[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RESTORING FORESTS AFTER CATASTROPHIC EVENTS
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND
FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
Thursday, July 15, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-103
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
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_________
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COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
RICHARD W. POMBO, California, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia, Ranking Democrat Member
Don Young, Alaska Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, Louisiana Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American
Jim Saxton, New Jersey Samoa
Elton Gallegly, California Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas
Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Ken Calvert, California Calvin M. Dooley, California
Scott McInnis, Colorado Donna M. Christensen, Virgin
Barbara Cubin, Wyoming Islands
George Radanovich, California Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North Jay Inslee, Washington
Carolina Grace F. Napolitano, California
Chris Cannon, Utah Tom Udall, New Mexico
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Mark Udall, Colorado
Jim Gibbons, Nevada, Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Vice Chairman Brad Carson, Oklahoma
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Greg Walden, Oregon Dennis A. Cardoza, California
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Stephanie Herseth, South Dakota
Tom Osborne, Nebraska George Miller, California
Jeff Flake, Arizona Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Rick Renzi, Arizona Ciro D. Rodriguez, Texas
Tom Cole, Oklahoma Joe Baca, California
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico
Rob Bishop, Utah
Devin Nunes, California
Randy Neugebauer, Texas
Steven J. Ding, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel
James H. Zoia, Democrat Staff Director
Jeffrey P. Petrich, Democrat Chief Counsel
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
GREG WALDEN, Oregon, Chairman
JAY INSLEE, Washington, Ranking Democrat Member
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Scott McInnis, Colorado Tom Udall, New Mexico
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North Mark Udall, Colorado
Carolina Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Brad Carson, Oklahoma
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Stephanie Herseth, South Dakota
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona VACANCY
Jeff Flake, Arizona VACANCY
Rick Renzi, Arizona Nick J. Rahall II, West Virginia,
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico ex officio
Richard W. Pombo, California, ex
officio
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on Thursday, July 15, 2004.......................... 1
Statement of Members:
Inslee, Hon. Jay, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Washington.............................................. 3
Kildee, Hon. Dale, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan.......................................... 3
Walden, Hon. Greg, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon............................................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Statement of Witnesses:
Barry, Hamlet J., III, Director, Denver Water Board.......... 39
Prepared statement of.................................... 41
Bartuska, Dr. Ann, Deputy Chief for Research and Development,
Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture............. 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
Hartzell, Cate, Ashland City Councilor, City of Ashland,
Oregon..................................................... 50
Prepared statement of.................................... 53
Sessions, John, University Distinguished Professor and
Stewart Professor of Forest Engineering, College of
Forestry, Oregon State University.......................... 34
Prepared statement of.................................... 35
Shepard, Ed, Assistant Director, Renewable Resources and
Planning, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the
Interior................................................... 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 14
Thomas, Steven R., Assistant State Forester, Oregon
Department of Forestry..................................... 29
Prepared statement of.................................... 32
Additional materials supplied:
The Forest Guild, Statement submitted for the record by Laura
McCarthy................................................... 63
Franklin, Dr. Jerry F., Professor of Ecosystem Studies,
College of Forest Resources, University of Washington,
Seattle, Washington, Statement submitted for the record.... 21
Jaegel, Anton R., Supervisor Elect, Trinity County,
California, Letter submitted for the record................ 64
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON RESTORING FORESTS AFTER CATASTROPHIC EVENTS
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Thursday, July 15, 2004
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health
Committee on Resources
Washington, D.C.
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The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:01 a.m., in
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Greg Walden,
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Walden, Renzi, Inslee, Kildee and
Herseth.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. The Subcommittee will come to order. The
Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on restoring
forests after catastrophic events. Under Committee Rule 4(g)
the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member can make opening
statements. If any other members have statements, they can be
included in the hearing record under unanimous consent.
As long as there have been forests, there have been natural
events that have impacted them: wind storms, ice storms,
tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and of course, fire. In fact,
most of the forests we are familiar with today have been
influenced or created by these disturbance events, such as the
fire-dependent forests that Native Americans helped to
establish by regularly setting fires to reduce brush and create
habitat for game. So these are not new phenomena or necessarily
bad ones. When these events, however, are extraordinarily large
or disruptive, they can do enormous and I believe long-lasting
damage to wildlife habitat, water and air quality, and to
communities. Particularly, as of late, we have seen this in the
aftermath of catastrophic fire, and especially in the West.
