Eldorado Roadside Hazard Tree Project on 2400 Miles of Road Begins Implementation

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This photo is from the Cal4Wheel website.

Thanks to Nick Smith.

While roadside hazard tree removal seemed to spark much debate in Oregon, this one perhaps less so.  The EA is about 200 pages for  2461 miles. There were  three objections, described below. Here’s the press release:

The Eldorado National Forest is beginning the implementation of their Roadside Hazard Tree Mitigation Project. This project is designed to reduce safety hazards along the 2,461 miles of National Forest System (NFS) roads, including 116 miles of state, local, and private roads in Alpine, Amador, El Dorado, and Placer counties. The project aims to ensure the integrity of the NFS roads and improve safety for the public, Forest Service staff, firefighters, emergency response personnel, law enforcement, private landowners, contractors, special use permit holders, and others.

It is important to address the issue of hazardous trees in the aftermath of high-severity wildfires, as they can pose a significant risk to road users. Trees that have been killed or damaged by a fire, as well as those affected by insects, disease, drought, or other stressors may become unstable and more likely to fall, particularly in high winds or other adverse weather conditions. This project’s goal to identify and remove those hazardous trees within striking distance of roads is a proactive approach to reducing the risk of accidents, injuries, and damage to roads.

The project’s scope is to identify, fell, and remove hazardous trees that are at risk of striking a road within a buffer area of 200 feet from the edges of NFS maintenance level 1 through level 5 roads, as well as identified state, county, local, and private roads through NFS lands. However, not all roads within the project area will be treated, and roads within designated wilderness areas are not included in the project scope.

“The Eldorado National Forest’s Roadside Hazard Tree Mitigation Project was designed to increase the resilience of the forest to a range of environmental threats, not just wildfires. By removing hazardous trees that could pose a risk to public safety, and infrastructure, the project aims to reduce the impact of future wildfires and other natural disasters,” said
Forest Supervisor, Joseph Stout.

Treatment of lower maintenance level roads will be based on various factors, including administrative needs, permittee needs, access needs for utilities, and other uses. The project will use a variety of methods to remove the hazardous trees within the designated buffer area. These methods may include mechanical removal and piling, hand removal and hand piling, mastication, towed or in-wood chipping, and pile burning.

The project is conducted in phases, and the first phase will focus on 231 miles of roads within the Caldor Fire footprint.

This phase of the project is expected to last 2 to 3 years, indicating that it is a significant undertaking. It is important to note that detailed information on each phase of the project will be shared with the public prior to work being started.

I tried to copy this discussion of objections from the DN but was stymied by the pdf and my Adobe. So apologies for the weird formatting below.

 

 

Turning an Aircraft Carrier? Report on Senate Farm Bill and Approps Hearing: Guest Post by Dave Mertz

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Note from Sharon: There’s all kinds of topics (porky and  non) at this hearing- from firefighter mental health to a climate “hub” in Hawaii. Please add your own observations and interesting news takes in the comments.

Congressional Hearings for the Farm Bill and Agency Appropriations Watching congressional hearings is a really interesting way to find things out that you may otherwise never hear about. Over the past couple of months, there
have been Senate hearings for the Farm Bill with Associate Chief Angela Coleman, and Senate Appropriations hearings with Chief Randy Moore. I found the April 18 th “Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources about the FY2024 budget request for the Forest Service” Chief Moore testimony:  to be particularly interesting.

A common theme of all of these hearings is holding the Forest Service accountable to increase timber outputs. Numerous bills have been proposed to hold the Forest Service’s feet to the fire. Too many to even mention here. It’s
interesting that this interest in accountability is coming from Republicans, Democrats and an Independent. They all want to know what the Forest Service is doing with the billions of dollars that have been appropriated to them in the recent past, and why timber outputs have not seen a resulting increase. They all express a concern in dealing with the wildfire crisis.

