Comments Backcut has made

No one wins-bye bye forests

8^X

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Once again...

I see no desire at all from the Obama camp to learn about saving forests, preferring to watch them die, rot and burn. DRX chooses to spout lies about Federal forest management. Yes, they ARE lies because I have discounted his accusations many times.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution and THAT'S why we aren't hearing anything coming from the left on this forest emergency. To many people, it's just not politically palatable to do what it will take to save our forests. Also, they just aren't progressive enough in their thinking to throw away their partisan politics in favor of sound science.

Unfortunately, our forests will suffer horribly, billions in assets will go up in smoke and people will die, just like in Australia. History will say that we did have the chance to save those forests but, emotional beliefs trumped science.

Again!

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Profit

Someone will always make a profit off the forests. Right now, the firefighters and support people are making money hand over fist. The billions spent on putting the fires out are nothing compared to the ecosystem losses. Are we going to trust firefighters to make the right decisions when determining whether a fire should not be fought? Big fires bring in big bucks and there's no public oversight or limits on the purse strings. A $3000 fire is allowed to burn into a $100,000,000 firestorm.

Remember, wildfires are NEVER good for the environment.

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No solution??!?

Once again, people point at dying forests and only talk about climate change impacting them. Of course, there's never any mention of how unnatural they are (and getting worse), with 10 to 1000 times more trees per acre than in pre-historic times.

Where's your solution to our dying forests, folks?!?! C'mon, the clock is ticking and the bark beetles are already stirring in some western areas.

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The fire triangle

Fires burn because of three items. Air, heat and fuel. In nature, fuels is the only part of that triad we can control. Alas, people aren't progressive enough in their thinking to accept fuels reductions in their own backyards.

These Aussie fires will be mirrored here in the US for the same reasons as down in Oz. "Green" Americans are against any human intervention in our forests, just as Aussie greens were. This ongoing American disaster cannot be stopped but, we CAN mitigate impacts and avoid deaths.

C'mon Obama. Get to it!!

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Western US Forests

The worst case scenario IS happening with forests dying, rotting and burning. Letting forests burn does NOT reduce fuel loading, instead killing many more trees to burn in the next fire.

Obama is on the clock to deal with this emergency. Using "unplanned ignitions" to manage our crowded, unhealthy and neglected forests is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, states are reducing their own fire protection agencies and are being stetched thin when multiple let-burn fires, after burning for weeks, approach Federal property line boundaries and become state fires.

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Your choice!

Science or rhetoric!

Unfortunately, when you deal with the government, you get rhetoric EVERY time.

Choose wisely, as we now have another 3 million acres of dead trees. I'm just not seeing any "change" in how forests have been treated in the last 14 years. Money will be thrown at the symptoms but the roots of the disease remain.

It is just not politically-feasible to save our forests at this point in history. Face it, folks!

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Oregonian story link

Be sure to read the first two comments, as well. The tide does seem to be turning just a bit. We're pouring big bucks into a failing and out-of-control system, treating only the symptoms.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/01/burni ...On World heads for 'water bankruptcy', says Davos report posted 9 months, 1 week ago 31 Responses

Lots of work to do

With 3 million acres of dead trees, the Feds in Colorado and Wyoming have a lot of work to do in a very small window. They are asking for $200 million and the Obama Administration is offering only $300 million to help deal with wildfire reduction for the whole country.

Ponderosa pines are the most widspread tree in America and their adaptations to surviving fires have allowed them to dominate in areas that have frequent fire. These pines can be seen in the Santa Cruz mtns of California and, yes, near the Oregon Coast. Lodgepole pines are probably the second-most widespread tree, and have expanded their range since the days of Lewis and Clark.

In truth, many more forests will die (just as I have been warning you folks about for how long?) before any restoration forestry can be enacted. There's too much political inertia to get anything done in the next 4 years. Salvage operations can jumpstart the recovery process in areas with concentrated mortality but, lawsuits and delaying tactics will eliminate the chance to sequester carbon before the trees lose their value. The key to a successful fire salvage sale is to get in there BEFORE the small diameter trees become unmercahantable.

The Obama Administration should take this opportunity to divert all revenues from National Forest logging back into the restoration activities, instead of into the General Fund. Sadly, America needs to learn more about forests before they will accept restoration forestry. On World heads for 'water bankruptcy', says Davos report posted 9 months, 1 week ago 31 Responses

Even more!

http://tinyurl.com/ar2erk
On World heads for 'water bankruptcy', says Davos report posted 9 months, 1 week ago 31 Responses

Cheap desalinization?

I'm sure that cheap desalinization has been invented but, the powers that be don't want that available for worldwide use, fearing that other peoples with differing religions will use that to dominate with massive populations. Allowing the world to have limitless water will only stress the rest of the world's resources in ways like we already do here.

Even here in America, would it be a good thing to supply Mormons with unlimited water to overpopulate our desert southwest? Yes, they are good people but they are blinded by their faith, much like the "preservationists" who disregard science in favor of idealistic dogma drama.On World heads for 'water bankruptcy', says Davos report posted 9 months, 1 week ago 31 Responses

But...

If all of those cool things are connected to the smartgrid, will they all cease to function in the event of a massive solar flare? A smart grid might also distribute the dmage to everything hooked up to it. Hopefully, we'd have some advance notice of an incoming solar flare and could isolate parts of the smartgrid.

Would a surge disable a solar panel? How would the electrical system of a car connected to the gris fare against that surge. The smart grid would hopefully have redundant safety systems to protect everything hooked up to it.

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Interesting guy

My Mom loves to vote for DeFazio because he doesn't follow partisan politics. THAT is how he gets re-elected in a district that is highly Republican. He votes for what is good for his constituents. Of course, most politicians don't see the big picture in all areas, though. For example, Barabara Boxer gives the finger to all rural voters in California, while the firestorms burn for months.

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If I were a rich man...

da da de da...

Seriously, I would probably own one (if I were rich) but I don't think I would get enough use out of one. The places I want to go don't allow them and they wouldn't be appropriate, anyway. I wonder if a governor couldn't be used to limit their power and sound in sensitive areas. I, too, don't like the annoying sound of people purposely overusing the power of those machines.

As far as using them for hunting, I believe that people who are too out of shape to hunt without them should NOT be hunting at all. All too often you see a grossly overweight person on a quad packing a high-powered rifle.

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Oops!

Sorry! The land swap is a part of the Omnibus Package.

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NO!!!

Catastrophic wildfires are NEVER good for the environment and NEVER good for man.

End of story!

Review my postings for numerous evidence, including vaporized soils, massive GHG emissions, incinerated endangered species habitat, loss of forest diversity, increased flood events, loss of soil productivity, elimination of old growth, loss of archeological heritage, increase of permanent brushfields, hydrophobic soils etc, etc, etc.

Yellowstone is always used as an example but those lodgepole forests are DESIGNED to burn catastrophically. Ponderosa pine forests are NOT! In fact, ponderosa pine seeds can only travel about 3 tree lengths per generation.

STOP the government from purposely allowing 100,000 acre catastrophic wildfires! The nations greatest ecosystem scientists say we need to stop catastrophic wildfires through active forest management, or we'll simply see them go up in smoke.

Again, where is the EPA in protecting the public from the hazards of wildfires?!?!?

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Personal experience

While I have used GPS units and a quad to map out existing OHV trails in advance of An EIS, I'm not a big fan of rampant damage from the riding public. I HAVE seen where trails are often "grandfathered" in, from both motorized users AND mountain bike fanatics.

I also had an experience last summer where a group of motorcycle riders found us and complained about other riding tearing up the countryside. They did confront them on the issue but ran into the mob mentality.

A huge part of the problem is a lack of enforcement. Many of the problem riders are very skilled and cannot be caught without a huge expenditure of manpower and resources. And they surely know that.

Self-policing works in many situations but, the nature of the sport(s) has people pushing the limits.

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Please read with an open mind

http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/01/23/is-global-warming- ...

Again, people need to know that global warming alone isn't the culprit in killing trees and causing mortality. The only difference between my desires and yours is how we will get there and how long it will take. It doesn't matter why the earth is warming but that it truly is. What matters is that we CAN mitigate this disaster using science and hands-on management instead of simply watching it happen. I do advocate prescribed fire, when it meet the prescription. The current levels of prescribed fire ARE inadequate, due to current laws, rules and policies. Change our way of doing business and we can move forward but, it will take radical change that many will find unpalatable.

I will try to avoid posting about this to see if people really want a change for the better in their environment. It's up to you people to change the world. Time to get down to it, folks.

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Samo, samo

for you folks. Not the same for me. Once again, I no longer work for the government or any timber company. I just take pictures and question preservationism and environmental corruption. I don't drive an SUV gas guzzler (Subaru Forester!) and my carbon footprint is surely smaller than yours.

Since I live in the forest, I don't want it burned down. Is that too much to ask? Why do you people so tenaciously cling to the idea that catastrophic wildfires are good? Why do we have to burn down the forests to "save them"?

Go to my blog to see how I cherish nature.

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Not willing to do what it takes?

Clearly, all Americans (and probably all the world's citizens) are NOT willing to do what it takes to restore the environment. Even moderate mitigation will be met with lawsuits and appeals that will last at least 4 years before any effective action will be set into motion.

And Democratic environmental corruption has already begun, as well. Trading private clearcut lands for beautiful timbered government forestland on Mount Hood for commercial development by a Democratic multi-millionaire campaign contributor is NOT a good way to start the new Congress.

Selective use of the "precautionary principle" is also NOT a good move by radical preservationists.

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Healthy Forests

Another short visit to squelch the folks who are currently rewriting history about the Forest Service during the Bush years.

Please remember that the Democrats rewrote much of the language within Healthy Forests, otherwise they weren't going to vote for it. The resulting vote was nearly unanimous in bi-partisanship. The act wasn't hardly even funded and was allowed to die without even a whimper for either side. It was litigated to death, as well. In the end, Bush went from "Healthy Forests" to "Deathly Forests" with a policy of "free range fire" supported by all sides except for enlightened foresters like me.

As of now, I am still seperated from the Forest Service and have washed my hands of this massive disaster that Obama has inherited. I have no doubt that he will ignore 50 mllion dead bug trees, incinerated old growth and sickly, overgrown forests. It's too bad that the future of our forests are being mangled by all sides but, this IS what America wants.

I will choose to live my (remaining) life the way I want because ALL Americans aren't willing to do what it takes to restore our environment.

Why should I adjust my small carbon footprint when Gristers won't adjust their flawed ideology regarding forests?

Too bad, soooooo sad. 8^(On Eight years of Bush's environmental actions -- the good, the bad, and the ugly posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 5 Responses

Christopher

http://westinstenv.org/wp-content/KNJJFFTestimony.pdf

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My final post

This won't be long, as I have said all I have to say about the science being ignored. Thank you, Sean for at least acknowledging other issues (but further polarizing things).

I have come to the realization that there is nothing that can be done for this hopeless situation. I'm leaving the Forest Service to wash my hands of it all, too. It's sad that it has to be this way but, I cannot ignore the reality.

I hope your children will forgive you for doing nothing about "Obama's Katrina".

Goodbye!

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Forest Future?

Our new forests?

click if you dare

Is this what you want to pass on to your kids?!? This is an example of a forest that burned at high intensity, and then was salvage logged.

Quite a grim future, indeed!

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How come

Obama hasn't presented his plan to stop and reverse the wildfire disaster in our forests, then??

Ahhhh, I see. He doesn't HAVE a plan or even an inkling of this current disaster. Or will he use the failed Bush plan? It seems that he will go with the status quo of letting our forests burn.....and even helping wildfires to grow....and incinerate......and destroy....and kill our forests.

Burn the forests to save them?!?! Nice Vietnam rhetoric! Nice massive GHG spewage!! Endangered species reductions? Loss of water quality!! Foul smoky air!!

Smart! Really REALLY smart!
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NOT!

But it ISN'T too late to save some of them, if we act now. Get a plan, people!

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Clinton forest legacy

The Roadless thing was decidedly a non-issue for forests. There were already protections in place for Roadless Areas that actually had timber in them. (Not to say that roads for mining would be a good thing, or that more roads in general are needed.) The Sierra Nevada Framework was another last second "decree" that banned the cutting of trees all the way down to 12" in diameter in many areas of California. He also signed the "Salvage Rider" and then changed his mind.

Then, we had to struggle through the Bush years with an unfunded "Healthy Forests" resulting in record fire seasons for 3 out of 8 years.

Some legacy, eh?

We won't see any change from Obama, regarding our forests. More of the same death and destruction. (It's already too late for any action before next year's fire season.)

Science again will take a backseat to emotional partisan political rhetoric. Forest martydom ISN'T essential to battling climate change.

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Well,

You'd better get to work on changing the Constitution so you can damn well tell those privates landowners what they can and can't do with their own lands, eh?

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Healthy Forests II?

I demand that the greens come up with a plan to put people back into the woods fixing 40+ years of forest mismanagement.

Or will greens settle for the martydom of our forests, in exchange for more "proof" of global warming?

Forest "UN-management" is NOT green! Our old growth forests evolved with hands-on human management. However greens want to "re-make" the forests into something new that is NOT natural.

Into a forest without humans.

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Forest's plank?

I think the plank in Obama's platform that says "Forests" on it has been kept covered up. I'm sure that's because it has termites, serious rot and has caught on fire too many times. Those quoted above use words like "restore" and "stewardship", when they really mean "re-wild" and "preserve".

"Change" in the forests?!? Not bloody likely!

More government inaction to a major disaster. It could become known as "Obama's Katrina".

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USDA-Forest Service

"Support good management that enables soil, forests, and plants to store vast quantities of carbon."

Since the Forest Service IS a part of the USDA, let's hear Obama's plan to accomplish the above task. I expect that it will be more of the same forest destruction that both eco-groups and the Bush Administration embraced for 8 years.

Let's see what will be the Obama Administration's response to the mega-disaster that is our National Forests. Denial will surely be the first response, I'm thinking.

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Pseudo-progressives

I like to call them "Inverse Dittoheads", who blindly accept what they are told, because they just don't have the time to read and understand important issues on their own.

Extremists on both sides don't want any compromises or consensus. It's time to throw away the partisan political playbook and redefine the important problems and re-evaluate their solutions.

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While you drink your wine

you'll taste the California wildfires in every batch of Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino wines of the 2008 vintage. Yes, "smoke taint" from the 3 month long California wildfires will impart a smokey taste to the 50 billion dollar California Wine Industry.

Drink up!

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Nope

The Forest Service is still under the USDA, although many times in the past, people have talked about combining the Forest Service, BLM, and the Soil Conservation Service all together into the Department of the Interior. Probably a good thing to consolidate services.

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Nuclear fear

If our meltdown fears are overblown, I still think that my fears of "nuclear waste freight trains" to Yucca Mountain are way underblown. These trains don't have containment buildings and major security in their journies. Are the nation's rails in good enough upkeep to prevent a "nuclear derailment"? Will you visit Reno, knowing that radioactive waste is going right through the middle of town on a regular basis?

I just think that with more research into future forms of power will yield the clean and abundant energy we need.

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Of course, Richard

he doesn't mention the ecological benefits of good silviculture in our forests. The benefits of capturing the heat, energy and at least some of the carbon in our forests, instead of letting it die, rot and burn.

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Neither side

addresses forest habitat losses from catastrophic wildfire. Goshawks and spotted owl were listed solely because of habitat loss.

Now that fires are merely watched, instead of being extinguished, how many hundred more established nest sites will be vaporized in the next Presidential term? How many more bull trout streams will be silted up from increased erosion? How many overgrown stream buffers will be incinerated, along with endangered salamanders?

Neither candidate has even any knowledge of this ongoing disaster that dwarfs Hurricane Katrina.

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And sometimes...

us foresters will choose to not do anything except to take pictures of forest majesty, and let it be. If the Forest Service says it is going to do beneficial work in the forests, make us walk that talk but, don't prejudge people because of the job they do.

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Read up!

The Grist crowd here knows very well that I preach for hands-on management of our forests. They generally don't like to talk about forests here at Grist. I suggest that you read through my prior postings and, if you can wade through my rhetoric, you just might find a continuity of managing our lands to be more in balance, to restore ecosystem function, to improve wildlife habitat and many more beneficial activities.

Or, go to http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/15/162848/100

I posted plenty of issues there, and please read them with an open mind. The science is there

I've seen wildfire, up close and personal. I've worked on big fires, flown in helicopters, salvaged dead and dying timber for wildfires. I was a fire lookout for 2 summers. I was a Fire Camp Manager during the Siege of '87. I know what I am talking about because I have been there and done that.

Once again, let-burn fires that turn into catastrophic firestorms (Biscuit Fire, OR, Yellow Fire, ID) are NEVER a good thing, except for fattening a firefighters wallet.

In the end, it will take someone with ecological knowledge and logging knowhow to survey the ground and decide, scientifically, what is best for that piece of land in that watershed on that aspect in those soils. Add in all the other variables, as well. Who is best suited to being skilled in ALL of those areas? Who can do all that with an eye for aesthetics?

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Forest complexity 101

After watching the video, I can see that they are, of course, going for the sensationlism of so many dead trees. With all the hoopla about global warming and climate change, it's pretty much a no-brainer that warmer and drier is not good for the forests. Regardless of whether man's activities are increasing temperatures or if it's a natural solar cycle (probably both!), many forests have and will be in serious decline.

