Crisis on our National Forests: Reducing the Threat of Catastrophic Wildfire [San Bernardino Fires]

The Congressional Record ^ | August 25, 2003 | DR. THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN

[Carry_Okie]

Are the Sierra Club Policy being used?

Yes. It has infected the Forest Service bigtime, especially through the ASFEEE. The "let it burn" ethic played a big role in the Yellowstone disaster, producing a tentative and bureaucratic fire infrastructure. It also produced the Los Alamos disaster. Then there was the Lewiston Fire where they did a controlled burn in July and blew out 400 homes. Condsider how the agencies made a mess of the Winter Fire.

[Carry_Okie]

I don't know if I flagged you to this thread. It's got a lot of good stuff on it.

[Mamzelle]

re: Our national forests are growing older and thicker, some reaching astronomical densities of 2,000 trees per acre where 40-50 trees per acre would be natural. )))

What a meaningless and absurd statement!! What does he mean by "tree"--a seedling, sapling, or a mature 40-yr-old? A section with 2000 trees may well be the first growth after clear-cutting.

Another acadolt.

What's dangerous now is the litter left over from the pinebark beetle catastrophe. Masses of fuel lying around the forest floor--that's what needs to be moved/destroyed.

[Carry_Okie]

What a meaningless and absurd statement!! What does he mean by "tree"--a seedling, sapling, or a mature 40-yr-old? A section with 2000 trees may well be the first growth after clear-cutting.

This is congressional testimony, not an academic presentation. If you want to read Dr. Bonnicksen's book, it is a well regarded work of scholarship.

A section with 2000 trees may well be the first growth after clear-cutting.

That's unlikely, even if it had been planted.

What's dangerous now is the litter left over from the pinebark beetle catastrophe. Masses of fuel lying around the forest floor--that's what needs to be moved/destroyed.

The beetle infestation is largely due to stand density. Water competition reduces sap flow that resists beetles. You can even see it in Yosemite.

The hidden variable here is carbon dioxide. NONE of the academics have acknowledged that higher levels of CO2 increase the survival rate of seedlings. Growth has been stimulated by as much as 65%. I have tried to get Chad Oliver at Yale to model it, but it is an interdisciplinary problem lacking a control or background data.

[Gritty]

Interesting article.

We know how we got into this fix: forest management stalled because environmental activists, government officials, and politicians engaged in endless debates on how to look after our forests. Central to the debate is that environmentalists want thick forests. They lobbied for years to convert forests to old growth, which they define as dense, multi-layered, and filled with dead trees and logs.

BTTT

[Carry_Okie]

Allow me to address the stocking density of an old growth forest directly (which is what Dr. Bonnicksen was discussing). Assuming a mature tree has approximately 15 foot long branches, one can get seven of them along the edge of an acre and have 100% closed canopy (branch tips touching.) Assuming a hexagonal close packing density, the number per acre would be 7 x 7 / sin60° or 56 trees per acre.

You won't find trees spaced that closely in an old growth forest. If you go to, say, Redwood National Park, you'll find considerably fewer trees than that. An average density in the Hoh River Valley of Olympic National Park, which gets 140 inches of rain per year, is between 20 and 35 trees per acre.

What we have is 2,000 trees per acre, the bulk of them are interlaced, cruddy, half-dead saplings. You can't even walk through a forest like that. That's what the environmentalists have produced, even in some National Parks. Yosemite Valley is exactly such a disaster.

I'm pinging forester because stand density is his profession, and perhaps he'll confirm the numbers.

[Mamzelle]

re: A section with 2000 trees may well be the first growth after clear-cutting. That's unlikely, even if it had been planted. )))

So, it would be second-growth, third? what, then, to account for 2000 trees/acre...? I have around me, in four national and state forests, just such a density and it amounts to 5-10 yr saplings competing fiercely for space and light--most will never make it. It is the early pines and poplars growing after crude "non-realtor's" clearcutting--They arrive immediately after the blackberries. I get as upset as anyone at crude logging techniques, mostly because of the longterm damage to soil and waterways, but at least it creates some space for the firetrucks to get in.

What I fear is the standing turpentine debris of the wasted pines that linger in huge rotting piles, not the density of the new growth. I wish on a rainy day we could have a few national bonfires to dispose of the fuel. The saplings will crowd themselves out soon enough, as can be seen in the 20-yr forests.

I thought after our long drought that we were in for some ghastly fires, but the rains finally came. The growth in this past year has been amazing. The mountain laurel this past spring was the best I'd seen in a decade--they are such drinkers and so picky, it's a good sign when they're happy.

And I've never understood about the positive habitat assertions of low density. Critters and birds are crazy for the undergrowth. The oldest forest parks, like at Winterthur, are quiet of life.

