This blog has highlighted the Dixie National Forest, Utah, “Iron Springs Vegetation Reduction Project” before. Yesterday, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported:
Wildlife conservation groups on Thursday praised a decision by Dixie National Forest withdrawing a plan to harvest 8,000 acres of old-growth forest near Escalante.
“Conservationists are calling this a valentine for wildlife,” said Kevin Mueller, program director for Utah Environmental Congress. “The withdrawal really is a reprieve for wildlife.”….
Mueller said the harvest has appeared dead at least three times before, as far back as 1999. “This is a horrible game of whack a mole that’s been going for about a dozen years, and I just really hope the Forest Service gives up the ghost on this project and doesn’t resurrect it again,” he said.
The timber harvest area of 8,306 acres is about 15 miles northwest of Escalante at elevations ranging from 9,000 to 10,750 feet. Mueller said the trees that were to be cut down are an estimated 150 to 400 years old. Conservation groups have fought the harvest, saying the trees provide needed nesting and forage habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl and sensitive-species goshawk….
Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab said opposition by groups outside of Utah like the Montana-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies, is a “perfect example” of why state officials want to take control of public lands. “This is another reason why our Utah lands and forestry people and local people can do a better job of managing lands because we’re not held hostage to groups in … other areas,” he said.
Worcester Street Before Tree Removals from ALB Kenneth R. Law, USDA APHIS PPQWorcester Street After Tree Removals from ALB Kenneth R. Law, USDA APHIS PPQ
Good to share with your local urban tree aficionados..
Practical Advice for Using Insect-Killed Trees
Resource Guide for Forestry Professionals Developed by
U.S. Forest Service, University of Minnesota Duluth
MADISON, Wis. – Millions of dead and dying trees in the United States must be properly used or disposed of as a result of the devastating effects of invasive insects. A new publication released by the University of Minnesota Duluth and the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) provides urban forestry professionals guidance for managing this monumental task.
“Wood Utilization Options for Urban Trees Infested by Invasive Species” is a reference for land managers, arborists, utilization specialists, and other natural resources professionals. It provides comprehensive information on wood technology, markets, and technical information for hardwoods affected by invasive species. This free publication is available in its entirety here: http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf2012/fpl_2012_brashaw001.pdf
“This manual provides a one-stop shop for understanding how the emerald ash borer, Asian longhorned beetle, gypsy moth, and thousand cankers disease are affecting hardwoods,” explains Brian Brashaw, program director of the Wood Materials and Manufacturing program at the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI). “It also offers valuable insight into the wide variety of products and markets that are available, and practical advice for considering the many options.”
The publication was designed to be a primary reference for natural resource professionals who are on the front lines in dealing with invasive species, according to Bob Ross, project leader of the Engineering Properties of Wood, Wood-based Materials and Structures research unit at FPL.
“This document is based, in large part, on FPL’s longstanding work on the basic properties of wood and wood products, and includes the most up-to-date developments on ways to mitigate the spread of invasive species in firewood,” says Ross.
Non-native invasive species are causing significant ecological and economic damage in the eastern United States. Since its discovery in 2002, the emerald ash borer alone has killed tens of millions of ash trees in 13 states, and cost municipalities, property owners, nursery operators, and forest products industries tens of millions of dollars.
The reference guide, made possible by a grant to NRRI from the U.S. Forest Service’s Wood Education and Resource Center, focuses mainly on uses for ash trees removed from urban settings. It is organized into four sections:
· An overview of the magnitude of the invasive species problem and use options for infested hardwoods. This includes information on agencies that are addressing the issue as well as a list of trade associations that specialize in manufacturing products from wood affected by invasive species.
· Information on the basic properties of hardwood species that grow in urban areas and may be affected by invasive species. Scientific and common names, physical and mechanical properties, machining characteristics, and other data are summarized.
· Market and use options for U.S. ash species, including detailed information on production considerations, quality specifications, market opportunities, and key trade associations. Uses include lumber, furniture, cabinetry, flooring, biomass, and more.
· Detailed, practical heat sterilization options for treating firewood and solid wood packaging materials made from infested wood. Heat sterilization is currently the most practical and environmentally friendly way to kill pests in solid wood and prevent their transfer to other regions.
The loss of trees due to invasive species in urban areas has been significant, bringing to light the value of often overlooked urban forest landscapes. Urban forests are dynamic ecosystems that provide clean air and water, cool cities and save energy, strengthen quality of place and local economies, improve social connections, and many other benefits.
“The invasive species issue has created an opportunity to engage the public in a discussion regarding the importance of our urban forests and the importance of using the wood generated from these forests,” says Tony Ferguson, director of Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry for the U.S. Forest Service.
