This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.
-----
If you are one of those people who loves the quiet communion of hiking in the high-country forests of Colorado, you'd better get there fast. In three years, those forests may be gone.
The Rocky Mountain News reported this week that every large, mature forest of lodgepole pines in Colorado and southern Wyoming will be dead in three to five years. Some 1.5 million acres of pine forest already have been destroyed since 1996. State and federal foresters call the loss "catastrophic."
What's causing the massive die-off? The root cause appears to be global climate change. Winters are warmer. That allows pine bark beetles to survive. The lodgepoles are less able to defend themselves because they have been stressed by years of drought. As a result, a rice-sized bug is felling vast expanses of forests in Colorado. Similar die-offs are underway elsewhere in the western United States and in Canada.
(Forest management practices -- mainly fire suppression in past years -- also are to blame. Dense vegetation allows the beetles to spread more quickly and older trees are more susceptible to the bug.)
Lodgepoles as old as 300 years have been found in Colorado's high country, where the slender trees, as tall as 80 feet, used to thrive. Today, visitors to parts of the Rocky Mountains see vast expanses of dead brown poles. Soon, they'll see just the mountainsides. The trees will be gone.
The lodgepoles are a visual example of losses often not counted when we tally the costs of fossil fuels and global warming. Like other parts of our ecosystems, lodgepole pines perform a wide variety of "ecosystem services," many of which have economic value. Among those services are wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation, tourism, flood and erosion control, water filtration, and carbon sequestration.
One of the impacts in Colorado, forestry experts told the Rocky Mountain News, will be the state's water supplies -- a valuable asset everywhere, but especially in the West. As the trees disappear, erosion will increase, choking rivers and reservoirs with sediment.
And as trees die or are burned, they release the carbon they stored when alive. Forest fires already release nearly 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year in the United States. One bad fire season can release as much CO2 as the energy sector in a given state, researchers have found.
Robert Costanza, founder of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, has estimated the value of ecosystem services at $33 trillion worldwide (PDF) -- more than the combined yearly GNPs of all the world's economies.
Those services must be part of our analysis when we count the value of climate action -- and the high costs of inaction. We tend to take our ecosystems for granted, as though they've always been here and always will. As will be the case with the dying high-country forests in Colorado, we don't fully appreciate them until they're gone.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Copenhagen climate summit (part 1): the expectations
Environmental education in Guinea Bissau
Comments
View as Flat
sindark Posted 4:11 am
16 Jan 2008
Only 300 tonnes of CO2? That seems like an awfully low figure, given the average American personally emits 22.9 tonnes per year.
a sibilant intake of breath
Permalink
atreyger Posted 4:36 am
16 Jan 2008
I would suggest that while climate change plays an important role, poor forest management practices are more responsible for the current outbreak. I also suggest that there will be isolated pockets of healthy trees and once the overstory of the decadent trees is removed by beetle kill, regeneration will be the apparent outcome.
It would be quite interesting to see how right I am in about ten years. Unfortunately, the 'public' is rather stupid when it comes to understanding that forests are not static, and the immediate results (i.e. massive kill) are not permanent.
BUT, I would like to cover my behind by saying that climate change is likely going to affect the distribution of the species, and thus should be mitigated and emissions should be reduced.
Amen.
Permalink
huevo Posted 11:54 pm
18 Jan 2008
Permalink
hunter Posted 1:53 am
19 Jan 2008
There is no need for the climate to change to mess up the forests by mismanagement.
The forests have too few species. This means that a pathogen can easily spread. The forest are filled with fuel in the form of sick trees and underbrush, thanks to misplaced fire suppression.
Both make a negative feedback that leads to exactly what we see.
The availability cascade of AGW means we waste our time worrying about huge abstracts like climate, instead of dealing with realities like over grown, unhealthy forests.
Hunter
Permalink
Backcut Posted 2:18 am
19 Jan 2008
I really have no hope for this country to reverse the loss of our remaining forests. Fires will burn and new trees will go. Some unique ecosystems will be lost forever, only to have new ones take their place. We have it within our power to make important parts of our forests resistant to drought, bark beetles and fire.
However, until the non-experts (lawmakers, eco-lawyers, lumber mill owners, 9th Circuit Court judges, radical anarchists, etc) who control the situation, decide to use science instead of their own selfishness, we'll continue to see mega-fires for the next 50 years.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 2:48 am
19 Jan 2008
"Only 300 tonnes of CO2? That seems like an awfully low figure, given the average American personally emits 22.9 tonnes per year."
A thick forest, burning at high-intensity, can put out 100 tons of greenhouse gasses PER ACRE!!
I know all too well about the health risks from wildfire smoke. While my uncle's house survived the fires of Rancho Bernardo, the smoke aggravated a previously hidden cancer and he's now gone. He had a very big role in making me love nature.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 3:52 pm
21 Jan 2008
Now that America knows the "High Cost of Doing Nothing", all I see is silence from the eco-community. Maybe if I was a top forest ecologist, someone would take note? Oops! Jerry Franklin's reversal testimony barely made a squeak in the world of science but, people like Daniel Donato get their shams published for political reasons.
