Fuel treatments to save an endangered species

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The case of the Mount Graham red squirrel seems to be another example of where everyone agrees that fuel treatments make sense.  According to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, loss of habitat to fire is the primary threat to this species.  The draft recovery plan was revised in 2011 largely due to unanticipated increases in the fire threat.  It describes management occurring on the Coronado National Forest:

The Pinaleño Ecosystem Management (PEM) demonstration project, implemented from 2000
through 2008, is a large project in the mixed conifer zone of the Pinaleños. The PEM project
involved thinning, piling, burning, and sometimes broadcast burning in an area occupied by the
Mount Graham red squirrel, northern goshawk, Mexican spotted owl, and numerous USFS
Sensitive Species.

Currently (2011), the Coronado National Forest has also proposed a larger fuel reduction and forest restoration project called the Pinaleño Ecosystem Restoration Project (PERP). This project is designed to help reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire in much of the remaining mixed
conifer zone, and will begin to set the forest on a trajectory that will allow a low-intensity fire
cycle. Large-diameter trees, snags, and logs of all canopy species will be retained, while select
smaller-diameter under- and mid-story trees will be removed to achieve desired forest conditions
(considering species composition, life form structure, and landscape matrix of age classes). The
mixed conifer forest currently has the largest block of remaining squirrel habitat, and monitoring
of impacts to the red squirrel and its habitat is incorporated into the project’s design. This
project is currently undergoing formal consultation, and will take a decade or more to complete.
The success of this project in reducing the threat of stand-replacing wildfire, while having
minimal short-term impact on the Mount Graham red squirrel, will be key to setting the stage for
recovery of the species.

The project was ongoing in 2015, and there was apparently no litigation.  (The Center for Biological Diversity has been active in challenging the main human threat – astronomers.)  The key seems to be the mitigation measures that led to the FWS concluding there would be “minimal short-term impact” (and the squirrel’s limited range of around 12,000 acres probably helps).  How then to interpret this statement in a story about a fire there this summer?

“Until they do something with the Endangered Species Act, we’re going to continue to have these (fires) because they don’t let them thin the mountain up manually because of the squirrel,” Weech said.

Analysis: Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act Guts the Wilderness Act

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Here’s a press release from Wilderness Watch, which includes a detailed analysis of the so-called “Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act of 2017” – mk

MISSOULA, MT – A new analysis by Wilderness Watch calls the discussion draft of the “Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act of 2017” nothing more than a thinly disguised measure to gut the 1964 Wilderness Act and the protections afforded to every unit of America’s 110 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System.

The analysis corresponds with a leaked memo McClatchy obtained and reported on last week that found the Trump Administration has so far prevented the National Park Service from voicing its serious concerns over the National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed SHARE Act. When the Park Service shared such concerns in a memo to the Department of Interior (DOI), the DOI responded by crossing out the Park Service’s comments, and the agency was told not to go to Congress.

The SHARE Act would give hunting, fishing, recreational shooting, and state fish and wildlife agency goals top priority in Wilderness, rather than protecting the areas’ wilderness character, as has been the case for over 50 years.

The SHARE Act would allow endless, extensive habitat manipulations in Wilderness under the guise of “wildlife conservation” and for providing hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting experiences. The Act would also allow the construction of “temporary” roads in protected Wilderness areas to facilitate such uses and would allow the construction of dams, buildings, or other structures within Wildernesses.

“Taken in combination, the provisions in the SHARE Act would completely undermine the protections that wilderness designation should provide, and dramatically weaken wilderness conservation for the entire 110 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System. These wilderness provisions in the SHARE Act must not be enacted into law,” explained Kevin Proescholdt, Conservation Director for Wilderness Watch.

The discussion draft of the SHARE Act was scheduled for a legislative hearing on June 14, 2017, but was canceled due to a shooting before the Congressional softball game.

The SHARE Act would also exempt road, dam, and building projects within protected Wilderness areas from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — eliminating critical environmental analysis of potential impacts and alternatives, and public comment and involvement.