[Mamzelle]

The beetle problem in my neck of the woods had to do with the combination of too many trees planted too close together (so they'd grow nice and straight), of the same species (crop)--and the terrible five years of drought. Up until the drought, it worked and was profitable. No water, no sap--bugs, damage and dead logs on the forest floor.

I don't like much the enviros, but this was also a problem of crop management. Now, I'd like to see these timber managers burn their trash before it gets burned for them by accident. I clear and thin my own woods, and have the contact dermititis to show for it.

I veer from soft thinking to hard thinking about all this. I want to weep over clearcutting, but then I get impatient with many who sentimentalize timber to its own detriment. The average tree does not have a long life--only lucky and very strong trees live a long life. Then that long-lived tree becomes a "wolf tree"--putting out toxins to create that lovely empty, deathly silent cathedral...

People tend to assume that a forest will become old growth if you leave it alone--not so. From generations in hills I know that a stand of timber, untouched and untaken, will most likely become diseased and worthless. Either you take your timber and bank your money, or watch it rot. We love trees, and we use them.

Every owner of timber, watching the first inklings of disease, anguishes over this decision. It's not an easy one to come by.

[Carry_Okie]

And I've never understood about the positive habitat assertions of low density. Critters and birds are crazy for the undergrowth. The oldest forest parks, like at Winterthur, are quiet of life.

You need a mix. The owls and hawks need open flight paths. The groundcovers need light and can't survive a heavy needle drop. A few thickets in open areas serve as breeding places for critters, and then there are meadows that have the largest variety of creatures and plants while providing a place to hide out during a fire.

Complexity is where it's at.

[Carry_Okie]

Yes, managing a forest is all about dealing with competing risks and uncertain outcomes. That's why having a range of forest types and management philosophies is probably preferable to whatever any one person thinks is "best."

Still, it helps if they are accountable for damage they might do to somebody else, talk to each other, and compare notes. The system doesn't do that very well. I'm working on fixing that.

[Mamzelle]

Ah, but you didn't explain the habitat advantages of old-growth. There's a reason for that awe-inspiring hush.

Everybody loves a tree-church for the spriritual beauty. The more practical advantages are not as apparent.

[Carry_Okie]

Ah, but you didn't explain the habitat advantages of old-growth. There's a reason for that awe-inspiring hush.

That's because, IMHO, old growth is over-rated. I'm working for just overall health with a few big trees that won't get "old" for another 500 years. Weeds are the big challenge here. I have some big redwoods, pushing 220 feet tall and five feet at chest height, but to me, they're just part of a forest that has many constituents, some of which have subtle and spectacular beauty if you only look closely enough. Did you see the photographs I put up in posts 20 & 23?

[KC_for_Freedom]

One thing I have not seen in this discussion is that the Sierra Club, having aligned with other liberal activists does not want to spend to manage wild lands for political reasons as well. It frees up money for social causes that have nothing to do with the environment.

I used to be a member and watched this organization slowly go to the corrupt left. I would take "Natural Processes" over the left's environmentalism anyday. Keep up the good work.

[Mamzelle]

Low density would imply old growth--but maybe not. I do think that interspercing cow pastures among younger woodlands and wood crops would be excellent--but you'd hit up against the wilderness crowd.

I have an interest myself in what I guess would be called "old undergrowth"? That is, thickets of laurel and dendron of significant age which cluster around riverbanks and creeks. We all have our favorites.

[yoswif]

I think any scheme to reduce federally owned land to private ownership will require some sort of broad based local support. Broad representation at the local government level and substantial decision making power at the local government level will be essential for establishing a private ownership scheme on what is now federal forest land. Getting to private ownership quickly in order to rescue poorly managed forests should inspire the creation of broad based county boards to decide boundaries of prospective private tracts, ownership qualifications, and how emissions of air borne pollutants and quality of water leaving a privately owned tract would be regulated. It would also seem essential to have some sort of broad based local government body to determine how and by what means privately owned forest land is accessed by public transportation. I don't know about any other county but for the county I live in, a 21 member board, 11 from districts and 10 at large, would be an appropriate level of representation for a population of about 12,000. I'd limit any regulatory scheme to one page single space in whatever type size is common for county government.

Local residents need to have access to civil courts to challenge whether smoke emissions from privately owned forest land is avoidable through good forest management policies. Same with with water temperature, oxygen, and silt levels.

Private property owners should own improvements in temperature, oxygen, and silt levels in water leaving their private tracts. Private property owners should own improvements in recreation opportunities. I would like to see a scheme where improvements in recreation opportunities and improvements in temperature, oxygen, and silt levels could be bid on as mature trees would be.

[Carry_Okie]

I like to take a simpler and more incremental approach to carving up Federal lands. The split estate model is to me the most appealing, where local practitioners would identify an operation that they think they can do more efficiently than government can on a contract or leasehold basis. It would slowly evolve into a system of overlays. Market consolidations and Federal auctions would then complete the process.

