timber

Investigating the Investigation: “Big Money Bought the Forests” I. What Story Would You Tell?

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Some of  the photos in this OOPro story seem unusually dark. There also look to be many sticks in this barren industrial forest. Is that really a sapling?

As my professors used to say when I’d critique something… “if you’d written the paper, you could have done it your way.”  Even if we agree on facts, calculations, or projections, they don’t necessarily lead to only one possible narrative.  One of the things I like to do on TWS is to explore different ways of looking at the same facts. So let’s look at the OPB/Oregonian/Propublica piece titled Big Money Bought the Forests:Small Logging Communities are Paying the Price.

In this case, the numbers aren’t really “facts” but calculations. I’m not enough of an economist to dig in to how they were calculated, but  Here’s a link to a piece describing it.

I will say this, though. The tagline on the webpage is “A data investigation by OPB, The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica  found that timber tax cuts have cost counties at least $3 billion in the past three decades”, but they also later explain, adding “Since then, the department estimates the total loss from forestland property taxes to be about $806 million.”  Since most states tax agricultural and forest land at lower rates, I’m not sure that adding this amount in is appropriate for this analysis, so I’ll call it “severance+.” Here’s Polk County’s explanation of the farm and forest deferrals.

I copied the analysis, and calculated a difference and a ratio of fed/severance+ losses for each county.  It would be appreciated if someone would check my figures. After a while of looking at them, I wondered if the differentials (between fed and severance+ losses) could be attributed to the proportion of federal to private land in each county.  I couldn’t find that, but I could find the % public land here. A problem with that data for our use here is that State land is also included.  Even so, there seems to be a high correlation between bad impacts to counties with lots of federal land from the fed payment loss, and bad impacts to counties with lots of private land from the severance+ tax loss. If someone has just the federal land %, I will fix the table.

You could conclude, as the authors did, that half the counties did just as badly from severance as they had from federal payment loss.

Half of the 18 counties in Oregon’s timber-dominant region lost more money from tax cuts on private forests than from the reduction of logging on federal lands, the investigation shows.

You could conclude that taken across counties, more was lost to Oregon counties from lost federal payments than from severance+.

You could conclude that some counties have had a really bad double whammy.  Douglas, Lane and Linn. It would have been interesting to interview people in those counties.

But I haven’t lived in Oregon for a long time, and never on the west side, so I’m hoping others will weigh in with other ideas and conclusions.

 

Estimated Revenue Losses in Oregon’s Western Counties Since 1991Est Fed Payment LossEst Severance+ Tax LossDifferenceRatio Fed/Sev%Public Land
Benton$51.7m$85.0m-$33m.6024.4
Clackamas$252.4m$94.1$158.32.6854.5
Clatsop *$-334.7k$170m-$170.3?29
Columbia$29.9m$135m-$105.1.228
Coos$88.2m$208.9m-$120.7.4228.8
Curry$162.1m$63.8$98.32.5461.7
Douglas$968.7m$355.0m$613.72.7252.2
Hood River$68.2m$13.7m$54.54.9774.9
Jackson$414.6m$72.4m$342.25.7252.1
Josephine$223.9m$21.1m$202.810.6168
Lane$981.1m$368.4m$612.72.6658.5
Lincoln$108.3m$122.1m$-13.8.8834.6
Linn$287.0m$189.6m$97.41.5139.6
Marion$116.3m$51.8m$64.52.2529.2
Polk$28.7m$106.0m-$77.3.2711.9
Tillamook$63.6m$72.1m-$8.5.8873
Washington$9.1m$93.4m-83.9.1014.8
Yamhill$25.3m$82.2m-56.9.3116.5
$1607.9

*Clatsop County’s federal payments are estimated to have increased slightly since 1991.

Region 1’s No-Bid Sales- Numbers Differ From Garrity’s Letter in Helena Independent Record

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UPDATE: Matthew pointed out in a comment that Garrity was referring to the Forest Service as a whole, not Region 1.   Now whether the no-bids of the entire US, from Alaska to National Forests of Florida is relevant to the discussion of what is going on in Montana,  is up to each reader to decide for hizzerself. BUT if you are interested in Region 1’s no-bid, here it is, plus some additional explanation from Region 1.