Since 2000, more than 23.7 million acres have burned as a
result of wildfire. This includes huge mega-fires such as the
B&B fire last year in Central Oregon, that burned over 90,000
acres, half of it in Northern spotted owl habitat. In 2002, in
Southern Oregon, the Biscuit fire burned nearly half a million
acres and demolished 80,000 acres of owl habitat.
In 2002, the Hayman fire, much of it in Mr. Tancredo's
district in Colorado, not only threatened homes and
communities, but devastated much of the critical watershed for
the City of Denver. The largest fire in that state's history,
it dumped colossal loads of mud and soot into Denver's largest
supply of drinking water, costing the taxpayers millions.
Recognizing that 190 million acres of Federal lands are at
a high risk of catastrophic fire, it goes without saying that
these large fires are going to be a part of our lives for
years, if not decades, to come. The primary question then that
this hearing will address today is what can be done to
rehabilitate and reforest these lands after catastrophic
events, including fires, in order to restore habitat and
stabilize soils, and protect watersheds and communities. We
will focus primarily on case studies and what we have learned
from the trials and errors of past experiences, such as the
clean-up after the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in 1982, the
post-fire restoration after the Volcano Fire in Northern
California in 1960, or the salvage and reforestation efforts in
the forties and fifties after the Tillamook burns.
Although the science may not be complete, there is much we
do know, and history can help instruct us as we face future
catastrophic events and our attempts to apply our best
knowledge to rebuild forests.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Oregon
As long as there have been forests, there have been natural events
that have impacted them; windstorms, ice storms, tornados, hurricanes,
volcanoes and, of course, fire. In fact, most of the forests we're
familiar with today have been influenced or created by these
disturbance events, such as the fire-dependant forests that Native
Americans helped to establish by regularly setting fires to reduce
brush and create habitat for game. So these are not new phenomena or
necessarily bad ones. When these events, however, are extraordinarily
large or disruptive they can do enormous and long-lasting damage to
wildlife habitat, water and air quality, and to communities.
Particularly, as of late, we've seen this in the aftermath of
catastrophic fire.
Since 2000, over 23.7 million acres have burned as a result of
wildfire. This includes huge mega-fires such as the B&B fire last
year--burning over 90,000 acres, half of it in Northern spotted owl
habitat. In 2002, also in my district, the Biscuit fire burned nearly
half a million acres and demolished 80,000 acres of owl habitat.
In 2002, the Hayman fire, much of it in Mr. Tancredo's district,
not only threatened homes and communities, but devastated much of the
critical watershed for the City of Denver. The largest fire in state
history, it dumped colossal loads of mud and soot into Denver's largest
supply of drinking water, costing the taxpayers millions.
Recognizing that 190 million acres of federal lands are at a high
risk of catastrophic fire, it goes without saying that these large
fires are going to be a part of our lives for years, if not decades, to
come. The primary question, then, that this hearing will address today
is what can be done to rehabilitate and reforest these lands after
catastrophic events in order to restore habitat and stabilize soils. We
will focus primarily on case studies and what we've learned from the
trials and errors of past experiences, such as the clean-up after the
eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in 1982, the post-fire restoration after
the Volcano Fire in Northern California in 1960, or the salvage and
reforestation efforts in the forties and fifties after the Tillamook
burns.
Although the science may not be complete, there is much we do know,
and history can help instruct us as we face future catastrophic events
and our attempts to apply our best knowledge to rebuild forests.
To begin today's hearing, I'd like to show a ten minute video
submitted by Communities for Healthy Forests, that I believe is
indicative of the sentiments and hopes of local forest communities all
over the country. Their message is not one of ``us verses them'', but
rather one that is inclusive and pro-forests. I hope you find it as
informative as I have.
______
Mr. Walden. Mr. Kildee, would you like to give an opening
statement since you are the Ranking Minority Member here?
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DALE KILDEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly to thank
you for having these hearings today and we look forward to
hearing the witnesses. The more we learn about our forests, the
better off we are able to serve, and here is the real Ranking
Member.
Mr. Walden. Jay, a statement?