Much of what you see in the video are lodgepole pines dying in vast numbers. Lodgepoles are much more drought sensitive than their distant cousins, the ponderosa pines. Lodgepoles will aggressively attempt to dominate a site by seeding in after a fire in tremendous numbers, due to their serotinous cones. Their strategy is to outgrow and shade out all other species. At their peak, they rapidly decline from competition and lack of water. Soon, bark beetles and fire come back and wipe out the old forest so that a new one can continue. Lodgepole pine has never been in much demand, as loggers and mills prefer the ponderosa pines.

On the other hand, the fire-adapted and drought-adapted ponderosa pines can thrive where lodgepole cannot maintain their stranglehold on the land. Ponderosa pines have thicker barks and well-protected buds to resist higher intensity fires better than lodgepoles, eventually shading and burning them out of their "turf".

Where the biggest danger occurs is when forests are overstocked, especially when fire has been suppressed for so long. In those overstocked forests, spindly lodgepoles have invaded into a pondersa pine overstory, putting the entire forest at risk to catastrophic wildfire.

Thinning these kinds of forests, retaining the old growth ponderosa pines, restores the forest to how the American Indians tended it. We need to tend to our forests or we will lose them, as seen in the video.

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Will THIS change...

...under a new President?

http://westinstenv.org/sosf/post-fire-photos

These are pictures from the big Let-Burn "project" of 400,000 acres in Idaho in 2007.

Tell me please, which "resource objectives" were accomplished here by letting this fire burn catastrophically?

Would you go camping or hiking here in the next 20 years?

Is this the legacy you want to leave you offspring?

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Did YOU read the whole article?

And, is semantics all you got out of it? When a particle becomes aloft, and is pushed into the upper atmosphere for hundreds of miles, does it really matter if I called it "vaporized" or "thermo-mechanically lifted", or even "cataclysmically-driven"?
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The soil went up there! ^^^^^^^
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Along with plant productivity
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Along with yadda, yadda, yadda.

Please read the study. It IS scientific truth, with a healthy dose of right-wing environmentalism embedded within. I trust the science but question the "Us vs. Them" syndrome. From both sides, of course.

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Here ya go!

A shocking new study that shows soils do vaporize and go into our atmosphere. This is THE newest and most solid science available from the Biscuit Fire.

http://westinstenv.org/ffsci/2008/10/19/intense-forest-wi ...

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Link to study

Fires vaporize soils, leaving cooked, barren rock.

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."

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Sigh

"No one cares about the forests anymore"

I'm voting for TreeBeard!

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Old growth

The vast majority of old growth pine throughout the West was favored by American Indians and enhanced with their "prescribed fire". Brush was replaced by grass. Weedy flammable trees were torched. Springs gushed, game was plentiful and oaks were bountiful.

Now, well-meaning environmentalists want to eliminate all of man's restorative actions in favor of catastrophic fire unleashed upon an unbalanced forest ecosystem.

So, Tase? Are you in favor of converting most of our forests from old growth into "regenerative" and pertpetual brushfields? Save the forests by burning them?!?

Today's eco-activists will gladly sacrifice today's forests in exchange for obliterating each and every stump. Idealistic dogma drama, hold the science.

Hug those snags but, when those fall over, will you hug the manzanita, whitethorn and sage?

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Silent Running!

Good eco-sci-fi movie with a Grist-y ending.

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More Scientific Evidence!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081016124041 ...

Substantial Loss Of Carbon, Nitrogen From Burned Soils -- And Connections To Warming Climate
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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...
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"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

Let's use Canada, for example

Their "nationalized companies" do unsustainable clear-cutting in places that don't grow back well. And, since those areas don't grow back very fast and the trees don't have much volume in them (comparatively to the US), they have to cut more and more acres to get the same timber volume. Add to that the export fees and transportation costs to the US, and you have a "problem".

I'll bet that most Canadians don't like unsustainable clearcutting to feed America's voracious appetite but, what's a Canuck to do against "Big Government"?

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Sorry David

The topic is about former eco's now seeing the scientific and economic reality. You folks have a long history of killing the messenger instead of the message. While I don't buy into everything Moore says, I fear that you are doing the same to Dr. Franklin. You have repeatedly ignored his abrupt turnabout in scientific strategy to restore over-protected forests. You'd surely like to lump him in with Moore as a "heretic". Sorry that his expertise doesn't fit into your style of "ecology", Dave.

Now if you applied the same logic to Obama, he wouldn't even be a Senator because of his support for corn ethanol.

Not on topic? PSSSHAW!

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Eco-religion SUCKS!

He who hath no eco-sin whatsoever can throw the first stone.
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But rocks now cost $10,000 a pop! Pay at the door, please!
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But, no sense in spinning any money to the Forest Service. They will only spend more on watching fires burn. (And not on putting them out!)

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Price THIS!

573,337,710 tons of CO2

That is the estimated tonnage of just the CO2 that has spewed into our atmosphere from wildfires during the Bush Administration, with the silent approval of the Sierra Club and other eco-groups. This assumes a VERY conservative estimate of 10 tons per acre. A thick old growth forest can put out over 100 tons of CO2 per acre.

Of course, this DOESN'T include CO, mercury, particulates and other pollutants.

I was thinking very hard about this the other day and concluded that the Bush strategy is that once the lands are burned, they will no longer have the designations and protections that the original forests once had (see Biscuit Fire).

What is the Sierra Club (and others) strategy for burning our forests in the middle of the summer, with no firelines, no smoke control, no public involvement, no environmental analysis and no fiscal oversight?

People ARE starting to question what the hell the Forest Service is doing, and their Let-Burn program WILL find its way into the courts.  

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Backcut on Zappa

I didn't make that connection last night, Jon, but I do now. (BTW, LOVE "Watermelon in Easter Hay"!) Yes, you DO know a part of his "Conceptual Continuity" and, yes, he was more heavy-handed on the right wingers (as he should have been). He also took pot shots at the left, as well. Surely he would have had a field day with the Monica Blewinsky thing!

And exposing religions was a big part of his message(s). Be sure to sample the songs in "Broadway the Hardway", as they so ring true today regarding the right wing stranglehold on our nation...."Oh please tell us when? We'll be rid of these MEN!"

I won't bow down to religious fanatics of either side. Many eco's "practice" their religions with all the ritual and ignorance of other controlling churches.

And whatever happened to "Gloom and Doom, with a humorous twist". If you can't laugh at yourselves, then maybe you need to rethink your lives and start enjoying them. It isn't inconsistent with wanting to make this a better world.

Unfortunately, balance in ANY form is in such short supply these days. Neither side is willing to compromise so, "ultimately, who is willing to give a f**k" and worship science as our savior?

The elite left here finds that my demands for scientifically-sound forest management are just totally UNACCEPTABLE. Their "religion" eschews science and embraces idealistic dogma drama. That being your only beef against me, does that  warrant you labeling me as a troll, unworthy of even a response? Yes, I AM onboard with a great many of the ways we can save our environment.

(I'm not singling you out, Jon...thanks for the cool remark.)

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

With apologies to Zappa

Re-written, especially for this site.

It says in HIS (Gore's) book:
"Burn 'n destroy . . .
'N repent, 'n redeem
'N revenge, 'n deploy
'N rumble thee forth
To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side
'Cause they don't go for what's in the book
'N that makes 'em BAD
So verily we must choppeth them up
And stompeth them down
Or rent a nice Earth First bomb
To poof them out of existance
While leaving their real estate just where we need it
To use again
For temples in which to praise
OUR GAIA
("Cause she can really take care of business!")

And when your humble TV servant
With humble brown hair
And humble glasses
And a nice big mansion
And maybe a blonde wife (Tipper) who takes phone calls
Tells us our GAIA says
It's okay to do this stuff
Then we gotta do it,
'Cause if we don't do it,
We ain't gwine up to hebbin!
(Depending on which book you're using at the time . . . Can't use theirs . . . it don't work . . . it's all lies . . . Gotta use mine . . . )
Ain't that right?
That's what they say
Every night . . .
Every day . . .
Hey, we can't really be dumb
If we're just following GAIA's Orders
Hey, Let's get serious . . .
GAIA knows what she's doin' . . .
Gore wrote this book here
An' the book says:
"She made us all to be just like Her," so . . .
If we're dumb . . .
Then GAIA is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little ugly on the side)

Blindly following ANY religion is soooo 16th century. Enjoy your dead forests!  

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Biomass burning

As long as Gristers tolerate, encourage and even demand that western forests be incinerated, all that potantially-offsetting green energy will be just firewood grown to heat our atmosphere, deliver sediment to our water supply, cook our wildlife and destroy our ecosystems.

You can't "win" here, Richard. To them, you are tainted with tree "blood".

That is all.....for now.

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Or....

we could just go with the status quo, preferred by Gristers everywhere, and burn all that biomass where it stands. It's something the Bush Administration and preservationists totally agree upon.

OOPS, supposed to be lurking! 8^X

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Enough name-calling

and rhetoric and flat-out lies about me. You now get everything you want.

1. Censorship of opposing views regarding forests.

2. No more observations from this "man in the forests".

3. Unstoppable firestorms 2000 miles away from most Grist contributors.

4. No more explanations of Forest Service policy and procedures.

5. No more inconvenient truths about our forests.

6. Re-Wilded brushfields for your fun and pleasure.

7. An offsetting of every CFL and hybrid car in the world by those firestorms spewing mega-tonnage of GHG's directly into our upper atmosphere.

Good bye, so long and good riddance of this intolerant, predjudiced, unprogressive and irrational group of posters who can now revel in their ignorance that they drove away the evil tree mass murderer. Meanwhile, I'll continue to practice what I preach out in the woods, saving trees right and left, protecting forests from shoddy logging and educating open-minded people. I tried to garner consensus but science has lost this battle and this war.

8^(

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Best example?

Just consider the plan for managing the Sequoia National Monument, for example. The plan allowed for some thinning but, strictly avoiding Giant Sequoia groves. The plan was quite similar to the rest of the Sierra Nevada, under the Sierra Nevada Framework. However, meddling Democrats and eco-groups sued to have the plan shelved, leaving the Giant Sequoia groves at intense risk to a stand-replacing fire that would kill entire groves, despite their fire adaptations.

Also, the eco groups balk at cutting trees of a merchantable size, claiming them to be "mature". Others still claim that a 22" dbh tree is "old growth" when, it is decidedly merely a smaller mid-sized tree. When a stand is overstocked with 20-40" dbh trees (meaning that what is growing there now cannot be supported by the yearly rainfall), what is wrong with thinning those trees that are crowding each other?

Anyway, the bulk of proof must be on the eco's now and how they're going to stop catastrophically-high intensity firestorms from destroying forests in a way never before seen by modern man.

YOU come up with the plan AND the money to implement it and we'll talk about that. The money HAS to come through Congress and you need to tell us how much money and when they are going to appropriate it for this "magic" process which will "save" our forests without cutting any trees. Just leaving it alone and hoping for the best hasn't worked for the last 15 years, folks.

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Hmmm, prejudice too??!?

It seems that some Gristers just don't think progressively enough to see what restoration forestry is all about. History will show that I've been right all along (since 1997) about widespread forest disaster. Closed-minded people have strapped on the blinders and have somehow ignored many, many millions of dead trees in the last few years. This is just the beginning of a massive deforestation (and carbon vaporization).

Deniers exist on both sides. Been to Colorado lately??!? Smelled the smoke from California?!? Who will you blame this disaster on?!?! Of course, you'll blame all of it on global warming, and none of it on inaction. We CAN save our forests but the "tipping point" IS here and now.

Are you a part of the problem or a part of the solution?

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Uncontrolled wildfire

IS always bad, folks.

When ESA habitats go up in flames, everyone loses. When up to 100 tons of GHG's per acre are spewed from firestorms, everyone loses. When smoke poisons the air for days on end, people DIE! When streams are silted up with sediment from catastrophic wildfires, everyone loses. When old growth trees crown out, everyone loses.

I could go on and on but, wildfires ARE always bad for the environment. Not to say that controlled burning is bad, though. Under carefully controlled condition, prescribed fire does benefit the forests, as long as they remain controlled.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Show me!

Where have wildfires been beneficial?? Certainly not the Biscuit Fire, where more than 100 spotted owl/goshawk nest were incinerated and almost 500,000 acres burned. Certainly not the McNally Fire where the 2nd largest tree in the world is near death. Certainly not the Yellowstone and Bitterroot Fires which spewed out MILLIONS of tons of toxic gasses, cooked ESA habitat, caused untold erosion and accelerated bark beetle populations.

Free range fire is NOT our friend! Not in our unnaturally overstocked forests!

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Battles of the last millenium

"Because despite any regulations you might think are in place by national or local governments, unrestrained clearcutting and high-grading (cutting only the biggest and best trees) still takes place everyday across forests of the U.S. Do you wish to buy wood products that came from these? I don't. Buying products with an FSC label assures you and me that proper care was applied."

The battle against clearcutting was won in the LAST millenium. I haven't installed a clearcut since 1989. Region 5 of the Forest Service voluntarily banned clearcutting and the cutting of 30"+ dbh trees, to keep the California Spotted Owl from becoming listed. Most timber sales also have "diameter limits" which retain all those massive trees. However, in areas where there are an excess of trees in the 18-26" dbh size, shouldn't we be able to take a few of those trees to make sure the sale (along with its embedded non-commercial restoration work) will sell on the open market.

"Because under standard timber industry guidelines, you can still take a diverse forest of hardwoods and softwoods (with all the biodiversity it contains) and clear it, completely, then replant it to a monoculture of fast-growing softwoods (often applying copious amounts of pesticides) which support a fraction of the original biodiversity. This is where most of our structural housing material comes from. But there's a different, more sustainable, approach that can give us the same building materials... albeit, perhaps with a small price premium (under 5%). I prefer the latter."

Once again, we don't do that kind of heavy-handed conversions anymore in the Forest Service. Private timber companies still do, though. Most of our projects involve cutting trees in the 9-18" dbh range. Thinning from below.

"Because even in California (which has strict harvesting guidelines), if we open up millions of acres of forests to thinning procedures to reduce fire damage, there aren't adequate safeguards in place to make sure a certain percentage of very mature, high-quality trees won't be removed as part of the thinning process when these trees really could (and should) be left standing. Why is this? Because like I said, different people see forests in different ways. Some want to mine it; some want to work sustainably with it. We've cut enough old growth. I want to know systems are in place to protect the remaining old growth, and the FSC helps to assure that."

Without harvesting trees in the 18-26" dbh size, no fuels reduction project would ever sell. That is because we always include some non-commercial work, like plantation thinning, whole tree yarding and required road maintenance. Picking and plucking a few of these decidedly mid-sized excess trees makes the rest of the project economical.

Of course, the FSC doesn't care about economics. And the public seems not to care that Forest Service lands aren't FSC certified. The Forest Service doesn't care that they aren't certified, either. I'm not going to say that all timber projects are good for the environment, though. That's where we need public involvement and oversight, so get in the game and see for yourselves!

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Ummmm?

The Sierra Club still supports a ban with their "zero cut" policy in our National Forests. They'd rather see the supply for our voracious wood appetite come from clearcuts in Canada. If we can't even even cut dead trees without a lawsuit from the eco-community, how are we going to get clearance from them to cut the amounts of green trees needed to make a difference in biofuels?

Besides, wouldn't it be even better for the environment to cut those excess trees and sequester their carbon in the form of durable wood products?

If we can get Jerry Franklin and the 9th Circuit Court judges to change their minds about forest management, why not mainstream "green folks"??!?

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Meanwhile

Forests continue to burn, GHG's are pouring into the upper atmosphere, highways are closed, ESA habitat is baked, people have been evacuated for weeks and fires may continue to burn throughout the summer. The smoke has reached Yellowstone, all the way from California, on two occasions this year.

But there's good news on the horizon. The 9th Circuit Court judges have made a huge public step away from "judging" the science of the Forest Service. This just might open the door for fuels reduction projects to go forward, instead of being litigated to death.

It's time to stop "denying" that our forests need hands-on management to recover, or even survive.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Unfortunately...

it's almost a crime to cut a live tree in America (tree murderers). It's even "forest destruction" if you want to cut dead trees. It's also "forest renewal" when a wildfire consumes 80,000 acres of ecosystem in 3 days.

Orwellian, ya say?!?

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Hippie-crite?

I just heard that one yesterday from a Forest Service "ologist" I've been working with, lately.

Extremism on either side is bad, folks. Shooting the messenger is an everyday occurence for those self-righteous fringe folk (especially Dick Cheney!).

Hooray for science!!On Conservation land in flood zone opened to grazing posted 1 year, 3 months ago 11 Responses

"Interesting"

how an supposed environmental site can ignore 500,000 acres of burned forests, dozens of homes burned, wildlife habitat cooked and the fires are STILL burning!

Oh, yeah. That's right! Forests don't fit in with "climate, energy, food, politics, green living" categories.

My bad!

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Carbon sinks (also called forests)

and burning up and going bye-bye. So much for buffering and carbon sequestration. Too bad most people see burning forests as a "re-birthing". Too bad bark beetles are munching trees like never before seen in recorded history. Too bad people somehow don't see millions of mature trees dying each and every year.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

PCT closed due to Let-Burn

The Pacific Crest Trail in the southern Sierra is now closed due to a fire that was allowed to burn since the end of May. Homes are threatened and their are up to $5000 fines and possible jail time for trespassers. Suppression costs are now near $5 million buckaroos. Who benefits from these fires??!? Certainly the firefighters do but, I just can't see anyone else (or anyTHING) benefitting from this Let-Burn program.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Just in 3 days

... California wildfires have put out more than 2.5 million tons (estimated) in GHG's from wildfires. Overall, fires nationwide have spewed out 20 million tons and it's still June. Last year, fires produced nearly 100 million tons of GHG's.

