New Report: Climate Change Could Cripple Southwestern Forests

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From the University of Arizona:

Combine the tree-ring growth record with historical information, climate records and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States.

That’s the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Arizona and other partner organizations.

If the Southwest is warmer and drier in the near future, widespread tree death is likely and would cause substantial changes in the distribution of forests and of species, the researchers report this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Read the entire article here.

Also, I’ll paste the Abstract of the study below, but the entire study may be view here.


Abstract


As the climate changes, drought may reduce tree productivity and survival across many forest ecosystems; however, the relative influence of specific climate parameters on forest decline is poorly understood. We derive a forest drought-stress index (FDSI) for the southwestern United States using a comprehensive tree-ring data set representing AD 1000–2007. The FDSI is approximately equally influenced by the warm-season vapour-pressure deficit (largely controlled by temperature) and cold-season precipitation, together explaining 82% of the FDSI variability. Correspondence between the FDSI and measures of forest productivity, mortality, bark-beetle outbreak and wildfire validate the FDSI as a holistic forest-vigour indicator. If the vapour-pressure deficit continues increasing as projected by climate models, the mean forest drought-stress by the 2050s will exceed that of the most severe droughts in the past 1,000 years. Collectively, the results foreshadow twenty-first-century changes in forest structures and compositions, with transition of forests in the southwestern United States, and perhaps water-limited forests globally, towards distributions unfamiliar to modern civilization.

Char Miller on the “Park Service= More Bucks” Question

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National Park Service photo

We have discussed this topic on the blog before. Thanks to Char for putting the questions out there in a well-written and researched piece here called “The San Gabriels: A National Forest? A National Park? Does it Matter?”. Thanks for setting our sights on the big strategic question.

There was so much good stuff that it was hard to pick an excerpt, so I just pulled the last few paragraphs.

It remains an open question, then, whether an NPS-managed recreation area would be an improvement over the current national forest. Neither agency currently has the requisite funds to sustain the forests, meadows, rivers, and beaches, trails, cabins, and lodges it stewards across the country. Like the heavily used Angeles National Forest, the Park Service’s major urban recreation areas, including the Santa Monica Mountains, Golden Gate, Delaware Water Gap, Lake Mead, and Gateway, are showing a lot of wear and tear, direct consequences of years of declining budgets, staff reductions, and deferred maintenance; the same situation is bedeviling the management of our wildlife refuges, conservation preserves, and iconic parks. We may proclaim that the public lands are national treasures, but we treat them like dirt.

Nothing will alter this situation unless we mount a serious national discussion about these lands’ real value, human and environmental. Our debate over the future of the San Gabriels and the Angeles National Forest could stimulate this much-needed larger conversation. But only if we ditch the hyperbolic rhetoric, confront the harsh budgetary climate, and admit that political tradeoffs will compromise whatever choice we make.

If we stay the ax and start telling the truth, we’ll be in a better position to make decent public policy.

Courthouse News Service on Burnt Mountain- QA/QC Needed!

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We have talked about the Courthouse News Service before here on this blog. It is a handy place for keeping up with litigation news, but like so many outlets, you can’t believe everything you read. At least they are upfront about their bias.

Here’s a link:

Developers trying to expand a ski resort in the mountain wilderness of Colorado can move forward with their forest-clearing plans, a federal judge ruled.

Hmm. . “forest-clearing” 800 trees? I guess that’s a bit of hype.. well OK.
Of more concern is this statement:

But U.S. District Judge James Boarsberg dismissed the complaint Friday, citing a Colorado law that allows ski resorts to skirt forestry regulations.

Really, a “law” ? The rule actually is a regulation.

In a “roadless” area, “trees may not be cut, sold, or removed” without special permission from the Forest Service, according to the 20-page decision.

I think in non-roadless areas that’s also the case. Oh well.

Central to both parties’ arguments were their respective interpretations of the term “roadless,” a distinction bestowed by the Forest Service upon pristine tracts of land “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.”

That sounds like wilderness, also it seems like backcountry skiers are already “trammeling” this specific area.

While the federal Roadless Area Conservation Rule establishes criteria through which land can be designated as “roadless,” the court notes that the more-specialized Colorado Roadless Areas Rule supersedes the initial regulation and introduces a key statute.
The most recent legislation precludes “existing permitted or allocated ski areas” from receiving “roadless” designations, according to the court.

