Steve Wilent

Steve Wilent is a forester, journalist, and educator. All of the opinions he expresses on Smokey Wire are his, not necessarily those of anyone else. Steve previously served as Editor, The Forestry Source, the newspaper of The Society of American Foresters (SAF, www.eforester.org). He's been a member of the SAF since 1982. He also teaches forestry at Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon.

Pine beetles and fires are gutting B.C.’s forestry sector

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It’s more than lumber markets and trade. Article in Canada’s Financial Post yesterday:

Trouble in timberland: How pine beetles and fires are gutting B.C.’s forestry sector

Deep in the tree-studded interior of British Columbia, the tiny town of Clearwater is facing a problem that’s sweeping across the province: Surrounded by nothing but trees, somehow, there isn’t enough timber to support a local sawmill.

This summer, for the first time in decades, the town of around 2,000 people — about a five-hour drive northeast of Vancouver — won’t have a mill to anchor its local economy, as Canfor Corp. plans to mothball its nearby Vavenby operation in July.

It’s a situation that’s been years in the making, as the ravenous mountain pine beetle population exploded thanks to warmer winters, which in combination with record fires, destroyed huge swaths of forests. Now, there are too many mills in B.C. and not enough supply to feed them all.

Also, “A new bill by the B.C. government has added to the industry’s woes.”

“…in May, after B.C. legislators passed Bill 22, which creates a new obligation for companies to demonstrate a “public interest” before they can sell or transfer their licenses to harvest timber from provincial land in a specific geographic area.”

 

 

 

Keene and DellaSala on Shotcash Timber Sale

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Op-ed in the Eugene Register-Guard. Several points are worthy of discussion, such as this one:

“The BLM Shotcash timber sale violates the spirit of the 1937 O&C Sustained Yield Act….”

The spirit of the O&C Act was — and still is — sustained yield. That is, the sustained yield. BLM isn’t coming close to that level of harvest. Some would say that is a violation of the spirit of the act.

Western governors urge Congress to ease land transfers

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E&E  News today:

The Western Governors’ Association today adopted a resolution urging Congress to simplify federal-state land exchanges and circumvent the “complex regulatory requirements” of existing laws including the National Environmental Policy Act.

The measure is one of four resolutions the association, which represents 19 states and three U.S. territories, approved at its annual meeting. The coalition also addressed invasive species, the National Park Service’s deferred maintenance backlog, and conservation of fish and wildlife migration corridors.

In its new policy statement on land exchanges and purchases, WGA called for new laws to ease the impact of “checkerboard land ownership” across Western states.

“Federal and state land managers, land users, the environmental community and the public all agree that the checkerboard land ownership pattern is a major hindrance to effective and ecologically sound management of both federal and state lands,” the resolution states.

From my experience as a county forest advisory group member, I applaud efforts to make relatively small transfers easier. Trading similar parcels — say, of up to 640 acres, usually less — can take years, or is virtually impossible. It’s a bit easier with the BLM.

Fire, Erosion, and Floods

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Some folks say forest managers need to focus on thinning in and around communities to protect homes from wildfire. This article reminds us that wildfire effects an be much more widespead than the burned area itself, and shows why active forest management aimed at reducing fire severity may be appropriate in the backcountry.

“Concerns rise about flooding, debris flows in Lake Christine Fire burn scar”

“Local emergency managers are particularly concerned about flood and flow risks from the Lake Christine Fire burn scar.”

…

“Wildfires result in a loss of vegetation and leave the ground charred and unable to absorb water,” said a statement from a consortium of emergency management agencies in the Roaring Fork Valley. “This creates conditions for flooding. Even areas that are not traditionally flood-prone are at risk of flooding for up to several years after a wildfire.”

…

“The soils that experienced the greatest burn severity are shedding the water rather than absorbing it, Thompson said. Water was flowing off hillsides in sheets and eroding the road between the main parking lot and the Mill Creek Trailhead, he said.”