“Sadly, the SHARE Act would eviscerate the letter, spirit, and fundamental ideals expressed in the Wilderness Act,” said Wilderness Watch Executive Director George Nickas. “While the Wilderness Act prohibits the use of motorized vehicles or equipment and the building of roads and other structures, the SHARE Act essentially throws Wilderness areas wide open to motorized use by agency managers and a nearly unlimited variety of wilderness-damaging manipulations and developments. Make no mistake— Wilderness as we know it will cease to exist if the SHARE Act becomes law.”

Wilderness Watch is America’s leading organization dedicated to defending and keeping wild the nation’s 110 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System. Its work is guided by the visionary 1964 Wilderness Act.

Points and counterpoints on fuel treatments

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I think these opinion columns pretty much capture the debate:

George Wuerthner:  “Thinning doesn’t help fight wildfires”

12 respected foresters:  “Effectiveness of fuel treatment on wildfires”

George Wuerthner:  “Put focus on home environments”

I think Wuerthner’s main point is that fuel treatments work best in circumstances where they are least needed, so there’s not really much of a return on the investment.

I think it’s also fair to say the that the question of whether a fuel treatment is cost-effective (in a broad sense of the term) depends on where it is, and particularly the likelihood and value of resources being protected or impaired.  The second article asks a good question:  “what purpose ‘chronic objectors’ have in slowing this beneficial work.”  It shouldn’t be hard to identify the differences between those projects challenged and those that aren’t.  My guess is you’ll find the former tend to be in undeveloped areas or old forests or lynx habitat and the latter are not but are closer to communities.  In any case, if you give the Forest Service a blank (litigation-free) check to pick whatever areas they want there is no incentive for a full accounting of the costs and benefits.

Trump administration falsely blames lawsuits for forest fires

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The following guest column appeared in the Missoulian today, and was written by Mike Garrity with the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

It is clear that the Trump administration is leading on one thing: making stuff up. Ryan Zinke, Sonny Perdue, Steve Daines and Greg Gianforte followed Donald Trump’s lead in using alternative facts in their recent press conference near the Lolo Peak Fire. The Trump administration apparently believes that it is because of lawsuits that we have forest fires during this exceptionally hot, dry and windy summer.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies is a powerful group and we fight hard to preserve forests, but we certainly don’t control the weather or the warming climate. Moreover, there is no lawsuit in the Lolo Peak area, and the Lolo Peak area has already undergone extensive logging.

In the Trump administration’s alternative reality, climate change has nothing to do with forest fires because, as Trump has pronounced, “global warming is a Chinese hoax.” The 2014 National Climate Assessment estimates wildfires in Montana will increase by 400 percent to 700 percent in the next 50 years if climate change is not addressed.

Protecting old growth forests from logging is one way to do this. National forests absorb an astounding 10 percent of the carbon that America creates and unlogged and old growth forests absorb the most.

The politicians at the Lolo Peak Fire press conference could do something about the main driver of wildfire — they could commit to addressing climate change – starting with participation in the Paris Climate Accord. But instead they promote more coal burning and taxpayer-subsidized logging on public lands, which will only exacerbate climate change.

The Trump administration has even complained that our lawsuit temporarily pausing the Stonewall timber sale resulted in the wildfire burning in the northern part of the Stonewall project area. Not surprisingly, their argument is not supported by facts. That wildfire started with a lighting strike outside of the planned treatment units, so the fire would have started regardless of whether the project units were logged. Indeed, natural wildfires regularly burn in this area, as evidenced by the fact that the Park Creek fire is now surrounded on three sides by formerly burned areas, which have mostly stopped the spread of this fire. Significantly, it also does not appear that any of the timber sale’s commercial logging units have burned.

These fact-challenged politicians also claimed that we have shut down half the timber sales in Montana, a contention that even the U.S. Forest Service denied. Instead, our region of the Forest Service has met 89 percent of its timber logging targets over the last 15 years and the target has been increasing almost every year. 2017 is not over yet, but a February Great Falls Tribune article titled “Logging in Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest best in decades” reported that loggers had never seen this much timber available.

These politicians also neglected to mention that the state’s largest wildfire — 270,000 acres that destroyed 16 homes in eastern Montana — burned mostly through grasslands, not forests, which is probably why they held their pro-logging press conference in front of Lolo Peak rather than in eastern Montana.

