timber

Musings on the Forest Service Cut and Sold Report

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Here’s a guest post from Derek Weidensee, which started as a comment here in a previous thread, but the whole idea of what’s in the cut and sold report, and what it means, I think is worth its own post and discussion.

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 USFS “cut and sold” report has just came out. The nine forests in Montana have sold the least amount of timber since 2007, and 40% less than 2009. When one looks back 10 years, one can see an inverse curve between “timber sold” in Montana and “money raised” by the Alliance of Wild Rockies. In 2007, when only 109 Million board foot was sold (MMBF), the AWR raised $255,000. The Wildwest Institute raised $136,000. There was much litigation then wasn’t there. In 2009, the AWR budget dropped to $83,000 (barely enough to cover Garrity’s salary) and the WWI to $33,000. In 2010, because of a “gift” from Carole King, the AWR budget bounced up to $380,000. Now here’s some research for you. Graph this one out. How many lawsuits were filed in the last few years, or more importantly, how many MMBF is currently litigated. How much of the 40% decline in volume is attributed to litigation? Why can’t the USFS tell us that? They know, and they could, but why wait for the Missoulian to get around to asking them. You can argue that it’s all about following the law, but who could be opposed to the public’s right to know. Let’s stop the dance here, we all know the litigation is all about soaking up person hours so less timber can be cut with the available budget, and with holding timber supplies in the hope some more mills will close. A tactic that has worked quite well in the past 30 years.
Here’s a few more fun “stat’s” from the cut and sold. Out of the 122 MMBF “sold” 25% was personal use firewood. Of the “commercial” timber, only 38%(47MMBF) of the 122 was “sawtimber” and 35%(43MMBF) “non-sawtimber,” in other words, trees less than 9″ DBH(there’s your hazard road timber sales). The mills can cut down to a 7″ DBH. In 2007, 70% was “sawtimber”. That means that in 2007 75 MMBF was sawtimber while in 2012 only 47MMBF was.
–Meanwhile,the Ouachita in Arkansas sold 90MMBF of which 65MMBF was sawtimber. One forest in the east sold more sawtimber than all nine in Montana.
–The three NF’s in Michigan sold 150 MMBF. Three million acres in Michagan sold more than 20 some million in Montana. Guess there ain’t much litigation in Michigan.
—The White Mountain NF in New Hampshire, barely 100 miles from Boston, sold as much timber as the Bitteroot in Montana.
—Colorado sold 105 MMBF, almost as much as Montana, when it has one mill just out of bankruptcy and another opening soon, while Montana has what, 7 mills of comparable size.
—The two one million acre forests in Minnesota sold 105 MMBF.
Keep in mind, that the above forests sell very little “personal use firewood”.
The whole Northern Region sold 206 MMBF. If the Obama administration wants to sell 350 MMBF as Tidwell talked of, they’ve got their work cut out for them.

Matthew, feel free to repost your comments on this on this thread.
Here’s the link to the Cut and Sold report.

Are FS Timber Sale Contracts Working For Restoration?

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A guest post from Felice Pace. You may have read his posts on the Range Blog of High Country News.

It does not appear that there has been discussion on this site about whether the main tool being used to implement forest restoration/fire risk reduction projects on public lands – the timber sale contract – is a good tool or even adequate for the task of forest restoration/fire risk reduction.

From my perspective (30 years of looking at timber sales), the timber sale contract is a good tool if the task is getting logs out of the woods and to the mill but a poor tool if the task is forest restoration (including fire risk reduction).

The problem is that when a timber sale is used to implement restoration – including when the timber sale is embedded within a stewardship contract – timber economics rules. Because public forests are remote and because production and transportation costs in the western US (where most US public lands are located) are high, economics dictates removing too many trees per acre and too many large (dominant) trees. This almost always frustrates the restoration objective.