10 million acres burned will soon become the average fire season. Some will still openly embrace the firestorms. Others will complain about the government's response to disasters. Still others will say that people should not be allowed to live in the forests.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 11:09 am
20 Feb 2008
Be sure to hug your manzanita and whitethorn!!
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 11:39 am
20 Feb 2008
By JIM MANN The Daily Inter Lake, Sunday, Feb 17, 2008
James Stupack has become an experienced hand at fuel reduction work, carrying out the first project exclusively aimed at reducing national forest fire risks to adjacent properties from Hungry Horse to West Glacier in 2004.
Stupack, the owner of Tough Go Logging, is now neck deep in fuel reduction projects on the Flathead National Forest as a subcontractor on projects in the Swan Valley and on his own contract in the Blankenship area north of Columbia Falls.
But those projects and others -- nine across the Flathead Forest and hundreds across the country -- were approved under a special rule that has been found unlawful by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In ruling in favor of the Sierra Club, the court ordered a lower court to issue an injunction to stop projects approved under the "categorical exclusion" rule, but that has yet to happen.
Until the injunction is issued, projects on the Flathead and other national forests will proceed.
"We have been hitting it pretty hard this past year, and we will continue to do that," Stupack said of the Blankenship project, which involves brush removal and tree thinning that is projected to yield 4.7 million board feet of timber off 830 acres.
The Blankenship project concentrates on a spit of national forest land that is mostly surrounded by private property. When the work started, Stupack said he encountered a "wall of lodgepole" in one area that presented a clear threat to neighboring properties and structures.
"When you have that much fuel in your back yard, if it ever does catch fire, there's nothing that's going to save you," Stupack said.
Blankenship is considered a "100 percent utilization" project, with Stupack using specialized chipping equipment to grind up small trees for use as boiler fuel. There are no slash piles to be burned.
"We're supplying about 12 different businesses in four western states with materials off this project," Stupack said.
Last year, that aspect of the project attracted visiting foresters from Kosovo, Jamaica and the west African nation of Liberia.
"They were extremely impressed that nothing is going to waste," said Stupack, who estimates the project is now about 50 percent finished.
Because of the 9th Circuit Court's ruling, there is uncertainty and concern about the future of projects that account for more than half of the Flathead forest's current timber program.
"The volume that comes from these projects is part of the forest's overall timber program," said Cathy Calloway, the forest's timber program manager. "We've been working hard to integrate our timber and fuels-management programs together."
The forest exceeded last year's harvest target of 29 million board feet with an actual harvest of 34 million board feet, and this year's target is 27 million board feet, Calloway said.
Julia Riber, the Forest Service's northern regional litigation coordinator, said it remains to be seen how an injunction would be applied, because the court's order allowed some discretion to exclude projects that are close to completion.
"The question is, how is this injunction supposed to be applied," Riber said, noting that a hearing date on the injunction issue has yet to be set.
"It could be a while before it's actually determined how the injunction is going to apply," she said.
The 9th Circuit's ruling found that the categorical exclusion rule for hazardous fuels projects was flawed in several ways. Mainly, the court found that the rule "failed to assess" the impacts of projects and failed to provide specifics, such as the maximum diameters of trees that can be removed or any limits on the proximity of projects within a geographic area.
The rule -- developed as part of then-Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth's campaign to end "analysis paralysis" -- excluded the agency from having to prepare often costly, time-consuming environmental assessments on fuels projects covering 1,000 acres or less, as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
And that allowed for expeditious project development.
Calloway and other Flathead officials maintain that projects approved under the rule tended to have relatively strong local support, and revenues generated through special "stewardship contracts" have been applied to other purposes, such as road or stream restoration projects.
"Most of these treatments involve thinning from below" as opposed to removing the biggest, most fire-resistant trees, Calloway said. "They're aimed at changing fuel loading and fire behavior so it would be easier to fight a fire on these lands that are close to private lands."
Because of that proximity, the projects tend to attract attention.
"The key for us is that the [ranger] districts have worked really hard in working with local folks," Calloway said. "And I think people have been happy with the results. We've been doing the right thing, I think."
The Flathead Forest approved its first project under the categorical exclusion rule in 2003.
It involved 198 scattered acres that directly butted up against private properties from Hungry Horse to West Glacier. The owners of those properties often took a deep interest in project details and in some cases assisted by providing access for the work to be carried out.
"There's a very high degree of public interest, not only from adjacent landowners but from the public at large," said Jimmy DeHerrera, ranger on the Hungry Horse and Glacier View districts. "As far as public support, we've never been able to develop a project that gets 100 percent support, but these fuel projects go about as far as you can get."
Since the Hungry Horse-West Glacier project, DeHerrera's staff has advanced several others that are now at varying stages of completion.
The Cedar-Spoon project in the North Fork Flathead drainage is about 50 percent complete, with Plum Creek Timber Co. working on 940 acres with a projected yield of about 5.5 million board feet of timber. The project also involves prescribed burning on a total of 600 acres.