The Trump administration calls it “frivolous” when citizens prevail in lawsuits forcing the government to comply with its own laws. To the contrary, it is the basis of our democracy and civil justice system that citizens have the power to force the government to follow its own laws. So despite the barrage of lies, insults, fear-mongering and scapegoating directed at us, we will not back down. We will continue to fight to protect and conserve our priceless public lands and the fish and wildlife that depend on them for survival. Join us.

A Roundup of Western Watershed/Fuels Partnerships

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This is a very long, and well worth reading, article by Sherry Devlin in Treesource about the Flagstaff effort, Forests to Faucets, and Feather River efforts in California. Below are couple of excerpts- feel free to post other excerpts of interest in the comments.

Jonathan Kusel on why California might be different from other efforts:

“One of the great frustrations of folks in the upper watersheds and those working on forests and forest health issues in California is that folks in urban areas do not make the connection between forest and watershed health, and water quality and quantity,” said Jonathan Kusel, executive director of the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment. “That’s particularly true in California because some of the water is moved so far.

“You ask the average person in Southern California where their water comes from and they’ll honestly and sincerely say, ‘The tap.’ In general, we have a pretty limited understanding of where water comes from and how far it gets moved before it comes out of the tap.”
The greater problem stems from the lack of connection the public makes between a healthy forest and a healthy watershed, Kusel said. “We have tried for well over two decades to help Californians make that connection, with limited success.”

and..

The Feather River provides one-quarter of California’s drinking water. The city of Los Angeles is one of the beneficiaries of the watershed.

California’s complex system of water-delivery reservoirs, aqueducts, pipes and tunnels commands much of the public’s attention, Kusel said. “It’s such an amazing system, such a complexity of conveyance facilities, that most people associate their drinking water with that infrastructure. They don’t make the same connection with the green infrastructure at the start of the delivery system.”

So while metro areas like Denver and smaller cities like Santa Fe and Flagstaff are able to convince utilities, ratepayers and voters to finance forest restoration projects, Kusel has no such buy-in from Southern California communities.

“Our accounting methods for these environmental benefits of forests are limited,” he said. “The payment for ecosystem services is, for the most part, not there. And that’s what we need. We can come up with the charges that would make a huge difference in the overall health of our forests and our watersheds, but no one wants their pocket picked.”

And on opposition to the Flagstaff project:

Opposition has been minimal, said Jessica Richardson, the Forest Service’s lead on the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project. “I really think there will always be people who are not 100 percent in support, but even those folks are supportive of the general concept of what we are doing.”

It goes back to the bond’s 74 percent approval, said Elson. “We had the social capital. So some of the groups that might have opposed us chose not to in this case, even though there are visual impacts, steep slopes and spotted owls. There is an excitement about the project in the community.”

*

Forest Fires and Adaptation Options in Europe: Modeling Climate Change, Fuel Reduction and Suppression

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ig. 4
Sensitivity analysis of suppression efficiency for the SFM model calibrated using GFED data for years 2000–2008. Changes in burned areas per country are in percents relative to burned area corresponding to calibrated value of q (values of q vary within ±10 % range)

Thanks to 2nd Law’s comments about Bayesian analysis, I went hopping down a bunny trail of decision science links, and ran across this. It addresses how Europeans might adapt to climate change vis a vis wildfires. It’s interesting to take a look at how these scientists approach the problem that we have been talking about in the Western U.S.

Here’s the abstract:

This paper presents a quantitative assessment of adaptation options in the context of forest fires in Europe under projected climate change. A standalone fire model (SFM) based on a state-of-the-art large-scale forest fire modelling algorithm is used to explore fuel removal through prescribed burnings and improved fire suppression as adaptation options. The climate change projections are provided by three climate models reflecting the SRES A2 scenario. The SFM’s modelled burned areas for selected test countries in Europe show satisfying agreement with observed data coming from two different sources (European Forest Fire Information System and Global Fire Emissions Database). Our estimation of the potential increase in burned areas in Europe under “no adaptation” scenario is about 200 % by 2090 (compared with 2000–2008). The application of prescribed burnings has the potential to keep that increase below 50 %. Improvements in fire suppression might reduce this impact even further, e.g. boosting the probability of putting out a fire within a day by 10 % would result in about a 30 % decrease in annual burned areas. By taking more adaptation options into consideration, such as using agricultural fields as fire breaks, behavioural changes, and long-term options, burned areas can be potentially reduced further than projected in our analysis.