 

2016 Outlier Explanation: 42 million board feet of the volume is attributed to one sale that went no bid twice (so it counted twice). That one was on the Lolo. Because it was so abnormally large and complex a contract, it took several months to fix the contract problems, hence the reason it sold in Fiscal Year 2017 while the no bids occurred in Fiscal Year 2016. In short, the abnormal size of that one sale is skewing the data and could be considered an outlier. Of more imporance in FY16: the majority of the remaining volume that went no bid to be sold in later fiscal years (12 million board feet total) was on two separate sales subject to litigation.

1) Tower Fire Salvage on the IPNF and 2) Stonewall Project on Helena-Lewis & Clark. The litigation caused further time needed to re-offer and design the sales, and particularly in the case of #2 resulted in delays significant enough to no longer make portions of the sale economically viable. The original message stated that only 11.3 million board feet of all the volume offered in the past five years was not sold. 45% of that was contained in these same two sales, linked to litigation and associated delays.

So litigation itself can lead to delays and no bids.  IMHO, this additional information doesn’t support Garrity’s argument/implication that the industry doesn’t really want/won’t bid on the timber.

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Below is the original post.

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In May of this year, Steve Wilent asked this question in this post.

In Garrity’s letter, he says, “Last year the Forest Service [Region 1] received no bids on 17.5% of the timber offered, up from 15.6% that received no bids in 2018. That’s 615 million board feet that weren’t cut in 2019 because the timber industry did not bid on it.”

Altemus replies that “This is a gross distortion of the facts.”

Anyone know the facts?

Also, timber sales may get zero bids for many reasons — too far from a mill, poor or undesirable species, unfavorable terms, and so on — that have little to do with a region’s overall timber supply.

So I asked the folks in Region 1 this question and received the answer last week. I suspect the reason Altemus didn’t provide these data is that they were not available under the timeframe she had for the latter. Thank you Region 1!

What stands out is that in the past five years, Region 1 has:

  1. Offered a total of 1.8 Billion Board Feet
  2. Of that 1.8 Billion, only 83 Million Board Feet received No Bids (5%)
  3. All but 11.3 Million Board Feet offered over the past 5 years was sold either by the end of the same fiscal year initially receiving no bids, or in the next fiscal.  That means less than 1% of all the volume offered in the Region over the past 5 years was not sold.

We did not separate out sales that went no bid twice, so there is some double counting of the same volume.  The largest example was a 21 MMBF sale on the Lolo that went no bid twice in 2016, selling on the third offer in 2017.  Accounting for these multi-offers would further reduce the total volume that went no bid in the Region.

Here’s the table that they provided.  As you see, some can originally go no-bid and be reoffered either in the same or a later fiscal year.  I can see that for 2019, 16.9 is fairly close to the 17.5 that Garrity claimed. However, his statement that “they weren’t cut because industry didn’t bid on it” doesn’t really fit with the fact that they (industry) ultimately did (2.2 no bid at the end of the fiscal year).  Unless I’m misunderstanding, if industry buys it, even later in the FY, they will ultimately cut it.  And the 15.6 for 2018 that Garrity cites in his letter is difficult to relate to the 2.4 in this table. Puzzling. (Region 1 sent another table and I’m having trouble fitting it in a post, and I’d also like to graph it. Would someone in the TSW community be willing to help me out? Thanks in advance.)

REGION 1 PAST FIVE YEARS NO BID DATA (MMBF)
Fiscal YearTotal Volume OfferedTotal Volume – No BidsTotal Volume – Reoffered and SoldTotal Volume – Reoffered and SoldNo Bids – End of FiscalNo Bids – Net% of Total Offer Going No Bid% of Total Offer No Bid – Net
Same FiscalLater Fiscal
2019437.716.914.722.072.20.14%0.03%
2018377.62.40.011.762.40.61%0.17%
2017359.51.00.010.951.00.00%0.01%
2016302.059.34.7844.0754.510.520%3.46%
2015310.73.43.310.050.10.01%0.01%

TIMOs and REITS- An Intro by Cliff Hickman

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Many of us federal lands forest types haven’t followed how the transfer of lands from timber industry to TIMO’s and REIT’s developed.  It was discussed a bit in the recent Oregonian article on the timber industry in SW Oregon.

My intention here was to find an accessible explanation and to provide the space in the comments for others to provide their own favorite papers, memories and thoughts.  So that if someone wants to know about the topic, this post will ultimately end up being a good place to start.