For example, FS in the Klamath Mountains typically “thins” down to 40% or less canopy closure for restoration/fire risk reduction. But reducing moisture competition and opening the stands to sunlight to this extent results in accelerated sprouting of trees and brush. This in turn results in more fire danger – and a dense, highly flammable understory 8-30 years after the “treatment”.

If we really want to restore western forests we need a different, more appropriate tool. Restoration work should be funded up front and accomplished via straight up service contracts. Any commercial product which results can/should be sold separately from the log-sort yard.

Would it be possible during this new round of forest plans to try such an approach on at least one forest per region?

Felice Pace has lived in the Klamath River Basin since 1975. For 15 years, he worked for and led the Klamath Forest Alliance as Program Coordinator, Executive Director and Program Director. He remains part of the Alliance’s Core Group, and now consults with environmental and indigenous organizations on fund raising and program development. He currently resides at Klamath Glen, near the mouth of the Klamath River.

Note from Sharon: Many service contracts are out there.. some forests have mostly service contracts. I wonder if any forests have 0 timber sale contracts, I bet many districts, even in Colorado, do. I wonder if there is a table somewhere of mechanical treatment acres by service contract or timber sale contract by forest? Anyone?

Unusual Groups Align to Support Endangered Sawmill

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Long but complete article from the Oregonian.
Here’s a link.

Below is an excerpt.

“Had you told me 10 years ago that I would be trying to keep a mill open in eastern Oregon, I would have said you’re crazy, but things change,” said Susan Jane Brown, Portland-based staff attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center.

The Malheur Lumber Co. sawmill, the last one still operating in Grant County, will remain open past its planned November shutdown after the Forest Service promised to speed up timber sales and take other steps to increase forest restoration projects.

The unlikely collaboration grew out of a growing sense that healing eastern Oregon’s overgrown forests can’t be done without sawmills, loggers and truck drivers to cut, remove and process logs.

Traditional foes who have fought bitterly in the past over forest management now widely agree that eastern Oregon’s unhealthy forests have become overstocked, bug-infested fuel factories for catastrophic wildfires. The status quo stems from harvest reductions designed to halt clearcutting and restore habitat and wildlife, including the northern spotted owl. Canopy closures now blot out sunlight across much of the region, reducing forage for deer, elk and ranchers’ cattle.

“We are pragmatists when it comes to restoration,” said Sean Stevens, executive director of the environmental group, Oregon Wild. Loss of the 29-year-old Malheur Lumber Co. mill would be “a sad turn of events,” he said.

Grant County has even offered the federal government what may be an unprecedented deal in hopes of keeping the mill open: a proposal to loan money budgeted for county roads to the cash-strapped Forest Service to finance more restoration, thus making logs available for the mill. The Forest Service doesn’t know if that’s feasible.

County landowners, at the same time, are offering to sell more private timber to the mill — trees previously withheld from timber sales because the economic winds have blown prices into a deep hole.

An ongoing shortage of timber from 1.7 million-acre Malheur National Forest continues to plague the mill. The local Forest Service budget has been too small to undertake forest restoration, cutting its supply.

There’s also an interesting sidebar about the changes in employment and volume harvested in Oregon.

Cheery Story: Bipartisan Support for Another Endangered Sawmill

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You know, in this hyperpartisanised atmosphere it is refreshing when Rs and Ds can work together. They seem to be doing this in states with what I call “endangered sawmills” including Colorado and now, Oregon.

Press Release here
Wyden, Merkley announce Malheur Lumber to postpone closure

Washington, D.C. – U. S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) announced on Tuesday that Malheur Lumber has agreed to remain open past its planned November closure, thanks to a commitment by the US Forest Service (USFS) to make more timber volume available on the Malheur national forest.

In response to requests from Senators Wyden and Merkley, the Governor, county government, and local community groups, Regional Forester Kent Connaughton, who oversees Region 6, including the Malheur National Forest, said the USFS will accelerate timber sales and take other steps to speed up forest restoration work and provide a supply of timber for local mills, in letters to Senators Wyden and Merkley.