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAY INSLEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mr. Inslee. I just want to thank the Chair for exploring
these issues, important issues, and I hope we can keep this
effort up.
Thank you.
Mr. Walden. You are welcome. Thank you, gentlemen.
As I said, other members' statements will be entered into
the record.
To begin today's hearing, I would like to show a 10-minute
video submitted by the Communities for Forest Health, and I
believe is indicative of the sentiments and hopes of local
forest communities all over the country. Their message is not
one of us versus them, but rather one that is inclusive and
pro-forest. So I hope you find it as informative as I have. I
thought it would be helpful. Let us go ahead and start that.
Just for the record, we do have votes coming at about
11:30. We will break and then come back, but we hope to get our
first panel in before then.
Go ahead.
[Video played.]
Mr. Walden. That obviously gives you one viewpoint which is
held by many, including, I believe, the various counties in
Southern Oregon who helped underwrite the cost of that.
I would like to introduce our witness panel now. On Panel I
we have Dr. Ann Bartuska, Deputy Chief for Research and
Development, accompanied by Steve Eubanks, Forest Supervisor,
the Tahoe National Forest, the Forest Services, USDA; and Ed
Shepard, Assistant Director, Renewable Resources and Planning,
Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior.
Dr. Bartuska, welcome. We are delighted to have you and
your panelists here.
STATEMENT OF ANN BARTUSKA, DEPUTY CHIEF FOR RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT, FOREST SERVICE; ACCOMPANIED BY STEVE EUBANKS,
FOREST SUPERVISOR, TAHOE NATIONAL FOREST, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Dr. Bartuska. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. It is an opportunity, and I appreciate the
opportunity to be here and talk about our activities associated
with restoration of forests after major events.
And as you already mentioned in your opening remarks,
clearly there are some really significant disturbance events
out there, not only wildfire. Hurricanes, ice damage, insect
and disease and invasive species, in all totality, affect
millions of acres of our forests in the United States annually.
When this occurs on national forests, we believe very strongly
that we need to address those particular events by addressing
the need for restoration, looking at both the ecological
condition and the characteristics of the landscape, but also
the economic and social factors associated with it, and time it
to the land management objectives as determine by the forest
plans. So in totality, we can take the same approach for all
those disturbances, but I would like to really focus on what we
do following wildfire and really emphasize that in today's
remarks.
When we approach restoration of forested ecosystems
following a large-scale disturbance, we usually think of three
stages, the first one being emergency stabilization, usually
completed within the first year following the event. The second
stage would be rehabilitation of key resources, especially when
they are unlikely to recover without human intervention, when,
for example, if you have had some major ecological disturbance.
Then the third stage would be longer term forest restoration
which includes reforestation and other treatments. In all three
of those stages, research findings and tools developed by
scientists provide important methods of evaluating both the
need for the work to be done, as well as evaluating the
effectiveness of the treatments, and we believe that continual
link between science and management really helps us improve
both the science and the management that we do.
Immediately after a catastrophic event, we go through
emergency stabilization treatments through the Burned Area
Emergency Response Program, usually referred to as BAER.
Through that process we have actually been very active in the
years in really highlighting where the most important work
needs to be done. Last year we treated approximately 78,000
burned acres where there was a clear demand for immediate
response.
In using the BAER program, we require that treatment
measures provide a essential and proven protection at minimum
costs in order to qualify for funding and also treat the most
important issues. For example, in many of our major severe
fires where we have soil disturbance, we know that initial
green-up may be with invasive species rather than the native
species that we prefer. So our treatments would then be
focusing on what kinds of things we can do to minimize the
impact and establishment of those invasive species that is
driven by severity of the fire, soil condition, and which
species are present. In those situations information provided
by our researchers help the managers to determine which are the
most appropriate treatments to use.
The second stage, rehabilitation, focuses on the lands
unlikely to recover from fire through natural processes. The
goal is to produce a functioning ecosystem that meets our
management objectives. Again, these activities are carried out
using the best available science so that we can maximize the
benefits and minimize the negative impacts of treatments.
Choices are made on the knowledge that we have from the science
that is produced, as well as our past management experiences,
again, an ongoing process.