The Trail Fuel project, last estimated to be 30 percent complete, involves thinning on 335 acres and prescribed burning on a little more than 1,000 acres in the Trail Creek area of the North Fork drainage. Stillwater Logging is the contractor for the project, which is expected to yield 1.4 million board feet.
"We have a lot of wildland urban interface on the Hungry Horse and Glacier View districts," DeHerrera said. "So these types of projects have been the focus of our work for probably the last seven years."
When the 9th Circuit issued its ruling in December, the Hungry Horse Ranger District was on the verge of approving a project under the categorical exclusion rule involving fuels reduction on about 1,000 acres near West Glacier.
The project will now have to go through a more detailed environmental review, DeHerrera said.
The Swan Lake Ranger District has also been engaged for years in fuel reduction work.
The East Shore project, involving thinning on about 600 acres and prescribed fire on 1,120 acres on the forested slopes above Flathead Lake's Yellow Bay, was derived from a detailed study developed by fire ecologist Steve Barrett.
"It's been almost 10 years in the making," Swan Lake District Ranger Steve Brady said.
The project was approved under the categorical exclusion rule in 2004, and is now more than 30 percent finished by Pyramid Mountain Lumber out of Seeley Lake, Brady said. It is expected to produce about 4 million board feet of timber, and was developed with extensive involvement from private landowners along Flathead Lake's east shore.
"Just to get access, we had to go through private landowners along the orchard front that's down there," Brady said. "Landowners were real cooperative with giving us access permits, partly because they valued getting the treatments done."
The district is close to finishing a fuels project on 333 acres near private lands in the Condon area, and it is about 30 percent finished with another project on national forest lands near the town of Swan Lake. Combined, they are expected to produce more than 5 million board feet of timber.
Other categorical-exclusion fuels projects on the Flathead Forest include a 124-acre project in the Beaver Lake area on the Tally Lake District.
Even if the projects are halted by an injunction, Flathead Forest officials say they will do what's necessary to continue with an emphasis on fuel reduction work.
"It is a national priority," said DeHerrera. "And then you look at the Flathead Forest, and there is a lot of wildland urban interface. Another reason is we've had a lot of large-fire activity since 2001, so it really emphasizes the need for this kind of work."
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 8:51 pm
20 Feb 2008
Can you say "Marginalized"??? Sure ya can!!
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 6:59 am
21 Feb 2008
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 12:46 am
22 Feb 2008
http://westinstenv.org/wp-content/QFRSSAFHelmsResponseFin ...
Here's an excerpt:
Wildfires are driven by both fuel and temperature and are made particularly devastating when combined with low humidity and high winds. Modeling shows that, in general, changing climate will likely result in more wildfires. However, fires won't burn without fuel, and fire intensity increases with fuel loading. A prudent steward of forest lands would therefore reduce hazardous fuel loads and remove a portion of trees that provide ladder fuels that enable flames to reach the canopy.
The amount of fuels in a forest can reach 15-70 tons per acre (Sampson 2004) and this fuel loading cannot be removed by prescribed burning without incurring substantial risk. Therefore some preliminary mechanical treatment is required. This could be cost-effective if the smaller-dimension biomass could be used for cellulosic ethanol production and the larger material converted into wood products that store carbon. A major hurdle on public lands is to make this material available through long-term contracts that provide a sufficiently stable investment climate that will enable industry to construct the necessary processing plants for both ethanol and wood products...
...Wildfires are indeed increasingly hard to fight and release 75-80 tons CO2 or more per acre (Sampson 2004). Fires that can be several hundred thousand acres in size are clearly emitting millions of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Once forest stands are restored to more natural density levels, prescribed fires can be used which emit about 18-20 tons CO2 per acre (Sampson 2004).
Decisions to permit natural fires to burn are based on diverse criteria that assess the risk to private property, ecological systems, and societal values. The Wildland Fire Use approach is commendable, however one must accept the likelihood that, initially at least, some ecological and societal values will be damaged and air quality will be affected. This points to the importance of providing the public with quality information regarding the goals, risks, and benefits of the program...
In general, rates of germination, establishment, and growth of trees after wildfires are slower than those of shrubs and grasses -- in particular sprouting shrubs and hardwoods. It is therefore common for pioneering shrubs and grasses to rapidly colonize and dominate burned areas for many decades. This is less true for the "fire-type" conifers such as lodgepole pine that have serotinous cones evolved to open from the heat of fires. Forestry research and experience shows that vegetation growth after fires varies from brushfields to successful tree regeneration depending on such factors as the availability of seed. Surveys in California's Sierra Nevada have shown that mature true fir forests having no shrubs in the understory can have 2 million viable seeds of shrub species per acre that remain dormant in the soil until heat from fires cracks their seed coats and stimulates germination. In contrast, tree seeds do not commonly remain viable in the soil after two years and seed crops have periodicity from one to seven years.