“Ochoco Lumber is a vital part of the John Day community and their mill represents the kind of infrastructure we can’t afford to lose if we hope to restore eastern Oregon’s overstocked forests,” Wyden said. “We have plenty of hard work ahead of us, but I promise to keep fighting with the rest of the Oregon delegation to get the Forest Service and the mill what they need.”

“I’m thankful to Regional Forester Connaughton for his swift reaction that indicates the Forest Service will take urgent action to provide more timber, and to John Shelk for keeping his mill doors open on this John Day institution. I am also grateful to the others in the state and community that have stepped up and demonstrated their support of this mill,” Wyden said.

“Closure of the mill would be devastating,” said Merkley. “The livelihood of so many families, the broader Grant County economy, and the vitality of our forests are all on the line. Thus, this reprieve is joyous and welcome news indeed. It must be recognized, however, that more work needs to be done. We need to fully secure a long-term, sustainable supply of sawlogs with the full commitment to the planning and field resources necessary to make that happen.”

“I continue to work on all options to create jobs in our forests and forested communities and provide more timber for mills across Oregon,” said Representative Greg Walden (R-Ore.). “The crux of the problem is the need to reduce the regulatory gridlock that drives the cost of producing timber and jobs through the roof and largely prevents our land managers from doing work needed to improve forest health and create jobs in and value from our forests. Communities and businesses must have access to the natural resources that surround them to create jobs and reduce the risk and occurrence of wildfire.”

In light of the Forest Service letter (available here) as well as an outpouring of support for Malheur Lumber from the Oregon delegation, the Governor, county commissioners, the Blue Mountain Forest Partners collaborative and the John Day community, Shelk said Ochoco will put the mill closure on hold, at least for the next few months.

“This commitment is a good first step, and I’m thankful to Senator Wyden and the rest of the delegation for putting in the hard work that gives me the confidence to keep our mill running,” Shelk said. “Thanks to their efforts, and the outstanding community support over the past few weeks, we’ve authorized our foresters to buy enough public and private timber to keep the mill in operation past the planned November closure.”

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber: “Malheur Lumber is a key cog in the economy of eastern Oregon. I am gratified by the outpouring of support for Malheur Lumber and the Blue Mountain collaborative, and appreciate the work that the Forest Service and Senator Wyden are doing to keep this mill open. The state is working with Senator Wyden and the rest of the Oregon delegation to find solutions that will keep our vanishing mill infrastructure and jobs in place.”

It sounds like Ochoco Lumber employs about 80 folks, based on this news story. I couldn’t find the numbers on the company website, but it does seem to be locally owned (not multistate, nor multinational, it sounds barely multi-county)! They did have a link to the benefits here.

Thinning in the Sierra Nevada

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I tried my hand at some “digital thinning”, with a picture of the Stanislaus National Forest, above the Mokelumne River. I couldn’t really remove as many of the bigger trees as I should, without sacrificing photorealism. I did “enhance” some of the oaks, which is a keystone of the new paradigm of ecosystem wildlife values. I am sure there are some home habitats of ESA birds, here. There would also be some pockets of undisturbed forest, and maybe some bigger openings around the oaks.

Below is the original picture

I think we can all say that there is, indeed, some excess trees to thin out, in this stand.

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New Age Forestry Project in California

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This is an example of what our thinning projects look like, when completed. As you can see, the stand is still well-stocked, and ladder fuels have been removed. You can also see that the stand will be resilient and that all the logging slash has been removed, as well. In looking closer, I’m not seeing any damaged trees, as well. Additionally, no large trees ( over 30″ dbh ) were cut, unless they could fall and hit the adjacent highway.

This logging was done during this season, and work is continuing in other units. The project is quite visual, being all along a major Sierra Nevada highway. We call this style of project “thinning from below”. Any thoughts?

Will Peace Break Out in the US/Canada Softwood “Wars”?