Here’s a free link to the article.
Here’s the description of the way the study was done and the problem framed (how to deal with fire as climate changes):

The present study is designed to explore the impact of adaptation options with regard to forest fires in Europe under projected climate change reflecting the SRES A2 scenario (Nakicenovic and Swart 2000) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The main aims of our study are: (1) to quantify the potential impacts of climate change on burned area in Europe under “no adaptation” scenario and compare the results with existing literature and (2) to extend that assessment with quantitative estimation of the potential effectiveness of different adaptation measures at pan-European scale. Among the different adaptation options, we test fuel removal via prescribed burnings and enhancement of fire suppression. These options were developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders, who provided essential inputs to the research.

Note that for the purposes of this scientific study, the discipline of historic vegetation ecology does not enter in to the framing of the issue. The implicit assumptions is that people want to reduce the burned area which will otherwise increase due to climate change.

Also this was interesting although the Australia claim did not have a cite.

The results of our study in terms of the estimated impact of prescribed burnings on burned areas, even though not always directly comparable, are in line with other studies on the effectiveness of prescribed burning for fire hazard reduction. For instance, a difference of about three times between the average size of a wildfire in treated and untreated areas in US has been shown (Fernandes and Botelho 2003). Similar results have also been obtained in Australia, where the average wildfire size was reported to be 50 % smaller in treated areas.

Politicians vs science

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Ideology was on display at a grandstanding event on the Lolo Peak Fire.

Secretary Sonny Perdue, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Congressman Greg Gianforte and Senator Steve Daines got a briefing from the fire management team, and then held a short press conference.

Senator Daines repeated a refrain that Montana Republicans have been saying for years: That lawsuits from extreme environmental groups are preventing the U.S. Forest Service from carrying out logging and thinning projects that would remove trees and prevent wildfires… “It is the lawyers who are – funding for these extreme environmental groups — who are having a tremendous impact, devastating impact on allowing us to move forward here on some common sense timber projects,” Daines said.

Both Perdue and Congressman Greg Gianforte pointed to a 5,000 acre logging project called the Stonewall that was approved by the Helena Lewis and Clark National Forest outside Lincoln in 2016. That was then put on hold in January by a judge responding to a lawsuit from the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council. That area is now burning as part of the Park Creek fire sparked by lightning this summer.

But, after listening to audio of the press conference this afternoon, the dean of the Forestry School at the University of Montana, Tom DeLuca, cautioned against expecting too much from a timber sale or wildfire  fuel management projects…  On a windy, hot day, a fire will carry right through that understory or in those crowns regardless of whether it’s been thinned or not. It does change the behavior…  There are also studies that try to quantify how much more severe wildfires are in recent years due to climate change. DeLuca says it’s clear that human-caused climate change from burning fossil fuels is making fire seasons longer and more intense.

Sen. Daines says, “We go through warmer cycles, cooler cycles, droughts, excessive precipitation. We are in a warm cycle right now, we are in drought conditions here in Montana consequently we’re having a severe fire season.”

(Climate scientist Steve) Running says.., “”What I heard is the kind of evasive response, ‘yeah weather’s always changing and we’ve had dry seasons and fire seasons before,’ and so the implication that there’s nothing really new and this is just part of natural cycles. Of course in the climate change research community we’ve well documented in dozens and dozens of peer reviews papers that the fire season’s getting longer and overall we’re burning more acres than in the past and that we’re on a trend of longer fire seasons and bigger fires,” Running says…  It’s always the case that if you pick any one year out you can say there’s been other years like this, but when we study climate, we’re studying decades, multi-decadal trends, and we clearly document multi-decadal trends of longer, warmer summers and more, bigger fires.”

At least Perdue agreed, “There obviously is climate change …”

A Conservative’s View of Federal Land Management

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Grist for the (respectful, I hope) discussion mill in the form of a National Review article, “The Distant Conservative Heritage of the National Park Service.”