This is the terrain of forest economists- the folks who analyze legions of (not particularly exciting) numbers so the rest of us don’t have to.  And the Forest Service has had some excellent forest economists, including Cliff Hickman, a former colleague of mine in the Policy Analysis shop. Cliff’s work is clearly written, and goes to the heart of the questions I had Thanks, Cliff!

Here’s a link.

Reasons for Changing Ownership Pattern:

The reasons for the changes in private forestland ownership that have occurred in the US may be viewed from at least three different perspectives: 1) that of the former VIFPCs that elected to sell-off all or part of their forestland holdings,6 2) that of the TIMOs and the institutional investors they represent, and 3) that of the former VIFPCs that elected to restructure and create timber REITs.

Key motives and factors influencing the VIFPCs that elected to sell-off some or all of their forestlands included the following:7

  • Relatively weak financial performance and the need to improve returns to stockholders. – Stockholder returns over the 10-year period 1995 to 2005 averaged +6.2% for the “Forestry and Paper Group” as compared to +12.1% for the S&P 500, and +13.1% for the Dow Jones Industrial. (04) To ensure continued flow of investment capital into the industry, it was essential that stockholder returns be increased – and the sale of timber holdings was seen as a way to achieve this end.

  • Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP): – Related to the preceding factor, GAAP for “Sub-Chapter C Corporations” precludes such entities, when it comes to computing their return on investment, from recognizing any appreciation in the value of the timberland assets they hold – only profit realized from the harvesting and processing of trees may be considered. This treatment contrasts with the conventions that apply to “Sub-Chapter S” and “Limited Liability” corporations, to TIMOs, and to REITs. (01, 12)

  • Rising Forestland Values: – Related to both of the preceding factors, throughout much of the US forestland values have been rising in response to what has been characterized as “the grand tidal wave of sprawl now sweeping over the nation.” (09) As forestland values rose, so did the value of what was arguably the primary asset held by the VIFPCs. Although GAAP prevented these companies from recognizing this appreciation in value in their formal accounting, it didn’t stop them from “cashing in” through the sale of some of their lands – especially tracts with good access, proximity to urban areas, water frontage, scenic value, or outdoor recreation potential.

  • Consolidations made to enhance international competitiveness also increased debt burdens. – Over the last 10 to 15 years, the VIFPCs in the US have faced increasing competitive pressure from low cost timber suppliers and forest products manufacturers in other parts of the world. In response, the domestic industry went through a period of substantial consolidation. Oftentimes significant debt was incurred to finance these consolidations. The sale of timber holdings was seen as a way to get this debt off corporate balance sheets. (01)

  • Rethinking of the long held belief that ownership of timberlands was essential to ensure future availability of an essential raw material at reasonable cost. – Historically, as previously noted, a major rationale for the acquisition of timberlands by the VIFPCs was to gain some degree of control over the conditions of availability of an essential raw material. During the last 10 to 15 years, however, many firms came to believe they could confidently rely on open market sources of timber – both domestic and international.8 (01, 04)

  • Federal income tax policies. – While no doubt unintentional, federal income tax policies also appear to have encouraged many US forest products companies to divest themselves of their timber holdings. Of greatest importance is the fact that the traditional VIFPCs are classified as “Sub-Chapter C Corporations” for income tax purposes. For this type of entity, any profits obtained from the sale of timber are taxed twice – once at the corporate level (35%), and once at the stockholder level when dividends are disbursed (15%). The practical effect of this tax policy is that investors who own both manufacturing plants and forestland often recoup as little as 50 cents out of every dollar of profit made from cutting trees whereas investors who own just forestland can normally pocket at least 85 cents out of every dollar.9 (01, 04, 07, 14)

The Daniel Boone National Forest Response on Greenwood Vegetation Project

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From the Daniel Boone stream buffer report.

 

I really appreciate the Daniel Boone National Forest for presenting “their side of the story” on the project discussed previously here.

 

The Daniel Boone National Forest wanted to follow up to your story on the Greenwood project published May 18, 2020.

We appreciate Kentucky Heartwood for their interest in forest management on the Daniel Boone National Forest (DBNF) and welcomed the opportunity to review their April 27, 2020 report outlining logging concerns within the Greenwood Vegetation Management Project. After reviewing their report, the DBNF resurveyed areas and created two reports on their findings. The reports can be found on the Greenwood Project webpage under the “Post-Decision” tab: https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=44085

Kentucky Heartwood’s report highlighted two main concerns: 1. Streams were classified as ephemeral, but should be classified as intermittent, changing timber harvest areas; and 2. Too many trees per acre have been, or will be, harvested.