Then the third stage where we have longer-term restoration
goals which we like to achieve through the application of
prescriptions designed to achieve the long-term objectives of
the land. In this situation there are two prescriptions that I
would like to talk a little bit more about. One is the removal
of trees affected by disturbance, and then those that are
designed to facilitate reforestation. For tree removal
following catastrophic disturbances, this may occur for both
ecological and economic reasons. Our prescriptions are
developed based on the science that we have and the conditions
at the particular site. Some harvest prescriptions are designed
to couple the objective of leaving large tree structures like
snags, coarse woody debris, in place while removing the other
dead and dying trees to expedite the establishment of a new
forest.
There also will be situations where removing dead and dying
trees primarily is for economic and social benefits. We
recognize that. We know that timber salvage operations can
provide jobs in the woods and to the mills in nearly
communities, and it is an important part of our analysis.
We also know that the removal of dead trees must be done
promptly if economic benefits are to be derived because
deterioration does follow so quickly after death, and you will
be hearing more about specific cases from Steve Eubanks
shortly.
The other tool for long-time restoration is reforestation.
Immediately following a disturbance event a preliminary
diagnosis is made to determine the areas that will require
reforestation treatment to restore forest cover and a detailed
prescription with a specific sequence of treatments is
developed consistent with the land management objectives.
The silvicultural prescription provides direction for how
many trees must be reestablished, the proper mix of vegetation,
and the target structure and composition for the reforested
area. Again, these prescriptions have evolved over time as a
continual discussion between our scientists and managers, and I
think we have improved our understanding and our way to focus
those prescriptions based on that knowledge.
For the idea of using logging after fire, we have put in
several studies to really evaluate what we know to date and
where we are going in the future. In a study by two of our
scientists, looking at 21 post-logging practices, the major
conclusion was that the practice of salvage logging is
controversial, and the debate is carried on, unfortunately
without full benefit of scientific information.
Because of that, we are enhancing our programs to ensure
that we try to minimize and close those gaps, reduce the
uncertainty associated with what those logging practices and
post-fire restoration work does, but not to stop work entirely,
but instead, to continually build our knowledge. As an example,
we are very excited that the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project
includes 10 research projects that will, over the long run,
give us a really solid base for what you do following a major
event like that.
We have several other comprehensive studies looking at soil
erosion and soil processes, building on both the Hayman Fire of
2002 and the Cedar Fire in 2004, again, trying to make sure we
learn from our practices.
So as we increase the knowledge by the actions of
scientists, we are also looking at the action of our manager,
and I would like to turn it over to Steve to carry on and give
you his experiences.
Mr. Walden. We are going to go ahead and take your
testimony. We can go another eight or 9 minutes here. Then we
will break, take our votes, and come back.
Mr. Eubanks. Actually, mine is going to be less than the
eight or 9 minutes, so that is good.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I too
appreciate the opportunity to be here today to share with you
the results of two case studies that we completed on the Tahoe
National Forest to look at post-fire restoration activities. We
specifically looked at two fires that occurred in the year
2001, the Gap Fire and the Red Star fire, and we wanted to take
a look particularly at the issues that we faced in planning and
implementing post-fire activities, and actually, particularly
even more focused on the impacts of delaying the implementation
of salvage and restoration activities.
I think it is important to start with a little bit of
background on the projects themselves and the areas, and
particularly, the fact that both Gap and Red Star were located
in Forest Land Management allocations that called for the
perpetuation of large old forests, the typical conifer forests
of the west side of the Sierras. Since most of the old forests
in these areas that were burned, burned catastrophically, our
focus was really on restoration, than of old forest conditions,
and getting that old forest back in the soonest time that was
practicable.
I think it is also important to note that in the case of
both the Red Star and the Gap Fires, we focused only on those
areas that had at least 75 percent of the trees that had been
killed by the fire. That was because of the constraints of the
Land Management Plan allocation that we were working under at
the time, the framework, which was an amendment to the forest
plans in the Sierras. We have got some photos that show here
what the forests typically look like where it was
catastrophically burned and at least 75 percent of the trees
were dead. Particularly, in the case of the Gap Fire we were
dealing with 737 acres of area that we actually proposed for
treatment, and 1,038 acres on the Red Star Fire.