Just thought I'd give you folks some badly needed perspective.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Hmmmm

How come none of you are cheering on the nearly 1000 new fires burning down California forests and polluting the air for almost 1000 miles? I'm over here in Idaho and we're seeing the drift smoke from all those fires.

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?!?!

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Shooting ones' (s)ELF in the foot

I've seen where activists have removed boundary flagging that was protecting "no treatment areas", essentially opening that up to logging in some cases. Saving trees by spiking them, (and risking lives in the lumber mills) only to have the trees converted into toxic polluting gasses through catastrophic wildfire is a morally bankrupt idea.

Maybe we should legally block timber sale areas from public use, due to safety, eh?!?! More prison time for violent people, eh?!?! Put me in jail for "eco-forestry"?!?! Forcibly remove people from forests for their own safety so that fires can burn "free range"??!! (Catastrophically-speaking)

Currently, I'm working on an aspen delineation project to improve aspen stand health. Of course, that goes against the preservationist "party line". If it were up to wolverine, I'd be doing 15 years to life for "tree murder".On Convicted eco-vandal sentenced to six years in prison posted 1 year, 4 months ago 57 Responses

Just a reminder

Just a short lurking note:

The silt marks that still are imbedded in the redwood bark of trees along the Eel River in California still show the "historic" flood level of 1964, which BTW haven't been surpassed since then.

That is all.

Back to self-imposed lurking exile.

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Ahhhh, yes!

This thread clearly shows the level of scientific prowess of Grist posters. The last time I looked, there are plenty of National Forests suffering terribly (the San Bernardino, the Dixie, the Bitterroot, the Tahoe Basin, the forests of Colorado, etc), with mortality exceeding both growth AND harvesting combined. Do you think that salmon enjoyed the Biscuit Fire? Do trees get thirsty when drought hits and there are too many trees per acre, compared to historical records? Does catastrophic fire enhance salmon breeding habitat?

When will Gristers learn that forests are key to us surviving the century? When will they abandon their faith-based dogma drama of eco-Armageddon for our forests? When will science be used against the forest management deniers bent on re-wilding, regardless of the deadly and destructive effects?

Unfortunately, history is proving me right, with my observations and predictions on the Internet, going back to 1997. It's really too bad that our forests will be going away and polluting our atmosphere.

Unless we can reach some miraculous consensus...

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Plan-et ahead?

With all the present-day forms of energy production and the great potentials of clean energies on the horizon, we seem to have a lot of the "tools" to get started on fixing our energy addictions. Near-future tools will hopefully phase out coal and nuclear-based methods. It's an excitedly scary time in the energy world but, I have hope that technological necessity will trump economic reality.

In the long run, it's better for us little guys to have a diversified energy base and competition for our energy dollars.

Great post, Turanga. We all could use a dose of reality once in a while. A buddy of mine has waiting on cellulosic ethanol to be economically viable for many years now but, still hasn't made that big investment. Maybe I'll work for him if he jumps into the game.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Bumper snicker

On the way home from Mississippi yesterday, flying into Reno and driving south on 395, I saw a bumper sticker that said "Keep Tahoe Nice", alluding to the attitudes of new ultra-rich landowners up there. And, yes, it was on an SUV.

Going from the Gulf Coast fog to the icy fog of 8500 foot Carson Pass is almost more of a contrast than the cultures...LOL

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Shilly Trolls

I often reconsider why I bother to read and post here at Grist. My posts often bring deafening silence or the occasional Grist n00b will will fling the presevationist dogma at me. The terms "shill" and "troll" come to mind as they ignore my message and roast the Forest Service messenger. They will claim that I love clearcutting and hate forests. I've been called a "tree murderer" here. (The truth is that I have "saved" probably a few million or so trees, simply by walking by them while wielding my paintgun.)

But I persevere, and once in a while I'll see the fruits of my labor. The openminded Gristers can see the wisdom of forest management. I've seen a few here who have seen the light and pulled away from the "not one stick" attitude of forest mismanagement. The closedminded ones say, "Don't feed the trolls".

That being said, I do know that trolls are not mythical beings in GristWorld. Trolls DO disrupt sites like Grist and are a problem in a free forum. Many of the folks here are veterans of the internet forums. I'm happy that I still have an eco-website that won't ban me outright (it's boring to preach to the choir).

I find that I keep coming back to Grist because I'm learning valuable stuff that I can use in both my work and my life outside of work. I'm always filled with hope from learning about DrX's alternative energy options. I learn about low-impact farming techniques. I can't pretend to understand all of the collective knowledge and wisdom of the regular posters here. I applaud Grist for allowing opposing viewpoints and keeping a sense of humor in a gloomy world.

BTW, I'm currently working in southern Mississippi and seeing what Katrina did to the forests. (Magnolias, long-leaf pines and baldcypress!!) I'm hoping that my next assignments will be forest inventory work in NYC and West Point. There's also lots of new pictures from my trip to Zion and Bryce Canyon on my photo blog.  

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Eco-Journalistic Prime Directive

Forget the facts and write what your readers want to hear.

(See the LA Times)

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True Environmentalist

That is what I consider myself to be, doing what it takes to restore forest ecosystems to their former grandeur and function. I thank you for your openminded comments, spaceshaper. I'm hoping that my persistence will convert the rest of the preservationists whose beliefs parallel climate change deniers. Luckily, a few people are slowly changing their beliefs to accept some "restoration logging".

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.

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Sequoia National Monument-al Mismanagement

by Lee Belau, retired Fire Management Officer for the Sequoia National Forest

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

Sorry

I went out on a tangent about the violence in "non-violent" direct actions. In that same scenario about your car, suppose that your job depended on your car and you lost your job over that vandalism. Now you might start feeling like a logger feels when his equipment is vandalized. The contracting loggers are the ones in the squeeze. Activists don't discriminate against good and bad loggers.

Regarding the fence, there HAS to be a way to mitigate effects in design or re-design. Will this wall lead to "sea-walls" to keep "ethnic amphibians" from invading America? I don't think a fence is going to be that effective, in the first place. Plus, we're all still waiting for the promises that the Irish would take over this country to come true, as well.

smirk

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Harm and intent

What about the logger, who's work borders on art (as he is extremely conscientious and skilled), doing perfectly legal jobs on both public lands and private lands? The logger doesn't select the trees to be cut. He just removes the selected trees in the least damaging way (which he is VERY good at!) Activists would have no problem damaging equipment, tank-trapping roads and delaying operations to INTEND HARM just because the activists don't think he should cut ANY trees.

That sounds like violence to me!

Violence doesn't have to be limited to just the physical.

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Careful!

I've seen where these direct action people have only hurt their cause by removing flagging that protects "no treatment areas" within forest cutting units. There are also plenty of other protective flagging that could be tampered with, resulting in unrecoverable damages.

I'm not defending the wall or anything. I'm for saving resources and ecosystems.

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Fire differences

There are at least 3 different kinds of fire in our forests. Only one of them is good for our forests.

The first kind of fire is the wildfire that burns where it will, despite what firefighters may try to do.

The second kind is more accurately described as "prepared fire", which means that conditions are carefully controlled and fuels have already been removed, reduced or concentrated.

The third kind is the WFU fires that are allowed to burn, without ANY human interaction. All because a fire manager has decided for ALL of us that it needs to burn, despite a good chance it will grow into an uncontrollable fire like the first kind (see Biscuit Fire for the best example).

There is so little of the second kind being done these days, because of funding and eco-backlash. The other kinds of fire are increasing in both size AND intensity. However, some areas have no choice at this point. Once the millions of trees are already dead, there is very little choice, other than to watch it burn all that endangered species habitat, watersheds for drinking water, and all the other resource values of a healthy forest into GHG's going directly into our atmosphere. Around 50-80 tons per acre of GHG's, offsetting all your precious hybrid vehicles and CFL's.

Welcome to the New National Forest that only manages fires so that we'll never run out of fires.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Religion vs Science

The religion of forest preservationism is a curious one which desires to see crown fires, a sea of snags and brushfields replacing endangered species habitat. As long as all traces of that pesky Man are removed, the forests will recover in about 2000 years (recover to what?!?). The idealistic dogma-drama of faith-based "opinions" on how to restore the forests will only result in this ongoing slow motion disaster that far exceeds the scope of Katrina, and adds to global warming far more than man ever could.

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Your Solution

You want to let fires burn in overstocked and unhealthy forests to return megatons of GHG's into our atmosphere, incinerate entire ecosystems, causing major erosion and sedimentation, destroying endangered species habitat and nesting sites, eliminate historical sites and create the unintended consequences of eternal brushfields after accelerated salvage logging.

Not a pretty future, by my standards, TP.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

"Natural ecosystem"??

What the hell is THAT? Since some say that only 4% of all the old growth in America is left, the other 96% is "unnatural" and burns at unnaturally-high intensities. Which produces unnatural results, unnatural soil destruction, unnatural erosion, unnatural sedimentation, unnatural fish kills, unnatural bear starvation, etc.

And that's just the effects on some wildlife.

Wildfire is NEVER good for the forests, or for our atmosphere. Yep, wildfires put out more pollution than cars do every year. A new study shows that wildfires produce from 54 to 76 tons of GHGs per acre. And that's a lot of acres!! MILLIONS of acres, every year, year after year!

Hug them snags!

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Story link

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/778649.html

This slanted story at least comments on this startling work. Notice that the forest management deniers are already clawing at the messenger. How can someone buy a Prius AND embrace wildfires at the same time?

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Where is he now?!?

"The War Between the Sexes can never be won. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy"

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I used to be disgusted...

...but now I'm just amused at reading the furor over this. I'm still waiting to hear about the investigation before I can claim a conspiracy. Since ELF purportedly decentralizes their organization, this is probably a "cell" acting on its own. All that means is that a few punks got itchy fingers and burned a sacrifice to their god(s). It's also just as likely that a contractor was falling behind on his payroll and houses weren't selling, so the insurance company could easily pay off his guys instead.

One more thing... Violence is an action with the intent to harm another. Whether that harm is physical or property damage, it IS still harm. The intent is still there. On 'Eco-terrorism' suspected in Seattle-area arson posted 1 year, 8 months ago 80 Responses

I agree

with DrX that we should utilize the public workforce whenever we get the chance to. It would be money well spent and would go very far to rebuilding some trust in the Agency. There is plenty of labor-intensive work to do out there (and maybe the timber industry could fund some of it, since they profited from the logging of it?).

When I worked on a Bitterroot National Forest thinning project, we marked a ton of trees in an overcrowded patch of mostly pine. The same stands were sampled by students and, when they began, they awere appalled by the "sea of blue" marked trees. As they set up plots that randomly sampled the "cut trees" and the "leave trees", they realized that there were quite a bit more trees left than they ever thought would be. We precisely met our goals of reducing the stocking levels back to a more natural level.

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"Potential" Lynx habitat

When I worked on the Bitterroot National Forest several years ago, there was an elevational line that designated "Potential Lynx Habitat". All of that was hands-off, despite the massive amounts of dead trees in that zone. Part of the deal made in salvage logging after the big fires was to preserve the perfect barkbeetle habitat, as well. Of course, millions of trees that survived the fires are now dead from bark beetles whose population exploded, emerging from the dying trees, green with needles but a cooked cambium layer. The perfect host for another cloud of voracious bark beetles. I HAVE pics!On Large area proposed as critical habitat for Canada lynx posted 1 year, 8 months ago 6 Responses

Relative amounts

The amounts of phosphorous and nitrogen are used solely as a wetting agent, so that the water will penetrate the fuels. With that happening, it stays put or becomes vaporized. It appears that the Forest Service hasn't analyzed and documented fire retardant's effects on fish. I just hope the "no action" alternative gets full national exposure....heh heh.....AKA Let-Burn

Yep, eco's are for it and Bush is for it....UNITED in destroying our forests!

(sorry....couldn't resist!)  smirk

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Quick survey

Scanning the California Air-Resources Board site, it is packed with all sorts of data about pollution from wildfires. While I didn't find the specific article where the above data comes from, I did find a wealth of other information on the unhealthiness of wildfire smoke. This article deals with the Cedar Fire around San Diego and is just as enlightening. Just be aware that the brush fires down there were less intense than a thick forest fire.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/qaweb/ertoutside/socalfires/data/re ...

I have a very personal link to the more recent fires around San Diego. Although my Uncle's house survived the fires, he did not last more than 2 months after the smoke pushed his previously hidden cancer over the brink.

Maybe one of your family memebrs will be next when wildfires rage?

On a side note: The California Air-Resources Board severely limits the amount of prescribed fires the Forest Service can set. The windows for performing this work are getting smaller all the time.

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This just in!

Information collected from a model developed by the California Air-Resource Board Department to estimate emissions from forest fires indicated "burning one acre of coniferous forest emits on average 9 tons of CO, 0.6 tons of hydrocarbon particulates, 0.25 tons of nitrous oxide." It was calculated that it would take 1040 new cars driving 1250 miles(an average for one month of driving) to equal a one acre fire.

And we had 10 million acres burn in just the last year. Mind you, that all of those acres weren't in coniferous forests but every acre causes serious pollution and not just CO2

Also, state fire agencies, who are charged with structure protection much of the time, are becoming strapped for cash in fighting fires that roar off our National Forests and into communities who have to be evacuated. Many poorer western states just don't have that kind of cash. Will the Sierra Club insist that we adopt a let-burn policy of people's houses now? Maybe the intent of the Sierra Club is to "re-wild" every acre into "natural brushfields", including private property. Ask the folks who lost their homes in the Angora Fire!

How can people be so morally bankrupt to support such an agenda?!?

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If

Ralph would "fix" the forests, using sound science, I would vote for him. However, NO candidate has shown that they even acknowledge the problems and place ANY emphasis on doing what is necessary to save them. This includes Al, as well.

This seems to come from Americans who also don't have a grasp of the problem and its associated link with the global environment. Who don't feel that forests deserve a plank on anyone's platform.

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More on preservationism

The Sierra Club has sued in the 9th Circuit court and "won", stopping fuels reduction projects everywhere. They think that prescribed fire can, by itself, eliminate the fuel loading problems. Who are YOU going to trust? Their eco-lawyers, or the top forest ecologist in the country??!?

Another eco-lawsuit seeks to eliminate the use of fire retardants used on fires for decades. They say it kills fish. And firestorms don't?!?! What about the other forest values that burn and go directly into our atmosphere?

While preservationism is fine for designated wilderness areas and National Parks, in National Forests it is accelerating the loss of forests and all the things we love about them.

Restoration forestry is where it is at. Unfortunately, judges and eco-lawyers aren't any good at it.

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Resilience

is a GREAT word, Jon. I've been preaching this idea for YEARS, that our forests should be drought resistant, bug resistant and fire resistant, just like they had been for millenia. I'm fully onboard with restoring forests back to their original splendor and function.

The "party line" says "forests have done great for millenia, why mess with them now?" Well, those people saying that just ignore the hundreds of millions of dead trees in our National Forests today.

Kaela has a great idea. We should not be wasting anything that comes from the woods, and to put it to non-profit uses is even better. Currently, where I live in California, no one will buy this slash, which is substantial and is currently removed from the forest and burned on the landing (sorry DrX, you're wrong again!). Thinning projects that use "whole-tree yarding" generate mountains of slash, and it is a requirement that loggers deal with it instead of leaving it out in the woods.

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Jerry Franklin

Here's his recent testimony, presented by Norm Johnson to Congress. This startling turnabout from one of our nation's most respected forest ecologists went unnoticed by the eco-community

http://westinstenv.org/wp-content/KNJJFFTestimony.pdf

Please read with an open mind and be enlightened!

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Typical "mistruths"

Law says that most Federal logs MUST be processed domestically. More flawed agenda, DrX. Regarding government forestry workers, there's no one to take the place of retirees and the level of expertise is dropping rapidly. This bodes well for eco-lawyers to litigate and enjoy big profits, as forestry projects are becoming more and more complex, with outside oversight (enlightened oversight is not a bad thing, in my mind).

People dance around the forest problem, bringing up everything but sound science. "Mother Nature" will surely rebalance the land in ways us humans will surely not like. We have it within our power and intelligence to mitigate these problems if only people would open their minds. Otherwise, this "Let-Burn" program embraced by environmentalists and the Bush Administration will continue.

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Thanks, Eric

I was a member of the Guild and I generally support their message, being a middle-of-the-roader, myself.

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Pangolin

NO ONE is proposing to cut all the old growth. Even the lumber mills! Most lumber mills penalize loggers for bringing in "oversize" logs. Your response is the typical ignorant kneejerk reaction of a preservationist who refuses to see the big picture.

This is why I have no hope for our forests. Go ahead and burn down that strawman, along with our old growth.

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Overstocking

Is just the fact that there are too many "stems per acre" for the amount of available water. Old growth trees grew up with LOTS of water available, because the forests were managed by American Indians. Some of today's forests have more than 100 times the "natural" amount of trees, and they're removing all the soil moisture that the shallow-rooted old growth so desperately needs. The San Bernardino National Forest lost at least 12 million trees partly because of this.

Please read Dr. Helms' testimony to Congress, posted on the "High Cost of Doing Nothing" thread. He so eloquently explains what must be done to save our forests.

You can't place all the blame for our forest problems on "Climate Change". That's the easy way out. The problem is way more complex than that. We ALL are to blame for letting our forests become what they are today----> a slow motion disaster that few will acknowledge.

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Science says!

In testimony before Congress, Dr. Helms lays it on the line regarding wildfires.

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.

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Amazing

An environmental website that doesn't care about forests enough to put aside the rhetoric and agenda long enough to save the forests.

Can you say "Marginalized"??? Sure ya can!!