After a wildfire, a prompt assessment is needed of post burn conditions to determine the likelihood that desired vegetation of diverse species will become established. The desired mix of vegetation cover needs to be defined and the timeframe in which preferred conditions of tree cover, habitat, and soil cover should be attained needs to be identified. Experience has shown that those areas likely to become brushfields or have high potential for erosion need to be promptly planted to return them to forest conditions. Brushfields often have conifer seedlings underneath them, but it can take 50-100 years for the trees to overtop the brush and form a forest canopy. Burned areas that may regenerate satisfactorily to the desired species mix without treatment or are ecological reserves not needing treatment should be identified in the post-burn assessment.
In all cases, the post-burn analysis should identify the costs, benefits, and risks associated with action or no action. Decisions should ensure that society is best served by using treatments where necessary to rapidly restore the preburn mix of forest values, habitats, uses, and watershed protection...
Healthy forests and their associated wildlife habitats and watersheds are priceless assets providing the nation with critical values and uses. The sustainable management and conservation of forests is crucial to societal welfare. When forests are allowed to become overly dense the trees lose vigor and become susceptible to insects, disease, mortality, and fire. This is exacerbated under conditions of overall rise in temperature, drought, and storms. It is therefore in society's best interest that, apart from ecological reserves, wilderness or similar areas, forests be sustainably managed to maintain forest health and provide the balance and diversity of values and uses that society needs.
The argument that forests, especially national forests, should be left unmanaged and that "nature knows best" is understandably appealing. However it does not recognize that the condition of our national forests is far from "natural"...
The challenge is how to accomplish this in a socially acceptable and economically feasible way. Societal acceptance can probably only be achieved through a combination of Congressional leadership and science-based information outreach. In particular, decision-making processes are needed that emphasize stakeholder common interests in restoring healthy forests to reduce wildfires, mitigating the effects of climate change, and striking a balance among competing values and viewpoints. The overall policy goal should be to restore and sustainably manage the nation's forests for the welfare of society at large. Since fuels treatments and thinning are costly, it is critical to explore ways and means by which these costs can be offset by utilizing the biomass in the form of energy or renewable wood products. The desirability of this option becomes apparent when one appreciates that using wood can reduce carbon emissions where it is used in place of alternative materials that life cycle analyses show have higher energy requirements in manufacture.
I used the word "responsible" in my testimony in the context that failure to restore forest health and reduce impacts of wildfire and insects on wood supply, wildlife habitat, and water supply is to abdicate current society's responsibilities to present and future generations...
You cannot ignore this and say that wildfires are "natural and beneficial". Forest management "deniers" are simply destroying our forest environment on a scale that would make the loggers of the 70's and 80's aghast.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 2:23 am
24 Feb 2008
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:37 am
24 Feb 2008
More logging contracts won't fix it.
A Civilian Conservation Corps is literally a green army. Fire fighting has to start with recycling the stuff that burns.
Firestorm vulnerable forests are a huge GHG climate bomb ready to burst. Releasing huge amounts of carbon stored over millenia all at once.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Backcut Posted 12:48 pm
07 Apr 2008
On his way out of the door in April of 2000, President Bill Clinton gave local environmentalists a gift that they had been unable to get through normal legislative action after numerous attempts. He signed a Presidential Proclamation creating the 327,769 acre Giant Sequoia National Monument.
There was no opportunity for public comments prior to this decision. There was no environmental analysis or development of alternatives. No study of the possible effects to the local economy was done. The "spin" was that a monument was necessary to save the Giant Sequoia trees from the evil loggers. We were told not to worry, because the out-of-work folks in the wood products industry would be retrained so that they could benefit from jobs in the new recreation-related business boom that the Monument would generate.
The Proclamation mandated that the Forest Service write a management plan with the guidance of a Scientific Advisory Board to be selected by the National Academy of Science. The Board was appointed and the plan-writing job began. Early in the process, the Board agreed that all of their recommendations to the Forest Supervisor would be by unanimous consent. For the next nearly four years, the Board held meetings that were open to the public. They listened to public comments, and took field trips to the forest, the National Park, the Tule River Indian Reservation and to Mt. Home State Forest to view giant sequoia stands and various management practices. In January of 2004, the final plan was signed.
Today, more than seven years after the Monument was proclaimed, virtually nothing that would enhance the protection, improvement or management of the Monument and the Giant Sequoia trees has been accomplished. This is because those same people who promoted the establishment, agreed to the proclamation language, and dictated the planning process, sent their attorneys to court and got the plan declared invalid. Additionally, in spite of Proclamation language that clearly states that timber sales under contract as of the date of the signing (4/2000) could be completed consistent with the terms of the contract, four sale projects were included in the Monument Plan lawsuit and similarly stopped.
Why? For reasons of their own, most probably related to fund raising, (give us your money and we will fight the evil loggers) the Sierra Club and related groups have decided that any commercial use of resources (timber, et al) from public lands is bad and must not be allowed.
