Defining “Logging”in the Fuel Treatment Context

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Burning piles to reduce fuels,, Dixie National Forest, Utah

Fuel treatments are one of those controversies in which there are dueling “ideas about things”. One of these is that “logging is bad from a fire standpoint, even in fuel treatment projects.” Those of us who work with things, and not “ideas about things,” see individual projects with individual prescriptions, and not necessarily through words like “logging.” It’s not clearly defined, and so it’s hard to say anything meaningful about it. I’m not so naive as to not think that people pick emotionally charged words specifically for their impact, but for the purposes of discussion, leaving things undefined often leads to us talking past each other.

When we worked on the Colorado Roadless Rule, we tried to clarify what people mean, and what they want and don’t want in terms of mechanical treatments. So we talked about “tree cutting” because there are so many possible activities after trees are cut.

Here are some. Readers can add as they have seen and worked on prescriptions.
1. Tree cutting. Simply felling trees and not removing or burning them. This prescription does not treat fuels, I just included it because people do it for non-fuel reasons.
2. Tree cutting and removal to piles to be burnt on site
a) small trees and brush only
b) large trees thinned and other ladder fuels cut
(these do not need roads per se, but may need equipment on site to move trees to piles. Of course, some people might define “land which is crossed by equipment” as “temporary roads.” Yes, there is a similar court case.) Once on a silviculture field trip in the 80’s to the Lake Tahoe Basin, I saw firewood-sized pieces removed via wheelbarrow.
3. Tree cutting with large trees sent to the mill and smaller trees and brush piled and burned.(Need temp roads to send logs to a mill)
4. Tree cutting with fuels chipped and left in understory or burned. See. for example, Fuel Bed Alterations by Thinning, Chipping, and Prescription Fire in a Sierra Nevada Mixed Conifer Stand
5. Others

You can imagine other variations and mixtures of these possibilities, all with different actual physical things happening on the ground. Environmental impacts are caused by physical alterations, and those absolutely site-specific. So when people say “logging causes…” it is a science “situation that shouts watch out!”

When we were working on the Colorado Roadless Rule, “logging” was just not specific enough for us to get a mental image of what people wanted or did not want. In fact, if we think about the western US with different soils, climate, and so on, it would be impossible to generalize about what is best for fuel treatment, or even what is economically feasible. When people use the term “logging,” I think they’re talking about 3) mostly, but if the choice is burning or selling thinned trees, why wouldn’t we sell them? Especially since we use (lots of) them, and import them from other countries (thank you, Canadians!). Especially since burning in place gives off particulates without scrubbers, can only be done at certain times of the year, and sends carbon into the atmosphere more quickly than if the log gets turned into products. All of these possibilities can only be prescribed based on local conditions.

Most folks I know, and whose work I have posted, have identified smaller-sized material in California as unsalable anyway, leading to needing lotsa bucks to do fuel treatments. So if we can sell some trees, somewhere, why not? What are folks afraid of? That the FS will permit forest industry do cutting that isn’t helpful for fuel treatment? Can we talk about how reasonable that fear is in 2018?

If you want to get an idea of how different fuels can be, check out this interactive photo digital series map put out by the Forest Service.

Don’t Feed the Dragon: Trump Tweets, Forest Fires and a Few Responses

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Cranston Fire Nighttime

Forest fires that kill people and destroy communities are bad. Simply and absolutely. What interests me is watching the Trump/California blame game and how it’s covered. In case you haven’t been following this, President Trump said that poor State forest management practices are at least partially to blame. Here’s the argument as depicted by the WaPo:

President Trump has alternated between offering sympathy for displaced people and firefighters, and lashing out at California’s leaders over what he deemed poor forest management.

“With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart!” he tweeted Sunday morning, echoing a refrain that he has frequently leveled at California officials and threatening to withhold federal money.

Officials shot back that increasingly destructive fires are a result of global warming, which dry out vegetation and turn large swaths of grassland into a tinderbox.

A spokesman for Gov. Brown said that more federal forest land has burned than state land, adding that the state has expanded its forestry budget while the Trump administration has cut its budget for forest services.