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Even MORE fires on the horizon

Now that the Sierra Club has won their lawsuit against fuels reduction projects, we'll see even MORE catastrophic fires. Yep, more deaths, more endangered species habitat gone forever, lower water quality, less fish habitat, destroyed historical sites, more houses incinerated, more old growth turned into blackened snags and brushfields up the ying-yang!

Be sure to hug your manzanita and whitethorn!!

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Candidate's complicity?

I haven't seen any of the candidates take a position on our National Forests. I think that both parties just don't want to risk going against the new scientific truths regarding our forests today. This indecision isn't a good sign and even the greens don't have a handle on how to save our forests. Going against the scientific giants like Jerry Franklin isn't in the best interests of the Democrats. There's not a single candidate who knows what to do with this issue or is even willing to "go out on a limb".

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Prescribed Fires

Yes, prescribed fires ARE a good thing, when they stay under control. I don't know about you people but, I certainly don't trust the Forest Service's fire folks to keep prescribed fires under control (and I work for the agency!). Many areas required thinning before they can be safely burned. You aren't going to be able to burn clumps of trees that are 12" in diameter without losing the whole stand.

For example, the Tahoe Basin has at least one third of all the trees die in the early 90's and very little of that was harvested because of the outcry and emotion over cutting trees there. Today, those trees still remain on the ground waiting for the next inevitable lightning strike, vehicle accident or arsonist to catastrophically burn up "the Jewel of the Sierra". That material will never decompose into soil components, as the dry summers tend to preserve that dead fuel until the next fire. Then will see erosion and a loss of Lake Tahoe's clarity that has never been seen before in our history.

Welcome to the big picture, folks!

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Every politican

seems to want to do something to cap emissions, except for smoke from wildfires. How come NONE OF THEM thinks this is relevant to the situation?

Fires cost billions of dollars but will soon lead to TRILLIONS of dollars when dealing with this problem in the way everyone here wants to commit to. Nobody figures in the losses to the environment when millions of acres burn at high intensity. Nobody wants to admit they were wrong in how we should manage our ecosystems. Everyone ignores the plumes of toxic gasses spewing directly into our atmosphere. I think it's a plot to completely ignore wildfires and both sides seem very willing to just let it burn, often at unnaturally high intensities.

Welcome to the Bush/Clinton/Gore Memorial Forest Legacy.

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Solutions?

If you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. And it seems we'll ALL be living with that problem until people see the big picture.

It's no wonder that politicians running for office don't want to touch the forest issues because it WILL come back to haunt them. My conscience is clear because I have been a part of the solution, folks.

Enjoy your fried spotted owls, bull trout, salmon, goshawks, snail darters and yellow salamanders. Got any BBQ sauce?!? Toasted marshmallows for dessert and crispy-fried snags to hug (at least until they turn into stumps)! THIS will be one of our legacies left for our offspring to deal with.

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Common sense?

It seems that Congress' oversight just might be corrected and we might be able to capture some energy and pollution from forest waste materials. In my opinion, this kind of forest "product" can only supplement energy production. We cannot rely on these materials in the bulk that is needed to offset fossil fuels scarcity and price. There is NO reason for us to cut down forests to prop up a non-sustainable lifestyle (and the oil company profits that would go along with them). It's good to see enlightened bipartisan cooperation that will halp lead to better forest management.

Herseth Sandlin - Walden Bill Would Promote Development and Use of Cellulosic Ethanol Derived from Wood Waste on Federal Lands

February 7, 2008 - WASHINGTON, D.C.

Last night, Rep. Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) introduced the Renewable Biofuels Facilitation Act (H.R. 5236), legislation that would promote the development and use of cellulosic ethanol derived from woody biomass on federal lands. The bill would significantly broaden the definition of cellulosic ethanol within the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) to include more biomass gathered from federal lands.

The Herseth Sandlin - Walden bill addresses a flaw included in The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which included an historic 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard (RFS). Unfortunately, the legislation's definition of renewable biomass prevents almost all federal land biomass, such as trees, wood, brush, thinnings, chips, and slash, from counting toward the mandate if it is used to manufacture biofuels. This provision not only discourages the use of such biomass, but in doing so could result in a decrease in responsible forest management by denying land managers an important outlet for the excessive biomass loads that often accumulate on public lands. The Herseth Sandlin - Walden bill would promote the use of energy from waste products gathered on federal lands, including those that are byproducts of preventive treatments and are removed to reduce hazardous fuels, to reduce or contain disease or insect infestation, or to restore ecosystem health.

The Renewable Biofuels Facilitation Act was co-sponsored by a geographically diverse and bipartisan group including Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Bart Stupak (D-MI), Mike Ross (D-AR), Chip Pickering (R-MS), Emerson (R-VA), Emerson (R-MO), Goodlatte (R-VA), Bonner (R-AL), J. Peterson (R-PA).

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.):

"The energy bill recently signed into law does a great deal to advance America toward a smarter energy future," Walden said. "Unfortunately, it woefully underappreciated the role biomass must play in our energy portfolio by excluding biomass produced in federal forest health projects from the country's new 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard. Additionally, the energy bill placed onerous restrictions on the use of biomass from private lands."

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD):

"Currently, the energy bill provides great incentives for innovative entrepreneurs, often working in conjunction with government and academia, to create new ways to make clean, homegrown renewable biofuels in this country," Herseth Sandlin said. "Unfortunately, current law prevents biofuels made from biomass that originates on public lands or any biomass from private land that is not `planted' and `actively managed' from being counted toward the RFS. This is unfortunate, unnecessary, and unjustified."

The Renewable Biomass Facilitation Act would change the definition to clarify that federally sourced biomass is eligible for consideration under the renewable fuels standard and is identical to the language included in the Senate's version of the Farm Bill which passed 79-14 on December 14, 2007. Additionally, the bill would allow RFS credit for broad categories of biomass from non-federal and tribal lands including agricultural commodities, plants and trees, algae, crop residue, waste material (including wood waste and wood residues), animal waste and byproducts (including fats, oils, greases, and manure), construction waste, and food and yard waste.

Walden added: "This bipartisan bill corrects those problems by using language already agreed to by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the United States Senate and many members of the House who wanted to see it included in the energy bill. The Northwest is leading the movement to switch to smart, renewable fuels, and biomass will undeniably play a major part in this effort. In fact, according to the U.S. Forest Service, biomass has surpassed hydropower as the largest source of renewable energy in the country. Ensuring that biomass gathered from federal land counts toward the country's renewable fuels standard is a win for the health of our forests, and a win for America's smarter energy future."

Herseth Sandlin added: "By amending the definition of renewable biomass in the energy bill will greatly improve our ability to manufacture renewable energy from our forestlands, both public and private, all over the country. This would bring tremendous benefits, not only to our environment, to forest health, and to our national security, but it will also provide an economically viable outlet for forest byproducts that could revitalize the local economies of hundreds of small forest communities across the country."

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.):

"Biomass utilization is an important component of our energy independence," DeFazio said. "This legislation will help many innovative companies around the nation that are actively developing new biomass technology. I am pleased to co-sponsor this legislation which will ensure that we take an environmentally sensitive and yet active approach towards stewardship of our federal forest lands and biomass development."

Rep. John E. Peterson (R-Penn.):

"Renewable energy produced from biomass on federal lands and Indian reservations should categorically count toward meeting the recently mandated Renewable Fuels Standards. Alternative energy producers looking to invest in federal regions will simply go elsewhere if this fix is not made, which will neither help us move in the direction of meeting the RFS, nor will it help small, forest communities. I am very pleased to join with a strong, bipartisan group of House members in offering this commonsense legislation. This correction should be made quickly, as our colleagues in the Senate have already passed legislation addressing this critical issue," said Peterson, whose district includes most of the Allegheny National Forest.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.):

"Not only does the current definition exclude a significant source of renewable biofuels, it creates a logistical nightmare for any ethanol or biodiesel plant that attempts to use woody biomass," Stupak said. "The prohibition is neither practical nor prudent. Timber is not sorted based on what type of forest it comes from."

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.):

"The waste wood created through careful stewardship of our national forests can be put to good use as cellulosic ethanol. This bill will promote an important technology to supplement American energy independence with domestic, renewable fuels," U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson said.

Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.):

"The timber industry in South Arkansas plays a major role in the overall economic well-being of our state, and changing the definition of renewable biomass improves our ability to manufacture renewable energy from forestland including cellulosic ethanol," Ross said. "I am proud to join this bipartisan group committed to help sustain timber-related jobs across this nation."

Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.):

Rep. Pickering said "The mission to increase and promote renewable energy through public-private partnerships and cooperatives should not be derailed because of needless restrictions on biomass from public lands. We can strengthen our domestic energy independence using smart land and resource management practices, and do it in an environmentally safe manner. Biomass is an inexpensive, safe, renewable energy source that provides great promise if we encourage it with smart public policy and private incentives."

Biomass projects that would be conducted under the authority of the Herseth Sandlin -Walden bill on federal lands would still have to comply with federal and state law and applicable land management plans. There is an additional requirement for old-growth maintenance, restoration, and management on federal lands as defined in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.

More from Greg Walden:

The Herseth Sandlin - Walden Renewable Biomass Facilitation Act (H.R. 5236)

It's not the catchiest name, I'll admit. But don't judge a book by its cover. This bill is important to the renewable fuels industry and jobs in our forests. Let me explain how we came to write this bill.

As you may know, the energy bill recently signed into law helps nudge America toward greater energy independence by spurring research and production of alternative fuels. You see, scientists have figured out how to turn woody biomass from forests into fuels for vehicles. Several weeks ago the Department of Energy awarded a $24 million grant to an Oregon company to build one of the first cellulosic fuels refineries in the country. Given the amount of thinning and brush removal work needed in our forests, it only makes sense to turn that material into a clean-burning fuel.

The energy bill calls for the country to produce 36 billion gallons-a-year of biofuels. This renewable fuels standard (RFS) is aggressive, but also provides incentives to move away from corn-based ethanol and into fuels made from biomass.

But then the new law--as only Congress could write it--severely restricts what type of woody biomass will count toward meeting the new renewable fuels goals. Basically, the law puts off limits biomass from federal forests and even limits what counts off of private lands.

Well, from my point of view, either woody biomass when converted is a biofuel or it is not. Where that wood comes from shouldn't matter, since other forest practices acts govern harvest issues.

That's what the Renewable Biomass Facilitation Act (H.R. 5236), introduced by Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD), myself, and a group of eight bipartisan House colleagues, is all about. It mostly corrects those problems by using language already agreed to by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the United States Senate and many members of the House who wanted to see it included in the energy bill. The Northwest is leading the movement to switch to smart, renewable fuels, and biomass will undeniably play a major part in this effort. In fact, according to the U.S. Forest Service, biomass has surpassed hydropower as the largest source of renewable energy in the country. Ensuring that biomass gathered from federal land counts toward the country's renewable fuels standard is a win for the health of our forests, and a win for America's smarter energy future.

And as we all know, as that biomass collects on our forest floors, the chances for catastrophic fire go up and up. I keep telling my colleagues on the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming: If you want to get a handle on carbon emissions, you need to address the conditions that contribute to the record wildfires we've seen in recent years, which have spewed an incredible amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere. And, like the biomass facility I plan to visit next weekend in Josephine County demonstrates, we can prevent wildfire and create clean energy at the same time.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

First of all

You need to either be an expensive eco-lawyer or be married to one. Since the Forest Service is now in a state of constant change and their field-going personnel is the least experienced as it has been in decades, it IS very easy to find mistakes on the ground, with the complexity of today's laws, rules and guidelines concerning forest management. It helps to pair up with an activist-type person who can rile up the "the unshaven eco-masses" and generate free publicity against the project. All you have to do is win on just one minor issue and your court costs get paid.

All too often, the beneficial parts of the project gets scrapped when injunction hits. For example, in fire salvage, eco's love to stall until the smaller diameter wood is useless. Scientifically-speaking, that is what is most important to remove after a forest fire. Hazard tree removal along main roads are another important task that gets stopped by people like Chad Hanson.

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Fuels-driven projects

Yes, logging companies DO clean up their logging slash! Nearly every project that cuts green trees out west is more accurately called a fuels project. No, logging companies don't like to clean up the logging slash but, it's in their contract. This is one area which can't be covered up, as us timber beasts are also inspected by our "Fire Gods" to make sure they can dispose of the fuels cheaply, safely and effectively. Burying slash causes more ground disturbance and water quality is important to all of us. We have the means to save our forests through careful and thoughtful management. However, there's a major economic factor that people often ignore. The expense grows every single year but, no one wants to fund what clearly needs to be done. Instead, we have to use merchantable trees to fund what the public won't pay for.

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Nope

It's the eco's who demand that forest MUST burn, because it's "natural and beneficial". Hmmmm, where do they learn THAT! It's oh so much better that their carbon and energy go directly into our atmosphere. Yep, and water MUST be pumped out of the ground by all those green, leafy water pumps that people love to hug.

Let's have more "idealistic dogma-drama". Let's have more eco-censorship! Let's have more "non-violent" elimination of people jobs, lives and happiness. Let's have teachers brainwash our kids into learning that people don't belong in the forests.

I couldn't care less about the lumber mills making money. I care about the forest ecosystems and how the teacher's are telling our kids that it's OK to burn them at high-intensity. I care about people ignoring science and going with the lies and rhetoric. Yep, we can't let science get in the way of eco-fundraising and litigation.

Finally, go and visit our forests.....before they're turned into "natural and beneficial" brushfields.

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Total tons for last year's fires

If we take a nice round figure of 10 tons per acre, last year's record fire season spewed out 100,000,000 tons of CO2 and other toxic GHG's. No worries, though. It's "natural and beneficial" pollutants, including spotted owls, historical sites, goshawks, rare plants and old growth.

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.

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Luckily

You can't put a price on endangered species, "wildness" and spiritual enjoyment of our natural areas. Pricing of ecosystem services is just more data to factor into decisions, and more data helps us to see the bigger picture.

Remember, though, that pre-European inhabitants "managed" and tended their landscapes. The thought that "forests have thrived for millions of years without our help" is a pretty bogus piece of rhetoric. Proper management practices will take decades to reduce the extreme fuel loading of 80 years. Both the Clinton and Bush Administrations have made the problems worse.

And where do the candidates stand on National Forest issues?? I don't think you'd get a straight answer out of any of them, Republican or Democrat. It seems that the national consensus is that whatever happens will happen and we'll have to be happy with less forests, both in our lifetimes and for our grandchildren.

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Preservationism?

Atreyger is, as usual, right about our forests. We're doing exactly the opposite of what is needed to restore and "save" our forests. There's a parallel between climate change and forest management. "Deniers" of sound scientific management prefer to use their faith-based "opinions" on how to save the forests by doing nothing. The mounting evidence stares them right in the face but they are secure in the knowledge that their side is right, righteous and the way all mankind should go.

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.  

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Alternative fuels?!?

In the new Energy Plan, the Congress has eliminated using slash and submerchantable materials from the National Forests to make into alternative energy such as cellulosic ethanol.

Since most of this material gets burned anyway, why can't we capture that energy and pollution and use it to offset coal power? Is it better than letting it burn uncontrollably, and at high intensity, spewing it all directly into our atmosphere, in a "natural and beneficial" manner??

Will "forest management deniers" be the last ones to see the obvious scientific and economic truths?

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A Victory!!

I will take the deafening silence as a major victory for for forests and foresters to return the woods to more natural and resilient ecosystems using science instead of faith-based dogma drama. Is "Preservationism" dead in our National Forests?!? Are you going to lump Jerry Franklin in with Patrick Moore, now?!? Are the eco's still saying that wild fires are "natural and beneficial"?? It's "interesting" that no one in Grist wants to even talk about forests, and their decline. After all, it's soooo much easier to go with the party line and say "Mother Nature" will make it all better, if we just leave her alone. None of that pesky science to get in the way.

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Hmmm

It seems that these scientists finally agree with me and aren't forest management "deniers" anymore.

HURRAY!!

Meanwhile, fuels reduction projects go back to Square One, after a losing court battle.

Forest Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction Efforts in the Forests of Oregon and Washington

Testimony of K. Norman Johnson Jerry F. Franklin

December 13, 2007 - Hearing of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

I am Dr. K. Norman Johnson and I am here today to give testimony for myself and Dr. Jerry F. Franklin regarding forest restoration and hazardous fuel reduction efforts in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. I am a University Distinguished Professor in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. Jerry Franklin is Professor of Ecosystem Sciences in the College of Forest Resources at University of Washington. These comments represent our view and not those of our respective institutions.

Our testimony focuses on forest restoration in the National Forests of Oregon and Washington...

Our definition of "restoration" is the re-establishment of ecological structures and processes on these forests where they have been degraded and, simultaneously, restoration of economic and other social values on these lands. One product of this restoration will be substantial reductions in uncharacteristic fuel loadings. We emphasize restoration activities in which ecological, economic, and other social goals are compatible...

Restoration of Forests Characterized by Frequent, Low- and Mixed-Severity Fire Regimes

We will lose these forests to catastrophic disturbance events unless we undertake aggressive active management programs. This is not simply an issue of fuels and fire; because of the density of these forests, there is a high potential for drought stress and related insect outbreaks. Surviving old-growth pine trees are now at high risk of death to both fire and western pine beetle, the latter resulting from drought stress and competition...

Without action, we are at high risk of losing these stands-and the residual old-growth trees that they contain-to fire and insects...

We know enough to take action (uncertainties should not paralyze us). Inaction is a much more risky option for a variety of ecological values, including preservation of Northern Spotted Owls and other old-growth related species. We need to learn as we go, but we need to take action now. Furthermore, it is critical for stakeholders to understand that active management is necessary in stands with existing old-growth trees in order to reduce the risk that those trees will be lost.