In response to item one, the DBNF forest hydrologist and district biologist reviewed the stands in question. Stream segment in stand 5062-40 appears to have some intermittent channel characteristics for about 250’ and would be better classified as intermittent rather than ephemeral for that section. Because of this change, the DBNF will remark the area so no trees within 50 feet on either side of this additional intermittent section will be harvested. Stream segments questioned in stand 5072-09 were accurately identified and properly marked. No change to the current prescribed treatment is necessary for this stand.

In response to item two, DBNF certified silviculturists and timber cruisers conducted a statistically valid random plot survey of the after-harvest basal area (BA) and found the surveyed units are within the parameters prescribed by the Greenwood project decision for retention of residual trees.  We have determined the timber identified for removal is consistent with the analysis conducted and the decision issued for this project.

Sharon’s note: on the project webpage you can also find the entire history, including details of the one objection by Heartwood and the response.

Has the Helena-Lewis and Clark got jobs for you

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source: gustavofrazao / Getty

The Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest revised forest plan was released recently and is now in the objection period.  A local newspaper decided to profile the benefits of the revised forest plan to “jobs” – 400 new ones are projected as a result of the revised plan.  As a former forest economist, I know how meaningless the economic analysis of forest plans can be, and this seemed a little far-fetched, so I thought I would take a look at it.

The EIS discloses the number of jobs resulting from recreation, grazing, timber, minerals, transfer payments and Forest Service expenditures.  That last item (which I think is mostly federal employees) makes up about half of the total employment benefit depending on alternative.  Actually, the number of jobs is the same for all of these categories in all alternatives, except for jobs related to timber harvest.  There, the preferred alternative (F) increases the timber jobs by five times over current levels (EIS Table 243, I get an increase of 497 from current levels), while roughly doubling the projected timber harvest volume over that resulting since 1980.  Elsewhere the EIS says, “An estimated 804 private industry timber jobs exist in this multi-county area.”  That doesn’t match the 119 shown in this table, but would mean the Forest would only increase industry employment by 50% or so, but still …  My point is just that this is suspicious and confusing.

The reality is that jobs created by Forest Service outputs are usually a very small part of a regional economy (the total number of jobs in this region is over 100,000, so that the total timber-related jobs is less than 1%) and the actual number of jobs will usually vary because of many factors that that Forest Service has no control over.  This is a good example of stuffing an EIS with information that does not help with the decision, and in fact may confuse it.

Then there is the question of why should we care.  The “regulatory framework” for social and economic benefits (p. 189 of the EIS) provides no authority for “creating jobs.”  (I doubt if there is one for doing something about “poverty levels” either, as Mac McConnell intimated here.)   The “findings required by other laws” included in the draft ROD do not include any related to social or economic growth.   And under NEPA, creating jobs would be a bad thing, since indirect adverse effects “may include growth inducing effects and other effects related to induced changes in the pattern of land use, population density or growth rate, and related effects on air and water and other natural systems, including ecosystems” (40 CFR §1508.8).

Of course, considering a specific effect on a specific industry or employer, might be a reasonable and relevant factor to consider for a long-term planning decision, if it were related to meaningful criteria about the “right” number of jobs and why, and properly disclosed in a record of decision.  I’m just not seeing that here, in this draft ROD:

The Plan also contributes to social and economic sustainability by providing plan components that collectively support an array of public benefits including jobs and income, … (p. 20)

This statement would have been true for any alternative, so the economic analysis contributed nothing.  It’s unfortunate that this was picked out as “news,” giving the wrong message about what our national forests are for, as well as raising questions about what is really going to happen.

More Reflections on the Black Hills and Open Peer Review: Second Guest Post by Frank Carroll

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Thanks to the Norbeck Society for providing links to the Friday videoconference! In case you haven’t been following the different threads , here’s a link to the info, including an agenda and list of speakers. It’s open to the public via the web. It’s from 1-3 MT on Friday May 1. That’s today. Now on to Frank’s second post.

Sharon Friedman writes “One of the interesting things about this paper is the peer review process- internal, external, and stakeholders and the public….I think it’s a great idea to have a variety of perspectives. Some of the most rigorous scientific reviews I’ve seen are when people with different opinions, interests, and experiences on the ground review a paper.”