Chief Moore primarily gives three reasons why there has not been a dramatic increase and why the timber volume sold target was not met last fiscal year. Now, we all know the old metaphor that you don’t turn an aircraft carrier on a dime, and in this instance, the Forest Service is the aircraft carrier. Chief Moore says that both wildfires and storms wreaked havoc on areas that were planned for timber sales, and this drastically impacted their target accomplishment.

He went on to say that they are having real difficulty in hiring. The process is not working well and continues to be cumbersome. Also, they are losing employees through attrition, almost as quick as they can hire them. He provides several reasons for this, that pay levels are a problem as well as housing in the locations where they need people to work. It’s interesting that Chief Moore did not mention NEPA and lawsuits as reasons for the lack of target accomplishment.

Is it finally time to admit that the Albuquerque Service Center was a big mistake? Before ASC, the Forest Service had a relatively well-oiled hiring machine. I believe it could have held its own in comparison to most other Federal Agencies. Chief Moore oversees ASC, if it has serious problems then he needs to fix it. It would take a lot to finally admit that ASC was a mistake, but maybe that is what needs to happen. With regards to housing, the Forest Service used to be in the business of providing housing, but then it was seen as time to move on from that.  Much of the government housing was sold off. Now that is not looking like such a great decision.

Chief Moore says that they have a plan to get up to 4 billion board feet by FY 2027. Sen. Angus King from Maine stated that Eisenhower took Europe in 11 months, why would it take the Forest Service so long to get to 4 billion board feet? Interesting question. It’s also interesting that almost all of these Senators expressed concerns about wildfires but there was little said about increasing prescribed fire and pre-commercial thinning. If they were truly interested in reducing wildfire threats, there could be a whole lot of mitigation through those two methods in comparison to cutting sawtimber-sized trees.

The Forest Service is in a tough spot. For years they stated that if they were just provided with enough money (Chief Moore states that they still need more) they could address the wildfire crisis. Just like the dog who never expected to catch the car, and when they finally did, they didn’t know what to do with it. Chief Moore received some hard questions in this hearing. I felt a little sorry for him. He can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat and fix the wildfire crisis overnight, but the Forest Service needs to be upfront about what they can actually do and what the realistic timeframes will be.

Dave Mertz retired from the Black Hills National Forest in 2017 as the Forest’s Natural Resource Staff Officer.  Over the course of his career with the FS, he was a Forester, Silviculturist, Forest Fire Management Officer and a Fire Staff Officer.  Since retirement, he has stayed involved in Forest Management issues, with a particular interest in the Black Hills NF’s timber program  

 

Synthesis of 127 Studies on Fuels Treatment Effectiveness

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Summary of a new “Science You Can Use” bulletin from the Rocky Mountain Research Station: “Can Fuel Treatments Change How a Wildfire Burns Across a Landscape?” Summary below. One interesting observation:

Theresa “Terrie” Jain, an RMRS research forester (now scientist emeritus) with the Forest and Woodland Ecosystems Program and the project lead, says the lack of a clear understanding and agreement of what is meant by the term “landscape” underscores the need for the synthesis.

“We found that in the science papers, researchers used the term landscape, but they never defined their landscape. We found that the term was used in the title or as a keyword, but often the paper did not really address the landscape,” Jain says. “Even though fire is a landscape process, few researchers are really doing landscape-level analysis.”

Summary:

By all measures, wildfires in the western United States are becoming more extreme. Fires are growing larger and burning more intensely, and suppression costs are spiraling upward. Maximizing the effectiveness of fuel treatments at the landscape scale is key given limited resources and the inability to treat all areas likely to burn in a wildfire.

Research forester Theresa Jain with the Rocky Mountain Research Station collaborated with fellow Station scientists along with colleagues from research institutions across the country to synthesize existing scientific literature on landscape-scale fuel treatment effectiveness in North American ecosystems through a systematic literature review.

