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Finding Compromise In Forest Through New Research

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

B.J. Hansen, MyMotherLode News Director

View the photos at:  http://www.mymotherlode.com/news/local/245156/finding-compromise-on-forest-health-through-new-research.html

Pinecrest, CA — A U.S. Forest Service study is looking to the past in order to find solutions for the future.

Earlier today the non-profit Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions group hosted a tour of the USDA’s Stanislaus Tuolumne Experimental Forest research project.

Situated outside of Pinecrest, the project has been underway since around 2009, and is led by U.S. Forest Service Research Ecologists Eric Knapp and Malcom North. Using a variety of techniques, their goal has been to return a small section the forest to the state it was prior to the 1930’s, before stepped up fire suppression efforts.

It was noted that 100 years ago fires would typically pass through every six years and provided a notable ecological benefit. The move to actively suppress fires created forest land that went untouched for longer periods and became more dense, and ripe for more and larger catastrophic fires.

Mechanical thinning was conducted at the site in 2011, and it was followed up with some prescribed burning in 2013.

Speaking about the project, North says, “Particularly in the context of the Rim Fire, this is a much more resilient system to wildfire. The other big thing we have coming on the horizon is drought. Forests that have been reduced in density like this, which you particularly have openings where the tree roots can move into, and get soil moisture out of, is going to make these systems much more resilient to these types of long-term drought events, that may be more common in the future.”

In striving to create a more diverse ecosystem like was present prior to active fire suppression, the researchers were selective about which trees were removed by mechanical thinning.

North notes, “Some of the trees that are larger in diameter, we know that they would not have been here if we had fire in the system, or at least not in those densities. Particularly we are talking about species that can regenerate under shade but are very sensitive to fire, such as White Fire and Incensed Cedar. Many times some of these trees are 20 inches in diameter or larger. So there’s a perfectly good rational for thinning those trees and getting the economic return.”

Research Ecologist Knapp adds, “We are also looking at the response of small mammals, birds, understory vegetation, and the whole ecosystem. We are trying to find a way of thinning that not only reduces the fuel situation, but also enhances the habitat for the wildlife and other species that we manage.”

There were members of several government agencies on the tour today, in addition to members of the Forest Service. Field representatives were in attendance from Congressmen Tom McClintock and Jeff Denham and Senator Diane Feinstein. Also on hand were Tuolumne County Supervisors John Gray and Randy Hanvelt, and Calaveras County Supervisor Cliff Edson.

The Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions group is co-chaired by Mike Albrecht of Sierra Resource Management and John Buckley of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center. Both touted how this USDA project is something that competing interests can get behind, and the group hopes the research will help spur a new way of thinking about managing the forest. It is something that could be beneficial to both the ecosystem and taxpayers. While it takes some initial seed money to get these types of projects off the ground, they are eventually offset by revenue from timber sales.

 

 

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Tuolumne County eligible for Rim Fire recovery funds

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

By Alex MacLean

The Union Democrat, June 18, 2017

California will be eligible for up to $500 million in federal funding later this year for post-Rim Fire projects that would benefit the Tuolumne County area.

County officials received word late Monday afternoon that California was one of 26 states selected by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development to move onto the second phase of the national Disaster Resilience Competition, a federal program announced by President Barack Obama last June.

“Now the real work begins,” said Deputy County Administrator Maureen Frank, who is overseeing the local effort to organize projects that would be eligible for funding.

The competition is designed to provide federal funding for areas that experienced a natural disaster in 2011, 2012, or 2013.

Tuolumne County was eligible because of the 2013 Rim Fire that burned more than 400 square miles in the Central Sierra and forced hundreds along Highway 108 to flee their homes.

Though five other California counties experienced a natural disaster in that time frame, Frank said the Governor’s Office told her that Tuolumne was selected for the state’s application due to the size of the Rim Fire, the area’s unmet needs and reputation of collaboration between local groups.

A total of 48 states submitted applications in the competition’s first phase.

The Governor’s Office now must submit a second application to HUD by Oct. 27 that lists specific projects to receive funding, Frank said.

“This is just the start of the fun,” she said.

Frank held two meetings last Wednesday to share information about requirements for projects to be eligible for inclusion om the second-phase application.

She said the meetings were well attended by leaders of various public and private organizations, including Tuolumne Utilities District, Groveland Community Services District, Groveland Community Services District, Twain harte Community Services District, Cal Fire, Sierra Pacific Industries, Pacific-Ultrapower and more.

More information will be posted in the coming weeks about public meetings to gather further input and project ideas.