Our experience with direct engagement of interested and affected publics in forest management began in earnest in 1970 when then-Southwestern Regional Forester William “Bill” Hurst wrote a letter to all hands extolling the brave new world of public involvement in forest management. The idea of direct public involvement didn’t come to Bill in the dark of night. As in our own time, the Forest Service was working hard to remain relevant in the sea of competing public interests, Congressional distractions, and Secretary-level politics that whipsaw the agency in every Epoch from 1895 until today.

The idea was to capitalize on the reputation the Forest Service then had as what authors Clark and McCool described as a “Superstar Agency” in their seminal work, Staking Out the Terrain. Hurst and his peers reasoned that involving the public directly in decision-making would build a cadre of political support that would support Forest Service management into the future and speak for the agency in political fights down the road. After all, people trusted us. Kids wanted to be forest rangers. Lassie ruled the airwaves. Capitalize on all the good will, Hurst reasoned. History will note that Bill’s expectations were earnest in intent, naïve in conception, and not at all what he envisioned in terms of real outcomes. Inviting the public into the agency house resulted in land and resource management planning and all the many iterations of public policy and high drama we have known since 1980 when LRMP really took off and the world changed.

The idea to involve our scientists and their research in what I view as an ill-considered and potentially disastrous, open-ended “peer review” process with any and all hands commenting is a direct descendant of Bill’s effort in 1970 and driven by the same desires that somehow involving the public in our planning and management processes, and, now, in our science and data, will somehow elevate our work. As we learned in 1980 and subsequent years, our shared agency hopes that opening the document to some form of “public peer review” will build a strong political consensus for the report and its conclusions is wrong. It will not. It will, however, compromise Forest Service science in unlooked for ways that may ultimately damage both the data and the scientists. Public involvement in this paper will not change the outcome of future decisions on forest management in the Black Hills in any way.

It’s a hard lesson made harder in the knowledge that “peer review” from all hands was not an idea supported by or even considered by the authors. The principals in this case are useful pawns as various levels of the agency and outside interests attempt to legitimize the conclusions in the report. The thinking is that if enough outside interests (like the Norbeck Society, Forest Service retirees, and others) weigh in and are familiar with the report and its projections, the weight of political power will swing away from the current timber industry in favor of timber volume reductions. For a host of reasons, that will not happen.

Jim Neiman’s monthly electric bill is $30,000, month in, month out, and won’t change barring any unforeseen events. The timber industry including Jack Baker and Jim Neiman support thousands of jobs and hundreds of families in two states. The combined economic clout of a robust and creative forest products industry are critical contributors to well-being in the southwest corner of South Dakota and eastern Wyoming and that industry enjoys the full support of the President, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Chief of the Forest Service, the Regional Forester, Senator Thune, Senator Rounds, Congressman Dusty Johnson, and every community leader who counts across two states.

In addition, the industry has operated in an unbroken cycle of success since at least 1885 providing timber and other forest products for the Hills and beyond. They have continued to do so up to and including this year. When there are blips in production, those blips are products of market conditions, not Forest Service actions with the glaring exception of 2000 when agency machinations gone wrong resulted in zero timber offered or sold. The combined experience of leadership at all levels has been that the timber industry can and does take care of itself using a combination of market forces, entrepreneurial skill and creativity, tenacity, and dedication to sustainable forestry over time.

The report paints a picture that is contrary to our combined experience in Black Hills forestry. The message is not trusted and there is no agreement on potential outcomes or conclusions. In such a situation the status quo will rule the day absent any surety that is should not.

The Forest Service must be highly circumspect in inviting public participation in scientific analyses and agency management, especially when the likelihood is high that public expectations for change from some quarters will not be met. In this case, the status quo will rule coming decisions related to ASQ and that’s OK. The problem is actually self-regulating. Either the timber industry is right and they will continue to use their skill, creativity, and market forces to make a living and provide forest management, or they will fail to do so, also because of market forces quite apart from Forest Service aspirational objectives. Please take heed, RMRS…you may think inviting “peer review” today looks good, but wait until they are editing your text and bar graphs to fit with their personal perspectives…your political scientific reports will frustrate you more than you can know.