The team identified 127 studies that addressed the fuels treatment effectiveness using simulation modeling, empirical analysis, and case studies. The studies show that fuel treatments reduced negative outcomes of wildfire and often promoted beneficial wildfire outcomes. Weather conditions influenced the effectiveness of treatments, and effectiveness lessened over time following treatment, pointing to the need for maintenance treatments. The studies also emphasized the importance of treating multiple fuel layers (canopy, ladder, and surface) to reduce fire spread and severity. Fuel treatments also contributed to fire suppression efforts by reducing costs and facilitating suppression activities, such as fireline construction.

The science team has developed a fuel treatment effectiveness framework with measurable criteria to better understand how stand-level fuel treatments collectively contribute to broader landscape-level fuels management goals.

Forest Tree Regeneration Considerations: How Do Concepts of Ecological Integrity and Climate Resilience Fit?

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Burn severity map of Hayman Fire

 

Jon and I got into one of our usual discussions about NRV and what it means in the comments here, related to the MOG- NPR.  What I thought might be useful and fun is to take two topics we know something about … reforestation and stocking level.. and look at them through different lenses, specifically those of climate resilience compared to ecosystem integrity and see if they’re the same or different, and how they might be applied. There’s also the question of what exactly is the role of the Forest Plan.  Is it relevant? How should it be relevant?

I think we concrete and abstract people can easily talk past each other, as in this 2010 post, so here is a specific example and I’m hoping that we can illustrate how the answers might be different if we were operating under “climate resilience” versus “ecosystem integrity” or NRV as a goal; or not.  If they are identical concepts the FS has it easy, if they are different, we need to talk about how and why.

Example:Replanting, What, Where and How Much-The Grandiose Fire

Your district recently had a large fire, the Grandiose Fire.  You are assigned to help determine if replanting is needed, and where and what species, and planting density.  For this example, imagine your own local area where you understand the species mix and characteristics.

I’d start with the biology and reproductive characteristics of the trees that were growing/continuing to grow there.

First, I’d  look for areas where natural regeneration is going to have a tough go.   Suppose places are, say, more than a mile from living, seed-producing trees. I’d also look at the topography and soils and location by water that influence which species tend to grow where.  I’d want to make sure that the rarer species are still represented in their current topo/soils niche. In this area, ponderosa is common and Doug-fir and spruce also occur in spots.  From what’s left in less intense areas you can get an idea of what was growing there. In more intense areas, you might remember or have records.

In other areas, with remnant seed producers (or serotinous cones for LPP), lodgepole and true fir may come in on their own and ponderosa may need interventions (planting) to become established. Or grass or brush competitors may come, in such that if you don’t plant right away a window is lost. How long does that take?

What do you know about natural regeneration? What about seedling survival? What about diseases? Browsing? Insects? Porcupines? How much work can yo do? How much money do you have? Do you have seed? Do the nurseries have capacity?

Check out what the Coconino has been doing to keep natural aspen regeneration alive. Tree regeneration, in many dry places,  is not a job for the easily discouraged nor the faint of heart

In many dry places, it can be a tough life for planted seedlings.  If you’re in a situation where the only stocking will come from planted trees, do you overplant, to increase the likelihood that some will live? But then you might have to come back and thin to desired stocking, which costs money.

When I think about all these considerations, and then I think of climate resilience, I tend to think more along a generic scenario “what if it gets hotter and drier?”  Probably  in our area, you would want low density of trees in case of drought.. but you are still working in the window of “some, but not too many,” with many survival unknowns.

It might also be more important to get more dry-loving and fire-resistant species in the mix, so plant pine where it isn’t coming back (maybe some proportion more than you would have otherwise?).

When I think about this real world question (plant/not plant, how many, what species, where), it seems it’s fairly easy to consider climate resilience. Are integrity and NRV covered simply by trying to get the same species back? Or it is more complicated?

And for those of you currently working in forest regeneration, tell us your thoughts and experiences.

Forest Service staffing now a bottleneck for forest thinning: Report from 4FRI Country

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Logging small trees is just one part of forest restoration.
File photo by Peter Aleshire

Thanks to Jon for finding this story from the Payson Roundup by Peter Aleshire about difficulties in Forest Service hiring.  It’s also interesting to compare with the BLM as they state they are 40% down in some places.  The BLM and FS have different hiring centers.. it would be interesting to compare how they are doing and whether they suffer from the same roadblocks and problems. Anyway, here’s the story.