I think many of you are aware that post-fire restoration
projects typically include in these days extensive
environmental analysis and documentation, and that is intended
to respond to what we anticipate as challenges through
administrative appeals and formal litigation. In the case of
the Gap Fire restoration, the environmental assessment was
completed and a decision was signed by June of 2002, which was
about 10 months after the fire began. The operations on that
particular fire restoration started in October 2002 after the
administrative appeal process was completed.
The decision notice for Red Star Project was approved in
November 2002, more than a year after that fire. After the
appeals were completed, work actually began on the project in
June of 2003. I think it is important to note that in contrast
most of the area in the Gap and Red Star Fire areas that burned
on private land were treated without comparable environmental
analysis or public participation, and they were actually
completed by November of 2001, which was only a couple months
after the fires.
One of the key issues--and I think you saw that in the
video--that we must deal with is merchantability of dead trees.
Normally in our area trees greater than 10 inches in size are
commercial in value. By the time, however, that we actually
started operations on the Gap Fire and the Red Star Fire,
deterioration was very significant in those smaller trees, and
their value was no longer high enough to pay for their removal.
So deterioration also was less significant only in the very
large trees, and therefore, rather than a 10-inch minimum size
of trees that could be removed, we had to increase the size to
18 inches. Then as a result of that, of course you would
recognize that many fewer trees were removed when the projects
were completed, and this in turn meant that there was less
monetary return to the treasury from the timber sales, and in
the case of Gap Fire, that equated to $1.3 million in lost
revenue, and in the case of Red Star Fire it was $4 million of
lost revenue.
I think it is important to look beyond just the economic
cost because there is an ecological cost that we also have to
consider. The Red Star and Gap Fires are within a fire regime
that experiences frequent fire return intervals, and by that I
mean, in this case, we can expect that fires will return on an
average of less than 30 to 35 years. So by delaying restoration
in these areas, the trees that were killed by the fires may
remain standing for a decade, maybe two, but they will
eventually fall to the ground and create a significant dead
fuel component, that with subsequent wildfire events could
consume any small trees that become established within these
areas.
So in summary, based on our experiences, it is clear that
through active management and some forest types, we can
accelerate by many decades the development of large tree
structure, and we can much better protect the replacement
forest that becomes established. In contrast, by letting nature
take its course for these projects, we run the risk of delaying
or not achieving these objectives.
With that, I would like to turn it back to Dr. Bartuska to
summarize our testimony.
Dr. Bartuska. Just a few last points. I think the main
message for me on this is that we are learning as we are going,
and we are also, I think, taking advantage of projects,
bringing the best available science to the managers so that
they have the tools they need, but also with the managers being
able to inform the next set of scientific questions, reducing
uncertainty in the long run. Maybe the bottom line right now is
that one size doesn't fit all, that we want to keep learning
from these, but also putting new practices into place.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bartuska follows:]
Statement of Dr. Ann Bartuska, Deputy Chief for Research and
Development, Forest Service; and Steve Eubanks, Forest Supervisor,
Tahoe National Forest, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to discuss with you the important topic of restoring
forests after catastrophic events.
Background
Catastrophic events such as wildfire, hurricanes, tornados and
other wind events, ice storms, insect infections and disease, and
invasive species impact millions of acres of forests annually across
the United States and the rest of the world. When these events occur on
National Forest System lands, the need for restoration is determined by
ecosystem characteristics, by economic, social, and ecological values
at risk, and by land management objectives as described in the
applicable Forest Plan. Forests, in the long term, are adapted to
recover from such events, although recovery may take tens to hundreds
of years and sometimes result in modifications to forest type.
Therefore, management objectives, which address all these
considerations and reflect research findings, are the critical factors
in determining the amount, type, and location of restoration
treatments. Many disturbed areas should be, and are, left to recover
naturally, but there are times when restoration or other management
activities including the commercial removal of dead and dying trees is
the appropriate and responsible thing to do.
Because wildfire is a recurring and frequent force in North
American forests, we will focus on restoration after fire. Wildfire is
one of the most complex events that impact forests.