The problem with the Monument Plan in the Enviros view is that it allows the use of some mechanical treatment, including logging, in order to restore the forest and Sequoia groves to conditions thought to have existed prior to European settlement. The long range goal of the plan was to reduce existing fuel loading to the point that the entire monument could be managed using only prescribed and natural fire, (a questionable goal considering air-quality issues).
In spite of the fact that the Proclamation encourages the use of different approaches to mitigating unsatisfactory conditions, understanding different approaches to forest restoration, and allows for the removal of trees if clearly needed for ecological restoration and maintenance of public safety, the Sierra Club folks have decided that their "no commercial use" policy trumps all else. Hiding behind the Endangered Species Act and armed with an army of attorneys, they marched into a hand-picked court and got anything that they didn't like shut down.
Now, as the results of the legal shenanigans related to the Monument Plan and permitted timber sales grind on (new plan/more studies), the environmentalists are going to court again to stop timber sale projects on the adjacent Sierra National Forest. In the Sierra case, they are claiming that they are not opposed to logging - as long as nothing big enough to be cut into a board is cut.
The environmentalists would have us believe that there is no down-side to their policy and actions. They claim that old-growth closed-canopy forests won't burn because they are cooler and damper than the more open stands that may have been logged - and - besides, if they do burn, not everything is destroyed.
The reality is that these forests can and do burn. In years with light precipitation, early snow-melt and high temperatures, they become highly flammable. If we are to believe predictions of climate change caused by global warming, we should expect to experience more and more hot and dry years.
Another reality in dealing with old growth and/or unmanaged forests is that trees die. Whether from insects, disease, or old-age, trees die, become snags and eventually fall. Dead trees, either standing (snags) or down, dry out and become fuel for fire. Every year that goes by without some kind of fuel reduction in these forests, increases the odds that they will burn. And when fire does happen, it will be hot enough to resist early control and do great harm, including damage to the soil.
It has been seven years since significant fuels reduction work has occurred within the Monument, and many more since anything has been done to protect the giant Sequoia groves. It is estimated that it will take two or three more years to produce another Management Plan, and then who knows how much longer for a new plan to work its way through appeals and lawsuits.
Tragically, by the time the management of the Monument is settled, the local sawmill that makes it possible to use the dying, dead and excess trees and pay for at least a portion of the work within a reasonable time-frame, will have been starved out of raw material and gone.
So, now we have Giant Sequoia Groves in deteriorating condition and susceptible to devastating fire. There is no approved plan to start corrective action, and an inability to take advantage of the dollar value of excess, dying and dead trees to help pay for the essential work. There is the very real chance that a sawmill that is an outstanding example of utilization and efficiency, will have to close.
It is time for the environmental groups, led by the Sierra Club and supported by their attorneys, to rethink the position that only their views of forest management are valid, and that they would prefer that judges make the decisions.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 12:25 pm
08 Apr 2008
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 12:41 pm
08 Apr 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
spaceshaper Posted 11:51 pm
08 Apr 2008
Like many readers I have deep reservations about the role of commercial interests in setting management policy of critical resources. At the same time if thoughtful utilization of forest products can be practiced in ways that contribute to carbon sequestration at the same time as they reduce the potential for carbon emissions from massive wildfires this is not an option to dismiss out out of hand. Personally I remain very distrustful of cellulosic ethanol proposals simply because they appear to be driven more by a voracious fuel-hunger than a desire to do the right thing by our planet. That does not mean that it may become a part of forest resource management practice in the future, meanwhile however there would appear to be other ways to make use of forest thinnings that could offer self-financing opportunities for carbon sequestration and reducing wildfire risk. Educated perspectives on these options would be very welcome, bearing in mind that all forests, terrains and local ecologies are not the same and no one program can be expected to be universal.
I sense there is also a much larger picture here: while global warming has emerged as by far the preeminent environmental issue of our age the full implications of this situation have not yet percolated thoroughly to all parts of environmentalist thinking. That many biofuel enthusiasts still consider themselves in the environmental camp is the obvious case in point. There are many questions to be revisited which connect with carbon cycle impacts of forest materials: for example, are traditional environmental attitudes to paper products and construction lumber still appropriate? I am beginning to wonder if we should be burying cardboard rather than recycling it and using more rather than less lumber in building.
Any thoughts?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Permalink
Backcut Posted 11:42 am
09 Apr 2008
I'm not saying that we should reject "no treatment options" in every forest, as there truly ARE some stands that need us to keep chainsaws out. However, as Dr. Jerry Franklin now says, many forests will need mechanical thinning before prescribed fire can reduce fuels to safe levels. The sheer tonnage of GHG's being released EVERY year dwarfs the amount saved by hybrid cars and CFL's. The "tipping point" has certainly been reached in our forests.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 8:59 pm
11 Apr 2008
We have "desired future condition" to consider, and how to get there. Most of us will agree on a "future desired condition" but, we disagree on how to get there. Regardless of what the Sierra Club says and does, it takes an expert to "read the ground" and determine what it needs to return to a more "natural" condition. Unfortunately, too many people think they have more experience and knowledge than most all forest professionals. However, their "future desired condition" for our western forests seem to be blackened snags surrounded by vast brushfields.
