elected to do that. Never heard from him about that again.
Good ideas die in the regulatory and real time of lives every day. Patience and good planning can produce terrific outcomes but our patience is too little, and memories too short. We need to ask for more action on all that planning.
I would say that’s a good explanation, and I think it’s important that it is part of an EIS, which the public has been able to review (as opposed to outcome-based).
I can understand why this has not generated litigation. It recognizes the importance of large trees on the landscape. The large trees it would remove are trees that would not have been there without fire suppression (and a different species), and they are posing a threat to rare ecosystem components. The site-specific NEPA analysis should have considered effects of their removal on species that might be vulnerable to that, and the public could review the nature of the threat and the effects of removing it.
I have one factual question that might be important – if these sub-overstory shade-tolerant species are protected by thinning below them, would they still be a risk to the larger site-appropriate overstory trees? In addition, I would also condition my approval on the overall risk of this site being subject to a severe fire.
I would also question why, on sites where shade tolerant species “dominate the growing space” because the tolerant species were (naturally?) widely scattered, would we expect that giving the latter more growing space produce a different result?
Thanks for finding and summarizing this.
“It’s also of interest that four forests to the north of the Tahoe, with similar PP/true fir combos, the forests are required to follow the E side screens “21 inch rule.””
I don’t know why they couldn’t do a project-specific amendment to avoid this standard like the Yuba diameter limit example. I could maybe see more of an ESA risk associated with not doing what was consulted on for the species rangewide.
To my knowledge, the Plumas, Lassen and Modoc (the next three Forests to the north) are subject to the Sierra Nevada Framework which prescribes a 30 inch dbh limit. Agree that they could do project-specific amendments as appropriate.
I think we can be assured that the major nationwide litigators will fight this in the courts, especially as CASPO listing is now being pursued. It’s a lot to risk, just to “see what happens”.
Yes, you are correct about those Forests under the Framework. I do think that they could outright cancel the Framework, but a replacement would be far off in the future. ( It took 4 years for Bush II to return diameter limits to 30″, after Clinton. ) I doubt that the Ninth Circuit Court would be friendly to such an amendment.
What I don’t understand is how it is possible for the Tahoe, Plumas, and Lassen to pretty much get rid of the CSO plan components provided in the 2004 amendment across large proportions of their respective forests, affecting the vast majority of unburned CSO home ranges, without plan revision. We are talking about hundreds of CSO PACs and home ranges, including most of the last unburned CSO habitat on those forests. I don’t want to get into a debate about what is needed for the species on those sites, I am thinking more about circumventing the intended process. It’s not like fire hasn’t been an issue for a very long time in the Sierra and there wasn’t time to do plan revision. If it is possible to do serial large scale plan amendments that get rid of the rules that provided the larger landscape strategy for the at-risk species that drove the larger plan amendment across most of several forests, what’s the incentive to ever do plan revision? I feel like this is a work-around for plan revision that ensures there never will be plan revision. Is there any legal hook here for litigants?
There are recent studies showing that getting rid of the white fir and cedar doesn’t shift regeneration in a stand to ponderosa and oak. White fir and cedar have very light seeds that disperse long distances, unlike ponderosa, and these “restored” stands tend to get massive flushes of cedar and white fir. The only way to get back to stands dominated by fire resistant species is to put fire back into the system or mow the white fir and cedar on a 10-year cycle. If this is not insured as part of removing the 30–40-inch trees, then it’s just an excuse to remove large trees.