Here’s a Debris Flow Probability Map of the 12,500-acre Lake Christine Fire area and surrounding communities in Colorado.

“Town Unites Against Federal Mismanagement to Save Forest”

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Weaverville, Calif., was once torn apart by forest-mananagent controveries (as were nunmerous communities in spotted owl country). This article from KQED, a San Francisco-based public broadcasting station, “Town Unites Against Federal Mismanagement to Save Forest,” says that this has changed.

As trees across the Shasta-Trinity and Six Rivers national forests have become drought-stressed and overcrowded, basically all but asking to burn, it’s the forest that has brought people back together. Now, a locally driven partnership forged to make a small community forest healthier is kindling a wider push for resilience and reducing fire risk across the entire county. Community members say a key strategy will be preventing what are often high-intensity wildfires by implementing lower-intensity prescribed burns to eradicate chip-dry tinder and grasses.

“There will be fire on this entire landscape. Do we want it to be controlled or do we want it to be out of control?” said Alex Cousins, a lifelong county resident. “We need to leave these forests ready to accept fire.”

“One of the first federal master stewardship agreements in the country” has helped get work done on the ground. Locals say that thinning and Rx fire has helped:

“The [Oregon] fire ran head on into this thinned and burned unit, and the fire just laid down,” said Nick Goulette, who directs the Watershed Center, a local land stewardship group. “My home was evacuated as a part of that fire, so I was very thankful.”

I reckon many other communities are now interested in such stewardship agreements.

Christiansen: 1 Billion Acres At Risk

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From NPR News today:

1 Billion Acres At Risk For Catastrophic Wildfires, U.S. Forest Service Warns

The chief of the U.S. Forest Service is warning that a billion acres of land across America are at risk of catastrophic wildfires like last fall’s deadly Camp Fire that destroyed most of Paradise, Calif.

As we head into summer, with smoke already drifting into the Northwest from wildfires in Alberta, Canada, Vicki Christiansen said wildfires are now a year-round phenomenon. She pointed to the hazardous conditions in forests that result from a history of suppression of wildfires, rampant home development in high-risk places and the changing climate.

“When you look nationwide there’s not any place that we’re really at a fire season. Fire season is not an appropriate term anymore,” Christiansen said in an interview with NPR at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.

 

“Landscape-level” Utah Project

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The Salt Lake Tribune has this story on “a landscape-level program of salvage logging, thinning, prescribed burns and reseeding in a 171,000-acre project area along the crest of the Wasatch Plateau.”

Since 2000, bark-boring beetles have killed nearly 90% of the Engelmann spruce on the plateau separating Sanpete and Emery counties, according to Ryan Nehl, supervisor of the Manti-La Sal National Forest. Other areas have become overrun with subalpine fir, crowding out aspen.

…

Currently spruce occupies 5% of this forest, while fir makes up 85%. The Forest Service’s goal is get that species mix to the 60%-30% range favoring spruce, but it could take decades. Nehl also wants to see aspen stands revitalized because of their importance to watershed health and wildlife and their ability to slow big fires.

“While this project is couched as a timber sale, it’s primarily a hazardous fuels-reduction project to try to stem the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire. It’s overstocked right now,” Nehl said. “Another primary purpose of this is to reduce risk to communities and firefighters, particularly culinary and irrigation water supplies, as well as water supply to the [Huntington Power] Plant.”

Here’s the Canyons HFRA Project Environmental Assessment FONSI.

The Forest Service proposes to salvage dense dead standing and down Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) and implement fuel reduction treatments under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). These actions are proposed to be implemented on the Ferron-Price and Sanpete Ranger Districts, Manti-La Sal National Forest, in Sanpete, Carbon, Emery, and Sevier Counties, Utah (Figure 2). The project area where treatments are being considered is approximately 171,000 acres.

Idaho Fish and Game Agreement with Timber Companies on Fee-less Recreation

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If timber companies and a state agency can agree on making access to 867,000 acres of private timberland free to the public, maybe there’s a template for doing the same for federal lands.

Also included: “The access/depredation fund also pays for continued public access to 2.3 million acres of Idaho Department of Lands state endowment lands for hunting, fish, trapping and other recreation, which includes about $300,000 annually to the Department of Lands and Fish and Game providing law-enforcement services on endowment lands.”

This kind of arrangement would free the USFS and BLM from collecting fees, such as for picnic areas, which I suspect costs more than it takes in.

Idaho Fish and Game press release:

Timber companies and F&G agree to leases for public access to private timber lands 

By Roger Phillips, Public Information Supervisor

Friday, May 17, 2019 – 3:42 PM MDT
Two lease agreements will provide public access to about 867,000 acres of private timberlands in Panhandle and Clearwater regions

A new partnership between Idaho Fish and Game and PotlatchDeltic will provide and preserve public access for hunting, fishing and trapping on 567,002 acres of private land in Benewah, Clearwater, Idaho, Latah and Shoshone counties through a lease agreement.

A second agreement expected to be finalized by early June is with a group of forestland owners and managers, including Stimson Lumber Co., Hancock Forest Management and Molpus Woodlands Group, to allow public access to more than 300,000 acres in Bonner, Boundary, Benewah, Shoshone and Kootenai counties.

Fish and Game will pay $1 per acre annually for the access, which includes hunting, fishing, trapping, wildlife viewing, hiking and recreational travel limited to motor vehicle travel on roads open to full-sized vehicles. Restrictions on camping and ATV use may apply depending on the landowner’s rules.

“These agreements demonstrate Fish and Game’s continued commitment to putting money from the access/depredation fee to good use and provide hunters, anglers and trappers with access to private lands while compensating landowners for their support of those activities,” said Sal Palazzolo, F&G’s Private Lands/ Farm Bill Program Coordinator.

“PotlatchDeltic is pleased to partner with Idaho Fish and Game on this public access agreement. As the largest private timberland owner in Idaho, we recognize the importance of public access for recreational activities and the benefits for sportspersons and outdoor enthusiasts,” said Darin Ball, Vice President Resource, PotlatchDeltic.

The agreements came through Fish and Game’s new “large tracts” land lease program that targets multi-year access to parcels 50,000 acres or larger.

Lease agreements with all the companies will automatically renew for at least three years. Money for the leases comes from House Bill 230, which in 2017 established Fish and Game’s access/depredation fee that requires a $5 surcharge for residents and a $10 surcharge for nonresidents when they buy their first annual license of the year.

The access/depredation fund also pays for continued public access to 2.3 million acres of Idaho Department of Lands state endowment lands for hunting, fish, trapping and other recreation, which includes about $300,000 annually to the Department of Lands and Fish and Game providing law-enforcement services on endowment lands.

Fish and Game’s sportsman’s access programs also includes Access Yes!, which pays landowners to allow the public on, or through, their lands, and parcels accepted into that program go through an annual competitive bid process.

People with questions about the specifics of the PotlatchDeltic agreement can contact Fish and Game’s Private Lands/ Farm Bill Program Coordinator Sal Palazzolo at [email protected], or call (208) 287-2752.

An open letter from a Forest Service Firefighter

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This link was in today’s Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities news roundup from Nick Smith

Kevin Mecham: An open letter from a Forest Service Firefighter

“The catalyst of this letter is the line of duty death of friend and co-worker Daniel Laird and the WO and RO’s management of its Forestry Technicians. Our current management structure and its subsequent repercussions on our Firefighting workforce are not new problems. Line of Duty deaths are not new problems. But Dan’s death and the Agency’s structure have shone a glaring light on the implications of our current leadership organization. As these tragedies and issues hit closer and closer to home for the “boots on the ground” it makes the weight feel even heavier. …”