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I like peace and deals, in general, as opposed to litigation…I like the optimism of this article from the Vancouver Sun. Thanks to Craig Rawlings, Forest Business Network, for this! Note the quote below: “we’re learning to work together rather than fight over litigation.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Although there’s little doubt U.S. agitators will continue to pursue these kinds of actions, the threat to U.S. producers from Canadian lumber exports is not what it was. The recession and U.S. housing crisis altered the dynamics of the market, as both lumber production and prices fell. Canada’s share of the U.S. market dropped to barely 25 per cent — exports of softwood lumber fell from $9.6 billion in 2004 to $2.6 billion in 2009. Many analysts now expect Canada’s average market share will not return to previous levels but rather hover around 27 per cent for years to come.

As Canada’s exports of softwood lumber to the U.S. declined, so too did Canada’s dependence on the U.S. market. In 2004, 81.1 per cent of Canada’s lumber exports were destined for the U.S; by 2010, the proportion was 58.7 per cent.

What happened is that Canada — and, for the most part, we’re talking about British Columbia, which accounts for nearly 60 per cent of Canada’s lumber exports — found a voracious new market in China.

Since 2003, B.C.’s softwood lumber exports to China have risen by 1,500 per cent; and the value of exports was up 60 per cent in 2011 alone, surpassing the $1-billion mark for the first time. Lumber sales to China have grown from $900 million in 2006 to $3.2 billion in 2011, representing growth in the share of exports from 6.6 per cent to 28.8 per cent.

John Allan, president of the B.C. Lumber Trade Council, explained that China is drawn by the attributes of wood — namely seismic performance, carbon sequestration and energy efficiency, adding that B.C. producers are unlikely to abandon the Chinese market no matter what happens south of the border.

“We learned a lesson in diversifying our markets to China and ignore that lesson at our peril,” he said. “We’ll need to keep an eye on the U.S. recovery and housing starts and that will dictate where negotiations go toward a new agreement.”

Another sea-change that will affect future negotiations is the warming relationship between Canadian and U.S. producers. They have found common cause in the promotion of wood and have joined forces to market it globally. The so-called checkoff system, developed over the last three years by the Binational Softwood Council (established by the Canadian and U.S. governments under the Softwood Lumber Agreement) and overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, imposes a charge on all lumber producers to fund a marketing scheme to promote the use of wood. “We’re learning how to work together versus fighting over litigation,” Allan said.

The reduced threat from exports, more diversified markets and a new spirit of cooperation will change the tenor of negotiations and their outcome.

It may even come to pass that no treaty with restrictions, quotas, tariffs and taxes will be necessary. Perhaps the risks and rewards of free trade will finally be extended to lumber, not only giving Canada access to the U.S. market but spreading the benefits of building with wood to the rest of the world.

Time for litigating forest restoration projects has ended : Editorial from Az Daily Sun

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Here’s a link. Below is an excerpt.

The Forest Service helped its cause by finally releasing its rationale for picking the Montana company for the initial 300,000-acre contract.

— Pioneer would hire about 500 people,

— It could get started just seven to eight months after contracts were signed

— It would make a variety of products (furniture parts, molding, flooring mimicking hardwoods) that would be diversified enough to sell consistently during recessions.

— It would have the advantage of stable fuel costs in turning branches and fine matter into biofuel as proposed.

That didn’t convince Pascal Berlioux of AZFRP, who sent out a three-page single-spaced email on the day that administrative appeals were due listing the reasons he thought his company would be a better choice. Whether it was price, risk, technical expertise or marketability, Berlioux insisted his was the better proposal. Personally, he noted, he had put six years of his life into the project, and some of his fellow board members had put up their life savings.

But in the end, Berlioux did not appeal, saying the Forest Service had made a nebulous “best value” judgment that it was unlikely to overturn. For the forest’s sake and the health of its host communities, Berlioux did the right thing by not appealing, and we in northern Arizona owe him a big thanks.