Ecological impacts of fire vary with forest type, stand density,
fuel loading, fire intensity, slope and soil characteristics, and
weather conditions. Shrubs, stimulated to sprout or germinate after
fire, may prevent establishment or suppress growth of forest
regeneration on some dry and mid-elevation sites. Changes in species
composition and structure after fires may make these areas more
susceptible to future fire and may not meet long-term objectives for an
area for wildlife, recreation and other resources. Severe fires may
increase the susceptibility to invasion by exotic grasses and other
undesirable plant species. Steep slopes and sites with water-repellant
soils may lose surface soils to erosion, causing streams and reservoirs
to become silted. This accelerated erosion, combined with the increased
runoff typical of burned sites can cause channel erosion, loss of fish
habitat, and downstream flooding or debris flows. In these situations
management to restore or speed recovery would likely be appropriate.
Emergency Stabilization, Rehabilitation, and Restoration
Restoring forested ecosystems following a large-scale disturbance
typically involves three stages: emergency stabilization, usually
completed in the year following the event to prevent threats to life,
property, and further damage to watersheds; rehabilitation of key
resources affected by the disturbance and unlikely to recover without
human intervention; and longer-term forest restoration which includes
reforestation and other treatments needed to restore functioning
ecosystems; and that span many years. All of these stages are completed
consistent with the direction contained in individual forest plans.
Research and tools developed by scientists provide important methods of
evaluating what needs to be done and the effectiveness of emergency
stabilization, rehabilitation, and restoration.
After a catastrophic event, our first priority is public health and
safety. Our goal as land managers is to take the steps needed to
stabilize and restore the resource to meet the desired condition of the
resource using treatments that are based upon sound ecosystem
restoration science. Emergency stabilization treatments are conducted
through the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) program. Treatments
vary based on values at risk and the probability of protecting those
values. The nature of the treatment is based on severity of the fire,
the slope, soils, ecotype, and post fire weather conditions. Because we
fund emergency stabilization with emergency wildland fire funding, we
require that treatment measures provide essential and proven protection
at minimum cost in order to qualify for funding.
Over the past three years, we have developed the capacity to use
satellite imagery to assess burn severity on most large fires on
National Forest System lands. Maps are derived and supplied to managers
who must decide where to treat and how much area needs treatment.
Forest Service and United States Geological Survey scientists have
developed an integrated system called FIREMON for determining and
implementing appropriate methods for quantifying and monitoring effects
and severity of wildland fire.
For example, the bare soils of a severely burned forest may be
susceptible to invasive, non-native species which compete with native
species, limiting growth and productivity of desired vegetation.
Treatments would be designed to prevent the establishment of invasive
species based on severity of the burn, soil condition, and anticipated
invasive species.
Our researchers are currently working with managers to improve a
prototype computer tool that considers soils, vegetation, terrain, burn
severity, and climate characteristics to estimate sedimentation that
might be expected after fire, and how much erosion might be reduced by
various treatments. Results are expressed in terms that allow managers
to assess the uncertainty associated with future climatic events. This
computer model summarizes a vast quantity of data into a form that
managers can use to design effective treatment regimes.
Information developed by researchers helps manager determine
appropriate treatments. For example, the 2003 Myrtle Creek Fire heavily
burned the municipal watershed for the City of Bonner's Ferry, Idaho.
The steep slopes, granitic soils and typically heavy rain falls made
erosion likely. To prevent heavy sedimentation of the City's water
supply, the watershed was seeded with non-persistent grasses. In
comparison, the Southern California fires burned the area surrounding
the Silverwood Lake, a major distribution point for the Southern
California water supply. Because of the Santa Ana winds and the
seasonal distribution of rains, seeding likely would not have been
effective in preventing sedimentation in Silverwood Lake. Instead,
mulch was placed to slow the run off and reduce erosion. The differing
treatments were equally effective in preventing sedimentation.
Last year over 1.4 million acres of National Forest System land
burned. Emergency stabilization treatments were carried out on 78,317
burned acres. There were also 1,474 miles of road and trail
stabilization and stream rehabilitation. We also completed 2,170
projects that cannot be measured in acres or miles, such as culvert
replacements, hazard warning signs and early warning systems to warn
residents of impending floods.
Rehabilitation focuses on the lands unlikely to recover from fire
through natural processes. The goal is to produce a more intact
ecosystem that meets management objectives for fire and disease
resistance, tree type, regeneration, and fish and wildlife habitat in a
manner appropriate to the site and the impacts of each particular fire.