My question: why respond to/take seriously Trump tweets? All of us know “it’s more complicated than either side depicts.” In fact, are “sides” a function of Trump or a function of media coverage?

Also, I think we need to look at when forest fires are blamed on climate change and what happens when it is framed that way. It sounds like “there’s nothing we can do about it except ideas for decreasing climate change.” Which seems kind of silly since we had wildfires and fuel treatments and prescribed burning way before climate change was an issue. And it’s confusing too because if people want to sue power companies over sparks starting wildfires, or people are in jail for starting wildfires, should they get a pass because it’s really climate change? How best to apportion blame, and what might be the results?

As to climate, I like to do a thought experiment. What if it was 0%, 50%, or 100% caused by humans? Would that matter? Even if it were 100% caused by humans (which we absolutely don’t and can’t know), and we stopped doing all the carbon, land use and so on activities, it would not turn around on a dime. Which means. regardless of our beliefs and/or uncertainties, that we are stuck with the current situation, and we need to work with each other to do what needs to be done to protect communities. Trump isn’t helping, but let’s not feed the dragon.

In my Twitter feed, I ran across a few tweets from this very reasonable sounding Canadian fellow, good for an outside- US perspective. Here’s a link. He has a series of tweets, hope you can read all of them.

Finally, Stephen Pyne has a piece in Slate.. here.. Worth reading, here’s a quote:

“Too often the extremes command attention: the threat of bad fires to cities, the need to restore good fire in wilderness. It’s the intermediate buffer lands that offer an alternative. Here are occasions for active management, not to serve crude commodity production but to enhance ecological goods and services.” I don’t know exactly what he mean by “crude commodity production” perhaps as opposed to “sophisticated commodity production”?
Are fuel treatments to change fire behavior an “ecological good and service” when protecting communities? Or maybe just when protecting species habitat? I guess I can’t see the forest for the abstractions…

NFS Litigation Weekly November 9, 2018

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Forest Service summaries:  Litigation Weekly Nov 9

The Forest Service successfully prosecuted a trespass action against miners on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest who were conducting mining activities on an unpatented mining claim without an approved plan of operations.  (D. Mont.)

(Update.)  The Supreme Court denied a request to stay proceedings in the “youth climate change” case pending in the Oregon federal district court (removing an earlier temporary stay).

NFS Litigation Weekly October 26, 2018

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Forest Service summaries:  Litigation Weekly Oct 26

A preliminary injunction was denied for the Quartz Integrated Project on the Umpqua National Forest because the Forest adequately addressed new information about red tree voles.  (D. Or.)

The Supreme Court stayed further proceedings in the “kids’ climate change” case.

(New cases.)  Both cases challenge the decision to sell wild horses from the Modoc National Forest without complying with or formally changing a policy that prohibits commercial slaughter of the horses.

(New case.)  Plaintiffs claim that authorization of activities that contribute to climate change violate the U. S. Constitution.  (D. Or.)

(New case.)  This case involves that Seiad-Horse Risk Reduction Project on the Klamath National Forest involving hazard tree removal and post-fire salvage logging and compliance with the forest plan and NEPA.  (E.D. Cal.)

 

Blogger’s notes:

The Cascadia case was discussed here when it was filed.  The case involves the application of “survey and manage” requirements in the Northwest Forest Plan to red tree voles. Red tree vole nesting sites are protected from logging unless the land manager determines the site is “non-high priority” (“NHP”).  Plaintiffs objected to the NHP designations for the project area.  Additional surveys occurred after the objection process and the Forest subsequently released “amendments to the EA” to “designate” additional NHP sites.  There was no public opportunity to review or object to these sites.