Honestly, I couldn’t read the rest of it..I wish they’d had a link to the judge’s decision because I had no clue from this article. Seems to me like legislation and rulemaking are different things. QA/QC, where are you? I know roadlessness is complicated- otherwise it wouldn’t have kept as many roadless geeks like myself gainfully employed, but still…

If you’re interested in better coverage, try this article from the Summit Daily News. Below is an excerpt. Chalk one up for local vs. national news sources.

But Boasberg ruled that the 2011 Colorado Roadless Rule eliminates roadless areas from within ski-area boundaries. The Ark Initiative needed to raise its concerns about roadless lands within ski-area boundaries when Colorado’s roadless rule was being debated, the judge said.

“The Colorado Roadless Rule was not off-the-cuff rulemaking,” Boasberg wrote in his order. “As the Forest Service explained in its letter (to the Ark Initiative), the rule ‘is the result of extensive public involvement. More than 310,000 public comments, over a six-year period, were reviewed and considered in the development of the final rule.’”

The Ark Initiative “chose not to comment on the rule and thus cannot challenge it now. If plaintiffs wanted roadless designations in ski areas, they should have participated in the rulemaking,” the order continued.

White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said he hopes this latest ruling puts an end to the debate over Burnt Mountain. The Forest Service approved a Snowmass Ski Area Master Development Plan in 1994 that paved the way for expansion onto Burnt Mountain. Skico amended the plan in 2003 and applied a year later for specific approvals for the Burnt Mountain work. After three years of review, the Forest Service approved the plan. The Ark Initiative filed an administrative protest, which was denied. The Ark Initiative then filed a lawsuit in federal court that was denied and upheld by an appeals court.

“We’ve been dealing with this long enough,” Fitzwilliams said. “They’ve dragged us into court three times now.”

William Eubanks, an attorney for the Ark Initiative, couldn’t be reached for comment Monday on what, if anything, will be the next step for the environmental group.

The Forest Service is formally notifying Skico that it can move forward with the project, Fitzwilliams said.

“A good portion of the work is done,” he said.

He estimated 60 to 70 percent of the tree thinning and clean-up is finished.

In an earlier interview, Rich Burkley, Skico vice president of operations, estimated the trails crew will remove fewer than 800 living and dead trees from about 6.5 acres within the 230-acre area of Burnt Mountain. The terrain is east of Longshot, the existing inbounds trail on Burnt Mountain. The rest of Burnt Mountain is popular backcountry or sidecountry terrain.

Skico is glading areas between natural parks or breaks in the forest. There won’t be designated trails, Burkley said previously, but rather thin routes through the trees.

The expansion will boost the skiable terrain at Snowmass to 3,362 acres. That makes it the second-largest ski area in Colorado behind Vail Mountain.

The Ark Initiative’s lawsuit was filed in the District of Columbia on Sept. 11. When it was filed, the Forest Service asked Skico to voluntarily halt work while the legal fight was being settled. Skico intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the Forest Service.

The judge’s 20-page ruling said even if the Ark Initiative was correct and lands on Burnt Mountain were removed by the Forest Service by mistake from the roadless inventory, the mistake was made moot when the Colorado Roadless Rule was created.

“In other words, it does not matter whether the Burnt Mountain parcel has the characteristics of a roadless area; the parcel is inside Snowmass Ski Area, so the Colorado Roadless Rule precludes designating it roadless,” the ruling said. “Effectively, the Forest Service is saying that any error in earlier inventories is harmless because the Burnt Mountain parcel cannot qualify as roadless now anyway.”

But the point that seems to be missed here (I think Sloan Shoemaker pointed it out in a previous article) is that it would be OK- even under the 2001 Rule, to do this work in a roadless area, as the action is “incidental to activities not otherwise prohibited.”

Are we giving insects and beetles a free ride?

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Contact: Richard Levine
[email protected]
301-731-4535

A new study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology reports that live insects were found in 47% of firewood bundles purchased from big box stores, gas stations and grocery stores in Colorado, New  Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Untreated firewood can harbor pathogens and destructive insects such  as the emerald ash borer, the Asian longhorned beetle, bark beetles  and others, and transport them to uninfested areas.

Furthermore, the risk of moving insects in untreated firewood is high, the authors found, because insects emerged up to 558 days from  the purchase date of the wood.