No one to mark the trees.

Fill out the paperwork.

Or count the owls.

So it’s going to be tough to stay on schedule when it comes to thinning the forest – and protecting communities like Payson, Show Low and Pinetop from the next megafire.

The Forest Service briefed the Natural Resources Working Group April 18 on the complicated effort to revive the timber industry in Northern Arizona for the critical task of thinning overgrown forests.

It wasn’t pretty.

But it’s still progress.

Turns out, the Apache Sitgreaves Forest has only about a third of its authorized staff – which means it’s scrambling to prepare timber sales.

Partly because a national labor shortage has made it hard to find people to do the job – especially in remote, forested areas.

But also because it takes the federal human resources department 12 to 18 months to actually approve a request to hire someone.

That has delayed preparation of timber sales across northern Arizona, although study after study has concluded that forested communities in places like Gila, Apache and Navajo counties remain among the most fire-threatened in the country.

It also explains why places like the Payson Ranger District headquarters are essentially closed to the public.

“We have a total of 183 non-fire positions. We’re missing 66 as of today,” said Acting Apache-Sitgreaves Forest Supervisor Rob Lever. “Times are tough, but I actually think we’re being a little bit more innovative. I feel like the clarity of what we’re supposed to be doing allows us to be a little more creative.”

The 4-Forests Restoration Project has been designated one of the top priorities for logging and forest restoration in the country. The assorted infrastructure bills and an overhaul of the Forest Service budgeting system for restoration has provided a lot of new money.

But the staffing shortage has made it all but impossible to quickly complete required environmental assessments and prepare the timber sales. The bottleneck may limit how much thinning gets done.

“So you’re running with 36% of your staff being essentially out?” asked Pasal Berlioux, executive director of the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization. The group hosts monthly meetings for representatives of the logging industry, the Forest Service and local officials to try to keep the forest restoration efforts on track.

“You said 12 to 18 months? So if I apply – you don’t see my application for that long?”

“We prioritize which positions they deal with for us,” said Lever. “We can submit five positions at once. I think we need more candidates. And we need to make our operation more efficient – maybe we don’t need some of those positions.”

A First Look at MOGgie ANPR. III. Preliminary Discussion of The Questions

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Some of us will get sucked in to writing answers to these questions.. there sure are a lot!  The questions are pretty much about how can the FS plan and use adaptive management in managing for “climate resilience.”  Conceivably managing for climate resilience will also help with resilience non-climate biological, physical, economic and social stressors, unless folks have defined those not to exist (Everything Stressful is Due to Climate). It would be handy IMHO if the results of this and a 10- year review of implementation would lead to an amended Planning Rule.  A girl can dream… Anyway, below are the questions.  I’m still looking for helpful reviews of “why adaptive management hasn’t worked in the past, or has it?” if anyone knows of any.. the above paper is about the approach taken in the NW Forest Plan in 2003.

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We are interested in public feedback and requests for Tribal consultation on a range of potential options to adapt current policies or develop new policies and actions to better anticipate, identify, and respond to rapidly changing conditions associated with climate-amplified impacts. Overarching questions include:

  • How should the Forest Service adapt current policies and develop new policies and actions to conserve and manage the national forests and grasslands for climate resilience, so that the Agency can provide for ecological integrity and support social and economic sustainability over time?

• How should the Forest Service assess, plan for and prioritize conservation and climate resilience at different organizational levels of planning and management of the National Forest System ( e.g., national strategic direction and planning; regional and unit planning, projects and activities)?

  • What kinds of conservation, management or adaptation practices may be effective at fostering climate resilience on forests and grasslands at different geographic scales?
  • How should Forest Service management, partnerships, and investments consider cross-jurisdictional impacts of stressors to forest and grassland resilience at a landscape scale, including activities in the WUI?
  • What are key outcome-based performance measures and indicators that would help the Agency track changing conditions, test assumptions, evaluate effectiveness, and inform continued adaptive management?