I am not that familiar with the workings with the Northwest Forest Plan, but I see some problems here.  “Designation” of sites for long-term management, especially if they would be suitable for timber production, is a forest plan decision, so I think what is really required here is a plan amendment process that would allow full public participation in the designation of each site.  In addition, the criteria for designating NHP (presumably from the NWFP) seem to all apply at a large scale without considering the importance of the actual site being designated, so it is hard to see any rationale for the designation (and the court opinion doesn’t provide one).  The court then finds that “plaintiffs had multiple opportunities to comment on the FS proposal to designate red tree vole sites as NHP,” but none of those occurred for the post-objection additions.  The court regards all of this as “minor changes.”  While viewing this as a NEPA problem might allow the new information to be considered not significant enough to trigger a supplemental EA, minor changes in a forest plan nevertheless require an amendment process.  Maybe someone could explain how this is supposed to work.

The public also had no opportunity to review or comment on how the Forest viewed changes in the resource management plan for adjacent BLM lands.  The changes would result in logging in 8 of the 27 red vole sites originally protected by the BLM plan, but the Forest determined (and the court agreed) that this “did not alter the number or spatial distribution of likely extant sites or records, or the amount or proportion of suitable habitat in reserves, and did not compromise the ability of other standards and guidelines or elements of the NWFP to provide a reasonable assurance of species persistence at the watershed scale.”  That feels like it dodged the question, but I could buy the BLM assertion that these sites were actually a small part of the overall watershed.

Finally, in looking at the other factors relevant to granting an injunction, the court seems to discount the irreversible environmental damage because “that fact is true in any environmental case.”  And it seems to punish plaintiffs for participating in settlement negotiations instead of filing a motion for an injunction earlier.  The court does explicitly qualify its holdings as being “at this stage” (meaning for a preliminary injunction), and a fuller airing of the facts might sway the court in the plaintiffs’ favor, but meanwhile logging is ongoing.

Here’s another case that I don’t think has been included in a FS summary.

“San Juan Trail Riders, based in Durango, along with national groups Trails Preservation Alliance and Access Preservation Association, ask the court to set aside a record of decision by the Dolores Ranger District that closed 30 miles of trails to motorcycles and implemented restrictions on others within Rico-West Dolores recreation area.”

 

Choo-Choo To the Rescue: The Rio Grande National Forest, Spruce Beetle Kill and the Union Pacific

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Spruce beetle damage from Colorado State Forest Service
This story is interesting because of the creativity of the people involved, and the unusual partnership with the railroad, from a reporter at the Colorado Springs Gazette. Kudos to Dan Dallas,the Rio Grande folks, and the cooperators!Also there are more great spruce beetle photos at the Colorado State Forest Service site here.

Here’s the simple framing of the way the reporter reported it: 1)There are lots of dead trees 2) to change fire behavior, and reduce fuels you need to do something, with at least some with them 3) it’s better to do something useful with them than to burn them in piles, or not do fuel treatments at all. If it doesn’t work out for energy, there are still many potential uses for forest products. I think sometimes when folks hear “biomass” nowadays they get into the “biomass burning for energy” controversy and may unintentionally think right past other, less high-tech, and possibly less controversial, uses.

The ‘perfect lab’
When Phil Seligman looked at the Rio Grande National Forest in early 2013, he saw land that was ripe for wildfire.

“This place was ready to pop,” said the president of Wood Source Fuels, noting that intense drought and beetle kill facilitated the explosion of the 109,615-acre West Fork Complex fire later that summer.

In Colorado, more than half a million acres of trees were impacted by insects and diseases in 2017, Colorado state Forest Service reported. For the sixth year in a row, spruce beetle was the state’s most widespread and damaging forest insect pest, with 206,000 acres of active infestations detected, about 67,000 of which were new.

Since 2002, 617,000 acres of high and midelevation forests in the Rio Grande have been infested by spruce beetles. Although spruce beetle activity has decreased dramatically (from 93,000 acres in 2016 to 47,000 acres in 2017).

Seligman has shipped timber with Union Pacific Railroad for more than 10 years, building a network of partners in the logging industry across the country. In 2010, he became involved with biomass after Tri-State Generation & Transmission asked him and Nate Anderson, a research forester with the Rocky Mountain Research Station, to conduct a study on the viability of generating electricity from biomass at the Nucla Station power plant. He estimated that biomass was almost as cheap as coal.