Yes, that’s a full-sized log truck to the right of this Exxon-Mobile megaloaded carrying Korean-made tar sands mining equipment bound for the Alberta tar sands oil fields. A federal judge has ruled that the Forest Service should have regulated these megaloads as they traveled along the Wild and Scenic Lochsa River and over Lolo Pass on US Hwy 12. Picture from 2011.
According to the Missoulian U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill has sided with environmentalists and ruled the U.S. Forest Service erred by not exercising its regulatory authority when Idaho allowed huge trucks to haul giant oil refinery equipment along U.S. Highway 12, through a scenic corridor protected by the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
The group, Idaho Rivers United, sued the government in 2011 after the state allowed ExxonMobil’s Canadian unit to ship hundreds of so-called megaloads from Idaho’s Port of Lewiston along the two-lane highway. A copy of the judge’s ruling is here.
Idaho Rivers United argues the U.S. Forest Service neglected its duty to intervene, including by allowing 500 trees along U.S. Highway 12 to be trimmed to accommodate oil-gear shipments by ExxonMobil weighing up to 300 tons. The federal agency says it relinquished that authority over the shipments between Lewiston and the Kearl Oil Sands projects in southern Alberta to the state of Idaho….
As early as September 2010, Forest Service leaders in Idaho expressed concern about the ExxonMobil shipments. That month, Clearwater-Nez Perce National Forest supervisor Rick Brazell told the Idaho Transportation Department in a letter that hundreds of oversized loads jeopardize “the experience the traveling and recreating public will have along U.S. Highway 12 through the introduction of overtly industrial elements into the otherwise pastoral environment.”
In the same letter, however, Brazell conceded he was powerless to interfere. “I recognize that I have no jurisdiction to stop these shipments, but I do oppose the idea of allowing this precedent to be set,” he wrote.
For more information about this issue, check out this video produced by some friends.
Monday AM Update: There have been some questions in the comments regarding what the Forest Service’s regulatory authority is in this issue. Here’s a portion of what the judge wrote:
“This line of authority – beginning with the Property Clause and proceeding through the Organic Act, the Federal-Aid Highways Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and finally the Highway Easement’s directive to protect the scenic and esthetic values of the river corridor – is focused on granting the federal defendants the authority to regulate the use of roads over federal land. This authority clearly gives the federal defendants jurisdiction to review ITD’s approval of mega-load permits that authorize acts along the river corridor including the construction of turnouts along the rivers, the trimming of hundreds of trees, and the restriction of the public’s recreational opportunities.”
We’ve had these sorts of discussions here before in regards to people building homes in fire-prone forests with an expectation that the federal government (and US taxpayers) will provide funding for fuel reduction activities. A new(ish) research paper provides another look at the issue.
Abstract: Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership. We find that in areas where ownership is mixed, the private landowner performs too little fuel treatment as they ‘‘free ride’ —capture benefits without incurring the costs—on public protection, while areas with public land only are under-protected. Our central result is that this pattern of fuel treatment comes at a cost to society because public resources focus in areas with mixed ownership, where local residents capture the benefits, and are not available for publicly managed land areas that create benefits for society at large. We also find that policies that encourage public expenditures in areas with mixed ownership, such as the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 and public liability for private values, subsidize the residents who choose to locate in the high-risk areas at the cost of lost natural resource benefits for others.
The curious connection between an invasive beetle that has destroyed over 100 million trees, and subsequent heart disease and pneumonia in the human populations nearby
Again, scientists are discovering things that mystics and poets have sensed for thousands of years.
Something else, less readily apparent, may have happened as well. When the U.S. Forest Service looked at mortality rates in counties affected by the emerald ash borer, they found increased mortality rates. Specifically, more people were dying of cardiovascular and lower respiratory tract illness — the first and third most common causes of death in the U.S. As the infestation took over in each of these places, the connection to poor health strengthened.
The “relationship between trees and human health,” as they put it, is convincingly strong. They controlled for as many other demographic factors as possible. And yet, they are unable to satisfactorily explain why this might be so.
But a line of modern thought suggests that trees and other elements of natural environments might affect our health in more nuanced ways as well. Roger Ulrich demonstrated the power of having a connection with nature, however tenous, in his classic 1984 study with patients recovering from gall bladder removal surgery in a suburban Pennsylvania hospital. He manipulated the view from the convalescents’ windows so that half were able to gaze at nature while the others saw only a brick wall. Those with trees outside their window recovered faster, and requested fewer pain medications, than those with a “built” view. They even had slightly fewer surgical complications.