“We’ll continue to update the website as we get information from the state and continue to refine that,” she said.  “As we get more information, we’ll get that out to the public and continue to have discussions as far as our unmet needs and what we need to build a more resilient community in Tuolumne County.”

 

 

 

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Rim Fire reforestation workshop set

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

By Guy McCarthy

The Union Democrat, June 17, 2015

     Rim Fire recovery staff with the Stanislaus National Forest plan to host a workshop July 8 to review potential alternatives for reforestation in parts of the federally managed forest that were scorched, burned or denuded by the gigantic blaze between August and October 2013.

The Rim Fire burned a total of 257,314 acres – more than 400 square miles – including 154,530 acres in the Stanislaus national Forest, and 77,252 acres in Yosemite national park, according to federal land managers.

More than 80 percent of the Stanislaus Forest did not burn in the Rim Fire, according to the Forest Service.  Unburned portions of the forest remain vulnerable to bark beetle infestation, tree mortality, drought and competition for scarce water.

The July 8 workshop is a step in a process the Forest Service must work through with individuals, groups and other members of the public, as well as interested parties known as stakeholders, before the federal agency can move forward with reforestation plan specifics.

“Sixty-five comments were received during our 45-day scoping period which ended on April 13, “Stanislaus National Forest Supervisor Jeanne Higgins said in an announcement.

“Now our goal is to provide the community an opportunity to review the draft alternatives that were developed to address the concerns that were raised,” Higgins said.  “These alternatives will be analyzed in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which is expected to be available for review in the fall.”

Higgins emphasized that she and Rim Fire recovery staff with the Stanislaus National Forest urge people to stay engaged in the decision-making process.

“If you who have an interest in how the landscapes burned by the Rim Fire are restored, it’s important for you to attend,” Higgins said.

Stanislaus national forest staff summarized their reasons for initiating the reforestation project and the project’s primary goals:

  • Return a mixed conifer forest to 30,065 acres.
  • Restore old forest for wildlife habitat and connectivity.
  • Reduce hazardous fuels for future fire resiliency.
  • Eradicate noxious weeds.

Forest Service staff are also keen on avoiding another giant fire in the 898,099-acre Stanislaus national Forest.  The 2013 Rim Fire was the largest in Sierra Nevada records and the third-largest in California history.

The reforestation workshop is open to anyone who wants to attend.  It is scheduled 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 8 at 19777 Greenley Road, Sonora.  Participants should RSBP gdempsey@fs.fed.us by July 1.

 

 

 

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Legal challenge to logging shot down

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

By Guy McCarthy

The Union Democrat, May 27, 2015

The Forest Service can continue to allow logging of trees burned during the 2013 Rim Fire despite a legal challenge led by out-of-county environmentalists, who argue that cutting down fire-damaged trees threatens spotted owls living in and near the burn area.

A decision by U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth District, judges filed Tuesday in San Francisco stalls the legal action for now.  People with the plaintiffs – the Center for Biological Diversity, the Earth Island Institute, and the California Chaparral Institute – can take their appeal higher if they want to.

“It’s an unfortunate decision from our perspective,” said Justin Augustine of the Center for Biological Diversity.  “We are still considering what we will do next.”

The plaintiffs’ options include appealing the case to the Supreme Court.

“In terms of appeals, we are at the end of the line,” Augustine said.  “We can ask the Supreme Court to hear our case, but the court can decide not to.”

Multiple Rim Fire recovery stakeholders, including Tuolumne County counsel, the American Forest Resource Council, Sierra Pacific Industries, and Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions, have allied with the Forest Service to oppose the legal action.

A total of 7,410 acres in the Rim Fire burn in the Stanislaus National Forest have been logged to date, said Barbara Drake, director of the forest’s Rim Fire recovery team.

“It never stopped,” Drake said.  “We only got wintered out for a couple of days.  We stopped for a couple of days because the roads were wet at one point earlier this year.”

Logging in the forest’s rim Fire burn area continued Tuesday and is expected to continue through Oct. 31, 2016, Drake said.  The Forest Service has approval to log more than 17,300 acres of the burn inside Stanislaus forest boundaries, Drake said.

The plaintiffs’ legal challenges started in September 2014, Drake said.

“Obviously we are pleased the court ruled in our favor,” Drake said.  “The plaintiffs just wanted a preliminary injunction until their case can be heard.  At this rate, the work could be done before their case can be heard.”

Judges with the Ninth Circuit in their four-page decision filed Tuesday listed several reasons for siding with the Forest Service.