Although Tri-State passed on the opportunity to adopt biomass as a fuel source, the study planted the seed of cooperative forest management in Seligman’s mind. Seligman then arrived in the San Luis Valley and found a “perfect lab” to continue the work on biomass utilization that he and Anderson had started in Nucla. In addition to biomass, other end uses can include everything from landscape chips to animal bedding, with companies already expressing interest.

Unlike in most laboratories, though, Seligman’s work in the Rio Grande National Forest could alter its wildfire conditions for generations to come.

An unprecedented partnership Seligman met Dallas, and the two began the uphill battle to form a cooperative that engages every player in the biomass market: buyers in the across the county and overseas, Union Pacific Railroad, an insurance company, tire distributor and forestry equipment dealer, among others.

After years of arduous negotiations, Seligman secured a $231,700 Wood Innovations Grant from the U.S. Forest Service in 2017 to create the cooperative — Forest Management & Marketing Limited — and invest in market expansion.

“The co-op represents people who see potential in our forests to be healthier and a resource,” Dallas said. “All you have to do is look at a map of the Union Pacific Railroad and see that it has tracks that go through other forests and almost any of those forests have a large scale die-off for one reason or another.”

Seligman said, “This was a tool built for the Forest Service. We feel that working with an entity like this that gives the Forest Service necessary contracts that they need but have historically had trouble getting.”

A critical collaborator is the Union Pacific, which will transport the biomass to processors and producers.

The cooperative plans to start construction as early as December on a chip plant in Antonito that would employ six to seven people and pull wood from the Carson and Rio Grande national forests.

If Seligman’s biomass estimations add up, they could build a larger biomass conversion plant that would employ about 200 people and source from the Carson, Rio Grande, San Juan and San Isabel national forests.

In the Rio Grande National Forest, 3,208 acres (and growing) are available for biomass harvest.

“We have a continental-scale problem, so if we can involve four forests, that’s a big deal,” Seligman said.

The extra jobs from the chip and conversion plant, the railroad, on-the-ground logging, and other related operations could bring economic help to one of Colorado’s most distressed counties. Between 2016 and 2017, Rio Grande County lost 11.5 percent of its businesses and 10.9 percent of its employment. Its poverty rate is 19.2 percent at a time when the state as a whole added 14.3 percent more jobs and expanded its business sector 7.2 percent.

More Than 1,500 Interior Employees Removed or Reprimanded for Harassment, Misconduct

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My question is “I wonder if similar numbers for the Forest Service are available?”. This is from the Hill, here.

The Interior Department fired, suspended or reprimanded more than 1,500 employees for harassment or misconduct between 2017 and 2018, according to an internal email obtained by The Hill.

The actions are part of the department’s yearlong effort to enforce greater accountability, Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt told employees in a staff-wide email Wednesday.

The email, sent with the subject line “A Situational Update,” informed staff that new changes to address workplace concerns included developing action plans to curtail inappropriate behavior and expanding an ethics program within the agency.

“From day one, [Interior] Secretary [Ryan] Zinke and I have been committed to leaving the Department in better shape than we found it; this includes addressing employee misconduct and harassment and improving our ethics program,” Bernhardt wrote in the email.

In April, the department released its first comprehensive policy on the Prevention and Elimination of Harassing Conduct.

Bernhardt, in the email, urged staff to continue to come forward with any concerns.

“Despite these efforts, we can only take action when we are aware of misconduct or unethical behavior. For this to happen, employees have to be willing to come forward. I want you to know that your leadership is listening, and we are committed to holding individuals accountable when they have failed in their duties and obligations,” he wrote….

Last December a survey conducted by the Interior Department found that 35 percent of its workers were either harassed or discriminated against at work in the previous 12 months.

When such harassment was reported, the survey found, no action was taken or the individuals were encouraged to drop the issue about 40 percent of the time.

Earlier in October, Interior announced a plan to fight rampant sexual harassment within the National Park Service. Nearly 40 percent of Park Service employees reported having been harassed in some way in the previous 12 months, according to the agency.