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Correct!

Thanks BBS. Of course, you can't thin chapparal, other than installing fuel breaks. There's plenty more blame to go around, though. For example, the LA Times has taken EVERY opportunity to oppose Forest Service projects in National Forests around SoCal, (and beyond). The San Bernardino National Forest alone had more than 12 MILLION dead trees in 2004 with a small percentage of those removed or salvaged. A vast amount of snags and fallen trees still await future fires. The Bush Administration, after dumping tons of money into that "hole", have now discovered that it is cheaper to let it all burn. Firefighters rarely directly attack fires anymore, preferring to back off and set backfires.

Remember, global warming is NOT a part of the "fire triangle". (Although it DOES have a major effect, as the scientists say.) If you remove or lessen the fuels, the fires diminish. These wildfires are less of a global warming problem than a fuels problem.

Too bad so many, MANY people blame global warming when the problem lies in the fuels. Everyone knows about the Santa Ana's returning every year so why not deal with the fuels problem? I also don't have a lot of compassion for people who built their homes in the middle of 10 foot high chapparal and overstocked forests.

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Tree rings

Does Dr. Swetnam use a "fudge factor" to correct for tree rings impacted by forest competition? No? Otherwise, you CANNOT compare today's tree rings with tree rings grown before the white man started putting fires out. Unless you can recreate the pre-European conditions, you'll have to throw out all the tree ring data for the last 50 years. Hmmmm, where does that leave Dr. Swetnam, now?!?!

Not that I'm a global warming denier, though. Since this IS happening, in my mind, it makes active forest management even MORE essential to saving the parts of our forests. We've let "Mother Nature" destroy entire forests. We've let Bush not fund the "Healthy Forests" law.

Time to invest in hot dogs and marshmallows, now!

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I'm very happy...

that you have evolved over to a more realistic point of view DrX. Yes, there IS a balance that IS acheivable, ecological and economical but, it isn't a one-size-fits-all situation. For much of the west, your scenario will work, if given enough money to pay for this labor-intensive work. Even better is to combine non-commercial work with commercial thinning projects.

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Other than lost profits

there is no reason why we shouldn't take every opportunity to wean ourselves off of "bad energy". Add that to a program that conserves energy at every chance and we may just yet find our way out of our energy/pollution problems. Coal and nuclear will never be "clean" enough and are also fragile enough to become targets for terrorism <shudder>.

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STILL...

Instead of proving that "Post-fire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk", he actually proved the opposite! Just because Science Magazine didn't print the whole of his findings, doesn't make the title of his "study" true. What good is proof that logging kills SOME seedlings (but still remains well-stocked)? It seems rather ludricrous to prove the obvious.

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Details about the Donato study

First of all, the meager amount of plots Donato sampled were miniscule compared to the acreage that was salvaged (which was also miniscule to the amount of total acres within the Biscuit--- 4%). Applying that small sample size to the whole of the National Forest and BLM system of lands is the epitome of pseudo-science.

The title of the study (Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk) alone makes assumptions, then conclusions and then extrapolations that just aren't true. I have photographic evidence of both tractor and helicopter units that were salvaged and are truly better off for having fuel loads reduced (as well as looking "park-like"). Indeed, some pictures show little evidence of ANY logging just 8 months after the project was finished.

Of course, much of the impacts depend on a host of conditions that affect what the ground will look like when they've finished salvage logging. This link details some of the serious statistical errors made by Donato.

http://www.evergreenmagazine.com/mag_issues.html

Of course, Science Magazine didn't publish the little bit about his plots having stocking levels that actually met Federal stocking standards, either. Ahhh, yes. Minor details??!? Did he mention that leaving all that fuel out in the woods will undoubtedly fuel the next inevitable catastrophic fire??!? Nooooooooooo! Did he mention that the salvaged parts of the previous "Silver Fire" burned with much less intensity than the other parts of the Biscuit??!? Nooooooooo! Did he mention that those unsalvaged snags would eventually fall and crush those poor baby trees?!?? Nooooooooo!

Being a fire salvage expert, yes, I have seen bad logging jobs that do unnecessarily disturb soils and leave lots of slash. However, the Biscuit salvage sales only cut completely dead trees and their logging slash was used to help prevent and mitigate erosion problems. Many of today's modern salvage projects remove most of the logging slash by "whole-tree yarding" and either chipping or piling and burning the slash at the landing. I also have pictures of helicopter landings where they flew out unmerchantable materials for piling and burning. Did the Forest Service do a great job of salvaging the Biscuit? Certainly not! Did they do an acceptable job of salvaging? Considering the meddling from the Bush Administration and their friends, yes, I tend to think so. Personally, I would have also salvaged dying trees along with the completely dead ones but...

In truth, sometimes ground disturbance actually INCREASE the amounts of successful germinations in the more lightly burned areas. Removing fuels is important to decrease future fires intensity, which is what kills trees and wildlife.

How many of those peer reviewers actually were in the Biscuit cutting units and look at his plot selections??!? Probably a big fat ZERO! Yes, I've been in a few dozens of those units before the cutting began, so I have seen the land firsthand.

Donato had to be completely oblivious to not know he was being manipulated by all parties. Columbia Helicopters thought they were getting a study that would prove that salvage logging was beneficial. His teachers seized the opportunity to grab some desperately needed funding for their school, as well as taking a poke at the Bush Administration and Sessions (maybe deserved, in this context but...). Science Magazine "cherry-picked" the stuff in his report that would support their biased views, regardless of how they'd like to be perceived as "warriors of pure science". Eco-groups are still using the flawed study to further their no-cut "Quixotic" pursuits. Desk-bound academians jumped on the bandwagon without firsthand site visits and relished in their roles without any thought to "integrity".

Now, to put my attitude into perspective, I consider myself to be a "true environmentalist", doing what is right for each piece of ground, whether it means cutting trees, prescribed fire, protection of endangered species or wildland urban interface protection. I'm definitely NOT a friend of the lumber mills!

I'm all for using sound science to actively manage our lands instead of "letting nature take its course". Mother Nature will surely balance unnatural ecosystems in ways we humans won't like, as she works on different timescales than we do. Open your minds, think globally and act locally, and please don't punish me for the sins of previous foresters and evil log buyers. Yes, old growth is precious to me, as well.  

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Just so ya know...

One acre of thick forest fire can pump out 100 tons of greenhouse gas. Multiply that by at least one MILLION acres, and you have a sizable annual chunk of carbon! That must be part of the preservationist's idea that forest fires are "natural and beneficial". Maybe another part is that forest fires will insure that all those endangered species will still stay on the list, too (since many birds are only on the list because of "habitat loss").

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Forest management deniers??!?

I see that there's another "Inconvenient Truth" that people here at Grist-world are trying to ignore.

I see that most preservationists agree with the Bush Administration on letting massive parts of National Forest burn, too. Nothing like releasing centuries of sequestered carbon, along with other toxic gasses directly into our atmosphere, eh?

Amazingly, no one even blinked when these programs were implemented without NEPA work or public opinion on an issue that will have environmental effects lasting well into your great grandchildren's lives.

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I've said it before...

...and I'll say it again.

What is wrong with restoring western forests to their natural stocking levels?

Until we can agree on the where, how and why, our forests will burn and our chance to sequester carbon by making durable wood products will be lost for the rest of OUR lives. And our children's lives, too.

I'm currently working on a fire salvage project of about 300 acres of recently-thinned forest. Using the latest fire mortality guidelines, we're applying cutting edge science to this burned forest, 5 weeks after the fire was extinguished.

The eco-embracement of wildfires is still proceeding, where opponents to fire salvage projects call wildfires "natural and beneficial", ignoring the high-intensity acres that eliminate full recovery in less than 200 years.

Even the Forest Service has thrown up the white flags on National Forests like the Bitterroot, where they have chosen to make those lands part of a huge "Let-Burn" program, without any NEPA or public involvement.

The future doesn't look good for our forests, especially if we all continue to be polarized, stubborn and emotional. On the flip side, we can't just be "giving away" our forests. Even with careful and gentle management, our forests are full of value in many different forms.

But, if we don't make our forests drought, insect and fire resistant, there will be nothing left to save except for brushfields and plantations.

PS More new Shasta and Yosemite pics on my blog

PPS We had a nice new 6" coating of summer snow  on Mt Shasta last week, from top to bottom!

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Fishers

Pacific fishers enjoy far-ranging protections in most west coast National Forests. Not only are their known locations protected, their "potential habitats" have protections, as well. "Fisher Use Areas" (aka FUA) have solid protections to not let canopy cover drop below their habitat thresholds. Every timber sale has these protections built in to their marking prescriptions. This "potential habitat" extends from the Pacific Northwest down into central California. I tend to think that Fishers are VERY illusive critters and that there are lots more of them out there than we think.

The biggest threat to many rare creatures are catastrophic wildfire, as we are now seeing in this new millenium of unhealthy forest preservationism and "firestorm embracing".

Yep, we CAN reach 10 million acres burned this year, as we are solidly in the prime time of fire season. Since many think that wildfires are "natural and beneficial", they should relish the images of charred homes and forced evacuations.

Keep watching the NIFC website to watch the acreage skyrocket.

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Be careful what you wish for

(quote)"If that's going to be their policy, then how about restoring all Federal land to what it looked like when European settlers first saw it?"

Well put. Agreed.(end quote)

You might just get your wish! That would mean extensive logging throughout the West, in order to get the tree densities down to what they were before the white man.

First things first, though. Forests have to be "crafted" to meet the new climate. Forests need to be drought resistant, insect resistant and fire resistant. (This is talking about western forests).

It IS folly to think that we can return our forests back to what they were when the climate was different, eh?

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For Marky48

The picture links I was talking about are here:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/3/1/15735/74564

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If you even bothered...

to read my posts, you'd be more informed. Is Patrick Moore wrong about wanting to use forests as carbon sinks?!?

Noooooooooooooooooo!

I truly never read that he was in favor of clearcutting. I listened to his NPR radio spot and he never once mentioned clearcutting.

Yes, read my posts and you'll see that what I want our forests to look like isn't much different than what eco-folks want. If you don't like what we'e doing in the forests, by all means, meet us in court. Blathering about "greenwashing", clearcutting and high-grading is just sooooooo 90's. If you'd have read my posts, you'd see that the Forest Service, here in California, banned clearcutting and high-grading back in '93. And no lawsuit told us to do that. We did it because it was the right thing to do.

But, I digress. You guys take care of the biofuels and renewable energies, and I'll, take care of the forests. If you want some enlightenment, read my posting history. If not, get the marshmallows and willow sticks.

8^X

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Appalling

Why do supposed "progressive" thinkers here throw out ALL logic when it comes to forests? They propose all sorts of grand schemes to save the world with hybrid cars, fancy fuels, renewable energy and "green" thinking but, when it comes to forests, they're OK letting them fully release their stored carbon. They're OK with letting endangered species habitat burn to the ground along with watersheds that supply our drinking water. They're Ok with over-harvesting of other countries' forests, as long as there's no cutting in their own backyards.

Of course, no one will heed my warnings because, like most Americans, they think that self-righteousness will save them from themselves.

One more time: Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?? Are you thinking globally and acting locally?

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Ignorance is bliss??!?

...and denial ain't just a big river in Africa.

No one wants to talk about forests as a MAJOR source of GHGs. Too bad, too, because here's something we CAN do very easily to reduce climate change.

I'll just keep wielding my paintgun in my job as "forest sculptor" and "world saver"....lol

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Gore "invented"...

the organization I work for, and hence, my job as part-time "tree God". Luckily, I'm an experienced and benevolent tree God.

>smirks<

PS  New pics scanned from old Kodachromes on my photo blog!!!

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Bravo!

Roger said..."Where in the world do you come up with that nonsense?  It seems common practice on this site to argue by completely misrepresenting other people's views . "

Amen, Roger, amen!

Afew have done that to me on forest management issues, as well as still blaming us foresters for stuff that happened DECADES ago. Luckily, people learn......eventually. And then, they have to deal with their conscience. Otherwise, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. All I can do is continue to do my job, using science, sweat and an artistic eye, to the same excellence I've been doing for 20 years, learning each and every year.

Lurk Mode=/ON

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Closure

If you choose to not listen and to twist my words, I will take my leave on this final note. I've provided you all with everything you need to know on my opinions and observations. If you review mypostings, you may (or may not) see what I've been warning you about. Since you choose to ignore this, you will have to live with the results of your beliefs, wrong as they may be.

So long and breathe that smokey air, enjoy your burned forests and pray that your children will forgive you, folks.

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Harvesting trees

Well, ya know that SOME buildings outlast many kinds of trees. Additionally, many of those trees burn up in fires, releasing their carbon DIRECTLY into the atmosphere.

I don't care WHO pays Moore but, he's RIGHT about managing forests. When you're right, you're right.

Here's an assignment for some of you who might want to take this on:

How many tons of carbon went up in smoke from fires, both in America, and around the world in the last year? I'll bet it's quite a lot and way more than the "let burn, zero-cut" crowd wants to believe.

If you bury your head in the sand on this issue, you're being hypocritical.

I'll shut up now!

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Super Blow??

All this talk about the Super Bowl being green is nuts. Are they going to offset all the planes, trains and automobiles going to the game? Are they going to offset those millions of TV sets and Super Bowl parties going on everywhere? What about every one of those player's Escalades and Suburbans?

And, why don't they have the Super Bowl back in the "frozen tundra of Lambeau Field", where REAL men played on frozen ground back in the day, instead of heated domes?

Yes, at least they're doing SOMETHING!

BTW, we do have nearly 10 million burned acres to plant trees in, just from last year's fires alone. Plant more than one, they're small (grin).

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Perpetuating a myth

"...otherwise extract public natural resources virtually for free (or even, in some cases, with the government paying them to do it), but it's ridiculous and it has to stop."

This is just one example out of many myths that you perpetuate, willa. Here's an example of what mills will pay for timber. I marked a dead sugar pine that was next to a road. It was 65" dbh and 205 feet tall and had more than 11,000 board feet in it. It was sold at $750 per 1000 board feet so, that one single dead tree cost the mill $7500, "on-the-stump", meaning that it is before logging and hauling costs. Definitely NOT "virtually for free"!

Today's new "Stewardship Projects" thin forests of both merchantable small trees (9-18" dbh, here in California) AND submerchantable trees and brush. Since there is no real markets for that sub-merchantable stuff as of now, that is just an extra cost for the mill and the loggers.

I can surely understand what you are saying about your forests, though. It's a much more harsh environment in those dry forests. There really is no scientific or economic reason to cut the reamianing big trees, and I support the protection of them. In those kinds of forests, we're in agreement that only an influx of tax dollars can fix that mess.

Your heart is in the right place but you tend to buy into the rhetoric too much, willa. Broaden your horizons and you might just see that even an old timber beast like myself can learn a new trick. Forests are messed up everywhere and each type of forest requires its own special management style. Although many want to see a one-size-fits-all approach, that just isn't possible (or desirable) in the Forest Service.

Just to show hopw much has changed, even within my own career, my first timber sale in 1986 had an average "cut tree" diameter of 48". Nowadays, the average "cut tree" diameter in California is a mere 14" dbh on a green timber sale.

Welcome to the new millenium!!!

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WOW!

Bravo!

I couldn't be more in agreement and couldn't have said it better, wiscidea.

8^x

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Nonsense!

willa, if you think that 9-18" diameter trees are making big bucks for the loggers, think again! That is the typical tree that I mark to be cut. The marking prescription allows us to cut a tree up to 29" dbh if, and only if, it is tucked under a bigger tree or it is very much on the unhealthy side. If you bring that rhetoric to the courts, willa, you'll be hurting your cause (which apparently is trying to stop merchantable timber cutting).

Here in California, a few of those decidedly mid-sized trees between 20-30" dbh that pay for the thinning and brush removal. A mere 1-2% of those sized trees will be cut. The resulting work that gets paid for is essential to the survival of those forests.

And, no, those mid-sized trees are suppressed, diseased and of poor form. We're saving the best of those for our future old growth.

"Reverse Dittoheads" are losing the battle in the woods by using misinformation, rhetoric and dogma. Wake up and go see for yourselves! I KNOW that I can set up a tour for ya'll. Come join me and see the truth.

It's out there!!.....In the woods!

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Education-ism

Folks, there IS a difference between being an environmentalist and being a preservationist. Similarly, there IS a difference between restoration and preservation.

Many of our forests not only have to be saved from clearcutting and high-grading, but from well-meaning and sorely misguided preservationists. Their calling card of "The forests have taken care of themselves for hundreds of thousands of years" surely isn't applicable to today's "unnatural" forests. A "true" environmentalist will do what it takes to restore our forests back to more natural states, even if it means cutting some trees.

That leads right into "restoration". Yes, if we strictly leave our forests alone, they will eventually return to what Lewis and Clark saw on their expedition. But, only if us modern humans stay COMPLETELY out of them. Plus, that would take HUNDREDS of years. And we all know that is certainly impossible. Preservationism is alive and well in our wilderness areas and National Parks, as it should be. The rest of our forests certainly aren't doing well, debunking the idea that I explained above.

The big picture says that we CAN accelerate forest restoration with careful and creative hands-on management. The preservationists cannot and will not believe this, continuing this slow-motion disaster that many folks seem to not want to see, regardless of the truth.

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Methinks...

...that for some, Dave's sarcastic rant hit too close to home.

It can be VERY difficult to produce sarcastic messages on the Internet that people will identify as not being exactly serious.