  • “Plaintiffs have not established a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims under the National Environmental Policy Act,” the judges wrote.
  • “The Environmental Impact statement and Record of Decision adequately incorporated the 2014 owl occupancy survey results by explaining that the Forest Service had re-established six protect activity centers where the surveys detected owl presence,” the judges wrote.
  • “The Forest Service also adequately addressed the scientific literature on owl occupancy in post-fire, high-severity burn habitat,” the judges wrote.

John Buckley with the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center applauded the federal court’s decision.

“CSERC sided with the Forest Service and Industry groups in support of the Rim Fire Salvage logging plan, because we believe that the Forest Service adequately considered logging impacts,” Buckley said.

“Our Center has worked to protect the California spotted owl and other at-risk wildlife species for more than two decades, so we clearly understand that important need,” Buckley said.  “But leaving vast areas in the Rim Fire blanketed with dead trees would create an enormous smount of woody fuel that could result in another devastating wildfire.”

The Forest service plan keeps logging out of known, core spotted owl habitat areas, and allows salvage logging in surrounding areas, a fair middle ground between wood production and wildlife protection, Buckley said.

“I am glad that the Ninth Circuit court affirmed the Forest Service logging plan,” Buckley said.

The Rim Fire burned more than 400 square miles, including portions of the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National park, between August and October 2013.  According to the Forest Service, more than 80 percent of the Stanislaus Forest did not burn and remains vulnerable to bark beetle infestation, tree mortality, drought and competition for scarce water.

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Biomass power plants seek support from state

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

By Alex MacLean

The Union Democrat, May 23, 2015

County leaders say proposed bill would be a win-win for environment and economy

     Biomass is one of California’s oldest renewable energy sources and a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels.

However, industry leaders say many of the state’s 33 biomass plants – including the Pacific Ultrapower facility in Chinese Camp – are at risk of closing in the next few years because they’re struggling to stay economically competitive with other subsidized forms of renewable energy, such as solar and wind.

“Most biomass plants in the state began operating 25 to 30 years ago,” Rick Spurlock, southern region general manager for the Orange County-based IHI Power Services corporation, which operates the Chinese Camp plant.  “We’re looking at losing up to half in the next three years.”

The Pacific Ultrapower biomass-energy plant has operated since 1986.  It employs 24 people and generates enough electricity per hour to serve 18,000 homes through the burning of woody waste, such as tree trimmings and undergrowth cleared from forests.

Proponent say biomass energy production serves multiple environmental and public benefits beyond producing power by diverting wood material from landfills, reducing the need for open burning of forest and agricultural wood and promoting the reduction of flammable vegetation in forests that can lead to large, environmentally harmful wildfires.

“We like to say we were renewable before renewable was cool,” Spurlock said.

A bipartisan bill, co-authored by Assemblyman Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, and Assemblyman Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield, aims to provide support for California’s declining biomass industry by sharing fuel costs with a fund comprised of cap-and-trade revenues that’s intended for projects and initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The bill, AB 590, is scheduled to to be considered next week by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.  If approved, it would go to the Assembly floor for a vote sometime in the first week of June.

According to the bill’s sponsors, the goal is to “provide monthly incentives to maintain the current level of biomass power generation in the state and revitalize idle facilities in strategically located regions.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors unanimously supported the legislation.

“It is important to recognize they (biomass plants) don’t compete financially, predominantly with the natural gas industry,” said District 1 Supervisor Sherri Brennan, who is chairwoman of the county Natural Resources Committee.  “This is important to keeping these here and recognizing the benefits to air quality.”

Electricity generated by the Pacific Ultrapower plant is sold to PG&E under a 30-year contract that expires in 2016.  Spurrlock said the hope is that the subsides will reduce the cost of electricity and help them land another contract.

Sierra Pacific Industries also generates electricity to power its Standard sawmill using sawdust and other logging byproducts.

According to the California Biomass EWnergy Alliance, biomass plants cut emissions of “criteria pollutant” – such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter – by 98 percent compared to open burning.

There could be as much as 2 million tons of flammable biomass sitting on the floor of the 900,000-acre Stanislaus National Forest, said Dave Horak, forest timber management officer.

Horak said the U.S. Forest Service removes about 70,000 tons annually that are transported to biomass energy plants.  That doesn’t include the amount of biomass burned in piles and chopped up for use as soil cover to prevent erosion, but those numbers were not readily available.

Up to 300,000 tons would need to be removed each year from the Stanislaus national Forest to keep up with the annual growth, Horak estimated.

California generates about 25 million tons of organic waste annually, with about 8 million composed, nearly 2 million used for fuel and 15 million dumped in landfills.  Dumping in landfills is not the preferred method, because the material generates harmful methane as it decomposes.