Subhead: “Protect our natural wonders, but don’t let the feds control too much other state land.”

The article is too long to post, but the full text is here, in case you can’t access the National Review site (or don’t want to be caught doing so <grin>). One interesting paragraph:

“For one thing, America has a federal system, and the use of state lands should be left up to the states. Frustrated with the federal government’s overreach, Congress placed two limitations on the Antiquities Act — the law allowing the president to set aside state-owned land as a National Monument. In 1943, after Franklin Roosevelt declared Jackson Hole National Monument federally protected, Wyoming congressmen persuaded their colleagues to limit the act to require congressional ratification for future enlargement or creation of national monuments in Wyoming. In 1978, after Jimmy Carter declared 56 million acres of Alaska federally protected, Congress expanded the Wyoming rule to include Alaska, with the ratification requirement covering areas of 5,000 acres and above.”

I hadn’t known about the Wyoming and Alaska exceptions to the Antiquities Act. I think the same ought to apply in all states: Congressional approval should be required for creating National Monuments.

FWIW, I’m conservative, generally, depending on the issue, but am not a member of a political party. In Oregon, I’ve been registered as Nonaffiliated for years. And Nonaffiliated is the state’s second largest “party” after the Democrat party.

 

Air Pollution from Wildfires compared to that from Prescribed burns

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New research has taken an exponential leap forward in measuring air pollution from forest fires. It confirms the importance of sound forest management in terms of health. To summarize: prescribed burns are significantly more desirable than wildfires. “Researchers associated with a total of more than a dozen universities and organizations participated in data collection or analysis. The scientists published their peer-reviewed results on June 14 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.” Georgia Institute of Technology was cited as the lead university and Bob Yokelson, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Montana were specifically mentioned in this article from ScienceDaily.

Some quotes from the article include:

1) “For the first time, researchers have flown an orchestra of modern instruments through brutishly turbulent wildfire plumes to measure their emissions in real time. They have also exposed other never before measured toxins.”

2) “Naturally burning timber and brush launch what are called fine particles into the air at a rate three times as high as levels noted in emissions inventories at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new study. The microscopic specks that form aerosols are a hazard to human health, particularly to the lungs and heart.”

3) “Particulate matter, some of which contains oxidants that cause genetic damage, are in the resulting aerosols. They can drift over long distances into populated areas.

People are exposed to harmful aerosols from industrial sources, too, but fires produce more aerosol per amount of fuel burned. “Cars and power plants with pollution controls burn things much more cleanly,””

4) “”A prescribed fire might burn five tons of biomass fuel per acre, whereas a wildfire might burn 30,” said Yokelson, who has dedicated decades of research to biomass fires. “This study shows that wildfires also emit three times more aerosol per ton of fuel burned than prescribed fires.”

While still more needs to be known about professional prescribed burnings’ emissions, this new research makes clear that wildfires burn much more and pollute much more. The data will also help improve overall estimates of wildfire emissions.”

I feel that the previously expressed concerns by many of us about the impact of wild fires on human populations for a thousand or more miles from a catastrophic fire have been reinforced, once again, by this landmark research. It matters not whether you are for or against human intervention to minimize the risk of catastrophic fires; sound, sustainable, science based forest management to accommodate human health and other needs in harmony with the needs of forests and their dependent species (as a whole system) is in the process of restoring some balance to piecemeal, emotionally driven, faux science and wishful thinking. Save the planet – save our forests – use statistically sound, replicated research validated by extensive operational trials over time and place to make sound environmental decisions.

Wildlife and last year’s eastern wildfires

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“Endangered snail survives devastating fall wildfires” and other stories from the Smoky Mountains.

The snail was placed on the federal endangered species list in 1978. Before the fires, the only place in the world it was known to exist was a 2-mile stretch the southern side of the Nantahala River Gorge in Swain County.

After the fires, biologists found snails in an area about 5 miles long and extending to near the top of the ridge, a much broader area than ever thought, he said.

One interesting point is that the drought that led to the fire may have also caused these less mobile species to seek out wetter areas that gave them more protection from the fire.