Examples, comments, and Tribal consultation would be especially helpful on the following topics:

1. Relying on Best Available Science, including Indigenous Knowledge (IK), to Inform Agency Decision Making.

a. How can the Forest Service braid together IK and western science to improve and strengthen our management practices and policies to promote climate resilience? What changes to Agency policy are needed to improve our ability to integrate IK for climate resilience—for example, how might we update current direction on best available scientific information to integrate IK, including in the Forest Service Handbook (FSH) Section 1909.12?

b. How can Forest Service land managers better operationalize adaptive management given rapid current and projected rates of change, and potential uncertainty for portions of the National Forest System?

c. Specifically for the Forest Service Climate Risk Viewer (described above), what other data layers might be useful, and how should the Forest Service use this tool to inform policy?

2. Adaptation Planning and Practices. How might explicit, intentional adaptation planning and practices for climate resilience on the National Forest System be exemplified, understanding the need for differences in approach at different organizational levels, at different ecological scales, and in different ecosystems?

a. Adaptation Planning:

i. How should the Forest Service implement the 2012 Planning Rule under a rapidly changing climate, including for assessments, development of plan components, and related monitoring?

1. How might the Forest Service use management and geographic areas for watershed conservation, at-risk species conservation and wildlife connectivity, carbon stewardship, and mature and old-growth forest conservation?

ii. How might the Forest Service think about complementing unit-level plans with planning at other scales, such as watershed, landscape, regional, ecoregional, or national scales?

a. Adaptation Practices:

i. How might the Agency maintain or foster climate resilience for a suite of key ecosystem values including water and watersheds, biodiversity and species at risk, forest carbon uptake and storage, and mature and old-growth forests, in addition to overall ecological integrity? What are effective adaptation practices to protect those values? How should trade-offs be evaluated, when necessary?

ii. How can the Forest Service mitigate risks to and support investments in resilience for multiple uses and ecosystem services? For example, how should the Forest Service think about the resilience of recreation infrastructure and access; source drinking water areas; and critical infrastructure in an era of climate change and other stressors?

iii. How should the Forest Service address the significant and growing need for post-disaster response, recovery, reforestation and restoration, including to mitigate cascading disasters (for example, post-fire flooding, landslides, and reburns)?

iv. How might Forest Service land managers build on work with partners to implement adaptation practices on National Forest System lands and in the WUI that can support climate resilience across jurisdictional boundaries, including opportunities to build on and expand Tribal co-stewardship?

v. Eastern forests have not been subject to the dramatic wildfire events and severe droughts occurring in the west, but eastern forests are also experiencing extreme weather events and chronic stress, including from insects and disease, while continuing to rebound from historic management and land use changes. Are there changes or additions to policy and management specific to conservation and climate resilience for forests in the east that the Forest Service should consider?

3. Mature and Old Growth Forests. The inventory required by E.O. 14072 demonstrated that the Forest Service manages an extensive, ecologically diverse mature and old-growth forest estate. Older forests often exhibit structures and functions that contribute ecosystem resilience to climate change. Along with unique ecological values, these older forests reflect diverse Tribal, spiritual, cultural, and social values, many of which also translate into local economic benefits.

Per direction in E.O. 14072, this section builds on the RFI to seek public input on policy options to help the Forest Service manage for future resilience of old and mature forest characteristics. Today there are concerns about the durability, distribution, and redundancy of these systems, given changing climate, as well as past and current management practices, including ecologically inappropriate vegetation management and fire suppression practices. Recent science shows severe and increasing rates of ecosystem degradation and tree mortality from climate-amplified stressors. Older tree mortality due to wildfire, insects and disease is occurring in all management categories.