Factors limiting the amount of biomass that can be removed or pile-burned in the forest include industry capacity, burn days and safety issues, according to Horak.  He said having the Chinese Camp energy plant nearby “benefits the forest tremendously.”

“The Stanislaus has been one of the leaders in biomass since (the plant’s) opening in 1986,” he said of the facility.  “We would rather use our resources to do prescribed burning and reintroduce fires into the forest as opposed to burn piles that could otherwise be removed.”

The 2013 Rim Fire burned 257,000 acres in the Central Sierra, including 154,000 in the Stanislaus National Forest.

Horak estimated the fire and subsequent logging of burned timber has generated approximately 700,000 tons of biomass that needs to be removed to reduce the risk for future catastrophic fires in the same area.  Approximately 100,000tons have been piled on roadsides for removal contracts, with 22,000 awarded for contract to date.

Energy initiatives pushed by President Barack Obama and the Environmental protection Agency promote biomass and biofuels – in addition to solar, wind and geothermal – as viable means of weaning the U.S. from its dependency on oil and other fossil fuels.

Not everyone is on the same page when it comes to using biomass for generating electricity, however.

The center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental advocacy organization, has expressed opposition to the pending legislation in the state Legislature that would subsidize fuel costs for California biomass plants.

In a formal letter of opposition, the center described biomass energy production as “a technology that has proven to be inordinately inefficient and expensive, results in negative air quality impacts, and which provides highly questionable benefits to the climate.”

Brian Nowicki, the center’s California climate policy director, who works in Sacramento, said the center is against diverting money earmarked for reducing greenhouse gas emissions toward the wood-burning power plants.

“It’s trying to take money intended for meaningful greenhouse gas reductions and direct it to some of the most inefficient outcomes,” he said.

Meanwhile, other environmental organizations have come out in support of the legislation.

The Sierra Forest Legacy, a Garden Valley-based nonprofit organization that promotes the protection of ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada, is supportive of “appropriately scaled biomass facilities in forest communities,” said Craig Thomas, the group’s conservation director.

John Buckley, of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte, said there’s “no way to overbuild” biomass facilities in the local area with the “huge gut” of biomass material in the forest that needs to be reduced.

“Our center would like to see SPI crate a big plant and the Chinese Camp plant take more from the forest,” he said.  “We believe there’s a huge need to get more of the slash wood and stuff out of the forest.”
 

 

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Logging challenge returns to court

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

By Guy McCarthy

The Union Democrat, May 8, 2015

      A contentious lawsuit that has the Forest Service, Tuolumne County, loggers and other Rim Fire recovery stakeholders united against a challenge from environmental groups is expected to resurface Monday in San Francisco federal court.

Environmentalists, including the Center for biological Diversity, want to stop logging to remove trees burned during the 2013 Rim Fire because they claim California spotted owls live in and near burned areas in the Stanislaus National forest where logging is underway.

California spotted owls are not listed as threatened or endangered by the Forest Service or National Park Service, but the state Department of Fish and Wildlife considers them a “species of special concern.”

Tuolumne County officials and others have staunchly opposed legal actions against the salvage logging project since the Center for Biological Diversity, Earth Island Institute and California Chaparral Institute jointly filed their lawsuit in September.

“The county, along with several other groups, the American Forest Resource Council, Sierra Pacific Industries, Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions, the crook family and several other groups, have joined together to support the Forest Service and the Rim Fire recovery project,” Tuolumne County Counsel Sarah Carrillo said this week.

In November, federal District Judge Garland E. Burrell, Jr. denied a third consecutive request from environmentalists to delay the salvage logging project.

“We are trying to get an injunction in place to prevent logging of spotted owl habitat,” Oakland-based Justin Augustine of the Center for Biological Diversity said this week.  “There is logging of this habitat ongoing at this point.  What was authorized by the Forest Service in their environmental impact statement was about 15,000 acres of spotted owl habitat.”

“We are in court because, from our perspective, the forest Service is not acknowledging they are going to be logging spotted owl habitat,” Augustine said.  “We know that is going to occur, but the Forest Service has not acknowledged that.”

Carrillo, who plans to argue otherwise in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Monday, refuted Augustine’s claims.

“That‘s their point of view,” Carrillo said.  “We believe the Forest Service did adequate analysis, and the project should be allowed to go forward.”

Outside environmental groups can’t break the strong local consensus supporting Rim Fire salvage logging, said Shaun Crook, president of the Tuolumne County Farm Bureau.