I would rather see privatization attack endangered species management, weed management, fisheries, grazing, forestry... I don't think we're ready to deal with the airborne pollutant market yet because we don't have a good handle on the function of mitigating and naturally generating processes, although I do propose a silt market in the book as an example of what might be done. I don't try to spend much time telling people what the goals or transactable media should be, simply because I think that local entrepreneurs need to think that through and apply their own intelligence to that problem. The instrumentation and modeling capacity on the necessary resolution doesn't exist. Most of that stuff is top down design and IMHO will never get there.

As far as a market based management system design under which to accomplish those goals is concerned, there is one. I'm the author.

[yoswif]

Anyone who has lived in Idaho County, Idaho, worked in the forest products industry, and enjoyed the rare recreational opportunities this county has to offer for most of their lives would have trouble finding anything that the federal government does managing federal forests in Idaho County, Idaho, that couldn't be done better by individual residents or local businesses. Anything the U.S. Forest Service does is going to cost the taxpayers so much to accomplish so little, most of the country will resent county residents.

In order to provide economies of scale and proper thoroughness of cleanup efforts, large tracts need to be logged so removal of wood fiber that could serve no other purpose than fueling boilers can be made practical. A typical restoration effort in Idaho County should cover about 20 sq. miles, be done by helicopters where terrain prohibits use of processors, remove usable fuel and fiber, leave 40 to 50 sturdy young trees per acre, and use cheap temporary haul roads built for ease of removal. I think economies of scale can best be achieved if qualified forest managers were to operate large tracts around 60 sq. miles in size in a manner similar to family farms. This would break the 1.1 million acres of Nez Perce National Forest land in Idaho County outside designated wildnerness areas into about 30 privately managed tracts. Early returns on thinning operations can be used to hire rehab crews for areas previously damaged by fire or poor logging practices.

I would like to see federal courts recognize the rights of local residents to claim that the smoke coming from federally managed forest land be considered pollution and the county government should be able to regulate potential sources of ozone destroying wood smoke if the federal government is not going to act. If the federal government refuses to make these cleanup efforts practical, thorough, and efficient through economies of scale, our local government should be able to require such policies to assure the job is done right and without unneccessary burden on our fellow Americans. I would hope that the federal courts would see the wisdom of managing the source of ozone destroying wood smoke and the neccessity of economies of scale for a thorough cleanup. I would hope that federal judges would require those who oppose policies we think would produce an efficient, thorough cleanup should be required to file environmental impact statements showing the impact burning these forests would have on our eyes, throats, and lungs.

[Carry_Okie]

In order to provide economies of scale and proper thoroughness of cleanup efforts, large tracts need to be logged so removal of wood fiber that could serve no other purpose than fueling boilers can be made practical.

There are now portable boilers and generating equipment that are pretty clean so I don't know whether your minimum economies of scale apply elsewhere, especially where the uses can interlace with others. Forester has run the numbers on this type of power generation in Siskiyou County, CA. Maybe you two should talk.

I would like to see federal courts recognize the rights of local residents to claim that the smoke coming from federally managed forest land be considered pollution and the county government should be able to regulate potential sources of ozone destroying wood smoke if the federal government is not going to act.

Well, certainly we should compare the pollution from controlled burns to catastrophic fires. We should also note that the outgassing of terpenes from the trees does produce ozone. Then there are the mold spores from rotting wood that do act as allergens and potential causes of asthma.

Complex isn't it? Sounds like it needs management, doesn't it? If they're botching it who should do it? Do you have proof you can do a better job? Do you have standing by which to bring such an action?

Maybe you should read my book.

I would hope that the federal courts would see the wisdom of managing the source of ozone destroying wood smoke and the neccessity of economies of scale for a thorough cleanup. I would hope that federal judges would require those who oppose policies we think would produce an efficient, thorough cleanup should be required to file environmental impact statements showing the impact burning these forests would have on our eyes, throats, and lungs.

You can't do it if you don't have that proof, the standing, and the infrastructure. The system I propose builds all three.

[forester]

I think economies of scale can best be achieved if qualified forest managers were to operate large tracts around 60 sq. miles in size in a manner similar to family farms. This would break the 1.1 million acres of Nez Perce National Forest land in Idaho County outside designated wildnerness areas into about 30 privately managed tracts. Early returns on thinning operations can be used to hire rehab crews for areas previously damaged by fire or poor logging practices.

Sorry for my delay in answering, I have been camped out at the work site lately. I like yoswif's concept of busting the local NF into privately managed tracts. Personally, I would make them smaller so that families could operate them....maybe 7 to 10 square miles. I would not like to see bureacratic mismanagement replaced by corporate mismanagement...I like mom and pop operations.

[Carry_Okie]

I like mom and pop operations.

Me too, with the proviso that they have some technical education.