Again, thanks to all those openminded people who see the bigger picture, instead of the faith-based dogma drama of today's "preservationists".
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 12:38 pm
25 Jun 2008
Yep, time to let it all burn. People will die, animals will die, lives will be shattered to satiate the preservationist's need for incinerated forests.
Looks like Gaia has answered your prayers!!
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 9:39 pm
25 Jun 2008
Ahhhh, yes....breathe in that life-giving smoke from fires that preservationists will save our environment!!
Since smoke and fires took my uncle last year in San Diego, isn't it time that some of you sacrificed one of YOUR loved ones?!?!
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 9:41 pm
25 Jun 2008
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 10:45 pm
28 Jun 2008
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 10:24 am
07 Jul 2008
Oh, yeah. That's right! Forests don't fit in with "climate, energy, food, politics, green living" categories.
My bad!
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 4:35 am
07 Oct 2008
by Glenn Bradley
On a hot August afternoon in 1946, Iron Mountain Lookout reported a big smoke in Barker Gulch just east of Featherville. My Dad was on a pack trip, but the five men from the Shake Creek Ranger Station flew into action. My mother called the crew from Dave Stokesberry's sawmill at Featherville and a few other people from the Featherville area. My job as a ten year old was to take the standby horse from the barn and ride to the fire so I could carry drinking water to the men as they worked.
When I got to the fire, the roar of the crowning was deafening and I was full of fear. It was my first exposure to a really active fire. The fire burned about 80 acres that afternoon. My dad got there about midnight. We all worked through the night, and by morning we had a semblance of a line around it. Our only power equipment was a portable Pacific Marine pump.
With that background, you can understand why a short news article in the Twin Falls paper of August 8, 2008, caught my eye. It said there were two single tree fires in Barker Gulch that had started about 1:00 PM on August 7. It also said the Forest had not decided as of 5:20 PM whether to put the fires out or let them burn. It said Forest officials considered their potential to spread to be slight. The article ended by saying that red flag conditions were forecast for the next day.
I was on my way to a family reunion when I read the article. When we returned from the reunion, there was an article in the August 15 paper saying the fire was now 1,355 acres and a national team had been called to help fight it. It also said the area from Baumgartner to Featherville had been closed.
I could hardly believe it. Just a few days before it started, the Chief had notified the field that the fire budget was exhausted and fire activities would have to be paid from other appropriations for the rest of the fiscal year. I knew the country well enough to know it could grow a lot more and cost into the millions.
I wrote an e-mail to Tom Harbour and told him something was terribly wrong with the policies if a forest could choose to ignore a chance to put a fire out for a few hundred dollars and then spend millions on it when there was no fire money left. I went on to say that it was at least unprofessional and probably criminal to let a fire go in steep, fragile, beautiful country in extreme burning conditions with no prior planning and no way of predicting where it might stop.
I sent copies to the supervisor and the ranger and a few retirees. Within a day, I got an overwhelming number of responses from retirees all over the country. The few I had sent copies to sent them on to people they knew. All but one said they agreed with me 100% and cited similar situations in their areas where it appeared no common sense was being used in fire management.
Jane called me the next Monday and assured me the people in Featherville agreed with what she was doing. I told her I could agree to some prescribed burning if it were done with good planning and preparation in compliance with NEPA, and under weather conditions when it could be controlled. She said they had done some planning and had identified about 4,000 acres in that area that they would like to burn at the rate of 1,000 acres per year over the next four years. I told her I wouldn't have a problem with that if they did it when they could manage the fire properly, but to try to do it with no preparation in mid August just because they had an ignition in the area made no sense to me. I advised her she should put this fire out immediately and wait for favorable weather to do the burning.
I called some friends in Featherville and asked if they were okay and how they felt about the fire. They said they were scared to death. The fire was on the ridge just above their house and they could see flames from their deck. They said the people on the river had been polite at the public meetings, but they did not know of anyone who agreed with letting this fire burn. They said they appreciated the Boise Forest because when the fire got onto the Boise, they jumped right onto it and stopped it. They said the Boise had offered to help the Sawtooth put the rest of the fire out, but the Sawtooth told them to go home. It should probably be noted here that what was reported as "a minor slop-over onto the Boise" was 3,000 acres and was the biggest fire on the Boise Forest this season.)
That night, a young man from Featherville called me. He said he had heard that I was pushing to get the Sawtooth to put the fire out. He pleaded with me to do everything I could to get them to stop it quickly. He offered to get signatures from everyone along the river on a petition to have the forest stop this one and never to let another one burn under similar conditions. I told him I was still hopeful that reason would return and the forest would take proper action without a petition.
I checked the progress of the fire every morning on the NIFC site. They updated the acres and the costs, but never once made any mention of the cost of damage to the watershed, scenic values, fish or wildlife habitat, timber, lost opportunities for recreation, or livestock forage.
