The bonfire of insanity: Woodland is shipped 3,800 miles and burned in Drax power

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This weekend an article ran in the UK titled “The bonfire of insanity: Woodland is shipped 3,800 miles and burned in Drax power.”  The article was written by David Rose and provides an additional look into the issue of cutting down forests in North Carolina, chipping those forests into pellets and then shipping those pellets nearly 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to be burned in the United Kingdom.  Some previous NCFP posts on the topic are here, here, here, here, here and here. 

Snip:

But North Carolina’s ‘bottomland’ forest is being cut down in swathes, and much of it pulped and turned into wood pellets – so Britain can keep its lights on.

The UK is committed by law to a radical shift to renewable energy. By 2020, the proportion of Britain’s electricity generated from ‘renewable’ sources is supposed to almost triple to 30 per cent, with more than a third of that from what is called ‘biomass’.

The only large-scale way to do this is by burning wood, man’s oldest fuel – because EU rules have determined it is ‘carbon-neutral’.

So our biggest power station, the leviathan Drax plant near Selby in North Yorkshire, is switching from dirty, non-renewable coal. Biomass is far more expensive, but the consumer helps the process by paying subsidies via levies on energy bills.

That’s where North Carolina’s forests come in. They are being reduced to pellets in a gargantuan pulping process at local factories, then shipped across the Atlantic from a purpose-built dock at Chesapeake Port, just across the state line in Virginia.

Those pellets are burnt by the billion at Drax. Each year, says Drax’s head of environment, Nigel Burdett, Drax buys more than a million metric tons of pellets from US firm Enviva, around two thirds of its total output. Most of them come not from fast-growing pine, but mixed, deciduous hardwood.

Drax and Enviva insist this practice is ‘sustainable’. But though it is entirely driven by the desire to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a broad alliance of US and international environmentalists argue it is increasing, not reducing them.

In fact, Burdett admits, Drax’s wood-fuelled furnaces actually produce three per cent more carbon dioxide (CO2) than coal – and well over twice as much as gas: 870g per megawatt hour (MW/hr) is belched out by wood, compared to just 400g for gas.

Then there’s the extra CO2 produced by manufacturing the pellets and transporting them 3,800 miles. According to Burdett [Drax’s Head of Environment], when all that is taken into account, using biomass for generating power produces 20 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

And meanwhile, say the environmentalists, the forest’s precious wildlife habitat is being placed in jeopardy.

Drax concedes that ‘when biomass is burned, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere’. Its defence is that trees – unlike coal or gas – are renewable because they can grow again, and that when they do, they will neutralise the carbon in the atmosphere by ‘breathing’ it in – or in technical parlance, ‘sequestering’ it.

So Drax claims that burning wood ‘significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared with coal-fired generation’ – by as much, Burdett says, as 80 per cent.

These claims are questionable. For one thing, some trees in the ‘bottomland’ woods can take more than 100 years to regrow. But for Drax, this argument has proven beneficial and lucrative.

Logical Inconsistencies in Some Selected Positions Taken by those Who Oppose Sound Forest Management

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Position 1: Management by foresters has a consistently negative impact on the global environment and is therefore an unacceptable alternative to letting nature take its course.

Logical Inconsistencies:

– Management of endangered/threatened species by biologists is necessary to save them in spite of the evolutionary process of survival of the fittest.

– Management of non endangered/threatened wildlife through hunting and fishing is perfectly acceptable as is the use of formerly forested areas for managing the production of most food sources.

– Destruction of seed source, destruction of endangered species, sterilization and increased erosion potential from baked soil; all resulting from catastrophic wildfires is preferable to scientifically sound forest management activities that can significantly reduce the risk and extent of such catastrophic wildfires.

 

Position 2: Corporate greed and lust is destroying our nations forests.

Logical Inconsistency: ‘The total forest area in the US is within one percent of what it was 100 years ago. During the last 60 years, per acre production of forest resources have increased by more than 50% in the US and 94% in the Southeast’

– Page 5 – http://www.watreefarm.org/Dovetail2012.pdf as cited in – http://www.envivabiomass.com/faq-wood-pellet-demand-in-europe/

 

Position 3: Alternative Energy sources like solar and windfarms are far superior to fossil fuels including nuclear energy. Even non-renewable fossil fuels that introduce new carbon into the atmosphere are superior to renewable biofuels which simply recycle the existing above ground carbon.