The Forest Service is analyzing threats to mature and old-growth forests to support policy development to reduce those threats and foster climate resilience. Today’s challenge for the Forest Service is how to maintain and grow older forest conditions while improving and expanding their distribution and protecting them from the increasing threats posed by climate change and other stressors, in the context of its multiple-use mandate.

a. How might the Forest Service use the mature and old-growth forest inventory (directed by E.O. 14072) together with analyzing threats and risks to determine and prioritize when, where, and how different types of management will best enable retention and expansion of mature and old-growth forests over time?

b. Given our current understanding of the threats to the amount and distribution of mature and old-growth forest conditions, what policy, management, or practices would enhance ecosystem resilience and distribution of these conditions under a changing climate?

4. Fostering Social and Economic Climate Resilience.

a. How might the Forest Service better identify and consider how the effects of climate change on National Forest System lands impact Tribes, communities, and rural economies?

b. How can the Forest Service better support adaptive capacity for underserved communities and ensure equitable investments in climate resilience, consistent with the Forest Service’s Climate Adaptation Plan, Equity Action Plan and Tribal Action Plan?

c. How might the Forest Service better connect or leverage the contribution of State, Private and Tribal programs to conservation and climate resilience across multiple jurisdictions, including in urban areas and with Tribes, state, local and private landowners?

d. How might the Forest Service improve coordination with Tribes, communities, and other agencies to support complementary efforts across jurisdictional boundaries?

e. How might the Forest Service better support diversified forest economies to help make forest dependent communities more resilient to changing economic and ecological conditions?

Fire Retardant Case: Judge Christensen and “Magic Numbers”

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I liked this article from the San Joaquin Valley Sun..thanks to Nick Smith!  I like how reporter Daniel Gligich structured it in subsections.  I also like Judge Dana Christensen’s reported comment on “magic numbers.”

A Federal judge got his first glance at a lawsuit filed against the United States Forest Service that is seeking to bar the use of aerial fire retardants in combating wildfires.

The U.S. District Court in Montana heard oral arguments for the lawsuit on Monday, and a ruling appears to be coming soon.

The big picture: The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)  in Montana, the location of the Forest Service Northern Regional headquarters as well as where the testing takes place for chemical retardants.

  • If the court sides with the FSEEE, the USFS would have to obtain a permit under the Clean Water Act to use fire retardant from airplanes, a lengthy process that would span multiple years.

State of play: Amid the lawsuit, the USFS initiated the process of receiving a CWA permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency while simultaneously seeking proposed a 300-foot buffer zone for all fire retardant drops from would-be affected waterways.

  • In response, the FSEEE argued that 300 feet was an arbitrary number. Despite its argument that the USFS created the 300-foot buffer proposal out of thin air, the FSEEE asked the Court for a 600-foot buffer zone to be enacted.

The backstory: FSEEE filed the lawsuit last October, and in March a group of several jurisdictions and organizations – including the City of Paradise, which was devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire – filed a motion last week in support of the USFS’s ability to use aerial fire retardants.

What they’re saying: During Monday’s hearing, Judge Dana Christensen noted that a ruling is likely soon to follow Monday’s hearing as wildfire season in the western United States is about to commence. Along with an overarching skepticism at the nationwide impact of siding with FSEEE’s position, Christenson rejected its push for an extended buffer zone for aerial drops.

  • “The last thing I want to do is start imposing magic numbers in terms of buffer zones. I mean, that’s way out of my wheelhouse. But I don’t know what the Forest Service did to come up with 300 feet buffer, you’re describing it as being essentially nothing,” Christensen said. “It’s a magic number. And I will tell you, if this Court imposes a 600-foot buffer, that is truly a magic number. So that’s probably not going to happen.”
  • USFS attorney Alan Greenberg said during the oral arguments that the Forest Service uses aerial fire retardants on about five percent of the wildfires at site, and less than one percent of those discharges end up in water.

A First Look at MOGgie ANPR. II. Let’s Ground Truth the New FS Climate Risk Viewer!

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The Secretary’s Memo directs the Forest Service to spatially identify wildfire and climate change-driven threats and risks to key resources and values in the National Forest System, including water and watersheds, biodiversity and species at risk, forest carbon, and reforestation. Further, section 2 of E.O. 14072 specifically directs Federal agencies to identify mature and old forests on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands.