“All employees have the right to work in an environment that is safe and harassment-free. I’ve removed a number of people who were abusive or acted improperly that other administrations were too afraid to or just turned a blind eye to. Under my leadership we’re going to hold people accountable,” Zinke said in a statement at the time.

Polis Ideas on Public Lands Policy

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Public Lands in Colorado

The first thing I noticed about Polis’s public lands policy was that I found it under a tab called “Environment” but the actual link was called https://polisforcolorado.com/keep-co-wild/, as in “keep Colorado wild.” Most of the suggestions were about actually about “public lands”. They included supporting federal funding for LWCF and non-game species, but some were related to the State, including funding for state agencies, wildlife crossings and changes to bear policies.

Create Colorado Conservation and Recreation Districts
Colorado is home to 42 state parks and 13 National Parks which welcome millions of visitors per year. I will create Colorado Conservation and Recreation Districts that harness the economic power of these landscapes to highlight Colorado’s natural outdoor assets and promote each community’s unique attractions. Through a coordinated effort alongside conservationists, sportsmen and sportswomen, and the outdoor recreation industry, we will provide educational opportunities and access to grant funding to support conservation and recreational entrepreneurship. Housed under the shared jurisdiction of the Office of Economic Development and Colorado Parks & Wildlife, this program will help more Coloradans forge a special connection with our natural resources, further strengthening the Colorado economy.

This seems good, like “working together better”, except it seems like more small businesses (entrepreneurship) but the National Forests and BLM seem conspicuously absent. And yet, driving around Colorado in the summertime, most recreationists I see are indeed recreating on National Forests or BLM. I wrote the Polis campaign and asked if National Forests and BLM were left out intentionally, but have not yet heard back. But do Coloradans need “special help”? connecting with our outdoors? Do we need to promote more recreation businesses? Or will more recreation businesses mean more recreation and more impacts on the environment? Why is using State funds to support an industry (other than environmental cleanup) in the “environmental policy” section?

Oppose Selling Our Public Lands to the Highest Bidders
As governor, I will fight any attempt to sell our public lands to the highest bidder or diminish them in any way. Nearly a third of our state is made up of public lands, and these lands belong to all Coloradans, no matter their background, zip code, race, or income. Our public lands, clean air, and rivers are critical to protecting our fish and wildlife habitat, providing the public with places to hunt and fish, ski, climb, bike, raft, and enjoy the Colorado outdoor experience. The activities are foundational to Colorado’s recreation economy, providing good-paying jobs for thousands of Coloradans and attracting national attention through events like the Outdoor Retailer trade show. Thoughtful and effective conservation of these resources is paramount in supporting Colorado’s strong outdoor economy and way of life.

As we know, no one is planning to sell off federal lands. Perhaps someone was planning to sell off state lands? According to Ballotpedia, 35.9% of Colorado is federal land, which would mean if you add State and County land, it’s got to be more than a third for total “public land”, the way I would define it. I couldn’t easily find the total acres of State land in Colorado. Some of it is in State Parks, and much is owned by the State Land Board, which appears to have minerals and agricultural leases. I wonder if those leases are defined as “diminishing public lands in any way”? Are those kind of leases appropriate to State lands but not Federal? And where do state and federal statutes fit into this?

Ensure Colorado Has a Voice in Federal Decisions on its Public Lands
Coloradans understand in our core that public lands have value far beyond industrial development. As governor, I will work to ensure that our public lands are protected from overzealous development and that every Coloradan has every opportunity to have their voices heard in these decisions that affect the future of these lands. Colorado deserves a strong seat at the table here and in D.C. when it comes to conversations about what happens to the land, wildlife, trails, and resources in our backyards.

Hmmm. Industrial development on public lands. I don’t know exactly what he means by “overzealous development” (we have underground coal mines, oil and gas, so perhaps it’s code for oil and gas?) But wind and solar farms also look pretty industrial, and in the Energy section we reviewed yesterday here, he said he would help reduce red tape on those. I guess that would be “zealous” development.

But this one is particularly interesting in light of our discussion last week about “everyone in the country having an equal voice in Federal lands.” I agree that “Colorado deserves a strong seat at the table here and in D.C…about what happens.. in our backyards?” But I wonder if he feels the same way about Utah?