“My family has property up there known as the Myers Ranch,” Crook said.  “They lost a cabin, and 400 acres of timber, and around a hundred cattle in the Rim Fire.  To me, what is unfortunate is these outside groups who do not live here, they feel the need to file these lawsuits.

“I have to give the Forest Service credit moving at light speed to get that timber sold for salvage logging,” Crook said.  “The only people making money on this is lawyers.  I hope if these lose, the Center for Biological Diversity will be on the hook for the attorney fees.  People around here, including local environmentalists, are in favor of the salvage logging.”

The Rim Fire burned more than 400 square-miles, including portions of the Stanislaus National forest and Yosemite National Park, between August and October 2013.  More than 80 percent of the Stanislaus Forest did not burn and remains vulnerable to bark beetle infestation, tree mortality, drought and competition for scarce water, according to the Forest Service.

 

 

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GOVERNMENT MOVES TO DISMISS RIM FIRE INDICTMENT

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

Sent: Friday, May 01, 2015 9:16 AM

Office of the United States Attorney

Eastern District of California

United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, May 01, 2015

www.justice.gov/usao/cae

Docket #: 1:14-cr-165 AWI

 CONTACT: LAUREN HORWOOD

PHONE: 916-554-2706

usacae.edcapress@usdoj.gov
GOVERNMENT MOVES TO DISMISS RIM FIRE INDICTMENT

FRESNO, Calif. — The government has moved to dismiss the federal indictment against Keith Matthew Emerald, 33, of Columbia, California, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced. The indictment alleged that Emerald had caused the Rim Fire, which burned approximately 250,000 acres of land, and that he had made a false statement to federal investigators regarding the origin of that fire.

In its motion to dismiss, filed today, the government advised the United States District Court that two witnesses had unexpectedly died in recent months, since the filing of the indictment last August. The government’s motion characterized one witness as critical to the case and stated that he had been expected to provide trial testimony regarding his discussions with Emerald shortly after Emerald had been rescued from the vicinity of the Rim Fire’s origin. That witness died in a workplace accident in February. The second witness was the helicopter pilot who first responded to the Rim Fire. That witness had been expected to testify about the initial response to the Rim Fire and the rescue of the defendant very close to the Rim Fire’s point of origin. That witness died in March of cardiac arrest. These witnesses’ prior statements are inadmissible hearsay and cannot be used as evidence at trial.

In its motion, the government stated that it had reassessed the case in light of the loss of this anticipated trial testimony and determined that without that testimony it was unlikely to prove the charges in the case beyond a reasonable doubt to the unanimous satisfaction of a trial jury. Accordingly, it was in the interests of justice to dismiss the case.

United States Attorney Wagner stated, “I appreciate the hard work done by the US Forest Service in investigating this case, and I understand that the government’s motion to dismiss will be frustrating to some. However, when circumstances change after indictment, and our judgment is that a case is no longer likely to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, it is our obligation to the defendant and to the Court to dismiss that case.”

The United States Attorney also noted that the indictment contained only allegations; a defendant is always presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

 

 

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Forest restoration proposed

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

John Holland The Modesto Bee-March10, 2015

 Tree Planting Planned on Fire-Scarred Land

SONORA – The Stanislaus National Forest proposed to replant conifers on 30,065 of the acres burned by the massive Rim Fire of 2013.

The plan, which involves about 12 percent of the total burned acreage, has drawn initial support from timber industry and environmental leaders.

“We applaud the Forest Service for putting together a reforestation program that looks like it’s going to meet the needs of the forest, : said Mike Albrecht, owner of a Jamestown-based company that does logging and other work in the woods.  “But it’s unfortunate that it takes so long to get the reforestation plan together.”

The U.S. Forest Service has launched the first round of public comment on the proposal.  A refined plan could be released for comment in late fall, leading to a possible decision by Forest Supervisor Jeanne Higgins in 2016.  Planting could start in 2017, after seedlings are available from the Placerville nursery, and would take three to five years to complete, team leader Maria Benech said.

The plan does not cover private timberland within the burn area, which is being replanted by its owners.  It also does not involve land in Yosemite National Park, where recovery is being left to natural forces.

Even in the national forest, most of the charred land would not be planted.  Some of it is brush rather than timberland.  Some is too steep to plant.   And much of the fire zone had light to moderate damage, so regrowth can happen naturally via seed cones dropped by surviving trees.

The fire started Aug. 17, 2013, near the confluence of the Tuolumne and Clavey Rivers and eventually burned 257,314 acres.  IT is the largest blaze on record in the Sierra Nevada and the third largest in state history.  Keith Matthew Emeral of Columbia faces federal charges of starting the illegal campfire that is suspected to be the cause.