There are currently no national regulations on the commercial firewood industry that require firewood to be treated before use or sale to reduce the possibility of live insects or pathogens on or in the wood. Several state and federal agencies are attempting to reduce  the risk of introducing invasive native or exotic species by restricting the distance firewood can move from its origin and by enacting outreach programs to educate the public.

However, the authors conclude that heat-treating firewood before it is shipped so that insects or pathogens are killed would be prudent  and would not restrict firewood commerce as much as bans on firewood  movement across state borders.

Based on personal observations here in Montana and Idaho, I’ve noticed  the same thing happens when we move insects in untreated sawtimber or pulpwood via log trucks to timber mills.  Sometimes the logged trees travel over 100 miles, or more, to get to a timber mill.  All the time the little insects and beetles are dropping or blowing off the log truck and taking up new residence in previously un-infested trees along logging roads and even major highways and interstate.

Next time you travel down I-90, or other major highways in Montana or Idaho, notice just how many of the trees right along the road are now infected with mountain pine beetle, for example.  As such, it’s always struck me as somewhat odd that some people advocate more logging, even mandated logging, of beetle-infested trees under the mistaken impression that logging beetle-infested trees somehow prevents or stops the infestation. In actuality, logging beetle-infested trees, and then transporting those trees all around the state via log trucks, may just be helping to spread the beetle infestation all around the region.

Forest Service logs (err, “thins”) old-growth to help aspen

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Earlier this summer Sharon had a post titled, “Tree vs. Tree: An Aspen Restoration Project,” which looked at some of the issues surrounding the Tahoe National Forest’s “Outback Aspen Restoration Project.”

Well, this morning, the Sacramento Bee’s Tom Knudson took another look at the project, this time with local residents, who are not too happy with the Forest Service and with the Tahoe National Forest supervisor, who is not too disappointed with the project.  Although, in fairness, the Forest Service supervisor did decide to halt logging (or do we call it “thinning?”) of trees 40 inches in diameter or greater on the remaining 190 acres of the project.  Here are some highlights from the article:

Standing amid a scattering of stumps last week, an official from the U.S. Forest Service acknowledged the agency made mistakes by logging too many pine trees, including majestic old-growth giants, in an effort to help another Tahoe species: the quaking aspen.

But he rejected calls from local residents that the Tahoe National Forest sharply scale back the cutting along Independence Creek north of Truckee.

“Are there places where there are some trees that I’ve seen out here – some live trees still standing and some stumps – that I would have preferred be marked for retention? Yes,” said Tom Quinn, supervisor of the Tahoe National Forest….The extensive cutting has incensed residents and conservationists, who were out in force at Friday’s meeting.

“We are shocked at the situation, the catastrophic damage being done by our government with absolutely no care for public input,” said Mary Leavell, who grazes cattle in the national forest with her husband.

“We all ultimately want forest health,” said Lauren Ranz, who lives part-time on a former 450-acre ranch near the logging zone. “But I don’t think this is the way to get it.”

Despite his concerns about cutting too many large, old trees, Quinn defended the project…He said the agency’s decision to allow the cutting of old-growth trees was consistent with the goal of aspen restoration, even though it angered neighbors.  “They were probably social mistakes, more than ecological mistakes,” he said of the agency’s actions.

To try to quell criticism, Quinn announced that Forest Service officials have decided to halt logging of conifers 40 inches in diameter or greater on the remaining 190 acres of the 479-acre project. But he rejected suggestions to limit cutting to trees 30 inches in diameter or less….

“I’m extremely disappointed,” said Fred Mitchell who lives on 80 acres near where the cutting is taking place. “There are so few trees 40 inches and above, anyway.

“They’re brushing off the public like we are a minor nuisance, like we don’t count for anything,” Mitchell added.

Mitchell is one of a group of residents who have marshaled opposition by handing out flyers, contacting lawyers, political representatives and environmentalists, even placing mock tombstones on the stumps of large trees – some more than two centuries old – that have been logged.

“It’s not what they told us it would be,” said Gary Risse, a part-time area resident who is among those opposed. “I can tell you without a doubt there was no mention of clear-cuts whatsoever. That would have stopped it.”

…Chad Hanson, director and staff ecologist for the John Muir Project, said other agency projects have succeeded with less intense cutting.

“Scientific studies … do not support the assumption that you need to clear-cut forests, especially 150 feet or more away from aspen stands, or that you need to remove old- growth trees,” he said. “That is not scientifically necessary.”…

“I’ve covered about 300 acres of this project looking for legacy (old-growth) trees,” Mitchell said. “From what I can gather, there has only been one legacy tree left for every four and a quarter acres, which is not a very good number.”