Polis Renewable Energy Goals and the Lingering Need for Natural Gas

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Gas fireplace. What will replace them?

While politics is too much of an “ends justify the means” activity for me, politicians (and creators of initiatives) sometimes have interesting policy ideas.

**Anyone who would like to submit a guest post about their own candidates/states initiatives related to forests or federal lands issues please consider yourself invited** I know there is a carbon tax initiative with (some) funding that would go to forests that sounds interesting in Washington State.

It all started when I was on gubernatorial candidate’s website here (Jared Polis of Colorado) doing research prior to filling out my ballot. “I’m running on a plan to bring Colorado to 100% renewable energy by 2040, we can’t afford to wait.” Now I live in a part of Colorado where propane tanks are pretty obviously providing the main source of heat. This was concerning to me, as I am still paying for a new energy-efficient gas tankless water heater. I thought of us converting to electric heat, or researchers finding a carbon-free substitute that will work in natural gas appliances. So I typed in a convenient chatbox on the Polis website and found out that 100% renewable really meant electricity. Whew!

I read further on the site:

“Some of our highest-skilled, and hardest working, women and men in the state currently work in coal or oil & gas development, and we cannot ignore the impact the transition to a renewable energy economy is having on our friends and neighbors. As Governor, I would recognize the importance of skills learned in coal and oil & gas development towards building a 21st century energy portfolio that will revitalize our rural communities and create jobs in infrastructure, manufacturing, and renewable energy development.

In both the short and long term, this transition will help fuel a vibrant Colorado economy. Projections show that reaching our renewable energy goals in Colorado will create over 49,000 construction jobs and over 21,000 operations jobs while saving consumers 10 percent on energy costs. “

It kind of sounds like if we have 100% renewable electricity, we won’t need natural gas, so geologists and others can retrain (or start a beer business and run for office, like our current governor, John Hickenlooper). But won’t we still need those folks to find and develop natural gas for the other uses (and other states)?

So I thought, well maybe, even though natural gas in heating and cooking occurs, it’s nowhere on the scale of natural gas used in electrical power generation, so we’ll need a lot fewer folks. But when I went to the ever-handy EIA tables (for example, here), it looks like more is used for residential than for electric power in the cold months. I found the same pattern in California, which has about 10x the industrial use of Colorado and uses it year-round. I’m assuming I’m reading these correctly, but if I’m not please let me know.

Well, back to the federal lands angle:

I’ll collaborate with everyone willing to contribute to achieve this goal. This has been my exact approach in Congress. For instance, I teamed up with Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) to streamline permitting procedures for solar, wind, and geothermal projects on public lands. Working with Republicans, Democrats, and other constituencies to cut red-tape and compliance costs around clean energy projects is an important and necessary bipartisan route to success.

Hmm..one person’s “red tape and compliance costs that need to be reduced” could be someone else’s “vital environmental protections.” Since we seem to be using natural gas for the foreseeable future, why not honor the folks who can make its extraction and use more environmentally friendly?

Retaliation or Not? The Shannon Reed Case

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A special thanks to Michael Volpe for this article.

Here’s his bio:
Since 2010, Michael Volpe has dedicated himself to exposing the wrongdoing of the powerful as a freelance investigative journalist. In 2012, Michael was keynote speaker for the Eugene V. Katz Award at the Center for Immigration Studies. His 2013 expose of Rosilyn Wells, who was an Affordable Care Act navigator despite an arrest warrant, made national headlines. His series of articles on the Memphis VA Medical Center in 2014 and 2015 were featured on the O’Reilly Factor and helped lead to the dismissal of the hospital’s director. Since late 2013, he’s focused on corruption in the family court system. He was the only journalist to examine Judge Lisa Gorcyca’s —notorious for the Tsimhoni case—other cases, exposing three other cases with similar lack of due process. His books include “Prosecutors Gone Wild: the Inside Story of the Trial of Chuck Panici, John Gliottoni and Louise Marshall; “The Definitive Dossier of PTSD in Whistleblowers”; and “Bullied to Death: Chris Mackney’s Kafkaesque Divorce.”