Environmental leader John Buckley said he has concerns about the reforestation plan, including herbicide spraying to kill competing vegetation, but agrees on the overall need to replant.

“Some forest stands were so incinerated by high-severity flames that no trees survived and few, if any, cones escaped to provide seeds to get new young trees growing,” he said.

Buckley is executive director of the Central Sierra environmental resource Center, based in Twain Harte.  He and Albrecht are co-chairmen of Yosemite-Stanislaus Solutions, a coalition that includes conservation groups, the timber industry and other partners.

They said the coalition will work to achieve a final reforestation plan that balances all the needs.   It did the same last year with the plan for salvage logging of some of the fire-killed trees, which is providing raw material to lumber mills.

Buckley questions the proposed planting density of 200-300 seedlings per acre.  This might make sense for lumber production, he said, but it could result in a forest thick with wildfire fuels.

Benech said the density would vary across the terrain, with fewer tees on fire-prone ridgetops and more in moister soil near streams.  The planting would be in clumps, as opposed to the rows in past plantations.

The seedlings would be genetically suited to the elevation and other conditions at each planting site.  They would take several decades to grow to a size for logging, and even longer in areas managed to mimic old-growth wildlife habitat.

Small parts of the fire area would be managed for deer, with an emphasis on oaks over conifers.  The plan also involves thinning conifer plantations that survived the Rim Fire and using herbicides on “noxious” weeds that have invaded some areas.

Sierra Pacific Industries, by far the largest landowner in the fire area, will replant about 11,500 acres this year and next, said Mark Pawlicki, director of corporate affairs and sustainability.  Two of the Redding-based company’s sawmills are in Tuolumne County.

SPI has completed salvage logging on its land, which made way for the planting crews.

“Our goal is to get the area replanting as soon as we can, get the forest started for the future,” Pawlicki said.

 

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Input sought on proposed Rim Fire reforestation plan

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

Guy McCarthy

The Union Democrat – March 2, 2015 

A proposal to replant and thin about 42,000 acres on the Stanislaus National Forest impacted by the 2013 Rim Fire is available online, and a 45-day period has begun for people to submit written comments to the Forest Service.

The deadline to submit comments is 11:50 p.m. Monday, April 13.

The proposal and comment period are steps in a process that will include a Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  The earliest the first trees in the reforestation proposed action can be planted will be spring 2017, said Georgia Dempsey of the forest’s Rim Fire Recovery Team.

By that time, more than three years will have passed since the giant forest fire blew up east of Sonora.  Between August, 2013 and October 2013, the Rim Fire burned 257,314 acres, including 154,530 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest and 77,254 acres in Yosemite National Park.

Salvage logging in the burn area had to happen first, and work on the proposed action for reforestation began in late October 2014, Dempsey said.

When the public comment period closes in April, a team of Forest Service resource specialists and scientists will review the comments to see if there’s anything they can include in the draft EIS, Dempsey said.  They hope to have the draft ready by late this year.

Multiple private groups and government agencies will take note of the proposed reforestation plan, including Yosemite-Stanislaus Solutions.  The YSS coalition has more than 30 member groups representing timber, bioenergy, mining, construction, utilities, water, agriculture, recreation, tourism, American Indian tribes, environmentalists and other interests.

“The YSS collaborative group has been eager for the Forest Service to move reforestation forward in the Rim Fire, so we are glad to see the release of a proposed plan,” said John Buckley, a co-chairman of Yosemite-Stanislaus Solutions.

“YSS looks forward to studying the details of what the agency is promoting and then submitting suggestions that may help avoid controversy and produce a final plan that has broad support,” Buckley said.  “Clearly there is a strong need for reforestation and a wide range of other restoration treatments in damaged portions of the burn area.”

The proposed reforestation plan includes possible usage of the herbicide glyphosate, Dempsey said.  Glyphosate is similar to a commercial herbicide sold at hardware stores.

“It does mention glyphosate, to help keep back competitive brush in replant areas, to allow tree seedlings to compete with the brush,” Dempsey said.  “It’s really similar to Roundup, which a lot of folks use in their backyards.  Forest Service and federal Fish and Wildlife scientists are looking at potential impacts from glyphosate.”

The Rim Fire Reforestation proposal and related documents can be found online at www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=45612.The proposal includes “reforestation, plantation thinning, wildlife habitat enhancement and noxious weed treatments on National forest System lands within the footprint of the Rim Fire,” Stanislaus national Forest officials said.

Forest Supervisor Jeanne Higgins urges people to review the proposal and share thoughts in writing.