Logical Inconsistencies:

– Forest clearcuts are unacceptable even though they mimic the natural process of death and regeneration but it’s ok to permanently clear the large acreages required to produce significant quantities of wind and solar energy.

– Don’t place wind and solar energy farms anywhere that they would interfere with aesthetics like they would if they were placed on ridges along the west coast where sufficient wind power is fairly common and especially not in any forests in my favorite recreation area like a state park or national forest.

– Don’t sweat the loss of endangered/threatened raptors, migratory and other birds and bats due to windfarms but one dead skink in a clearcut is a national tragedy. Windfarms supply only 3% of US grid electricity yet they already kill a significant but arguable quantity of birds and bats. What will the mortality be and what will the aesthetics look like when 20 to 30% of our energy comes from windfarms? What will the aesthetics look like when Solar Power production rises to a significant level from its current 0.1% of production? What environmental impact will occur in providing all of the rare earth elements necessary for a significant portion of our energy production to come from solar power?

—- http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/?no-ist

—- http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/01/birds-bats-wind-turbines-deadly-collisions

—- http://www.windenergyfoundation.org/about-wind-energy/faqs

—- http://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/solar

 

Beware of logical inconsistencies (AKA think before you leap).

New Dogwood Alliance Video Exposes Wood Pellet Industry Impact on Rural Communities

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The following is a guest post from the Dogwood Alliance’s Scot Quaranda. mk

We thought you might be interested in our new video…

Dogwood Alliance is proud to release our investigative video Our Forests Aren’t Fuel: Injustice in Northampton

While Southern wetlands are going Up in Smoke so European Governments can meet their renewable energy targets, our forests and communities are hit the hardest. From Virginia to Florida, along the Mississippi River and throughout the South the negative impact on our communities has become clearer every day, and the Injustice in NorthamptonCounty in northeastern North Carolina is no different.

Residents in this rural community close to the Enviva Northampton plant now face 24/7 extreme noise and lights, dust that coats cars, buildings and lungs in just a few minutes of exposure, along with dangerous, heavy truck traffic. The Northampton community quickly rallied and are working with Dogwood Alliance and Clean Water For North Carolina to bring the attention of local officials to the conditions that Enviva forces them to live with every day.

For more information on the Our Forests Aren’t Fuel campaign visit here.

To read more about the situation in Northampton and how locals are fighting back visit here.

Best,

Scot Quaranda
Dogwood Alliance

NEPA abuse in travel planning

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The basic requirement of NEPA is to evaluate environmental impacts before taking action.  Thus, the Payette National Forest prepared an EIS before implementing a travel management plan.  Part of that decision included closing all user-created roads until their effects could be site-specifically evaluated.

The Forest Service was sued for violating NEPA “because they fail to disclose and evaluate the impacts of 972 miles of unauthorized roads” (Valley County, Idaho v. USDA).  The judge was concerned that, “motorized vehicle use, particularly on roads with stream crossings or that run along streams, damages watershed conditions”  (effects of closing roads on motorized users were not an issue in this opinion).  The court borrowed reasoning from cases about using ‘proxies’ for the effects of timber sales to agree with the plaintiffs.  The parties are now discussing the appropriate remedy.

What would you advise?  Should the Forest Service re-open the closed roads while they re-evaluate the effects on watersheds of leaving them open?  Or should they close them until … ?

I think the judge took his eye off the ball here and is not looking at the effects of the action the Forest Service is taking.  The action is to close the roads; the effects at issue are the effects of NOT closing them.   The court’s confusion could lead to NEPA being misused as a barrier to achieving its intended purpose as “our basic national charter for protection of the environment” (40 CFR 1500.1).

Dr. Law: Role of Forest Ecosystems in Climate Change Mitigation

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Dr. Beverly Law recently gave a presentation titled, “Role of Forest Ecosystems in Climate Change Mitigation.”   Here’s some information on Dr. Law’s background, education and area of expertise, via  Dr. Law’s website at Oregon State University:

Dr. Beverly Law is Professor of Global Change Forest Science in the College of Forestry, and an Adjunct Professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. She is an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow. Her research focuses on the role of forests, woodlands and shrublands in the global carbon cycle. Her approach is interdisciplinary, involving in situ and remote sensing observations, and models to study the effects of climate and climate related disturbances (wildfire), land-use change and management that influence carbon and water cycling across a region over seasons to decades. She currently serves as the Chair of the Global Terrestrial Observing System – Terrestrial Carbon Observations (supported by UNEP, UNESCO, WMO), and on the Science/Technology Committee of the Oregon Global Warming Commission.