Historic Forest Service Employee Photos Online at Museum of the Rockies

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J.C. Whitham and “Silver” at Summit Lake looking toward Gallatin Peak, Spanish Peaks, August 1936
Courtesy of the Museum of the Rockies photo archive

Here’s an article by Rob Chaney of the Missoulian about them..

Here’s an article by Katherine Mozzone of KTVM.

Click here and then click on the sidebar that says Whitham to see the photos. Thank you Museum of the Rockies for posting them online!

The Tyranny of Nativehood, Species-in-the-Sierra Style

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This range map is from the California Nature Mapping Program http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/ca/

Here’s the link and below are excerpts.

If beaver will perform a useful hydrological function in an era of coming drought, does it matter how “native” they are? Do they have to have been shown (by whom? how many?) to be in a drainage, a watershed, a mountain range? If Kokanee are not native, should they not be celebrated?

If the “ecosystem” needs all species that were there at some point in the past, and yet the different species like different conditions, and managing the conditions to make sure they are all provided for takes lots of money, and neither California nor the Federal government is rife with money..

I found this discussion fascinating, because, like the fire issue, within the discussion is an idea “nativeness in the past” that is said to determine today’s policy.

The articles have caught the attention of the California Department of Fish and Game, which is re-examining its beaver policies in the Sierra, said Matt Meshiry, an environmental scientist with the department.

“If they are a native component, then we need to examine land use and species management … in terms of maintaining and preserving the ecosystem,” Meshiry said.

Pister, the retired fisheries biologist, is skeptical, saying beaver have harmed golden trout – the California state fish and a native species – in the eastern Sierra.

“We found beaver dams prevent migration and genetic interchange between populations while silting in the best food-producing and spawning areas,” he said. “Trout would grow larger in beaver ponds, but at a biological price.”

And of course, population differentiation from separation of populations, and interchange or migration, are both important evolutionary processes.

But this year, beavers built a dam not far from the facility, threatening to flood it and a trail. The Sierra Wildlife Coalition urged the Forest Service not to disturb the dam, suggesting a piping system be installed to permit water to flow through the dam, preventing flooding and protecting beaver – or that the level of the pathway be raised.

On Sept. 26, Forest Service crews dismantled the dam instead. The beaver weren’t harmed but Guzzi fears for their future.

“They have to stockpile food for the winter because they don’t hibernate,” she said. “So this is taking away their food. And they could starve.”

“It’s a strange corner for the Forest Service to be backed into because it’s all artificial,” Guzzi added. “It’s a little ironic, to say the least.”

Heck, the Forest Service spokeswoman, acknowledged the subject is challenging.

“There are a lot of complex issues,” she said. “Are you dealing with two non-native species and balancing their needs? Are you balancing a native and a non-native? There has been quite a bit of conversation.”

She also said dismantling the dam was the right decision.

“Essentially, we were hoping we could discourage them (the beaver) from rebuilding in that location while allowing downstream dams to persist.”

“It’s one thing to suggest things. It’s another to be the entity that has to implement solutions,” Heck added. “We have to look at what the maintenance load would be (and) whether it’s actually going to work.”

Also up for discussion is the focus of the popular fall festival on a non-native species.

“It does take some thought about how to shift an event like that,” Heck said. “What would that new theme be? How are we going to talk about both the kokanee and native species?”

It’s strange that all these folks, most of whom contain large numbers of non-native genes, are having this discussion. Somehow it seems to have gotten into folks’ understanding that non-natives are undesirable. Some are, but we need to decide which ones, and agree on why they are undesirable, if so, what can we do about it, can we afford it, and will it work- not judge a species solely on its ancestry.

Post-Fire Photos Las Conchas and Cerro Grande

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There was a long, pretty interesting and wide-ranging, discussion in the comments to this piece in High Country News, titled “Fire scientists fight over what Western forests should look like.”

Bryan Bird linked to the photo above of the Las Conchas fire, USGS gallery here.

Greg Nagle had these photos that couldn’t be posted there, so I am posting them here.

Here are Greg’s comments.

First two views are west up the canyon. I did not check closely for conifer regen but on the northerly facing slope aspen regen is vigorous. Sedimentation dam in the canyon, which I believe was put in to catch sediment contaminated by old waste dumps burned over in the fire, Note the large older trees surviving the fire on the valley floor.