“Written comments on the proposal are encouraged,” Higgins said.  “Knowing your thoughts, concerns and issues early on in the process is important to us.  To formally have your voice heard, it is necessary to send in your written comments during the open comment period.  Please include supporting reasons for your suggestions to help us better understand your perspective.”

Written comments can be submitted to:  Stanislaus national Forest, Attn:  Rim Reforestation, 1977 Greenley Road, Sonora, CA 95370.  Comments can be submitted by fax at 533-1890.  Comments can also be emailed with “Rim Reforestation” in the subject line to:  comments-pacificsouthwest-stanislaus@fs.fed.us.

Names of commenters will become part of the public record, according to the Forest Service.  For more information, contact Rim Reforestation Team Leader Maria Benech at 532-3671, ext. 463.

 

 

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John Buckley: When it comes to natural resource issues, give peace a chance

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

Letter to the Editor submitted to The Modesto Bee published 02/27/2015

Despite far below average snow in the mountains, many residents of the Central Valley may not fully grasp that California continues to be in the midst of a prolonged drought. But unless significant snowfall comes over the next two months, agriculture and other major water users will continue to face restricted water availability and citizens will be directed to make extra efforts to conserve water. The challenge is real and severe.

In the midst of the prolonged drought, it can be easy for one interest group or another to rip into those who represent competing demands or to castigate those with differing political priorities. As one example, a recent community column in The Bee featured strident views by a West Side grower (“State’s water troubles man-made,” Feb. 22, Page D1) who condemned Pope Francis, churches and schools for encouraging people to care about the environment when, from his perspective, it is business and agriculture that really matter. He lambasted environmentalists as earth worshippers and pagans.

Congress provides another embarrassing example of such polarizing outbursts that further divide politicians and their constituencies instead of bringing legislators and competing interests together to resolve common challenges.

In direct contrast to such high-profile polarization, there are current examples of diverse interests putting aside differences to actually cooperate to solve problems. In the Stanislaus National Forest, one forest landscape collaborative process with a broad range of interests has already gained approval for millions of dollars in extra funds to apply to logging for thinning, prescribed burns, road reconstruction and other needed forest treatments in the Mokelumne River watershed.

A second collaborative with even more diverse participation is the Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions group. With timber industry, environmental, business, agency, tribal, ranching and recreation interests all collaborating, YSS has already gained major grants and is making progress in gaining millions of additional dollars to be directly applied to restoring the Rim fire landscape and reducing watershed damage.

Along with these two efforts, a third collaborative group has focused more narrowly on water and watershed issues across the upper watersheds of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers. Environmentalists, local politicians, tribal representatives, water agencies and other interests have met monthly for more than seven years to focus on areas where we can find consensus – not where we disagree. As a result of showing respect for opposing views and working to find agreement, the Tuolumne-Stanislaus Integrated Regional Water Management group has successfully gained millions of dollars in state bond funds to benefit water districts and watershed management in the local region.

As is often evident on certain news stations, at political meetings or in columns, it can be easy to take potshots at those with different views or those who hold different priorities. But when the goal is to identify common interests and find ways to achieve them, opponents aren’t seen as the enemy but as potential partners.

As a longtime environmental leader dealing with a wide range of controversial issues across this vast region, it is my experience that respectful strategies and sensitivity to opposing views gain far more in the long run than denigrating opponents as evils to be overcome.

Congress in particular might want to give it a try. John Buckley is executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center of Twain Harte

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County vies for Rim Fire recovery funding

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

Excerpt from the article by Guy McCarthy

The county has been chosen as California’s sole candidate in a nationwide disaster resilience competition.  Tuolumne County’s final application, with backing from Gov. Jerry Brown, could win a badly needed cash infusion to improve forest management, promote healthier watersheds and prevent more giant forest fires in the Mother Lode. Competition organizers intend to promote risk assessment and planning, and they hope to fund “innovative resilience projects” to better prepare communities for future extreme events.

“Here in Tuolumne County, we are most assuredly fully eligible due to the magnitude of the Rim Fire and its economic consequences,” said John Buckley of the central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte.  “The completion, however, will judge whether the application put together by state staff and county interests ends up being compelling and convincing. “

Member of the county’s water policy advisory committee discussed the potential to bring additional millions in funding to Rim Fire recovery efforts on Thursday, and people with the Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions group met Friday to talk strategy.

For the complete article see the Union Democrat, January 26, 2015 Edition

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Timber insiders debate harvesting

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest, YSS News

Excerpt from article by Guy McCarthy, The Union Democrat

“In Region 5 – California – we grow in excess of 4.3 billion board feet a year but we only harvest 300 million board feet a year,” said Hanvelt citing timber industry statistics. ”That means’ we’re putting 4 billion board feet into the forests each year. It’s fuel we’re putting into the forests, and we’re burning the state down.”

Either much of the extra growth will burn, or there are opportunities to take some of the extra growth out as saw logs or biomass so there’s less fuel for wildfires, John Buckley of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource said.

Forest Service scientists, Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions member groups, and elected officials agree there needs to be more low intensity prescribed burning as well as thinning and biomass, Buckley said. ”But today it’s not just the need to do logging, it’s the need for all interests to promote the broad range of treatments that combined will actually make a huge difference.”

So industry needs to support prescribed burning as well as biomass removal and other fuel reduction treatments such as mastication and shredding even though they might even though they might not generate profits,” Buckley said. ‘And conservation groups and business interests need to support all treatments including biomass and thinning, because in the big picture by doing all these treatments in a proactive way we’re less likely to have another Rim Fire.”

Sonora-based Yosemite Stanislaus solutions is billed as a group of diverse stakeholders working together to help federal land managers strive for healthy forests and watershed, in the Rim Fire burn scar and other areas in need of rehabilitation.

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Success Happens One Seedling at a Time

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest

USDA-Forest Service

Regrowing a forest, following a wildland fire, starts in the most unusual fashion.  Tree climbers trained in cone collection scale tall trees throughout National Forest Lands and collect pine cones ripe with seed.  Bushels of the cones are then sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture nursery in Placerville where they are processed, from kiln drying the cones, to shaking out the forest debris, to x-raying the seeds in order to check for viability.  Boxes of seed are held in cold storage at zero degrees for up to ten years, mimicking winter conditions on the Forest.  When needed, these seeds are then germinated and grown into sapling sized trees that are used to reforest areas that have been impacted by fire.

Last year, the nursery grew 3.2 million seedlings for just that purpose.    By 2017, the Stanislaus National Forest will be the recipient of many of these nursery trees which will be used to reforest a portion of the land burned by the Rim Fire.  Time is needed to get the saplings tall and hardy enough to survive the competitive environment of our wild lands.

Successful reforestation is already in the mix and it starts with the nursery staff that carefully tends thousands of small trees knowing that in their hands lies our next forest.

“Getting trees back on the ground is an important part of the recovery process,” said Marty Gmelin, Forest sivilculturist.  “Trees help to stabilize the landscape by lessening erosion.  That equates to better drinking water downstream.”

For many Mother Lode residents, hope comes in the color green.   Forest personnel and a dedicated community are bringing that dream to reality, but it takes time and planning.  This winter, an open house will occur allowing interested stakeholders an opportunity to offer valuable feedback on the reforestation plan that is currently under development.  In the meantime, our future forest is placed in the capable hands of the nursery staff that is busy sorting, planting and watering our seeds.

Removing the fire-killed trees was a necessary step in preparing the ground for tree planting.  Since May, one million board feet of salvageable wood has been logged on the Forest each day.  That equals about 200 truckloads of burned trees leaving the Forest daily since operations began.  Site preparation needs to occur before seedlings can be put in the ground.  Removing dead wood, that can fuel intense fires later, helps to ensure the survival of the newly planted saplings.

“Regrowing our nation’s forests following wildfires like the Rim Fire is truly one of the greatest joys of my job,” says Sara Wilson, Forestry Technician, who works at the Placerville nursery.  “At the nursery, success happens one seedling at a time.”

For more information, go to: http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/stanislaus/home/?cid=stelprd3821706

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Ideas sought on forest replant

YSS in the Press and Stories of Interest

Excerpt of article by John Holland, Modesto Bee, December 6, 2014

Now it’s time to plan for the Rim reforestation. The national forest is hosting a Dec. 16 open house in Sonora to hear ideas from the public. Even in the national forest, most of the Rim fire acreage will not be replanted. Some of it burned lightly or moderately, leaving enough trees to provide natural seeding via cone drop. Some of it is non-conifer forest along streams, which grows back especially fast.

Reforestation is not without controversy, notably over spraying of herbicides on vegetation that competes with the young pines, firs and cedars. But it’s possible that many environmentalists will agree with the timber industry on the general need for replanting, just as they have with the salvage logging approved for some of the fire area.

Planting, would not start until spring 2017 at the earliest because of the need to order seedlings of the right type and amount from the U.S. Forest Service nursery in Placerville. The trees will be carefully grown to ensure they are genetically suited to each site’s elevation, soil and other factors.

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