The "holier than thou Gaia-ists" often take their beliefs too far and come across as religious extremists, at times. If you want to practice fundamentalist human ecology and idealistic dogma drama, feel free to live in your adobe huts, eschew modern conveniences and fiddle with your (eco) rosaries (with apologies to Tom Lehrer).

Sometimes we all have to laugh to keep from crying, folks.

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Gawd, that's funny Dave!

I know the type very well and engage the "lamers" every chance I get.

Luckily, Grist isn't full of "lamers". Chalk it up to the angst of youth, eh?

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Healthy Forests

I still see people bashing Healthy Forests, probably because it happened during the Bush Administration.

Could anyone tell me what the problem is with Healthy Forests? Please be specific so I can attempt to explain problems or mitigate your fears about what we're doing in our National Forests. Despite the blathering about it, Healthy Forests has not turned out to be what preservationists have claimed. No massive clearcutting. No rampant high-grading. Actually, not all that much HAS been done under it, other than a modest amount of thinning.

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Again, balance is best

Well, since we had almost 10 million acres burn last year, there should be plenty of spots to plant lots of trees. Wiscidea is being truly progressive in restoring land back to a balanced and natural state. Some ornamentals are alright to plant but, one of my pet peeves is the planting of water-intensive species in arid cities. Yep, Sacramento has some streets lined with redwoods and alders, with green grass underneath. Talk about "water hogs"! I'd think that a native oak with decorative rocks underneath is more ecologically-sound.

If you live in the West and want to get involved, I'm sure there's plenty of volunteer programs that involve planting trees in burned areas. It's also amazing to go back years later and see how well your baby trees are doing. On Umbra on tree planting posted 2 years, 9 months ago 18 Responses

Forestry 101

I ran across this great resource that open-minded people should really read. Mythbusting isn't just on TV anymore.....lol

http://www.bhfra.org/mythsandfacts.htm

Regardless of where it has come from, there's truth in there. Embrace the truth and free the mind.

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Assumption alert!!

"Trees are thinned, more warming (as in deforested areas like Haiti) occurs, less water is available."

Maybe in Haiti, it does. I never advocated wholesale "thinning" in Haiti, now did I? Where's the science to support your assumption that "thinning" increases global warming?

The truth is that thinning makes more water available in the soil. We need to re-establish that groundwater buffer we had before the Europeans came over. That means we need to have less trees than we currently have in our crowded forests.

In the forests, it's all about balance and site specific science. I've SEEN all the evidence I need out there in the woods.

Old willow snags at dried up springs
Massive bark beetle infestations
Catastrophic uncontrollable wildfires
Three record fire years this decade

There ARE ways to deal with this through sound science, hard work and money....lots of money.

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More cutting?!?

When I mark a tree to be cut, I mentally prepare a reason to cut it, under the silvicultural prescription. On the other hand, when I choose not to cut a tree, I also prepare a reason for leaving it.

Really, I see no danger of a study like this affecting what we do in fuels reduction projects. Our goal is still to restore our forests back to a more "natural" state, with a nice side effect of timber volume.

If I could take the profit out of forest management and still restore our forests back to health, I would do so in a second.

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What would happen if...

tomorrow, we suddenly had unlimited solar power, (enough to supply even Las Vegas...LOL)? What would be the short term and longterm environmental and economic impacts of unleashing nearly "free power" to the world? (This is of course assuming that the world powers would make the technology available to all countries not on the UN's sh*t list.)On With new energy-focused bills, Stevens delights enviros and Obama disappoints posted 2 years, 10 months ago 14 Responses

Coaster brakes

I had a bike that have one gear and a coaster brake. I think it was a "Sting-Ray" style...lol.  I always trusted those old coaster brakes better than rubber brake pads rubbing against your rims. One day, as a kid, I was with my older brother on a "bike hike" overnight camping trip at Bothe-Napa Valley State Park, in California's wine country, before the rich bought it all up. We were riding down this really steep road and had to ride those brakes all the way down. At the bottom of the road, my rear hub coaster brake was, literally, smoking and my brother's rims were very, very clean.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

It works both ways..."Interesting"!

For example, Daniel Donato's piece was severely bastardized in Science Magazine. "Interesting" that it was apparently "peer-reviewed" by "scientists" who didn't read the whole of his work. "Interesting" that the fact that none of his plot in the Biscuit Fire ended up being below Federal stocking standards for regeneration. "Interesting" that the piece makes no mention that only dead trees were being cut on only 4% of the entire burned areas. "Interesting" that Science Magazine chose NOT to put those facts in their magazine, too, especially in a piece entitled "Post Fire Logging Hinders Natural Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk". When you remove dead trees, a HUGE amount of fuels are reduced. How can he say it "increases fire risk"?

Of course, all this is a politicizing of science, in order to discredit a bill now in the Senate to streamline fire (and other disasters) recovery projects. Rare today is a scientist who is squeaky-clean in eschewing politics within his/her work.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Saving trees?

The real goal should be to save FORESTS. All too many think that "saving trees" is always the best reason for doing lots of actions. And, yes, reducing logging through reductions in newsprint IS a good thing to do. However, "saving" trees so that they can burn up in a catastrophic wildfire is a very bad thing for us to do. Saving the "right trees" is much more important and only cutting excess trees to use as durable wood products can lock away the carbon that would otherwise spew into our atmosphere from the record fires we've been seeing in the last 6 years.

"Saving trees" is an easy sell to a mindless public eager to "do something for the environment". In the same way that Smokey Bear sold the public on forest fire suppression, with all its unintended effects, "saving trees" is very similar in that an undesirable inevitability will happen down the road.

Back on topic, since we all seem to have computer access, we are in dire need of internet news sources we can trust. Wherever we get our news from, they all seem to exhibit their own individual spin.

Luckily, we have Grist to use as one great source for news we can use to make this a better planet.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

The trouble is...

many animal rights/welfare folks are staunch preservationists, preferring that man does no "management" activities in forest ecosystems. This often includes beneficial thinning projects. A great many also seem to think that controlled burning alone can do the fuels work needed in our National Forests. This idea is not only wrong but, VERY dangerous. That would be like trying to burn a haystack in tiny little bits.

Adding to that preservationist mindset is the idea that bark beetles and fire, being parts of the natural world, are both "natural and beneficial". Yes, in a "natural" forest, they are but, today's forests are very, very far from the "natural" states found by our white man pioneers.

It's going to take money and hard work to diligently right the wrongs of the last millenium. We certainly don't have BILLIONS of dollars to spare to do these necessary tasks. We also don't have BILLIONS of dollars to waste on needless fire suppression. Why not aggressively pursue the concept behind "Healthy Forests" and use excess trees to fund the non-commercial work so desperately needed? Stop the frivilous lawsuits that target rules and procedures. Rely on sound science to direct how we proceed.

If you love animals, you need to save their habitat instead of "preserving" it into oblivion.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

AND...

how much energy could be produced by burning the clippings, as well? But, then again, if women didn't shave their legs, wouldn't they be warmer in the winter time?

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Naw

Then Al would look too much like Saddam's other brother Darrell.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

The Biscuit Fire

Obviously, that news release was slanted towards the Democratic side of things. These statements like "Largest timber sale in Forest Service history" is not at all true. A mere 4% of the Biscuit was being proposed to salvage. The money figures included treeplanting and road reconstruction, as well. Activities which would have cost money regardless of whether trees were harvested. There were several things about the Biscuit project that were not at all like previous salvage and restoration projects.

First of all, no live trees with ANY green needles were cut, except in the case of safety. That means that a tree with only one green limb that was going to die in 3 months couldn't be cut. New studies by the esteemed Sherrie Smith weren't complete before the Biscuit project was started. Her new guidelines, based of the very latest studies, gives us new fire mortality guidelines that surely would have boosted apparent profits.

Second of all, the current salvage process is so cumbersome that a sea of smaller trees could have been utilized, along with the big honkers, had the Forest Service acted more quickly. Granted, there were many internal delays, as well, that pushed back logging, still ongoing as of this fall. Remember, this fire burned way back in 2002.

The anticipated footdragging by eco-groups forces us to do increased analysis, in order to win expected lawsuits. This also causes delays in how we do salvage projects. The sheer size of the Biscuit, it's incredible diversity, and the ruggedness of the terrain also makes for some slow going (I did work for 21 days there on slopes as steep as 120%). All of that had to be analyzed and prepared before it could be sold.

On the other hand, my last fire salvage project, a mere 15,000 acres, was prepared and sold within one year after the fire went out. The project did include the new mortality guidelines and the terrain, although not nearly as rugged as the Biscuit, required plenty of helicopter units. Although the project survived a court battle in the 8th Circuit court, a single husband and wife team calling itself the Earth Island Institute appealed it to the very liberal 9th Circuit court and won, stopping us from cutting ANY dead trees, including roadside hazard trees.

The biggest weapon that the eco-groups have against salvage projects is to delay and appeal until the wood is rotten enough to make it unusable. The worst part of this is that the smaller diameter (and most flammable of the trees) gets left out in the woods while the big trees still get removed. All and all, the ecological benefits of salvage logging is to remove excess fuels and get erosion-stalling fine material on the ground.

This footdragging until the trees are unmerchantable is precisely what the new salvage bill wants to stop. The new salvage bill would require immediate action in the form of a plan that will be ready for public perusal in 30 days. Of course, the public can still comment on the plans but appeals are not allowed. The courts will now become the avenue in which the public can exercise their rights to disagree. The ld appeal process was merely a part of the stalling tactics so treasured by the eco-groups.

My last project was stopped by the court over a few minor details. Since the mortality guidelines were "confusing", they were also deemed to be "deceiving". Not that they were scientifically wrong, mind you. The other sticking point was the lack of monitoring of threatened and endangered birds. Should we be required to do intensive bird surveys, as required for green timber sales, within the entire fire perimeter?

Fire salvage projects are not just for recovering wood from dead trees. Is it OK to stop cutting dead trees in this country, only to cut more in other countries to sate our appetite for wood and paper products? Sounds like the dreaded NIMBYism to me!

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

You got me all wrong, JS

Funny how you infer things about me that I haven't voiced in "print" here. Yes, I AM a sarcastic beast sometimes and the comment about spotted owls was a bit of a troll. Seems my trolling did get a bite....lol

1. I'm all for old growth protections, as this truly IS the basis for goshawks and owls on the Endangered Species List. Unsustainable and destructive logging caused a loss of nesting habitat and I think we can all agree with that. (Although the birds continue to survive, even in second and third growth forests.)

2. The arrival of the barred owl in the PNW has been enabled by preservationism and fire suppression. Of course, these activities have been undertaken with only good intentions but, the barred owl has migrated all across Canada to find areas to push the spotted owls out. Either we're stuck with this fowl fued, or we attempt to remove the invaders.

3. Since spotted owls ARE territorial, there can only be a finite amount of "owl circles" denoting nesting areas.

4. Spotted owl nesting areas are currently at EXTREME risk due to unhealthy and unnatural conditions in their ranges. These birds PREFER managed stands of big trees, with an open understory that facilitates their hunting practices. Ditto for the goshawks.

5. Yes, goshawks have been hunting owls for ages and they seem to have been in balance, as long as their habitat was intact. Adding the barred owl just might be the nail in the coffin of our spotted owls, though.

6. Either we can accept the new order of things in our western forests OR, we can use our scientific knowledge to restore these ecosystems, especially in ways that benefit us humans, as well. Yes, we CAN get everything we need from our forests while enhancing ecosystem function and providing spiritual regeneration of humans on this big blue ball in space.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

What about....

non-sustainable, man-made ecosystems? Most every forest eco-group is for a ban on the cutting of Federal timber. Even though these forests were (wrongfully) created by man, and not at all in balance. Even though they DON'T support much in the way of wildlife. Even though they are burning up in record numbers of acres. Even though we have not reduced our consumption for wood and paper products.

Just some "food" for thought, as we do grow and consume trees like agricultural products. It's unfortunate that people have this paradoxical feeling about "natural" and "unnatural" ecosystems.

Of course, forests that do, or can, support endangered species should be managed accordingly, to promote sustainable or thriving populations. A one-size-fits-all preservationist policy for our forests goes against most of those eco-group mantras, if you honestly think about it.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Celebrity money

I find it "interesting" that many celebrities have championed pet causes but don't put their money where their mouths are. For example, many stood up and said "Save the Redwoods!". They could have been very much more effective if the uber-rich celebs banded together and actually BOUGHT those very same redwoods and donated em to the State of California, with a hefty tax write-off, to boot.

I also wonder how many of those very same folks have spacious redwood decks, cherry furniture and exquisite wood paneling <grin>

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

In the end...

Whether it's man-enhanced global warming or something else, we do have to manage what is left of our forests or we'll lose em. Yep, just disregard actual pictures and switch the argument. It just won't go away with the preservationism that some folks are still clinging to, similar to what the global warming pundits are doing.

Fires cause 90% of the initial damage and salvage logging may add some short term damage in exchange for some long term benefit. However, good planning and expert implementation can "restore" forests much, much faster than just leaving it alone. For example, one of my pictures shows what has grown back along Highway 120 into Yosemite Valley. After 17 years, what exists is still a jack-strawed pile of large old logs and chapparal brush where majestic pines once ruled. It's ready to burn again at very high intensity near the ground, ready to sterilize those soils and make it tough, even for manzanita and other brush to grow.

This is fine for our National Parks but, is it fine for our National Forests, too?? On What climate scientists have learned from Western wildfires posted 3 years ago 9 Responses

I'm doing my part...

...to reduce fuels, both dead and live, to help the forest to survive those fires without losing the entire canopy (and the resident wildlife, as well). All I can do is to offer my observations and you can choose to believe me, or better yet, go look for yourselves! On What climate scientists have learned from Western wildfires posted 3 years ago 9 Responses

Faith-based politics?!?

I'd lump the Gaia worshippers in there, as well. All too many of the most radical preservationists adhere to faith-based eco-politics already. Like the Bible thumpers of the South, those people discount science in favor of the idealistic dogma drama of pure preservationism.

That's MY view from the forest, (which continues to wither and dwindle, despite less and less timbering).

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Jammer logging

A jammer is an excavator with a grapple instead of a bucket, to grab logs with. It also has a winch, cable and a set of tongs that can be tossed up to 250 feet down a slope. Very much like a fishing pole, when you cast. You build jammer trails at 250 feet apart on a steep slope and clearcut everything. Of course, we've stopped allowing this to happen but, as the picture shows, not until very recently.

Your property and the National Forests have a parallel. Yes, we know it's going to burn but, we CAN help the land to survive those burns well, if only the courts (and budgets) will let us.

...but, I digress. I'll just lurk and hope for the best.

PS Everyday set a new record for acres burned and we currently have a million acres worth of fires burning. Get the marshmallows!

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Neat machine, but...

it's not enough just to cut trees down. The fuels have to be treated or removed to benefit our western forests. What is the size (dbh) limitations on such a machine? Can it directionally fell even medium-sized trees? Is it safe for the operator? (I saw no attached safety equipment). How fast can it work? (Not very, according to the videos). How much does it cost and how much would they charge us for doing this kind of "Service Contract"? This just looks like a tool for non-commercial areas, like Roadless Areas. (Which, by the way, is pretty low on the priority list for "management".)

What about our investment in areas that already have existing road systems and adequate skid trails? Of course, we already have high-tech logging machines that can harvest small but commercially-valuable trees with minimal impacts to the soils. How are the "Joe Loggers" of the country going to switch over all their current equipment (which thay haven't even paid off yet), to these non-commercial logging equipment?

Yes, it's great to have another tool to add to the toolbox but, we already have similar machines to do 90% of the needed work in our forests.

Alas, we may never see if active ecosystem management will save our forests. The disaster has been upon us for several years now and we're seeing entire National Forests being decimated by drought, insects and fires. It's up to the lawyers and the judges to decide for us the path we will take into our National Forests. Who am I to think I could change the public's view of the state of our forests?

LurkMode=ON

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Fascinating stuff

As an amateur meteorologist, intricately woven into my job and hobbies, I've come to appreciate the complexities of weather forecasting. I've not pretended to know the intricacies of long-range modeling but, I've marveled at the people like Marvin Dodge, who used ocean currents in his moderate range forecasts.

Of course, we can expect continued "feast and famine" in regards to precipitation on the West coast. I've also, long ago, bought into the high probability that our human activities do affect our climate. I never needed an Al Gore to prove that to me.

One thing that puzzles me is: How can the wildfire danger get any worse in southern California? It used to be, back before "climate change", that the LA area would have massive wildfires EVERY year. Now, it seems to be hit and miss. It could be that public awareness and fire prevention technology has reduced the occurence of big fires. However, fuels are always growing and it's only a matter of time before those areas burn again.

One thing that scares me is a report I saw many weeks ago that states that previous forest practices will not have any effect on western wildfires. It also stated that "climate change" is the driving force behind all of our wildfires. I cannot and will not disbelieve my own eyes. The Tahoe Basin is a perfect example of how we've radically changed the forest from a fire-adapted and balanced ecosystem into an overgrown tinderbox in a lightning-prone area. (I was a fire lookout for two years, high above the north shore of this "Jewel of the Sierra".)

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

No, YOUR answer is:

I just thought you might want to hear from a true "Forest Scientist", instead of misbelieving everything I say. There IS nothing anyone can say to convince you that our forests ARE in bad shape, and I recognize that. Of course, you can always sigh and think, "If only we had a cooler and wetter climate to support more rainforest."

Trust us.  Don't bother to interfere, we will take care of forests.

I didn't say that. I'm throwing up my hands and going to leave it to you guys (the eco-lawyers, the preservationist groups and the judges) to decide what to do (and to take the blame when the fiddler plays his fiery tune).