Through this ANPRM, USDA is sharing the beta version of a new Forest Service Climate Risk Viewer ( https://storymaps.arcgis.com/​collections/​87744e6b06c74e82916b9b11da218d28) for public feedback (see Section 1 below). This beta version was developed with 38 high-quality datasets and begins to illustrate the overlap of multiple resource values with climate exposure and vulnerability. The viewer also includes current management direction on National Forest System lands. The viewer allows for a place-based analysis of the need for climate adaptation to maintain, restore, and expand valued forest ecosystem and watershed characteristics. Additionally, the viewer supports identification of gaps between current management and potential conservation and adaptation practices. The beta version of the mature and old-growth (MOG) inventory that is being developed pursuant to E.O. 14072 and the RFI for MOG is also being released to help inform policy and decision-making on how best to conserve, foster, and expand the values of mature and old-growth forests on our Federal lands. Core information from the MOG inventory has been integrated into the viewer.

I took a brief look and it was very complex.  With a lot of RCP 8.5. So I will take some time and dig in for my own area, and hope others will do the same.

Synchronistically, Roger Pielke Jr. just posted a piece on his Substack this AM on another topic, but I think his thoughts are relevant to these maps.

Question 1: What scenarios are used to produce the estimates?

As frequent readers here will well know, the choice of scenario used in a climate projection can make the difference between an apocalyptic-looking future and one that appears much more manageable. You won’t be surprised to learn that many, if not most, studies that project future public health impacts of climate change rely on extreme, implausible or even impossible scenarios.

Question 2: How your analysis factor in adaptation?

One of the most incredible success stories of science, technology and policy over the past century has been the incredible progress around the world in improving adaptative capacity to weather and climate. This success story rarely gets reported on but that makes it no less real. There is of course more to do and continuing efforts are needed to maintain the progress made to date.

One dirty little secret in most studies of the future impacts of climate change (and not just on the effects of changes in extreme temperatures) in that future adaptation to climate variability and change is simply left out of projections. Assumptions are made that the climate will change, but people’s behavior will not. This is not how the real world works.

Adaptation- that’s the world of the natural resource professional.  Wildland fire technologies and people, and so on.  That’s us. We’re not included.

Note:  I am absolutely not criticizing the FS nor the USDA for doing it this way. They have to do what they are told, and use existing stuff. They have to go with the flow.

At the same time, in our quest to understand whether that information has any value, we need to take Roger’s points into consideration. And as I’ve said before, no one understands how populations of organisms will respond to any changes. So there’s that.

A First Look at the MOGgie ANPR – I. Up to Timber and Reforestation

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Thanks to a TSW reader for this working link to the MOG ANPR!  Mature and Old Growth, Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, that is. It has the funniest and possibly least helpful title of any ANPR I’ve seen.. at least what the Federal Register has posted.

Organization, Functions, and Procedures; Functions and Procedures; Forest Service Functions

Ok, then.

Climate Resilience is a Thing Worthy of Note

My favorite part is

Uses the Planning Rule’s definitions of ecological integrity and social and economic sustainability to structure the concept of climate resilience. Climate resilience is essential for ecological integrity and social and economic sustainability.

Aside from the future Land Management Agency abstraction Smackdown with BLM on “intactness”, one wonders what it to use a “definition” to “structure” a “concept”.    As everyone knows, I have not been a fan of “ecological integrity” as a concept.  But I definitely like the idea of the essentialness (apparently not a word) of climate resilience.  Underlying these are ideas that “leaving alone is always best” (intactness) versus “to get things people, wildlife and fish like,  management can be necessary.”

Note that these ideas are not at their base scientific at all- they are philosophical differences.  And the importance of Native American tools and uses runs into philosophical problems with the Garden of Eden-y school of intactitude.