These activities are carried out using the best available science to
maximize benefits and minimize negative impacts of treatments.
Tools for Long-Term Restoration
On many acres, natural processes may foster recovery at a pace that
is entirely sufficient to satisfy land management objectives without
human intervention. We conduct vegetative treatments in those locations
where this is not the case, and where we can help expedite the recovery
process through carefully planned and conducted activities that may
also recover value from these areas through various actions, including
timber salvage operations.
Longer-term restoration goals are achieved through the application
of prescriptions designed to achieve long-term objectives for the land.
I will focus on two types of prescriptions today: the removal of trees
affected by the disturbance event and those designed to facilitate
reforestation.
Restoration Tree Removal
We remove trees following catastrophic disturbances for both
ecological and economic reasons. Prescriptions are developed following
catastrophic events to achieve specific land management objectives. For
example, prescriptions to achieve wildlife habitat objectives have
become increasingly commonplace on the national forests, particularly
for late-seral dependent wildlife species. The retention of snags,
coarse woody material, and other features are beneficial to these
species and to the ecosystem as a whole. Other harvest prescriptions
are designed to couple the objective of leaving large tree structures
in place, while removing other dead and dying trees, to expedite the
establishment of a new forest.
There will be other situations where removing dead and dying trees
is primarily for economic and social benefits. If we can get some of
these trees out of the woods in a timely manner they still have
commercial value. Timber salvage operations can provide jobs in the
woods and in the mills of nearby communities. If these trees are
processed before they deteriorate too much, forest products for the
American economy can be the end result. Purchaser deposits generated
from salvage sales may also be used to complete the renewable resource
work needed to restore these project areas through reforestation
treatments.
The removal of dead trees must be done promptly if economic
benefits are to be derived because deterioration begins immediately
after death. Steve Eubanks will share his experiences connected to the
cost of delayed implementation, shortly.
In Fiscal Year 2003, salvage treatments were conducted on 49,000
acres following fire, insect infestations, and disease or about 22
percent of the total area where commercial harvesting was done on the
national forests (224,000 acres).
Reforestation
Immediately following a disturbance event, a preliminary diagnosis
is made to determine the areas that will require reforestation
treatment to restore forest cover. This diagnosis is generally made by
a silviculturist. Within one year of the disturbance event, a detailed
prescription with specific sequence of treatments is developed. These
prescriptions provide direction to restore these lands to a forested
condition consistent with the land management plan.
We annually tabulate these treatment needs by national forest and
include them in the Reforestation Needs report submitted to Congress as
required in the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act
of 1974. Our most recent report compiled as of the end of Fiscal Year
2003 identifies reforestation needs of approximately 899,000 acres
service-wide. Approximately two-thirds of these needs have arisen from
wildfires.
Reforestation treatments may or may not involve tree planting.
Natural regeneration may be entirely sufficient to achieve resource
objectives. For example, in Fiscal Year 2003, reforestation treatments
were completed on about 160,000 acres. Of this total, the Forest
Service planted about 76,000 acres and seeded about 5,000 acres. The
remaining 79,000 acres regenerated naturally. Each of these practices
is carried out in a manner that will restore native tree species to the
treatment area.
The silvicultural prescription provides direction for how many
young trees must be reestablished, the proper mix of vegetation, and
the target structure and composition for the reforested area. The
desired future condition may be a structurally complex conifer
dominated forest to provide habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl on a
national forest in the Pacific Northwest, the development of cover in
key winter range for black-tailed deer or myriad other possible
combinations representing the spectrum of resource benefits embodied by
our national forests.
One of the most useful collaborative products emerging from Forest
Service research and our National Forests Systems applications group
has been the Forest Vegetation Simulator and the Fire and Fuels
Extension to this tool. This model enables resource managers to
visualize and project through time the development of reforested areas
following wildfires and treatments.
Science and Restoration
In their paper titled ``Environmental Effects of Post-Fire Logging:
Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography'', Forest Service research
scientists, McIver and Starr reviewed the existing body of scientific
literature on logging following wildfire. Twenty-one post-fire logging
studies were reviewed and interpreted. McIver and Starr concluded that
while the practice of salvage logging after fires is controversial the
debate is carried on without the benefit of much scientific
information. They also concluded that the immediate environmental
effects of post fire logging is extremely variable and dependent on a
wide variety of factors such as the severity of the burn, slope, soil
texture and composition, the presence or building of roads, types of
logging methods, and post-fire weather conditions.