We don't believe in climate change from CO 2, we believe liberals are to blame for forest fires.

Nope, I stated my case and you continuously claim that I'm a global warming cynic. Please desist in the lies, bud!

Once forests are planted in neat rows of monocrop, genetically engineered species and all the wood is exported, forest fires will be under control.  The endangered species can be moved to a nice safe zoo.

Ummm, you're drifting away from reality again. Talking about private timberlands?

Did I leave anything out?  Oh yeah, all that cash from China for the logs will support our schools.  Problem solved!

Ummm, we DO have laws to follow and I've never seen logs going to China, although I have seen private land cull logs bought up by Japanese log buyers at the Port of Sacramento, back in the early 90's.
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C'mon now. Let's hear YOUR solutions. Let it burn policy? No commercial timber cutting, down to 10" dbh? Eliminate the Forest Service altogether? Turn all National Forest into wilderness? Controlled burn overstocked Western forests? (Yep, 10 million acres is within our grasps!)

You tell us!

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Look within

Since the preservationist groups, the eco-lawyers, and the liberal judges seem to have control of the situation through litigation, maybe you have to ask them what they'll allow. Even the Republican Congress is powerless to counter the court system.

Sooooooooo, let's hear YOUR solutions and I'll tell YOU if it's at all possible, instead. Put OUR tax dollars where your mouth is!

All I can offer is my observations, from the field, as of today. Anything else I (or any other forester) say won't be accepted and, to many, ALL forest problems stem from global warming, regardless of historical data.
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"What good is a man who won't take a stand?
What good is a cynic, without a better plan?
I BELIEVE IN A BETTER WAY!!"....Ben Harper

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

How and why?

If I had a few weeks, I could supply you with the complexity and facts that probably wouldn't sway too many, anyway. As a forester, in some people's eyes, that automatically makes me suspect. Foresters don't get the respect that other 4-year degree "ologists" get. We have to juggle the myriad of variables and values in the forests, trying to correct many decades of mismanagement, only to be scorned and scolded as extractionists and "forest rapers".

Fact number 1: There are too many trees for the amount of water and light available in many parts of the west.

Fact number 2: Fires have been suppressed for so long that brush and understory trees are stealing too much of that scant water from the trees we want to save.

Fact number 3: Species conversions from high-grading have resulted in forests losing the most fire adapted trees, replaced by highly-flammable true firs, cedars and Douglas firs.

Fact number 4: Politics and litigation are stopping us from practicing site-specific sound science. One example being the Giant Sequoia National Monument.

Fact number 5: Funding is also hindering fuels treatments, both commercial and sub-commercial.

Fact number 6: Courts are forcing us to re-invent the wheel, making us do exhaustive new studies to re-prove what we already have studied. They now are forcing us to explain our new science to the public and the courts in terms that the layperson can understand. (What if health care were run this way?)
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At 8 million burned acres per year, how many years can this disaster go on? Of course, it's not just the acres burned, as the distant past has probably seen bigger years. It's the high  intensity and destructive crown fires that do the major damage.

So, you can stand by and watch as the flames consume, buying into the lies, rhetoric and angst of the preservationists or, you can educate yourselves and see that some of us truly care and are aghast to see entire ecosystems go up in smoke.

Look at the historical figures here at http://www.nifc.gov/stats/fires_acres.html

This year's totals will move into second place for the all-time record today. We also have another month of fire season left.  

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

It goes deeper than that

I spent a good 6 months in the wilds of South Carolina up on the "Piedmont", as they call it. I was doing forest inventory in the form of "stand exams", trying to identify 40 different kinds of hardwoods, along with 20 of them being different kinds of oaks. I found a huge diversity of trees and plants within the extensive riparian zones. Up on the flatlands above, you mainly find the loblolly pine plantations that have replaced the cotton fields. There's plenty of THAT for us timber beasts to "manage".

There's also plenty of "value" for a timber beast to find in those riparian zones. Big fat white oaks, tall, straight pumpkin ash and other commercially-valuable trees live down there. However, as had been found during the cotton-pickin' days, there is a lot of erosion potential. After a hard rain, the rivers run red with disturbed red clay. In the rolling terrain of the Piedmont, you can still see where the cotton kings tried to level out more fields and accidently cut through a thinner layer of clay that protect their soils from the onslaught of hurricane-delivered rains. Often you will find a 20 foot deep chasm in the gentlly rolling terrain and have to walk around it. I also wonder what their rivers looked like before the red clay choked their channels.

"I used to DREAM of living in a corridor!".... Monty Python

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

My point...

...is that the "preservationists" are screwing up as bad, or worse than the Forest Service of the now-distant past. Remember, there's a finite amount of forest left, and a huge chunk of it is ready to burn. This tinderbox ISN'T going away on its own, unless it burns to the bare ground. Sterlized soils, sediment flowing into creeks and rivers, perpetual brushfields and loss of critical endangered species habitat are just a few things on the horizon.

Two huge wrongs make for a massive, slow-motion disaster, and that doesn't even include the carbon that WILL be released.

Sooooooooo, are you part of the problem, or part of the solution, in thinking globally and acting locally??

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Interesting letter to the editor

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Anyone who wants it now has a clear view of what America's "environmentalists" consider stewardship of our forests. Here in the western states, the view is a picture-perfect rendition of the chants of the '60s radicals who tossed the first match: "Burn, baby, burn!"

Armies of firefighters are camped in key staging locations near several major fires in Oregon, trying to control the fires paths to keep them from destroying homes, schools and businesses.

Many western states with timber resources have been dependent on the revenue generated from selling some of those trees every year to help fund their public education systems. It's a system that made perfect sense. Coupled with modern forestry techniques (often developed at land-grant colleges here in the West), it still does. The land can yield consistent and perpetual timber harvests and provide the funding it was designed to provide for public schools.

But there's one major problem: America's "environmentalists" don't like to see trees cut down and used to build houses. They'd rather see them burn. Thus they disrupt the Forest Service's plans to thin the undergrowth that provides so much fuel for forest fires, and when the fire has done its devastating work they disrupt the sales of charred trees that could still be salvaged from the fire area. It's a win-win, if you like to see the nation's resources go up in smoke every summer.

America's "environmentalists," as the mainline press dubs them, will tell you these Spotted Owl roasts are "natural" fires caused by lightening and should simply be allowed to "burn themselves out."

The view in rural America, where these fires are burning, is rather different. Here the fires are viewed as a waste of precious public resources that the region can ill-afford. These environmentalist-sponsored Spotted Owl roasts drain public school funding, cause high unemployment and devastate the local tax base, pushing communities into state and federal dependency.

Of course, professional "environmentalist" fund-raisers don't live in rural areas. Like Willie Sutton, who when asked why he robbed banks replied, "Because that's where the money is," these fund-raisers live in urban areas. Their livelihood is not dependent upon wise stewardship of natural resources, but on fear mongering to motivate their fund-raising base to dig ever deeper into their pockets, and on a court system that guarantees that even when they lose - they win.

Why? Because when "environmental" fund-raising groups do win in court, they feed off the same pork barrel the ACLU has grown fat at: Attorneys fees are awarded by the court to the winner. So not only does the Forest Service have to pay staff attorneys to defend the case in court, if they lose the case because the assigned government attorney hasn't been around long enough to learn environmental law, the Forest Service has to pay the environmental group's attorneys fees, too. That would be the U.S. Forest Service, as in the U.S. taxpayer.

But even when "environmental" fund-raising groups do lose in court, they most often win anyway. Why? Because through delays, motions and additional studies (which frequently support the Forest Service's position when they are eventually completed), these groups are able to drag out the court action long enough to make the burned trees in fire cleanup area unprofitable for even small logging companies and sawmills. Rot and insect infestation take their toll. All it cost the "environmental" fund-raising group was a staff attorney's time. All it cost rural America is its children's education, its livelihood and its dignity.

Craige McMillan

This letter originated in Oregon but, it's applicable to most of our western states. Yes, the Forest Service and BLM still sometimes delude themselves that they can, somehow, cut old growth under the old Northwest Forest Plan, a bait-and-switch scheme that was a major victory for "preservationists". However, many of them still refuse to see that they are "hugging their forests to death", literally. Now that the San Bernardino National Forest is finished off (and will soon burn in the next few years), the forests of Colorado, eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, California and interior British Columbia are ready to fall to drought, bark beetles and fire.

It WILL happen! It's just a matter of time, unless we intervene, folks.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Ice Nine?

Yeah, dat'll fix da problem....LOL

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Scientific truth is the best weapon!

As I have seen many times, and some of you have seen recently from a link I have posted, some choose to present lies, deceptions and misinformation to generate hype and support against sane forestry management.

As I have seen from the other way around (ie, back in the 80's with clearcutting and high-grading), it REALLY sucks to be caught in a lie. It used to be that if you didn't "wear green shorts" (promote maximum timber volume), your career wasn't going to go anywhere. Long ago, I chose to promote truth in science as my tribute to true environmentalism. In essence, if I couldn't back it up with sound science, I wasn't gonna do it willingly. (Of course, the spotted owls DID have something to do with that, too...heh)

In truth, the true environmentalists also need to present truth and science, especially in court, for all to see. When you say things like "stop clearcutting the Roadless Areas and Sequoia groves", you're eventually going to get caught in such a lie.

Gaining back the trust can be such a bitch. Just ask the latest Chief of the Forest Service....LOL

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Human-enhanced drought

Yes, it's true that drought is having a major effect on dry forests. As global warming continues, it only underscores the need for us to make our forests more drought, fire and bark beetle resistant. This can only occur through creative and careful hands-on management and NOT blind preservationism.

Make no mistake about my intentions, though. I'm certainly no friend of the timber industry, as I butt heads with some of them everyday in my job. I'm one who inspects their work and watches for environmental damage. They sure hate it when they have to follow the complex timber sale contract they signed....lol.

People need to understand that we are in a part of the year when we could start seeing fires in the 100,000 acre size. As dry cold fronts start to show up in the west, wild swings in wind directions can cause even small fires to flare up into beastly firestorms. One example of danger is the fires burning in NW California. These are burning in rugged terrain and very thick vegetation where containment is very slow and deliberate, in order to keep firefighters safe. They seem to only gain 5% more containment everyday and these fires have been burning for several weeks now. Significant winds could cause runs of 20,000 to 40,000 acres.

Many parts of the West are under this kind of threat every year, in forests choked with brush and overstocked with small trees. Add to that rampant bark beetle-killed trees and you have a scenario ripe for disaster. We are witnessing a huge slow motion disaster in progress and not many seem to notice what is at risk and what will happen down the road. Especially the Bush Administration, who holds the purse strings.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Hmmmmmmm!

Kate seems to be very concerned with ethics and promises but, she seems to have some ethics problems of her own. While she says "As an American, I am outraged at the deceit and corruption represented in these clearcutting projects. As a native of the Pacific Northwest, I am devastated to see our legacy forests fall for the sake of a quick profit.", could she not have seen the dozens of orange-marked snags left for wildlife and the multitude of green trees in those units? Again, no trees with any green needles are being cut up there. Is she lying or just using hype, like the famous Jerry Franklin has been quoted to say?

Talking about promises, where does it say in ANY Roadless Rule that "Thou shalt not cut any snags in a Roadless Area"?? Bush did promise not to cut green trees and install roads. We are doing what we feel is a necessary response to a catastrophic fire, reducing fuel loads and getting slash on the ground to combat erosion. If these projects had occurred promptly, they would have been unmitigated successes. Instead, delays and re-working cost us several years and the most flammable smaller trees are now useless for boards. The Baird and Walden Salvage bill will help to cut the red tape and obstructionism that the "preservationists" have relied on for soooooo long.

Regarding Donato's study, it's exceedingly narrow focus is only valid in a tiny number of forest types, burn intensities, aspects, slopes and logging types. The funny thing is that Science Magazine only published their favorite parts of the study. It seems that even with impacts from logging, all the study plots still reached proper stocking levels, not "hindering regeneration". Also, how can the removal of fuels inside the burned areas increase fire risk and intensity??

Again, I would have done things different if I were in charge. Some units would have been dropped because of low amounts of available salvage. Some units I would have left more snags. There is no substitute for being on the ground.

I think it would be interesting to do a study to see how many bark beetles are spawned by dying trees (with green needles still on them) that weren't harvested, solely because the "brain-dead" trees have closed up with a dead cambium layer at the base. Often it will take a tree 5 years to die from cambium kill. "Preservationists" want a blanket policy for the entire nation, so they won't have to give up their tactics that utilize science, preferring emotion, rhetoric and angst. We prefer a spectrum of possibilities using science to guide us in dealing with burn salvage. Let us use the fresh, new science of Sherrie Smith, who has data from 5 years worth of burn salvage study.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Precedent?!?

Logging already HAS occurred in Roadless Areas many times in the past. The sky has not fallen since then. To get to the real precedent being set, you have to get into the "guts" of the Roadless rules. The issue is; will salvage logging benefit, or even "break even" in improving conditions within the Roadless Area. That's where the debate really SHOULD begin! Salvage logging wasn't addressed in any version of the Roadless rule. A well-designed salvage plan CAN benefit a burned over forest. Look at my salvage logging pictures in my blog! Whether the Biscuit's plan does or doesn't depends on the particular unit. In my own experience, inside many of the Biscuit units, some of them we should have stayed out of. However, in the units that burned at high intensity, getting the fuels out and putting erosion-stalling slash on the ground is of the utmost importance. (Yes, even the tiniest of limbs holds back an impressive amount of soil.)

"Government integrity" and "states rights" tend to fall into the arena of partisan politics. Kate's rantings about "two clearcutting projects" and warnings of industrial logging in the Roadless Areas are simply scare tactics. None of the cutting units in the Biscuit are clearcuts! There were no promises by the Bush Administration when the Biscuit Sales were put together in 2004. Court battles were won by the Forest Service and now, people like Kate refused to accept the court's decision.

This idealistic dogma-drama shows how desperate people get when their rhetoric and angst fail them. Since they couldn't get arrested at the Forest Service office in Medford, they took their protest out into the street, blocking drivers both conservative and liberal.  

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Clarification

Their protests are directed at helicopter logging of dead trees only, within the Biscuit Fire. There are Roadless Areas within the Biscuit Fire that are being salvage logged with helicopters. No new roads are being built.

That part of southern Oregon wants to be left alone by all forms of authority. "Green anarchists" abound there and they operate on pure rhetoric, emotion and angst. The jailings are their way of drawing attention to themselves but, somehow I think that this is a detriment to their causes. In fact, the rest of the country seems to wonder why these folks would go to jail just to "save" dead trees.

Personally, I think they should just cut their losses and move on to actions that are more important, like saving old growth. For them, it's more about the "slippery slope" of logging in a Roadless Area. Some states DO want to protect their Roadless Areas from being roaded, and I'm fine with that. What really scares me is the states that want to install roads and develop their Roadless Areas.

In truth, a majority of the Roadless Areas DON'T have much in the way of resources to extract. Otherwise, there'd already be roads in them. The recent events in Colorado should generate much more controversy, as underground resources there in Roadless Areas have been auctioned off. This is where I draw the line. If they could get those underground resources out without putting roads in, I'd be in favor of such a project.

As the Biscuit protesters have been saying, "Roadless is Priceless", I do have to agree with them on that. We certainly don't need to have roads over 100% of our National Forests.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Forest selfishness?

I've already seen where forest "preservationists" are using their selfishness to try and preserve forests exhibiting "unnatural" characteristics. Why try to preserve perfect bark beetle habitat, which results in catastrophic fire, eventually?

While "preservationism" is GREAT for parks and wilderness, it's a recipe for disaster on high-graded and overstocked forests. Embracing destructive fire instead of careful management of endangered species habitat is another example of extreme selfishness. Groups like the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity still have this "zero cut" agenda that is the epitome of "selfishness", burying their heads in the sand with NIMBYism while cozily snuggled in their open-beamed ceiling homes in the woods. Again, are you part of the problem, or part of the solution, thinking globally and acting locally?!?

Don't get me wrong, though. I thank those far-sighted "preservationists" for creating wilderness areas and National Parks, as well as protecting precious old growth. Yes, there ARE timber folks like me who DO see the big picture, having worked with conscientious "ologists", who are progressive enough to speak up, as well as listen.

Scenic pics at http://lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Pulpwood

Chipping is definitely NOT economically viable in many parts of California. The ease of getting agricultural waste with much cheaper transport costs make pulpwood a money-losing operation. The ARE some cogen plants in the northern part of the state.

Hopefully, some of the larger unmerchantable trees will be picked up along the roads as firewood.On Wildfires are raging -- why isn't concern about climate change? posted 3 years, 3 months ago 10 Responses

Anti-global warming

Yes, I am totally anti-global warming but, I also am not convinced that increased wildfire size and intensity is all attributed to "global warming".

Previous logging and forest management practices have had major impacts on our western forests and the fires that plague them. High-grading has taken the very species that are extremely fire adapted and left the flammable trees that grow underneath those majestic ponderosa pines. Lodgepoles and true firs now exist where ntural fires used to clean them out. Even relatively moderate droughts have enhanced bark beetles and made fires much more intense. Overstocking and fire suppression have put a massive imbalance in a delicate ecosystem. Now, we are starting to see the impacts of this imbalance. This will become worse as the imbalance deepens.

Your belief that Healthy Forests means more roads and more logging shows that you do not know what we are doing. In fact, the first Healthy Forests timber sale is only coming online right now. Many other Healthy Forest projects, like controlled burns and non-comericial fuels projects, have been enacted and carried out.