And so, what will be the role of HRV or NRV?  Will we be able to give the historic vegetation ecologists a well-deserved break (for whom, as I commented at the time, the 2001 and later rules were a full employment program) from their tedious (to me)  infighting about what used to be, the roles of Native Americans and so on.

I live in hope that the ideas of dynamic systems will root out the old forms of “return to equilibrium” “balance of nature” or a return to the past.. at least for the Forest Service. But maybe that’s too much to expect from this peculiarly named ANPR.

Timber Harvesting

“To put this evolution of National Forest System management into context, currently the Forest Service commercially harvests one tenth of one percent of acres within the National Forest System each year. Harvests designed to improve stand health and resilience by reducing forest density or removing trees damaged by insect or disease make up 86 percent of those acres. The remainder are final or regeneration harvests that are designed to be followed by reforestation.”

This is kind of a duh for most TSW readers.  So I can see the philosophical argument already. “Even though it’s only a little bit, it’s something we can control.” I’ve heard this argument about PM 2.5.. “we can’t control wildfires so we need to ratchet down fossil fuel use.” And of course, the idea that wildfires can’t be managed runs against folks’ lived experience, the Wildfire Commission, various Congressional large chunks of money, and so on.  It seems like no matter what the problem is .. diseases, wildfire, climate change.. the answer is always to reduce uses some key constituencies don’t prefer.

“At the same time, over the past 15 years data shows that disturbance driven primarily by wildfire and insect and disease has adversely impacted more than 25 percent of the 193 million acres across the National Forest System (see Figure 2). This rapidly changing environment is now the primary driver of forest loss and type conversion. Wildfire alone causes approximately 80 percent of reforestation needs on National Forest System lands, and we expect those needs to continue to grow: More than half of the 4 million acres of potential reforestation needs on National Forest System lands stems from wildfires in 2020 and 2021 (see Figure 3).

Reinforced by the Forest Supervisor’s Office

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Al Hayes, the Toiyabe National Forest administrative officer, validated many deer during the opening weekend of the 1966 deer hunting season.

My last few Toiyabe National Forest fire prevention patrol weeks coincided with California’s 1966 mule deer hunting season and provided my first experience with deer hunters. In previous years, I had returned to college before the hunters had arrived. But this year, having graduated from college, I was serving a full six-month appointment. So the opening weekend of that hunting season was an eye-opener for me. I had no idea so many people came so far to hunt.

            As the motels in Bridgeport and the campgrounds and other camping spots all over the district filled with hunters and their rigs, I began to appreciate the magnitude of the fire prevention job ahead. And, as the opening day of hunting season approached, the Bridgeport Ranger Station was mobbed by hunters wanting campfire permits—that was a good sign, I figured—and information.

Fire Control Officer Marion Hysell had planned for that onslaught. As he flew the district in a helicopter, he vectored me, District Ranger Lynn Mitchell, and a couple other district personnel assigned to patrol duties toward fire prevention “hot spots” on the ground. And, on the ground, in addition to preventing fires, we did the usual duties of Forest Service patrolmen during hunting season including, along with California Department of Fish and Game officers and Mono County Sheriff’s Office deputies, validating the tags successful hunters were required to attach to their kills.

Forest Supervisor Ed Maw detailed members of this Reno office staff to help district personnel during this opening weekend patrol effort. Mr. Al Hayes, the Toiyabe National Forest administrative officer, was assigned to patrol with me.

“Les, I’m just an S.O. paper pusher,” he joked as we left the ranger station on opening day. Then he got serious. “You’re the expert here. You know the country and the job. Just let me know how I can help you.”

I did. And he helped. By the end of opening weekend, Mr. Hayes and I had contacted what seemed like hundreds of hunters with fire prevention messages, validated dozens of tags, and put out more than a few abandoned campfires. I’m pretty sure we prevented some wildfires

But the deer hunting season didn’t end with the end of the opening weekend rush. It went on through the end of October, and so did my fire prevention patrols.

 

Adapted from the 2018 third edition of Toiyabe Patrol, the writer’s memoir of five U.S. Forest Service summers on the Toiyabe National Forest in the 1960s.