You can view a PDF copy of Dr. Law’s presentation right here. Below, the text-only version of Dr. Law’s presentation does a nice job of summarizing the myth and reality regarding “thinning,” bioenergy/biomass and climate.

Role of Forest Ecosystems in Climate Change Mitigation
B.E. Law – Oregon State University, February 23, 2014

Key Points:

Activities that promote carbon storage and accumulation are allowing existing forests to accumulate carbon, and reforestation of lands that once carried forests.

Natural disturbance has little impact on forest carbon stores compared to an intensive harvest regime.

Harvest and thinning do not reduce carbon emissions. Full accounting shows that thinning increases carbon emissions to the atmosphere for at least many decades.

Carbon returns to atmosphere more quickly when removed from forest and put in product chain.

1. Role of forest ecosystems in mitigating climate change – Carbon storage and accumulation

Allowing existing forests to accumulate carbon is likely to have a positive effect on forest carbon in vegetation and soils, and on atmospheric carbon. Wet forests in the PNW and Alaska have some of the highest carbon stocks and productivity in the world. Fires are infrequent in these forests, occurring at intervals of one to many centuries. Old forests store more carbon than young forests. Old forests store as much as 10 times the biomass carbon of young forests (Law et al. 2001, Hudiburg et al. 2009). The low hanging fruit is to allow these forests to continue to store and accumulate carbon.

A key objective is to reduce GHG emissions. Changes in management should consider the current forest carbon sink and losses in the product chain when evaluating management options.

2. Role of natural disturbance in forest carbon budgets
Natural disturbance from fire and insects has little impact on forest carbon and emissions compared with intensive harvest.

Although wildfire smoke looks impressive, less carbon is emitted than previously thought (Campbell et al. 2007). In PNW forests, less than 5% of tree bole carbon combusts in low and high severity fires (Campbell et al. 2007, Meigs et al. 2009). Most of what burns is fine fuels in low and high severity fires, making actual carbon loss much less than one might expect. For example, from 1987-2007, carbon emissions from fire were the equivalent of ~6% of fossil fuel emissions in the Northwest Forest Plan area (Turner et al. 2011). If fire hasn’t significantly reduced total carbon stored in forests, it isn’t going to materially worsen climate change.

In the western states, 5-20% of the burn area has been high severity fire and the remaining burn area has been low and moderate severity (MTBS; www.mtbs.gov). In the PNW, 50-75% of live biomass survived low and moderate severity fires combined, which account for 80% of the burn area (Meigs et al. 2009). Physiology measurements show that current methods used to determine if trees are likely to die post-fire lead to overestimation of mortality and removal of healthy trees (Irvine et al. 2007, Waring data in Oregon District Court summary). Removal of surviving trees from a burned area will reduce carbon storage, and in many cases regeneration.

The release of carbon through decomposition after fire occurs over a period of decades to centuries. About half of carbon produced by fires remains in soil for ~90 years, whereas the other half persists in soil for more than 1,000 years (Singh et al. 2012). Similarly, after insect attack and tree die-off, there isno large change in carbon stocks. Carbon stocks are dominated by soil and wood, and wood in trees that are killed transfers to dead pools that decompose over decades to centuries.

3. How do forest management strategies such as thinning affect carbon budgets on federal lands?

Forest carbon density could be enhanced by decreasing harvest intensity and increasing the intervals between harvests. For example, biomass carbon stocks in Oregon and N California could be theoretically twice as high if they were allowed to continue to accumulate carbon (Hudiburg et al. 2009). Even if current harvest rates were lengthened just 50 years, the biomass stocks could increase by 15%.

Harvest intensity – The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was enacted to conserve species that had been put at risk from extensive harvesting of old forests. Prior to enactment, the public forests were a source of carbon to the atmosphere. Harvest rates were reduced by ~80% on public lands, which led to a large carbon sink (increase in net ecosystem carbon balance, NECB) in the following decades. Direct losses of carbon from fire emissions were generally small relative to harvest (Turner et al. 2011, Krankina et al. 2012).