I think the forest did a rather skillful job of avoiding a massive public outcry about this fire. The first thing they did was to close the entire area so no one could go see what was happening. As of September 25, the closure was still in effect except for the main road along the river. The few very scant news releases in the paper were obviously written to avoid any public reaction. They just quoted the acres burned and said the fire "is meeting resource objectives". The matter of fact type of reporting gave the impression that this was just a normal part of the fire business. There never was any attention drawn to the fact that this was the largest and most destructive fire to burn in that area since the establishment of the Forest Service.
The fire management team hosted a reporter from the Boise paper and told him they were letting the fire burn so they could establish a mosaic pattern of vegetation which would be beneficial to wildlife and help fireproof the area for future fires. A little further in the article, they said there was a lot of unburned area within the fire because the vegetation tended to be in a mosaic pattern which didn't carry fire solidly!
The team also told the reporter that people cannot put fires out. He said only mother nature can do that. The team's other arguing point was that it is much cheaper to let fires burn than to put them out. They quoted a figure of $99 per acre to let one burn versus $3,000 per acre to put one out. Regardless of what the team told the reporter, the cost per acre on the South Barker fire was $187 as of September 19.
No matter what the average costs are, if you put it out when it is small, the cost will be small. If it burns a lot of acres, the bill will be big even if the cost per acre is low.
On August 25, we went to the regional retirees meeting in Boise. As part of the field trip there was a discussion of fire activities and the Boise forest reported on some of their let-burn fires from 2006 and 2007. The assessment of Ned Pence on the damage in the South Fork of the Salmon River on the Payette was that there has already been more siltation into the river from the fires there than from all of the logging and road building prior to now. He said he is sure the Chinook salmon will not be able to spawn in the river again in his lifetime or probably not in his son's lifetime.
His observations were exactly in line with what I expect from the South Barker fire. I asked the Boise Supervisor to comment on at least the "slop over" from the South Barker fire. She really didn't want to talk about it, but as we talked, she put a new level of fear into me. She said the Boise had not identified the area of the "slop-over" as a let-burn area, so they put it out. She said the Sawtooth had mapped an area of about 109,000 acres around the South Barker fire as a Maximum Management Area. She went on to say that as long as the fire stayed within that MMA, the Sawtooth would let it burn until snow flies.
That was the first time I had heard of anything of that size. It was about two orders of magnitude bigger than the 1,000 acre per year burn plan Jane had told me about. I wrote another e-mail to Jane asking how she was complying with NEPA for such a major federal action. I asked her if the 50 year old plantations in Marsh Creek and Shake Creek had burned. I asked her what the objectives are of letting the fire continue to burn.
She said she was relying on the Forest Plan for NEPA compliance. She did not respond to the question about the plantations or the objectives. I told her I did not agree that the forest plan provided project-level site specific NEPA Compliance.
A project of this size is a major federal action and should have the whole site specific analysis and disclosure with public involvement and Environmental Statement with a Record of Decision
On September 12, there was a mention of the South Barker fire in the weekly summary of major events that the Chief puts out. It finally spelled out what the objectives are. Listen carefully!
They want to "improve habitat for the white headed wookpecker which feeds mostly on pine seeds." They want to improve habitat for the flammulated owl. The third objective is to maintain the old growth forest by eliminating the younger trees.
I looked up all the information I could find about that woodpecker and owl. Nothing I read indicated any preference for any particular age class of forest. The woodpecker is listed as locally common, feeding mostly on insects found in the bark of ponderosa pines and some pine seeds in the fall and winter. The literature also said it is almost never found outside the ponderosa pine zone in Idaho. I told Jane I thought live trees had more bark bracts and on them than dead ones and I have never seen a burned snag produce any seeds. I said I believe one acre of ponderosa pine can produce enough seed to feed millions of woodpeckers, so I doubt if lack of pine seed is a limiting factor.
The owl is almost never seen and, like all owls, is carnivorous. It eats mice and other small rodents and prefers pine and oak forests. I told Jane that unless she plans to replant the burned area to oak I could not see how the fire was going to benefit the owl.
I told Jane I thought these two species were really red herrings and she should be more concerned about the habitat she is destroying for the real fish which include the listed Bull Trout in Shake Creek, Willow Creek, and Skeleton Creek as well as the very popular rainbow trout fishery in the river.
I also told her that converting to old growth forest can't work. It is like basing the hope for the future of our society on the longevity and wisdom of the people in the nursing home. Eventually the old trees will die no matter what is done and it would be nice to have some younger ones to help stabilize the soil and replace the old ones when they are gone.
I also pointed out that even if there had been some validity to the objectives in the ponderosa pine zone, the ugly fact remains that over 80% of the burn is not in the ponderosa pine type.
As of September 19, the South Barker fire had burned 37,583 acres and had cost $7,041,364. I still think it is a huge mistake. Forest Service retirees all over the country are adamant that this kind of burning should not continue. Some are considering court actions, some are recommending media blasting, some are working toward influencing politicians, and some, like me, still hope the Forest Service as an agency will somehow come to its senses and revise the policies so this kind of thing won't continue to happen. Many influential retirees whom I respect very much have shared the opinion that if this situation is not corrected quickly, the Forest Service will not survive.