In my opinion, the correct focus of the agency should be to compile data, provide analysis of current management and alternatives to it, and work to merge competing interests to the best of their ability. The Forest Service has no business trying to strong-arm the timber industry. A sketchy “peer review” of data and analysis is not helpful.

Additionally, the rise of the use of “unplanned fire in the right place at the right time” and “reintroducing wildfire to fire-deficit ecosystems,” or “forest management by applied wildfire,” has endangered the agency’s moral high ground to try to limit or control proven, traditional, systematic, forest management programs like the sale of federal timber. The timber sale program is a controlled disturbance agent well understood by most foresters. No one knows what the outcome of applied wildfire will be through time. I merely point this out to inform the complexity of the discussion. There is a high level of distrust in Forest Service forest management exacerbated by various attempts to (inappropriately) involve the public, on the one hand, and exclude the public on the other (there has been no public process to disclose the cumulative effects of management by wildfire or “managed fire” as it is called today).

Frank Carroll is managing partner of Professional Forest Management, LLC, PFMc, a full service forestry and grassland consultancy. Frank and partner Van Elsbernd have been working since 2012 to understand and help shape wildland fire policy. Frank is the principal author of the wildfire impact analysis for the Mount Rushmore Independence Day Environmental Assessment. PFMc has helped over 600 clients recover almost $600 million in damages from wildfires across the West. www.wildfirepros.com [email protected]

Another Point of View on the Black Hills Report-Guest Post by Frank Carroll

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I think this is the kind of photo Frank is talking about in his post.
Thanks to Frank Carroll for this guest post! Here’s some background on him. He is another retiree who worked on the Black Hills. Note: this discussion (and the previous thread on the report, and perhaps The Smokey Wire itself) should make you wary about any claims that “Forest Service employees think” or “Forest Service retirees think”. It’s interesting that we managed to live with each other and get along, for the most part, with our range of views.

Frank questions whether the report itself (on LTSY) can entirely answer the question “what, where and when should timber be cut on the Black Hills.” This is the first of two guest posts by Frank.

Russ (Graham), Mike (Battaglia), and Theresa (Jain) have done their usual stellar job as scientists in reviewing the record, compiling appropriate data, applying expert analysis, and disclosing their conclusions and answers to a set of specific questions about maintaining a nondeclining even flow of timber and sustained yield of timber over time. These great scientists were asked how much timber is growing across the forest, how much is available for harvest, and how do those answers line up with the current allowable sale quantity and current timber management plans. They answered fully and to the best of their ability.

They were not asked to assess what the timber market has in store in terms of innovation, new technologies, new wood processing equipment and techniques, the pluses and minuses of various levels of timber industry outputs, or personal and personnel factors, market factors, or political factors that would inform strong direction to the industry from the Forest Service as everyone tries to navigate the future.

As we would hope and expect, our scientists did a solid job of answering a specific set of questions based on a specific set of expectations and assumptions, and did not swan off into territory beyond their training and understanding.

Black Hills Timber Growth and Yield is a solid piece of work and the authors are to be congratulated.

Black Hills Timber Growth and Yield does not comprehensively enlighten our understanding about how to move forward with the timber industry in the Black Hills.

Anecdotal data and our experience show that our timber industry can and will successfully negotiate the challenges of the future and maintain a strong and vibrant presence in the Hills.

The FIA data suggests, because it is not a one-for-one inventory of trees, that our forest is dying faster than it is growing and that the current ASQ is not sustainable.

The timber industry argues that we know we can cut trees and keep a viable forest industry going. We don’t know that we’re actually running out of trees. It’s theoretical. It’s a model. It’s imperfect science, the thinking goes.

In any event, there is not sufficient data and no comprehensive answers to many related questions about factors that influence the success of our timber program that would settle the unsettled question; are we overcutting the Black Hills?

Our choices are to substantially revise our allowable sale quantity to line up with Russ’ report, or to choose the status quo and see what the future brings.

In any event the Forest will abide. Either it will continue to meet the demand for trees or it won’t. We’ll either continue to have a viable and healthy timber industry or we won’t.

The principal players won’t change and the report won’t change their minds. The biological forest is cooperating as it always has and seems destined to continue to grow trees. We don’t know what fires and bugs are planning but it doesn’t matter. It’s a self-regulating system. As the nature and form of forest structure changes, the industry will adapt and change to find new opportunities. The Forest Service must not stand in the way of this natural process of various forces experimenting, testing, and finding a way forward.

We are not in the equivalent of a natural pandemic where we must decide to crash our industry. We can and will maintain as much of the status quo as we can and see what’s in store for us all. We need our industry, our industry needs us, and those are factors Russ, Mike, and Theresa could not assess.

All of this is, or course, my humble opinion having participated in the politics and practice of forestry for many decades.

I am reminded of old photos of the Black Hills at the turn of the last Century. The hills and ridges are denuded of timber as far as the human eye can see, or the camera record. And, yet, here we are.

Congratulations on a report well done.

Frank Carroll is managing partner of Professional Forest Management, LLC, PFMc, a full service forestry and grassland consultancy. Frank and partner Van Elsbernd have been working since 2012 to understand and help shape wildland fire policy. Frank is the principal author of the wildfire impact analysis for the Mount Rushmore Independence Day Environmental Assessment. PFMc has helped over 600 clients recover almost $600 million in damages from wildfires across the West. www.wildfirepros.com [email protected]

National Forest Covid Timber Sale Extensions: A Few Views

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Credit Esther Honig / Harvest Public Media
Sawmills are more high-tech than they used to be. At Montrose (Colorado), working as efficiently as possible helps the facility compete directly with Canada.
Let’s look at the idea of timber contract extensions due to Coronavirus. First, let’s look at the Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition.
I first ran across these folks when Tyson Bertone-Riggs spoke on a WGA panel, and since then I’ve been impressed by their work. This is from their April Newsletter.

Timber Markets

Another emerging issue is the risk that the slowdown of the timber market poses to our industry partners. Although the Department of Homeland Security considers the wood products industry “critical infrastructure” and is still allowed to operate, the reduced market for wood products is a threat to the financial stability of many logging companies and mills. While the Department of Agriculture has issued a Finding of Significant Overriding Interest to grant extensions to timber sale contracts, the same grace has not yet been granted to purchasers who hold stewardship contracting “integrated resource stewardship contracts” (IRSC). In a normal year one of the benefits of an IRSC is that it requires implementation on a faster timeline than a traditional timber sale contract, but such a requirement is not feasible under the current circumstances. RVCC has urged Department and agency leadership to extend the same contracting extensions to industry partners involved in stewardship contracts.

The second is an article by Bobby Magill of Bloomberg Press titled “More Logging in National Forests on Trump Anti-Virus Agenda.” Despite the headline, which sounds like it’s not really about the extension, it’s worth reading. One of the tags is “Environmentalists see move as a back-door approach to prop up industry.” I don’t know how “back-door” it is… Anyway, I think it might be an interesting media analysis experiment. I’d be interested in cases where environmental groups are interviewed about other Covid efforts to support industries. I haven’t seen it for the marijuana industry nor the recreation industry, and we don’t usually talk about “propping up” industries who are suffering right now. I thought we’d left the Darwinian capitalism model in the Covid dust.

Jim Furnish is quoted:

The contract extensions are “very unusual” but “innocuous,” said Jim Furnish, who served as Forest Service deputy chief in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

Timber contracts have time limits when timber must be removed from national forests, or the contractor loses the right to cut trees, Furnish said. When circumstances occur beyond a timber company’s control, it’s the Forest Service’s responsibility to provide relief, he said.

“This is a concession to industry so as not to do further harm as related to their contractual obligations,” Furnish said.

But the administration is playing favorites, being generous to the timber industry while doing nothing yet to support other industries that rely on national forests, including recreation, said Josh Hicks, assistant director for policy and planning for the Wilderness Society.

“I would like to think that the administration would be trying to find ways to be supportive of all the different stakeholders and members of the public during the pandemic, not making sure that a single industry is being taken care of,” Hicks said.

I’m having trouble thinking what that would look like (the equivalent of timber sale extensions), since I don’t know the ins and outs of recreation permitting. Allowing more people per permit when outfitter-guiding opens back up? Concessionaires extending their permits or raising prices?

Mt. Hood (lack of) science loses in 9th Circuit

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The way courts approach scientific controversy is a common thread on this blog.  We happen to have a perfect example from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (link to the opinion included) last week.  And it happens to involve the science of “variable density thinning” to reduce wildfire threats, another popular topic here.

The Project is the Crystal Clear Restoration Project on the Mt.  Hood National Forest.  The stated primary purpose of the Project is to reduce the risk of wildfires and promote safe fire-suppression activities.  It would use “variable density thinning” to address wildfire concerns, where selected trees of all sizes would be removed.  According to the plaintiffs, it  would encompass nearly 12,000 acres and include almost 3000 acres of logging of mature and old-growth forests along with plans to build or re-open 36 miles of roads.  The court held that an EIS was required because of scientific controversy about the effects of variable density thinning on what plaintiffs characterized as “mature, moist forest.”  The court also found that the Forest failed to show that cumulative effects would not be significant.

In both cases, the court found that the Forest “did not engage” with the information provided by the plaintiffs after, “The plaintiffs, especially Bark, got people out into the landscape and spent thousands of hours collecting information about what was going on in the land and gave that information to the Forest Service,” said attorney Brenna Bell, who spent four years on the case.  Failing to engage is a common reason for the Forest Service failing to win in court, especially when under pressure to meet “timber volume targets imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration.”

The EA stated that the Project would assertedly make the treated areas “more resilient to perturbations such as . . . largescale high-intensity fire occurrence because of the reductions in total stand density.”  Plaintiffs had provided “substantial expert opinion” that disputed that outcome.  As plaintiffs point out in their victory notice, here is how the court viewed it:

“Oregon Wild pointed out in its EA comments that “[f]uel treatments have a modest effect on fire behavior, and could even make fire worse instead of better.” It averred that removing mature trees is especially likely to have a net negative effect on fire suppression. Importantly, the organization pointed to expert studies and research reviews that support this assertion

Oregon Wild also pointed out in its EA comments that fuel reduction does not necessarily suppress fire. Indeed, it asserted that “[s]ome fuel can actually help reduce fire, such as deciduous hardwoods that act as heat sinks (under some conditions), and dense canopy fuels that keep the forest cool and moist and help suppress the growth of surface and ladder fuels . . . .” Oregon Wild cited more than ten expert sources supporting this view.”

Even the fuels report by the Forest Service acknowledged the possibility of increased fire severity. The court held (emphasis added):

“In its responses to these comments and in its finding of no significant impact, the USFS reiterated its conclusions about vegetation management but did not engage with the substantial body of research cited by Appellants. Failing to meaningfully consider contrary sources in the EA weighs against a finding that the agency met NEPA’s “hard look” requirement as to the decision not to prepare an EIS. This dispute is of substantial consequence because variable density thinning is planned in the entire Project area, and fire management is a crucial issue that has wide-ranging ecological impacts and affects human life.”

The opinion is short and worth reading as a good example of how not to approach NEPA effects analysis (i.e. “let’s make this fit into an EA instead of an EIS”).  The court cited 9th Circuit precedent for this requirement: “To demonstrate a substantial dispute, appellants must show that “evidence from numerous experts” undermines the agency’s conclusions.” The court is not choosing the science; only faulting the Forest Service for ignoring conflicting views that it found rose to a level of scientific controversy.  Under NEPA, evidence of scientific controversy requires an EIS to fully explore how the use of that science may be important to determining environmental impacts.

Black Hills Timber Growth and Yield Draft General Technical Report- Including Stakeholders/Tribes/Public in Peer Review

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Thanks to the Norbeck Society for posting a link to this recent draft report on the Black Hills as part of the comments on Steve’s post yesterday.

One of the interesting things about this paper is the peer review process- internal, external, and stakeholders and the public- the review period is from 3/15 to 4/15. I think it’s a great idea to have a variety of perspectives. Some of the most rigorous scientific reviews I’ve seen are when people with different opinions, interests, and experiences on the ground review a paper.

A key point from page 4.

These findings are dependent on estimates of standing live volume, tree growth rates, and especially mortality rates disclosed by Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data. Future climate, weather, mountain pine beetle activity, and wildfire are unknown and potential forest dynamics and growth can only be inferred from past conditions.

These are almost the exact words I used in another thread- perhaps these scientists’ inclination is that the future may not be like the past, but it’s the best data we have. Perhaps that’s a disciplinary perspective, or the effect of watching trees grow and views about the future change over the latst 40 years or so. The reason I’m pointing this out is that scientists from different disciplines or inclination might have chosen to try to predict future impacts of insects, fire, climate and so on, and then claimed that those projections/guesses/assumptions were the “best science.” Since this is an important topic to a wide array of stakeholders, in my experience, concerns about the future might be better dealt with through some group scenario discussion/planning exercise.