Here’s the story:
This is a story from freelance writer Michael Volpe.

A Female US Forest Service … by on Scribd

Thanks also to Michael for teaching me about Scribd.

As I read through the story, I had a couple of thoughts.

1. People might not trust internal investigations. But who would you trust? Random contractors? A panel of female retirees? A panel from another federal agency? Something adversarial with appointed reps for each side, but who would judge?

2. For sexual harassment charges by someone against a supervisor, whether they are true, or not, or a cascading series of misunderstandings, it seems to me to be an irreparable rent in fabric the supervisor-employee relationship (think of a custody battle). It seems kind of macho management to insist/allow them to stay together. What good could come of it?

Finally, I’d be really interested in what current employees think of this quote from Lesa Donnelly.

She said that since Tooke was forced to retire the USFS has increased retaliation.
“Washington Office officials were publicly embarrassed and they’re angry at us, exemplified by – refusal to address complaints of harassment; HART inquiries performed on the women after they report harassment; trumped up charges of misconduct and poor performance; suspensions and removals – it has all increased. I’ve had as many contacts from women since March as I had when I filed the women’s class complaint in 1995.” Donnelley said.

Have you experienced or seen this in your workplace? Also, current employees could help by explaining what a HART complaint is and/or sharing a link with the current process.

Salvage logging, planting not necessary to regenerate Douglas-fir after Klamath fires

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The following press release was sent out yesterday by Portland State University. – mk

Researchers at Portland State University and Oregon State University looking at the aftermath of wildfires in southwestern Oregon and northern California found that after 20 years, even in severely burned areas, Douglas-fir grew back on its own without the need for salvage logging and replanting.

The study, published online Oct. 26 in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, is the latest to address the contentious issue of whether forest managers should log dead timber and plant new trees after fires, or let them regenerate on their own.

Melissa Lucash, an assistant research professor of geography in PSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a co-author of the study, said that concerns in the Klamath over whether conifer forests would regenerate after high-severity fires have led to salvage logging, replanting and shrub removal on federal lands throughout the region.

But the study found that the density of Douglas-fir was relatively high after 20 years and was unaffected by whether or not a site had been managed.

“This is an area where forest managers are really worried that the Douglas-fir won’t come back, but what we found is that they come back just fine on their own,” she said. “We forget the power of natural regeneration and that these burned sites don’t need to be salvage logged and planted.”

Lucash suggests that those resources could instead be reallocated elsewhere, perhaps to thinning forests to prevent high-severity wildfires.

The research team also included Maria Jose Lopez, a research associate at Universidad del Cono Sur de las Americas in Paraguay; Terry Marcey, a recent graduate of PSU’s Environmental Science and Management program; David Hibbs, a professor emeritus in Oregon State University’s College of Forestry; Jeff Shatford, a terrestrial habitat specialist in British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development; and Jonathan Thompson, a senior ecologist for Harvard Forest.

The authors sampled 62 field sites that had severely burned 20 years prior on both north and south slopes of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountain — some of which had been salvaged logged and replanted and others that had been left to regenerate on its own.

Among the study’s findings:

• Aspect, or the direction a slope faces, played an important role in determining the effectiveness of post-fire practices.

• Density of Douglas-fir was higher on north than south aspects, but was unaffected by whether or not a site had been managed, suggesting that Douglas-fir regeneration is inherently less abundant on hot and dry sites and management does not influence the outcome.

• On the flip side, management practices increased the density of ponderosa pine on south aspects, but had no impact on north aspects. That finding suggests that with rising temperatures and increasing severity of fires in the region, management would be most effective when tailored to promote drought-tolerant ponderosa pine on south aspects.

• Managed sites had taller conifers, which can improve fire resistance, but also had fewer snags — an important habitat feature for bird, small mammals and amphibian species in the region.

The authors recommend that forest managers should avoid applying the same post-fire management practices everywhere and should instead tailor practices to specific objectives and the landscape context.