Thinning forests – Landscape and regional studies show that large-scale thinning to reduce the probability of crown fires and provide biomass for energy production does not reduce carbon emissions under current and future climate conditions (Hudiburg et al. 2011, Hudiburg et al. 2013; Law & Harmon 2011; Mitchell et al. 2009, 2012; Schulze et al. 2012; Mika & Keeton 2012). If implemented, it would result in long-term carbon emission to the atmosphere because many areas that are thinned won’t experience fire during the period of treatment effectiveness (10-20 yrs), and removals from areas that later burn may exceed the carbon ‘saved’ by reducing fire intensity (Law & Harmon 2011; Campbell et al 2012; Rhodes & Baker 2009). Thinning does not necessarily reduce fire occurrence, particularly in extreme weather conditions (drought, wind).

Slow in and fast out – opportunity cost. Today’s harvest is carbon that took decades to centuries to accumulate, and it returns to the atmosphere quickly through bioenergy use. Increased GHG emissions from bioenergy use are primarily due to consumption of the current forest carbon and from long-term reduction of the forest carbon stock that could have been sustained into the future. The general assumption that bioenergy combustion is carbon-neutral is not valid because it ignores emissions due to decreasing standing biomass that can last for centuries.

Bioenergy still puts carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when a key objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The global warming effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not depend on its source. Per unit of energy, the amount of carbon dioxide released from biomass combustion is about as high as that of coal and substantially larger than that of oil and natural gas (Haberl et al. 2012).

Summary
Comprehensive assessments are needed to understand the carbon consequences of land use actions, and should include a full accounting of the land-based carbon balance as well as carbon losses through the products chain. In mature forests, harvest for wood product removes ~75% of the wood carbon, and 30-50% of that is lost to the atmosphere in the manufacturing process, including the use of some of that carbon for biomass energy. The remainder ends up back in the atmosphere within ~90-150 years, and there are losses over time, not just at the end of the product use). These loss rates are much higher than that of forests. Full accounting of all carbon benefits, including crown fire risk reduction, storage in long- and short-term wood products, substitution for fossil fuel, and displacement of fossil fuel energy, shows that thinning results in increased atmospheric carbon emissions for at least many decades.

Upping Our Discussion Game: Some Encouragement

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discussion

Whew, I just got done with another quarter of school, which involved reading books and online discussion (and developing an early stage of a thesis proposal).

One thing I learned this quarter is that people can be civil even when discussing the most difficult and passionate views (e.g. Zionism and the policies of Israel). I wondered to myself “why is that?” and “why is it so hard to have that degree of civility on NCFP?”

One thing is that it is an expectation set by the school and the faculty. Another is that we “covenanted” or pledged to the following at the beginning of the year:

I covenant to encourage a challenging intellectual environment through the cultivation of critical reflection, curiosity, creativity, and the sense of adventure.

I covenant to encourage openness to transformation by learning through open, honest, respectful dialogue with one another.

Now, I am not asking us to make that pledge to each other, but I am asking each of us to consider or reflect on approaching our dialogue this way. And we might still want to “learn” without being “open to transformation.”

I think many folks have slipped on this road, including me, and I am not going to single anyone out. As of now, though, I’d ask all of us to step back and try to work on a couple of things to NOT do :

1. Name calling, sarcasm and snark.
2. Questioning people’s motives (i.e. people on or off the blog)
3. Lumping people into groups (e.g., Sowell works for the Hoover Institution, therefore we all know he’s not worth listening to).

Meanwhile, I do think “who is funding the work and what are their qualifications” are relevant questions, because those point to the structure of how information is developed.

And a something TO FOCUS ON:

What evidence do you have to support your claim that agrees/ disagrees with something posted? Personal experience is fine, history is fine, just be clear on why you disagree so the rest of us can understand.

I know we do fairly well, and it’s harder to do this, but I think we can up our game with some tweaking. A benefit might be, in addition to better discussion, some gentler souls may feel more comfortable commenting.

USDA calls for nominations to the Forest Service Planning Rule Advisory Committee

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Press release issued today….

 
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Contact: (202) 205-1005
Twitter: @forestservice

USDA calls for nominations to the Forest Service Planning Rule Advisory Committee
WASHINGTON, March 13, 2014 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced a call for nominations to serve on the Planning Rule Federal Advisory Committee that guides better management of our national forests.
This first-of-its-kind independent advisory committee, formed in January 2012, advises the Secretary of Agriculture through the Chief of the Forest Service by providing advice and recommendations on the new rule and its directives. The proposed planning directives guide implementation of the planning rule which was published in the Federal Register in April 2012, and became effective a month later. 
“Input from the public is critical to successful land management planning,” said Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “Having a diverse panel and the unique perspectives they bring will continue to be a tremendous asset as we move forward with the national planning rule.”
The committee presented its first set of recommendations for the implementation of the U.S. Forest Service’s 2012 Planning Rule to U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Under Secretary Robert Bonnie and Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell in November 2013, recommending strengthened collaboration, improved planning efficiencies and more effective and informed decision making.
The committee also made recommendations that strengthen ecological, social, economic and cultural sustainability objectives of the rule. This includes recommendations intended to deepen the level of stakeholder collaboration in forest planning, as well as recommendations regarding outreach, adaptive management, monitoring, wilderness, climate change, intergovernmental relations, species protection and water resources.  
The committee is comprised of 21 members with diverse backgrounds, who represent the full range of public interests in management of the National Forest System lands and who represent geographically diverse locations and communities. The current committee’s membership expires in June, 2014 and this current call for nominations seeks applicants for membership on the committee for the next two years through June, 2016.  Up to seven members will be selected from each of the following three groupings:  
  • Timber industry
    Grazing or other land use permit holders or other private forest landowners
    Energy and mineral development
    Commercial or recreational hunting and fishing interests
    Developed outdoor recreation, off-highway vehicle users or commercial recreation interests
  • National, regional or local environmental organizations
    Conservation organizations or watershed associations
    Dispersed recreation interests
    Archaeological or historical interests
    Scientific community
  • The public at-large
    State-elected official (or designee)
    County or local elected official
    American Indian Tribes representation
    Youth representation
The 45-day nomination period closes April 28, 2014. Details on the current Committee and further information such as the application form (http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5203568.pdf) and the Federal Register notice are available at the U.S Forest Service website (http://www.fs.usda.gov/planningrule), or by calling Chalonda Jasper at 202-260-9400. 
The mission of the U.S. Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. Recreational activities on our lands contribute $14.5 billion annually to the U.S. economy. The agency manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world.
 
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Incorrect Road Data Presented to Flathead NF Collaborative

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Here’s another letter from Swan View Coalition Chair Keith Hammer to the Flathead National Forest and the Meridian Institute.  The letter is shared with Mr. Hammer’s permission, as it is part of the public record. The letter also highlights more problems and frustrations with the “collaborative” process as being carried out by the Forest Service in regards to the Flathead National Forest’s forest plan revision process. Previously this blog has devoted more attention to this specific issue on the Flathead.

Dear Folks and Flathead National Forest and Meridian Institute;

You have presented inaccurate and misleading road data to the Flathead Forest Plan revision collaborative. We ask that you make the following corrections and insure it is brought to the attention of the entire collaborative and other public participants.

We dowloaded the attached document from the Meridian web site and have attached it for your convenience; “Access Information for Desired Condition Discussion.”

1. On page 5, this Access Information states “A total of about 887 miles of road have been decommissioned” since 1995.

This is not true. Some 130 miles of those roads have not yet been decommissioned and the majority of those have languished on the landscape since 1996.

An example is the 72 miles of road never decommissioned though authorized under the 1996 Crane Mountain Salvage timber sale.

This is important because the Access Information continues on page 7 to claim “the amount of decommissioning each year has decreased as the backlog of decommissioning is reduced and the A19 commitments under project level planning have been largely accomplished” – which is also not true.

The above statement does not fairly or accurately explain why the amount of annual road decommissioning has decreased from an average of 43 miles/year from 2006-2010 to just 4 miles in 2013 – when there are some 130 miles of “shovel-ready” road decommissioning NEPA decisions sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

If this is due to a lack of funds, the Access Information should make that clear. Instead, the Access Information essentially states the Flathead is already at the one-yard line, a touchdown is imminent, and all is fine concerning road decommissioning.

The Access Information needs to make clear that the timber sales which authorized the road decommissioning did not raise enough money to pay for the decommissioning, nor has the Flathead secured enough funding elsewhere to accomplish 15% (that’s one out of seven) of the road mileage it has already decided is necessary to adequately protect fish, wildlife and other resources.

2. The remaining section of the Access Information dealing with road maintenance and budgets is equally misleading and remiss:

The Flathead’s 2004 Analysis of the Management Situation clearly indicated the Flathead receives less than one-sixth of the budget needed to maintain its road system to applicable standards for the protection of water quality, fish, wildlife and human safety. See page 4-2 of this 2004 document at: http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5432382.pdf

The attached Access Information at 7, however, presents a table that makes it look like a budget of as little as $1.3 million will adequately maintain 99% of passenger car roads and does not adequately summarize the environmental damage that occurs when roads are not maintained up to standards, including closed roads in Maintenance Level 1.

While the Access Information makes it clear that road management budgets continue to decrease, it does not – but must – contain a succinct summary of what budget the Flathead needs to meet all applicable maintenance standards and what budget it can reasonably expect to receive in coming years (as did the 2004 Analysis).

3. Finally, the Access Information does not provide the summary of road maintenance and road decommissioning costs necessary for the public to determine what mix of roads to retain on the Flathead and which to remove – nor does it provide the summary conclusion that it is cheaper to decommission a road than it is to maintain it with the required Best Management Practices. This is a conclusion announced by the Flathead in a 11/16/98 press release and subsequent 11/20/98 Missoulian news article. This conclusion was most recently confirmed in the Flathead’s 2/14/14 proposed Chilly James Restoration Project.

We ask that you make the above corrections to the Access Information and resubmit it to the collaborative with an announcement of the changes that have been made. And let’s be clear we are not suggesting a more complex presentation of the data. We find you must present it in a more accurate and summary manner in order for the public to grasp the relationship between roads, road funding, resource protection, and fiscal reality. As it stands now, the Access Information is incorrect and misleading.

Please respond and indicate what you intend to do about this.

Thank you,

Keith Hammer – Chair
Swan View Coalition

More Flaws in Flathead NF “Collaborative” Process

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For a few years now some of us have been trying to hammer home the point – based on our actual experiences – that not all Forest Service “collaborative” processes are created equal, and in some cases, lead to even greater feelings of mistrust and frustrations.

One such recent example of a questionable “collaborative” process has been on the Flathead National Forest in Montana, concerning the Forest Plan revision process, which has been highlighted on this blog with the following posts:

Swan View Coalition Shares Perspective on Collaboration

Another invite-only “collaborative” leads to unprofessional Forest Service conduct

Flathead NF Skews Forest Plan Revision Process, Deceives Collaborative Group

The following letter from Keith Hammer of the Swan View Coalition was provided to the Flathead National Forest leadership and the private Meridian Institute, which the USFS has contracted with to help run the “collaborative” process on the Flathead’s forest plan revision process.  The letter is shared with Hammer’s permission, as it is part of the public record.

Dear Folks at Meridian Institute and Flathead National Forest;

While we appreciate being involved in the Jan 20 conference call discussing problems with the Flathead Forest Plan revision collaborative process, we are very disappointed in the outcome. It seems at most every turn this process has turned into more sub-groups, more meetings, and less transparency – making it increasingly difficult for folks to be meaningfully involved and to provide informed input.

At the Sept 25 Process Workshop, Connie Lewis made it clear that folks “Encourage transparency and accessibility throughout the process.”

More meetings and more groups do not provide more accessibility or transparency. Well facilitated meetings faithfully recorded in written form and posted publicly in a timely manner does provide better accessibility and transparency.

We appreciate that Meridian has begun posting written summaries of the meetings on its web site and has begun sending emails with links that go directly to those summaries and other recently posted materials.

The summaries, however, do not provide an accurate record of who said what at the meetings. This makes it impossible for people to determine what differences or common ground exist between who, or whom to turn to if they would like to know more about what they have said. Recording and associating the names of the people with their comments is absolutely essential to providing accountability and the building blocks necessary for any progress to be made in common understanding of the issues.

Having people keep their name placard on the table in front of them at the Jan 22 meeting was a step in the right direction, but we are at a loss why, in the summary, those names were not then recorded in association with comments being made. It should be standard practice that folks state their full name before commenting – for the benefit of the record keeper and all others in the room.

From an accountability standpoint, folks should be required to provide their first and last names when commenting at meetings or in the forums provided on the Meridian web site – for the reasons provided above and to keep things from running amok in an unaccountable manner. In this regard, we found it troubling that one person speaking at the Jan 22 Vegetation group had only what we assume to be a nickname on his pre-printed placard – something along the line of “Boomer.” Are you allowing folks to participate in this process without firstly identifying themselves, or is this person’s full given name actually “Boomer” or whatever?

We offer these criticism after having attended all of the collaborative meetings thus far, but having also been promised full transparency and accessibility via eCollaboration and other means for when folks can’t make the meetings. Can you imagine not being able to attend these meetings and trying to track who is involved and what is being said via the meeting summaries you have thus far provided?

We ask that you follow up on your promise to make this process transparent and accessible to everyone. We urge you to put yourselves in the shoes of someone that can’t make a single meeting and then conduct this process accordingly.

Keith Hammer – Chair
Swan View Coalition

 

The Role of Sound Forest Management in Reducing Wildfire Risk

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There are many here on the NCFP blog that don’t believe that there is any scientific basis for Sound Forest Management in reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire. For those with an open mind and a desire to do what is right for our National Forests and the environment, here are two articles that will provide some food for thought. I have added some bolding and italics for emphasis and some “Notes:” for clarification.

 

1) The Arizona Daily Star reports that:

– “the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, which held a three-day meeting in Tucson this week to address forest resiliency in the face of climate change and megafires.

More than 100 scientists, land managers and firefighters from government, academic and nongovernmental agencies gathered to brainstorm strategies for making forests resilient as big, hot fires threaten their very existence.

“More fire, not less” is one answer, the researchers said.”.

– “Treating and burning the landscape regularly, and using natural fire to accomplish those same ends will allow those changes to occur gradually.

The alternatives, said fire ecologist Don Falk, are more megafires and more abrupt changes.” Note: The use of “treating” includes logging to reduce excessive stand density and other fuel reduction efforts.

– “Falk, in his keynote address to the group, showed a photo of an entire watershed burned to ash in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico during the Las Conchas Fire in 2011. No mature trees survived, no seed source remains and the soil is washing away. That change, he said, “is essentially irreversible.”” Note: This doesn’t mean that nothing can be done to ameliorate the losses.

Note: In regard to these findings above, there is nothing here that hasn’t been known to foresters for over a half century but maybe this reaffirmation will help some to understand the need for sound forest management and the consequences of excluding sound forest management.”

 

2) The News Herald in North Carolina in an article entitled “Prescribed burns reduce wildfire threat” gives us quick overview of what all goes into preparing for and carrying out a prescribed burn. The article doesn’t give enough detail regarding the weather planning and restrictions imposed before executing control burns by the states. To my best knowledge, states have to approve all burn plans before they can be carried out so there is a strong checks and balances system in-place to minimize adverse weather risk, ignorance and carelessness in fire plans. Here are some quotes:

– “Some plant communities and animal species rely on periodic fire for their existence. The prescribed burns also reduce the amount of potential wildfire fuel and protect a parks’ resources and neighboring areas if lightning, arson or carelessness sparks a wildfire.”

– ““The point of this fire was to reduce the threat of wildfire. We’re burning it on our terms so a wildfire can’t burn on its terms,” Walker said Tuesday. “Our goal is to reduce small fuels by consuming them with fire. There will also be some benefits by reducing hardwood competition and making a more park-life appearance with general aesthetic quality.”

Before the fire can be lit, the rangers create a strict burn plan that factors in temperature, humidity, wind and more.

“We have certain weather parameters that the burning plan dictates. You don’t want the ground too wet or too dry because it takes a lot of effort to put the fire out,” Walker told. “We are really fortunate that a lot of the land that we have to patrol on a prescribed burn is bordered by the lake.”

Personnel began a test burn to make sure the winds were going to cooperate. The N.C. Forest Service and park rangers were ready to pull the plug if weather was going to be an issue. A burn line was constructed from the parking lot to the lake, and fire personnel proceeded to burn 61 acres of the Fox Den Loop.”

– “N.C. State Parks’ mission is to help promote natural forests. Historically, this area and statewide has burned more frequently,” said Bischoff. “Prior to settlement, several hundred years ago, this area had wildfires that burned very frequent in this area. Fire in general usually has a lot of negative connotation, but fortunately the community for the most part has been really supportive.”

– “The N.C. Forest Service also stated there is a program to fund burns on private lands”