However, the Bush Administration has not fully funded the Forest Service to do the full 20 million acres as promised. Western Congressmen have a lot of heartburn over the appearance of inaction. Sadly, we may see firestorms that kill people, burn homes and scorch precious endangered species habitat. Wth reduced timber staffs across the country, that also reduces the amount of qualified fire fighters. More and more, private fire fighting crews are hired to fill the gaps. Some of those crews are manned with Hispanics.

In fact, we have several brush crews cutting small dead trees within 20 feet of the roads inside of our burn salvage project. All of these dead trees are not merchantable and most are being chipped and blown out onto the roadside.On Wildfires are raging -- why isn't concern about climate change? posted 3 years, 3 months ago 10 Responses

High 5, Patrick!

I wrote mine right before yours and I think we have some agreement on the lack of a "free market".

grinOn Subsidize this! posted 3 years, 3 months ago 12 Responses

Wood(s) Burning?

Here in California, wood smoke has been with us for millenia. I've heard that about 14% of California used to burn annually before fire suppression came on the scene. On the Groveland Ranger District of the Stanislaus National Forest, some pieces of ground have burned 13 times in the last 100 years. The forests of the Sierra Nevada, and most of the West, were acutely fire-adapted to survive frequent "cooler" fires. This also means that summers back then were almost always smoke-filled.

Today's forests are so incredibly different. Today's society is too. With environmentalists advocating burning as the best way to manage fuels buildups and the Forest Service increasing their use of "Wildland Fire Use" let-burn fires, smoke WILL be with us more in the immediate future. Fuels buildups CAN be reduced if we can use the excess to both heat homes and generate power from. This will take hands-on active management of most Forest Service lands, with a keen eye for creating and enhancing endangered species habitat. Juggling all of these forest issues is, and will be a huge challenge for future generations. Earning trust and convincing the public that we will "do the right thing" is our first challenge.

Give us a chance to EARN that trust but, MAKE us earn it and walk the talk. On Burning through the wood posted 3 years, 3 months ago 27 Responses

Some Sierra Clubbers....

....aren't "real" environmentalists. Those still in favor of "zero cut" are more properly labeled as "preservationists". While the Sierra Club officially advocates the thinning of small, unmerchantable trees, the EarthFirsters of the Pacific Northwest have seen that their forests are becoming stagnant and slow-growing, due to overstocking in second and third growth forests. We all like huge trees and they don't get that way with too much competition for light, water and space. The Truce Almighty story covered their desire to thin both submerchantable and small merchantable trees in those forests. Of course, they're not about to allow excessive industrial-type logging that some dinosaurs in the Forest Service still sadly pursue. There's lots of forest where a logger could make a fine profit on thinning and enhancing ecosystems, IMHO.

"Preservationism" is fine for parks and wilderness areas but, working forests ARE suffering from neglect, these days. A lack of active management sure didn't help National Forests like the San Bernardino, the Bitterroot and many other dry western Forests. On Link dump posted 3 years, 4 months ago 6 Responses

More stuff on salvage logging

I've taken some very fresh pictures of my salvage projects on the Eldorado National Forest in California. I'm very proud of the loggers I control for doing such a good job. Check out their (and my) work at:

http://rogueimc.org/en/2006/05/6666.shtml

I hope it will open some eyes and minds! (I wonder if Science Magazine would print something from me  8^) )On Inconvenient science posted 3 years, 4 months ago 32 Responses

I'm doing MY part

I have a current all parks pass I bought in February. Everyone needs a little awe in their lives, and Yosemite has been mine for most of my life. I DO need to further explore Zion for about a week next winter. I just haven't found some time to visit Yellowstone. Glacier was a washout during a rainy 4th of July back in '95.

So much to see, and sooooo worth the gas needed to drive there. And, how much does a brand new video game console cost, with 5 new state of the art games?On Nature needs people posted 3 years, 4 months ago 8 Responses

Not enough credit?

Firstly, I'm not a big Bush fan. However, there does seem to be some evidence that GW isn't the money-grubbing eco-destroyer that some make him out to be. Yes, he HAS rewarded some of his campaign contributors, as have every President in the last half-dozen decades.

He DID make Congaree Swamp into a National Park, despite the fact that there's a wonderfully rare piece of old growth forest that has plenty of timber value. This amazing place has 16 national champion trees in it. Where else can you find a 160 foot tall hickory tree and awesome baldcypress? If you're ever in the vicinity of Columbia, SC, you're going to want to spend a day there.

He also enacted the "Healthy Forests" law, although it was heavily editted to make it more palatable to Democrats. The disaster that some pundits had promised just hasn't materialized, and we ARE seeing forest health projects coming to fruition. There's still quite a long way to go, and we'll still be seeing massive wildfires in the near future but, ya gotta start somewhere.

I tend to think that the Bush Administration has taken a page from the James Watt playbook. Propose something so hideous and despicable that people rail against it in hordes. Meanwhile, slide some other projects and policies in underneath the radar. Add to that the stealthy stuff like riders and rules, which both sides do pretty regularly. The new Roadless Rule is designed to placate certain red states, so that they won't sue the Federal government over the old Clinton Rule. It's a win-win situation for the Bushies. He allows the states to offer their recommendations but keep control over the final decisions. Luckily, today's Forest Service sees the value in keeping Roadless Areas road-free (except for the roads ALREADY within the Roadless Areas...lol). BTW, it still amazes me how many people think that logging is banned in these Roadless Areas, even under the Clinton Rule.

While Bush himself may not be the evil person some make him out to be, he certainly has some VERY slimey "friends". BEWARE!On Credit where credit is due posted 3 years, 4 months ago 6 Responses

Acquiescense

I did actually admit this in a previous post:

"Well, I really guess that his study, in its purest form, doesn't really bother me too much."

Again, it's the conclusions and extrapolations, as well as the potential uses of the study in the courts that irritate me. The title of the study is also a bit over the top.On Inconvenient science posted 3 years, 4 months ago 32 Responses

Fire Salvage

The misconceptions about today's fire salvage projects are yet a subset of the America's entire lack of knowledge about forest ecosystems in the West, and their histories. Western forests are generally not what was found by the pioneers. They're usually overstocked with the smallers trees that have grown back since the massive logging boom of the last millenium.

Many feel that these forests should just be left alone and that "Mother Nature" knows how to take care of those forests better than us. Another quote I often hear is; "the forests have done fine for millions of years". Our forests today are NOT natural, and NOT "doing fine", though. Our forests are sooooomuch more flammable than ever before. Our forests have had species conversions to less fire-adapted species. These forests are thicker and overstocked, making them less resistant to drought, bark beetles and fire.

And, soooo many want to preserve these unnatural conditions and these out-of-balance ecosystems. When a fire comes through and scorches hundreds of square miles in just one event, some of those acres have lots of salvagable timber on them. In the West, the dry summers don't allow much of that dead material to decay into soil-building materials. It just waits for the next inevitable fire to come through and burn again.

Our new-age fire salvage projects look to reduce the fuel loading on the pieces of ground that have an excess of merchantable timber, while still trying to balance the impacts to other resources and wildlife. The Biscuit Fire, for example, only cut completely dead trees on only 4% of the entire 500,000 acre burn. Getting some of the finer limbs on the ground can also reduce erosional impacts. It's amazing to see 1/4" diameter limbs holding soil in the burns. Larger limbs hold even more.

The fire salvage projects of today are far more than logging. My own project had a very large road rehabilitation component. Roads were reconstructed to drain properly and graveled where it was needed. Small, unmerchantable dead trees were cut and piled, for burning, eliminating that more flammable component of the fuels build-up. Hazards to all Forest Service roads were felled and removed, making forest recreation safer, and reducing the potential for future man-caused fires. Streams and rivers all had "buffer zones", where timber remained in place, protecting water quality. Power lines and water flumes had hazards to them reduced or removed.

Yes, there ARE impacts to fire salvage logging projects. It's a trade-off where we hope we don't have to mitigate some unintended impacts (which almost ALWAYS occur) from the logging. While some feel that helicopter logging is a much better way of recovering the salvage logs, the difference isn't all that much. Helicopter logging requires many very large landings to fly the logs to. With the fuel prices so high, these days, more companies like Columbia want many more landings to reduce their flight times. Sometimes, a very good tractor logger can operate on 25% slopes better and cheaper than a helicopter logger. Luckily, most of the truly bad tractor loggers have gone out of business.

Yes, we DO need wood and it's cheaper and easier on the planet to use wood as opposed to many other building materials. The trees grow back and the forests continue to lock up carbon long after the logs have sequestered their own share of carbon. It's all about balance and, unfortunately, Mother Nature does her balancing act over a period of centuries. With a little help from us, we can reduce that time to mere decades in restoring our western National Forests.On Inconvenient science posted 3 years, 4 months ago 32 Responses

Thanks, Bio-D

I tend to do LOTS of thinking while driving out to remote jobsites, and I came up with this zinger. Sometimes we could call some kinds of junk science "An Incontinent Truth".....it just won't hold water!  <GRIN> Much of the GW cynics have the kind of studies that seem to have at least a shred of truth, surrounded by conjecture, conclusion and extrapolation.

Seriously, though, I'm currently walking through burned landscapes, inspecting the loggers' work, mostly from last year. The wildflowers are just amazing within burned forests. There are mosaics of dried out, crispy-fried areas, soaking bogs of vegetation and carpets of little pine seedlings packed in much closer than a planted clearcut. I walked hundreds of tractor-logged acres, relieved to find not one waterbar blown out by a wet winter, only to find a gaping gully that was liquified during a rain-on-snow event last winter. Would it have happened with no logging, less logging, or more sensitivity to a shallow bowl, draining a rather small area? Amazingly, the waterbars on the skid trails worked and the soil compaction seemed to hold the soils together on the trails themselves. Maybe the compaction didn't allow the water to penetrate the skid trail, either. Stumps seemed to hold the soil into place but, entire snags probably would have uprooted. It's an interesting puzzle to try and understand what went wrong and how we can learn from the 4 acre mess.

As it is, Bio-D and others, salvage logging is still a very challenging, unique and inexact science. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions for ANY fire salvage project (and I've been on lots of em!). We've come soooo far from the days where the Forest Service would save 2 or 3 snags per UNIT! We still need public oversight on this stuff, to continue to do what is right for the land. Timber harvest should only be a part of the rehabilitation, and not the main focus.

I remember an 8th grade field trip to the huge 1972(?) Granite Burn, northwest of Yosemite on the Stanslaus National Forest. The forest was leveled during the salvage logging, like an atomic bomb went off. I did have the opportunity to do forestry work on that same burn 30 years later. The areas which were left to recover on their own were impenetrable thickets of mostly whitethorn and manzanita, hiding the snags that had fallen over decades ago. The plantations were doing OK but needed a thinning very badly. After we finished our prep work, the next year, parts of the project burned again, sadly, before improvements could be made.On Inconvenient science posted 3 years, 4 months ago 32 Responses

What scares me is...

that if such an obviously flawed and slanted study is "peer-reviewed" and accepted, then published by what is supposedly  a respected and objective publication, then what else is being passed off as "sound science" by the scientific community??!?

Already, I've seen where supposed "scientists" are eager to jump on a bandwagon, solely to counter pro-management forestry decisions. Recently, "preservationists" compiled a list of 169 "scientists" who oppose the Salvage Bill currently winding its way through Congress. At closer inspection, these scientists all appear to be desk-ridden eastern college professors, who probably got paid for their professional support. Interesting that they couldn't get even ONE forester to publicly oppose this legislation.

Certainly, Science Magazine has lost an incredible amount of respect for publishing such a slanted, not-so-hidden agenda junk science piece. There's no substitute for site specific observations and professional recommendations. Does the medical industry test a drug on only 16 subjects and then publish their "miracle breakthrough" product in respected magazines? Now, if Donato had continued this study over much more of the massive Biscuit fire, over a period of 10 years, or more, then I might give his study a little bit more creedence. On Inconvenient science posted 3 years, 4 months ago 32 Responses

Water and forestry

No one seems to recognize that the intense overstocking of our National Forests has helped to deplete both surface water and aquafirs. The disaster of the San Bernardino National Forest should have been a wake-up call but, even 12 million deads trees (including ancient old growth trees that have survived worse droughts) hasn't had enough of an impact. Even the people who study tree rings seem to not have a "fudge factor" to correct for tree densities when they say "tree rings show that global warming and drought are a certainty". Now, I'm NOT saying that global warming isn't a fact. I'm just saying that this seemingly obvious effect on tree rings SHOULD be factored in, because today's crowded forests have trees stealing water from each other, resulting in reduced growth and smaller tree rings.

Returning forests back to historical densities would certainly have major effects on the health of our forests, the amounts of ground water available, the productiveness of springs and increased stream and river flows. However, this will NOT make up for the massive amounts of water our greedy and wasteful society needs to "live long and prosper".

One thing I saw in the news a while back that scares me is a study that was commissioned in Wyoming to see how much water would be freed up by cutting most of the trees in large parts of the state. Why anyone would even consider such a thing and spending money to find out boggles my mind. Fortunately, there will be no debate over this particular potentiality, because no significant amount of new water would be realized for any length of time, as the study concluded. Now, before you all have a collective sigh of relief, there ARE parts of the country where this technique MIGHT yield significant amounts of "new" water. We must NEVER allow such a thing to happen, especially when eliminating our intensely wasteful water habits can go a long, long way towards wild Western survival. (One of my big pet peeves, amongst many, is the planting of water-loving redwood and alder trees in landscaping, instead of native dry-adapted oaks,  in hot, dry cities like Sacramento.)

The thought that more trees in a forest is better needs to be realized as false. "Natural" densities with adapted native trees is the way to go. The thought that more trees will change rainfall patterns within a forest is also false, resulting in quite the opposite effect. Trees act as big water pumps, turning groundwater into water vapor. This water vapor ends up being lost to mankind (and our ecosystems) in most of our western forests.

We MUST be successful in balancing our ecosystems if we are to enjoy a high quality of life. We're obviously not doing a very good job of that in this day and age.On When the Rivers Run Dry posted 3 years, 5 months ago 7 Responses

To Bio-d

While an entire book could be devoted to why our National Forests need to be restored (and how), reversing decades of mismanagement on both extremes will prove to be a huge undertaking. About 10 years ago, the price tag on restoring parts of our western forests was over 15 BILLION dollars. I'm sure that figure has now ballooned up to at least 30 billion.

Fire suppression, high-grading, clearcutting and "preservationism" have all had major impacts on our National Forests. The time has come for us to more closely mimic natural processes and restore our forests back to a more "natural" state, at least as much as the current reality of a man-dominated world can allow. Like Atreyger says, we do have to think globally and act locally, by reducing demand for wood harvested and imported by us, especially in third world countries, where little to no environmental controls exist. That means cutting more of our own wood using the latest and greatest science in the world. NIMBYists equate this with arrogance but, it IS the truth. Atreyger is right to say that we shouldn't be managing the output but, welcoming the board feet and forest fuels as a merchantable by-product of ecosystem management.

Seeing the slant of the Forest Service wander to and fro with the whims of each Administration is tough on us "Freddies". For example, I was happy with the oldest of Roadless Rules, in place before Bill Clinton's plan. His plan really didn't change much but gave the Roadless Areas a tiny bit more protection without an outright ban on logging and mining. Now, Bush comes along and brings the potential for states to re-open Roadless Areas to development, increasing the possibility of destructive activites and guaranteeing wasteful lawsuits. "Healthy Forests" were a very rare example of how a good plan can bring together both political parties for the greater good. Luckily, the Democrats were able to convince the Republicans that the original version of "Healthy Forests" was flawed and gave too much power to people like Mark Rey, while cutting the public out of the loop.

Let's hope that science will dictate what we do with particular pieces of land, from now on. Let's also hope that the public will learn the science and let us "Freddies" earn trust, over time. Finally, let's hope that the science will triumph over partisan politics, rhetoric, campaign contributions and idealistic dogma-drama.On Tug of war posted 3 years, 5 months ago 15 Responses

It's not the heat, it's the humidity

When I worked in South Carolina out in the woods, I wasn't used to the humidity and it DID have a big effect on my thinking processes. Sometimes I couldn't even use a calculator to save my life....lol. Identifying 40 different hardwood trees was much easier at 8 AM than at noon.

While I reveled in the "Southern Hospitality", I somehow suspected that the poor black folks are still trying to recover their spirit and pride. I saw an untold fear and loathing in their eyes, especially when they didn't know that I was not a "good ole boy". While my own childhood didn't have any blacks at all in it, I also never was exposed to the predjudice and stereotypes, either. Growing up with lots of Hispanics around hasn't diminished my admiration for their work ethic and family values, either. On the contrary, I prefer to inspect Hispanic treeplanter crews instead of poor white trash crews.

I'll certainly admit to being pretty naive about race issues but, putting all these groups together in a crowded city could be a recipe for disaster. We'd be foolish to think that us Americans are past the problems of racism and economic class warfare. I escaped to the mountains to get away from that stuff (along with the high rents and stupid city drivers grin ).

PS... As of a few months ago, I heard that the number of murders in Chicago, (the highest in the nation), was over 500. We can't still blame that on Al Capone. On Density is political destiny? posted 3 years, 6 months ago 15 Responses

Knee-jerk reaction?

While I neglected to say that I was disgusted that Bush got elected, twice, people assume too much. It always seems to be a them versus us situation to too damn many folks. If I had voted, it wouldn't have been for either party. Dogma and rhetoric on one side and greed and ruthlessness on the other.  

Just say no to partisan politics!

(Actually, I once registered to vote in the Slightly Silly party) grin On Climate crisis and the 2008 election posted 3 years, 6 months ago 14 Responses