But, the fighting goes on and accelerates infrequency and intensity. The people, our sense of community, and the forest are bruised and battered in the process. The gladiators never tire of the fight – it is what they do. The fight itself provides their sustenance. I detect, however, that many concerned about forests we collectively own have long since approached exhaustion.
That may be good news, for with exhaustion, there may come a willingness to seek an answer to the statement made earlier, “There must be a better way.”
That better way can be built on new knowledge and past experiences and on changes in personal and societal concepts. And, that better way can be embraced because the old way has led us to a place where we cannot stand for long.
Shakespeare said (Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2) “…the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…”
If the fault lies within us, the solution also resides in us as well.
Jack Ward Thomas, (1992, in Forest Management Approaches on the the Public’s Lands: Turmoil and Transition) here.
I was reflecting on Dr. Martin Luther King and what he might think of our natural resource situation. I was also thinking of the dangers of partisanizing these issues and what happens when we consider people with different views “the other”; not to be spoken to, but to have their moral character questioned. I hope in some small way this blog helps have a safe discussion about some of these issues.
At the same time, I was speaking to an associate who was going to DC this week. I asked him about the objections rule and where it was. He said to me something along the lines of “why don’t you write your elected officials and ask them to ask the Chief where it is?”
This was a bit of a shock to me. After 32 years of federal service, including a year working for Congresswoman Carrie Meek of Florida, I realized that I had adapted to my role in the understory of policy. Now I had been released (to put it into silvicultural parlance, as this definition here) but was I responding to the freedom and the nutrients and light? Not really.
From my time with Congresswoman Meek, I remember how seriously constituents were taken. So I went on the web and wrote two notes to my two senators, basically asking where the objections rule is (given that Congress asked for it in the Approps Bill last year). It probably took me all of 15 minutes to write it. I made the discovery that one of my senators has a category for natural resources/public lands and the other did not, I had to file it under “environment”..which I found interesting (I am saving my Representative for working with OPM should I run into problems with my annuity, so that’s why I didn’t contact his office).
What my associate opened my eyes to is that I don’t need to have or be an organization, I just need to be an active constituent. When I worked with the Forest Service, I often had to answer questions posed by various Congressional staffs either at the behest of industries (ski or energy, generally) or environmental NGO’s. But this is open to regular people as well. And groups of regular people with ideas. I don’t think we’ve had as much of that as we could, and if we depend on our elected officials to reach across the aisle, well, let’s just say that we might not have the desired results as expeditiously as we might otherwise. That, to me, would be the power of local collaborative groups, but also the power of each one of us.
“Unpaid peacemakers” arise! And through kindness and understanding, let us make beat the swords into some riparian remediation implement.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and WildWest Institute filed a lawsuit yesterday in Federal District Court in Missoula against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in response to the FWS’s July 2011 decision that the whitebark pine is “warranted for listing as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act” but precluded by higher priority actions.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has already concluded that whitebark pine faces numerous threats, including climate change, that are so pressing that whitebark pine is in danger of extinction,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “This is the first time the federal government has declared a widespread tree species in danger of imminent extinction from climate change. Since the Forest Service still has proposals to clearcut whitebark pine, all we’re doing is asking the court to move the listing process along a little faster so we can protect what’s left under the Endangered Species Act.”
The plaintiffs are requesting that the Court declare the agency’s decision is contrary to law, set aside or remand the decision, and compel the agency to promptly set a reasonable date to issue a proposed Endangered Species listing rule for whitebark pine.
Whitebark pine is a slow-growing, longed-life tree with life spans up to 500 years and sometimes more than 1000 years. Whitebark pine is a keystone — or foundation — species in western North America where it increases biodiversity and contributes to critical ecosystem functions. Those include providing highly-nutritious seeds for more than 20 different species including Clark’s Nutcracker, grizzly bears, black bears, Steller’s Jay, and Pine Grosbeak.
“People who spend time in the high-country realize that whitebark pine are dying at alarming rates due to impacts associated with climate change,” explained Matthew Koehler, with the WildWest Institute. “We cannot sit back, do nothing, and watch a critically important component of our high-country ecosystem just disappear and go extinct before our eyes. This isn’t just about the whitebark pine, but about the future viability of these high country ecosystems, including the species that rely upon that habitat such as grizzly bears and Clark’s Nutcrackers.”
The role the pine seeds play in the ecosystem is fascinating. Clark’s nutcrackers crack open the pine cones and collect the seeds in specialized throat pouches. The birds then cache the seeds in small piles in numerous shallow holes on the forest floor. If the Clark’s nutcrackers, or other wildlife species, don’t come back to eat all the seeds, new trees sprout. Additionally, red squirrels collect and bury larges caches of whole pine cones in middens. Grizzly bears unearth the caches, carefully pry off the scales of the pine cones with their claws, and then pull out the seeds with their tongues. Studies in the Yellowstone National Park area show that grizzly bears obtain one-quarter to two-thirds of their energy from the seeds. The 30-50% fat content from whitebark pine seeds promotes survival and reproduction of female grizzly bears that rely on this fat not only to hibernate, but also to support lactation. When pine seeds are plentiful, grizzly bears have more surviving cubs. And in years when pine seeds are scarce, the result is more conflicts with humans and more dead grizzly bears.
The U.S. Forest Service estimates that climate change will result in the whitebark pine population shrinking to less than 3% of its current U.S. distribution by the end of the century.
On my Solstice trip, I drove from Colorado to Sacramento, California. Driving from Colorado, (where marijuana is legal) to Utah (where alcohol is heavily regulated) to Nevada (where gaming is legal) to California (where there are many, many people compared to the other states) is a lesson on “more or less the same biota, but strong sociopolitical differences.”
At the same time, I was listening to “The Killing of Crazy Horse” on CDs. I recommend this story, especially to those who frequent Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota. Weaving together my departure from Golden, Colorado to a point west of Placerville, California, hearing about the gold rush in the Black Hills (people were responding to a depression at the time) , touched home with the story of the west as a story of using our natural resources. Mining, water, agriculture, wood, fish, wildlife. You can stand on a peak in Colorado’s Rockies and see evidence of mining and water engineering almost anywhere you look (as in the above photo by me).
Some might say “exploiting” but according to Merriam-Webster there are two definitions:
1. to make productive use of : utilize
2. to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage
I am not sure that #2 has meaning in terms of gold or other resource development, but utilizing resources seems like a good thing. Or at least it did in those days, and I wonder why we are not as enthused about it today. It seems like there are two fundamental trains of thought nowadays.
1. We need to use natural resources and we should be careful of the environment and make sure we protect it while extracting and using those resources. We are lucky to live in a country with so many, because we can develop them in an environmentally sensitive manner, create jobs that contribute to our communities, and trade products with other countries who want what we have, for things we want from them.
Now I’m not saying that everyone agrees on the details of “protecting the environment”; I participated in discussions vis a vis the Forest Stewardship Council certification standards, so I have some clue about how much debate there can be. However, the principle is that you can cut trees, graze cattle, pump out oil and gas, and be environmentally friendly.
2. We should not use those natural resources because of environmental impacts in our country. Since people do use resources, this really means that people will either use different resources, or the same ones (say wood, or gold or molybdenum, or oil) from elsewhere.
My hypothesis is that public research funds are used to study environmental impacts of different practices, but not so much to improve practices. It would be interesting to take a use, say, grazing, or oil and gas development, and look at 1) who’s doing what research and 2) who’s funding it, and 3) how much is targeted to improving practices, rather than saying “impacts are bad, so you should stop doing it.”
This kind of research does happen, though, and maybe should be highlighted more in the press (?). However, “practices can be improved” doesn’t have the drama of “practices will destroy the environment.”
I did run across this interesting roundup of new technologies for oil and gas development in Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog.
Wyden to tackle forestry issues early in 113th Congress
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said forestry issues will be among his top priorities when he becomes chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee next Congress, including bills to accelerate restoration logging in Oregon and other parts of the West.
Wyden, who once described the Beaver State as the “Saudi Arabia of biomass,” is seen as more supportive of “place-based” forestry bills than current committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who is retiring at the end of this month after 30 years in the Senate.
Wyden said he will push hard for bills such as his S. 220, which would promote active management on 8.3 million acres of forests east of the Cascades, and that he would consider similar bills such as a proposal by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to accelerate forest restoration and designate wilderness in western Montana.
Wyden said he discussed forestry issues with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the committee’s ranking member, during a recent trip to Alaska, which, like Oregon, saw timber harvests plummet over the past decades as a result of protections for old-growth trees and the species they support.
“I think there are a lot of opportunities to find common ground on forestry,” Wyden said in a brief interview last week. “I think there is a chance to possibly build a coalition between these hard-hit rural communities that are worried about becoming ghost towns and get them off what I really call their own version of a fiscal cliff.”
As chairman, Wyden will have a full slate of forestry issues to tackle, including the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools program, which provides financial aid for timber-dependent counties, a continuing bark-beetle epidemic and increasingly severe wildfires as a result of dry, overstocked forests.