Of course, you folks will continue to point at me and whisper "Shhhhhhhhh, he's a troll....don't respond....don't even read....maybe he'll go away".
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 11:11 am
08 Oct 2008
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/rattle_f ...
The Boulder Creek Wilderness, one of the few left in the area with ancient old growth, has been completely consumed by catastrophic wildfire while the Forest Service watches and reaps the massive overtime! I guess the fire folks have a new fiscal year to SPEND multi-MILLIONS just to watch it burn. The Rattle Fire has also "consumed" an estimated 30 MILLION BUCKS!
Track the details of all the fires at:
http://westinstenv.org/firetrack/
.
.
.
.
.
This site includes costs for each fire. Here's a sample the outrageous costs:
Location: 18 Miles NW of Sisters, Deschutes Co., OR
Specific Location: Wizard Falls, 1 mile N of Canyon Creek, 3 miles N of Camp Sherman, both sides Metolius River, Deschutes NF, Lat 44< 30L 49 Lon 121< 37L 21
Date of Origin: 09/25/2008
Cause: Human, escaped prescribed burn
Situation as of 10/04/2008 at 3:00 PM
Personnel: 162
Size: 1,840 acres
Percent contained: 100%
Costs to Date: $3,849,914
$2092 per acre to put this small fire out!
.
.
.
.
Location: 21 mi NE of Prospect, Douglas Co., OR
Specific Location: Rogue River-Siskiyou NF, Middle Fork Rogue River near Halifax Cr in the Sky Lakes Wilderness, Lat 42 43 10. Long 122 15 50.
Date of origin: 08/16/2008
Cause: lightning
Situation as of 10/06/2008 6:30 PM
Personnel: 125
Size: 21,125 acres
Percent contained: 70%
Costs to date: $18,189,300
.
.
.
.
.
Gnarl Ridge Fire
Location: 14 miles S of Parkdale, Hood River Co., OR
Specific Location: Cold Springs Ck, 3 mi SW Cloud Cap Inn, Mt. Hood NF,
Date of Origin: 08/08/08
Cause: Lightning
Situation as of 10/05/08 6:00 PM
Total Personnel: 132
Size: Size: 3,280 acres
Percent Contained: 90%
Costs to Date: $15,000,000
No wonder the Forest Service went bankrupt this summer, eh?!?
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 12:58 am
18 Oct 2008
Substantial Loss Of Carbon, Nitrogen From Burned Soils -- And Connections To Warming Climate
.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 16, 2008) -- For decades, scientists and resource managers have known that wildfires affect forest soils, evidenced, in part, by the erosion that often occurs after a fire kills vegetation and disrupts soil structure. But, the lack of detailed knowledge of forest soils before they are burned by wildfire has hampered efforts to understand fire's effects on soil fertility and forest ecology.
A new study led by the Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station addresses this critical information gap and represents the first direct evidence of the toll wildfire can take on forest soil layers. It draws on data from the 2002 Biscuit Fire, which scorched some 500,000 acres in southwest Oregon, including half of a pre-existing study's experimental plots, which had been studied extensively before the fire. The result was a serendipitous and unprecedented opportunity to directly examine how wildfire changes soil by sampling soils before and after a wildfire...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Large plumes of smoke, some more than 900 miles long, were visible most days during the months-long fire (Bisuit Fire), and scientists know that smoke contains fine mineral-soil particles as well as partially burned organic matter. The possibility that a substantial mass of mineral-soil particles was transported high into the atmosphere raises new questions about the effects of intense fire on radiation interception and offsite land and ocean fertilization"
Anyone want to tackle this issue?!?
Of course, I knew that catastrophic fires were bad for soils long ago. How long can the sham that says "Fire is good!" continue? When will we start managing forests instead of losing them?
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink
Backcut Posted 5:25 am
22 Oct 2008
http://westinstenv.org/ffsci/2008/10/19/intense-forest-wi ...
"Much of the recent debate has centered on the effects of postwildfire management on tree regeneration, wildlife habitat, and future fire risk (Donato et al. 2006; Newton et al. 2006; Shatford et al. 2007; Thompson et al. 2007). In light of the first direct evidence of major effects of intense wildfire on soils -- based on extensive and detailed pre- and post-fire soil sampling -- we think that soil changes, especially the potential loss of soil productivity and greenhousegas additions resulting from intense wildfire, deserve more consideration in this debate. In forests likely to be affected by future intense fire, preemptive reduction of intense-fire risks can be seen as a way to reduce losses of long-term productivity and lower additions of greenhouse gases. Preemptive strategies may include reducing fuels within stands but also improving fire-attack planning and preparation and changing the distribution of fuels across the landscape to reduce the size of future fires. Practices can include thinning and removing or redistributing residues and underburning."
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink