Photos Reveal Changes in Sierra [Carry_Okie was right!]

Los Angeles Times ^ | December 27, 2001 | BETTINA BOXALL, TIMES STAFF WRITER

[snopercod]

CARSON CITY, Nev. -- A drive into the Sierra Nevada can seem like a retreat from time, a return to landscapes unmolested by the 20th century...blahblahblah...

The 74-year-old retired federal wildlife biologist hiked, bushwhacked and occasionally helicoptered his way to dozens of mountain spots recorded in photographs taken in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He hunted for the same peaks and boulders, the same vantage points. And when he found them, he took another photo. In a just-published book, Gruell matches the new and old images, showing how much the landscapes have changed. In scene after scene, the contemporary photographs document dense forest and lush growth. Their historical twins show leaner country in which the trees were fewer, the ground more open, the meadows more abundant....

[snopercod]

Find out more about Carry_Okie's prescient book, Natural Process

[snopercod]

You da' MAN!

[RedBloodedAmerican]

The treehuggers plans have backfired because they want to play God.

Although the majority of their efforts was only to lobby in order to line thier pockets. What a surprise!!

[rockfish59]

doesn't du pont have any agent orange laying around?
they could also make a pass over berkeley and san fran.
(i'm so mean)

[Carry_Okie]

Fire needs to be brought back, Gruell argues, to return the Sierra to what it was.

While this may be true, just lighting these forests on fire would be an unmitigated disaster. They need mechanical thinning first and weed management thereafter.

Who will do it and how will it be paid for? Who has reason to care for their land? The government? The more they screw up the bigger their budget gets!

The Sierra Nevada are a socialized commons. We all use the forest without considering the cost BECAUSE it is "free." The solutions are found in privatizing forest management for all the goods it provides and charging customers what the products are worth in a competitive market.

How do we do that honestly?

That is one reason why I wrote the book. It is better to identify the mechanics by which we have reason to continuously learn to do a better job than to impose a set of rules by fiat. We need a competitive system that develops different approaches for unique combinations of circumstances. I hope that I have nudged things in that direction.

[randog]

...just lighting these forests on fire would be an unmitigated disaster.

Agreed. This last summer was one of the toughest the Sierras have seen due to wildfires. Drive west on I-80 from Reno and you can see the complete devastation the Martis fire caused. There were a couple of mornings in Reno where you woke up and couldn't see the end of your street due to the thick smoke.

[SolitaryMan]

Sounds like we need much more logging. Have Chainsaw, will travel.

[muawiyah]

Maybe it's just me, but this guy fairly resembles a young Steve Martin - sans arrow!

[alloysteel]

The Tahoe Basin was seriously denuded of most of its tree growth in the period from the mid-1850's, when gold and silver were discovered on the Comstock at Virginia City, and about the 1890's. Carson City was a major logging and milling center, as the forests from the Tahoe Basin were converted into mine timbers for the Comstock. The logs were shot down on water flumes constructed on the east face of the Spooner Summit, and a huge sawmill operation stood about where the Wal-Mart now stands along South Carson street. Major slash fires cleared out much of the wood that had not been harvested, yet, left to its own devices, most of the growth around the lake was restored by the early part of the 20th Century. But then the forest biologists made a crucial policy mistake. Rather than maintaining a steady-sustainable harvest, the decision was made to stop ALL harvest, which leads to the uncontrollable burns that break out on dead and diseased understory today. They have their "Primeval" stands, they also have poorly managed forestlands, and surprisingly, a growing pollution problem in the lake itself. The dead and decomposing organic matter from the unharvested trees is raising the nitrate and turbidity levels of the lake, as it leaches off the hillsides. There is a very good and extremely efficient sewage collection system in the Tahoe Basin (or so the propaganda machine of Tahoe Area Residential Property Association would have you believe), so they cannot POSSIBLY be the polluters of the lake. But the pollution is coming from somewhere. If they are so good and efficient with the sewage waste stream, then it has to be coming from the decomposing dead vegetation.

[KneelBeforeZod]

Carry Okie is a libertarian???? that book review compares him to THE libertarian...

Plenny o' fire damage still visible along Hwy 50...in California. But then California which also allows mt lion hunting is BAD

[Carry_Okie]

BTW, if these people think that they are going to get a meadow simply by burning after an such an unprecedented term of fire-suppression they are probably mistaken. Coniferous species have succeeded in these former meadows. Their rotting needles and bark have been attacking the seed bank of meadow species. The trees have dumped an awful lot of seed. Coniferous species respond vigorously to fire. What they will probably get is a brief meadow followed shortly by an even denser forest. Burning again too soon would preclude the meadow species (particularly bushes) from spreading and maturing. I don't know how it would be done without intensive management by people VERY familiar with the local conditions, propagation mechanics of indigenous species, and the tools and experience to do the work.

A range of techniques should probably be developed and (for once) lawyers and politics must not be allowed to intrude into the development of technical methods (or you can bet on a disaster). There should be ample rewards for those who develop efficient techniques. Heck, some might be profitable!

Doesn't sound like the government, does it?

[RippleFire]

BUMP

[serinde]

... left to its own devices ...

Reminds me of a special I saw about Mt. St. Helens several years after the eruption. The areas "left to their own devices" had recovered quite nicely, but those that humans had "helped along" showed many problems and much less recovery.

It's nice to see this type of evidence and proof documented. Thanks.

[Demidog]

What do you think of the Auther who wrote "The Tragedy of the Commons" and "Living within Means?" I forget his name now.

[alloysteel]

If the restoration of a meadow is the objective, the soil must be seeded with the desired vegetation, and some aggressive management treatment carried out for several years after, such as mowing or even highly selective herbicides, both anathema to the tree-hugger types. Once the low meadow is established, and a grazing population is using it regularly, the meadow maintains for a much longer time.

[Looking for Diogenes]

BTW, if these people think that they are going to get a meadow simply by burning after an such an unprecedented term of fire-suppression they are probably mistaken. Coniferous species have succeeded in these former meadows. Their rotting needles and bark have been attacking the seed bank of meadow species. The trees have dumped an awful lot of seed.

It isn't mentioned in this article, but I recall that the orthodoxy on the spread of forests in the Sierra Nevada said that it was the overgrazing of sheep which destroyed the meadows, allowing more trees to take hold. It does not bear on the remediation, but I'm curious that Gruell doesn't mention the theory.

[Carry_Okie]

Which of course assumes that a "clean" lake is "natural."

Nutrient levels in the lake probably go in cycles with forest maturity. During the period a few decades after the Comstock (once the miners had left and the mud and ashes had settled), the average vegetation was probably relatively young and the lake unusually clear. Now we see a nitrate release because the forest can't consume it as fast by growth as the fungi produce it feeding on dead vegetation. In the Tahoe basin I am more concerned about the condition of the forest than whether or not tourists want a lake that is clear.

[flamefront]

Yet another tremendous argument against the eco-wackos as powerful as faking their lynx hair discoveries.

[Carry_Okie]

Garret Hardin? LOL! As for what I think, you could read the first Chapter!