Third is a view of a southerly slope showing variability in revegetation.

You can click on the photos if you want to look more closely. I tried to make them larger here but they seemed to lose their perspective. I tried to make the Las Conchas one above smaller, and it got too small.

Here are some USGS photos and the comment with it by Colin Holloway

Needless to say, you can find better & worse spots of regrowth (it does seem that the photos tend to the optimistic). in some of the slopes immediately adjacent to Los Alamos it’s all still rather desolate. In the drainage’s that managed to hold onto a little soil, things are better.
I had avoided Los Alamos for the better part of my time here, the place is kind of like David Lynch does Twilight Zone. My first impressions of the place was that it was going to be toast in a few years. I had started surveying for environmental remediation work up there in ’99. Don’t know if you’ve ever smelt that smell a ponderosa forest smells like when it’s ready to go up? Not that sweet is-vanilla-or-is-it-butterscotch smell, don’t know how to describe it but there’s a distinct odor of a distressed ponderosa stand. Or so I’ve convinced myself. Any rate the place reeked of it.
Those places are have just started to have the oaks tangle, ten years on. I haven’t had the heart to get up there since Conchas. Makes me feel like Treebeard “Many of these trees were my friends”.
On a note of insane Conehead (local vernacular for the lab rats up there) over management, engineering insanity, they built these insane check dams up there in those tuff slot canyons. Just crazy. Talk about destroying the village to save it. Of course the photos don’t describe the enormity, though one photo, in the link below, does show a huge ol’ excavator for scale.

http://ec.forestermedia.us/november-december-2000/after-the-fire.html

Of course, at Los Alamos, they were worried about radioactive material.

Costs of Colorado Fire Rehab in Denver Post

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The U.S. Forest Service is using wood shreds to protect heavily burned hillsides this fall.
U.S. Forest Service

Costs of fire and fire rehabilitation/restoration, and the need to do any, has been a topic on this blog, and this was in the Denver paper this morning so I thought I’d post a link to this Denver Post story. More info and photos of mulching can be found here.

Note: I am not saying we should suppress all fires. I am not saying we should do fuel treatments everywhere. I am just pointing out some places that the funding and how much, is coming from.

A federal program to provide emergency watershed protection on Thursday poured $2.45 million into work stabilizing land burned during the devastating High Park and Waldo Canyon fires this past summer.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colorado received an allocation of $1.2 million for Waldo Canyon in Colorado Springs and $1.25 million for High Park in Larimer County.

The sum is less than requested, said NRCS state conservation engineer John Andrews but will help to complete projects to stabilize soil, slow runoff and protect the watershed in areas that are considered moderately to highly burned.

In High Park, where more than 87,284 acres were burned, the money will be supplemented by about $410,000 from the cities of Fort Collins and Greeley, Larimer County, Northern Water and three small water districts known as the Tri-Districts, NRCS district conservationist Todd Boldt said.

There, the work includes reseeding and mulching, clearing debris, flood protection and efforts to keep sediment from flowing into tributaries of the Big Thompson River.

Logging debris matters: better soil, fewer invasive plants

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New research from the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station and authors Timoth B. Harrington and John Kirkland:

Abstract: The logging debris that remains after timber harvest traditionally has been seen as a nuisance. It can make subsequent tree planting more difficult and become fuel for wildfire. It is commonly piled, burned, or taken off site. Logging debris, however, contains significant amounts of carbon and nitrogen—elements critical to soil productivity. Its physical presence in the regenerating forest creates microclimates that influence a broad range of soil and plant processes. Researchers Tim Harrington of the Pacific Northwest Research Station; Robert Slesak, a soil scientist with the Minnesota Forest Resources Council; and Stephen Schoenholtz, a professor of forest hydrology and soils at Virginia Tech, conducted a five-year study at two sites in Washington and Oregon to see how retaining logging debris affected the soil and other growing conditions at each locale. They found that keeping logging debris in place improved soil fertility, especially in areas with coarse-textured, nutrient-poor soils. Soil nitrogen and other nutrients important to tree growth increased, and soil water availability increased due to the debris’ mulching effect. The debris cooled the soil, which slowed the breakdown and release of soil carbon into the atmosphere. It also helped prevent invasive species such as Scotch broom and trailing blackberry from dominating the sites. Forest managers are using this information to help maximize the land’s productivity while reducing their costs associated with debris disposal.

The entire study can be downloaded here.