That still doesn’t rule out possible legal appeals by the Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and others with objections to the contract. Their main concerns appeared to be a fear that Pioneer would not be as collaborative a partner as AZFRP (it didn’t offer to pay for monitoring) and that it lacked relevant local experience. Also, its plan to convert biomass into cellulostic biodiesel fuel was untested, they said.

Those objections, however, amount to speculation. The reality is that both companies would have been good choices, but only one could win — there isn’t enough wood to support two wood processing mills over the next 20 to 30 years.

Each year of delay is another year that catastrophic crown fires could wipe out much of the forest resource and devastate local ecosystems. As it is, the Pioneer mill won’t be up and running for at least a year or more. There are no more legitimate excuses for delay, and we urge conservation groups to stay in the 4FRI process and see it through to a successful conclusion.

Note from Sharon: So what interested me was this statement: “The reality is that both companies would have been good choices, but only one could win — there isn’t enough wood to support two wood processing mills over the next 20 to 30 years.” Maybe not around Flag, but lots of other places there is. This seems to be one of the few places where there is more capacity than material.

COMMENTARY: It’s time to judge forest policy by its result, not by its intent- Rural Americans suffer while the Northwest Forest Plan fails to save owls

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Thanks to Bob Zybach for this one.. an op-ed in the Register Guard here.

COMMENTARY: It’s time to judge forest policy by its result, not by its intent
Rural Americans suffer while the Northwest Forest Plan fails to save owls

Published: (Sunday, May 27, 2012 04:25AM) Midnight, May 27

By Rob DeHarpport

For The Register-Guard

Failed federal policies implemented by unelected agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management during the past 30 to 40 years remind me of a quote from the late economist Milton Friedman: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

The Northwest Forest Plan enacted by President Clinton in 1994 may have had good intentions, but it has failed catastrophically.

According to Forest Service records, the volume of timber harvested on Forest Service lands declined from a peak in 1987 of 12.7 billion board feet to 4.8 billion board feet in 1994. That harvest further declined to 2.4 billion board feet in 2011. When the Northwest Forest Plan was adopted in 1994, harvest levels already had dropped by nearly two-thirds — and today are merely 19 percent of the peak harvest level of 1987.

Pacific Northwest forests in the spotted owl zone grow anywhere from 500 to 1,000 board feet per acre per year. The Northwest Forest Plan encompasses 23 million acres. Growth on those acres has been at least 16 billion board feet per year. During the past 18 years, the annual harvest has been only 3 percent of growth.

The resulting build-up of biomass in Northwest forests has led to catastrophic fires burning millions of acres. Spotted owl populations have crashed by 60 percent or more. The Northwest Forest Plan has failed to save owls and instead has caused the incineration of their habitat.

The Pacific Northwest is the premier timber-growing region in the world. Yet today, America is importing 40 percent of its softwoods from Canada.

Does this make any sense? We are in a prolonged period of high unemployment in America — and especially in Oregon, Washington and Northern California. Poverty in rural areas of the Northwest continues to fester.

More than 25 percent of rural Oregon families are on food stamps.

In Oakridge, 80 percent of our public school students qualify for free lunches based on family income.

The Oakridge School District now enrolls slightly more than 500 students, down from a high of nearly 1,200 just 30 years ago.

At least 44 businesses from the Oakridge-Westfir area have closed their doors since the late 1970s.

CEO Peter Pope of the shuttered Pope & Talbot mill in Oakridge said, “The spotted owl issue destroyed any chance to keep the Oakridge mill going.” Pope explained that a failed effort to save the species was the “death blow” to Oakridge.

These failed policies continue today. President Clinton promised that, “We must never forget the human element and local economies.” Guess what? Rural timber towns and their residents have been forgotten.

Local Forest Service officials are held hostage by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and the policies they have created. Increased local control and stewardship is the logical answer, yet this solution is unattainable in the current top-down bureaucratic structure.