We realize that there are gaps in what we know about post-fire
restoration and we are working hard to fill those gaps. Forest Service
researchers, in collaboration with other scientists, are working to
increase our knowledge of how ecosystems respond to fires and how
management actions can affect desired outcomes. For example, there are
as many as ten different research studies within the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project.
Our research program is focused on improving our ability to
understand and implement restoration and rehabilitation actions. For
example, research has studied the interactions of undesired, invasive
species and fire, use of native plant materials in rehabilitation and
restoration, and watershed responses in terms of nutrients and sediment
loading.
We have established comprehensive studies to examine the
variability of watershed response and treatment effectiveness. For
example, we have established a network in six western states to examine
variability of post-fire erosion and effectiveness of emergency
rehabilitation treatments such as contour felled logs, mulches and
straw wattles. Included are watersheds in the 2002 Hayman Fire in
Colorado and the 2004 Cedar Fire in southern California.
Several research publications related to rehabilitation and
restoration are available to all and are in general use. A series of
recent publications synthesizes the science related to fire effects on
flora, fauna, and air. These documents are useful in understanding how
fire affects ecosystems including important post-fire plant
regeneration information. The computerized Fire Effects Information
System, available online, contains species and vegetation community
specific summaries of what is known regarding fire effects and
interactions.
In April 2003, the General Accounting Office recommended that the
Forest Service and the Department of the Interior specify methods to
monitor the effectiveness of emergency stabilization and rehabilitation
treatments after wildfires and develop a system to disseminate
monitoring results. The Wildland Fire Leadership Council chartered the
National Burned Area Emergency Response Coordinators Group and assigned
the group to take action on the GAO recommendations. The group has
identified the major treatments and is establishing teams to identify
protocols for monitoring these treatments. An additional team is being
established to develop methods to disseminate the monitoring results
for use in management decisions.
Tahoe Experience
During the fire season of 2001, several major fires occurred on the
Tahoe National Forest including the Gap and Red Star Fires. I want to
share with the committee my experience with some of the issues faced in
planning and implementing restoration projects after these fires,
particularly impacts of delaying the implementation of salvage and
restoration activities.
First, let me provide some perspectives on what it is that we are
trying to achieve as we restore forest resources to the areas impacted
by the Gap and Red Star fires. In terms of our management direction,
most of the fire area was in a Land Management Plan allocation (Sierra
Nevada Forest Plan Amendment) that emphasizes perpetuation of mixed
conifer forest conditions in support of late-seral dependent species.
Our management actions would thus be directed at re-establishing these
structural and compositional elements on the landscape at the soonest
practicable time.
The focus of Gap and Red Star Fires'proposed restoration work was
only on high intensity fire areas where mortality exceeded 75% (due to
provisions of the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment). The area
planned for treatment was 737 acres on the Gap Fire and 1038 acres on
the Red Star Fire.
Post-fire restoration projects typically include extensive
environmental analysis and documentation intended to respond to the
anticipated challenges of administrative appeals and formal litigation.
The Gap Fire Restoration Environmental Assessment for the areas on the
Tahoe NF was completed and a decision signed by June 2002, ten months
after the fire, and operations began in October 2002 after the
administrative appeal process was completed. The Red Star Restoration
Project's Record of Decision was approved in November 2002, more than
one year after the fire. After appeals were completed, work began in
the non-roadless portion of the project in June of 2003. Most of the
areas burned on private land were treated without comparable
environmental analysis or public participation, by the end of November
2001.
Normally, trees 10 inches in size and larger may have commercial
value. By the time operations actually began in the Gap Fire and Red
Star Fire restoration work, deterioration was significant within
smaller trees, and their value was no longer high enough to pay for
their removal. Deterioration was less significant only on larger trees.
Therefore, the minimum size of trees removed had to be increased to
approximately 18 inches. As a result, many fewer trees were removed
when the project was conducted. This in turn meant there was less
monetary return to the Treasury from the timber sales: reductions in
the returns to the taxpayer were over $1.3 million for the Gap Fire
area and nearly $4 million for the Red Star Fire area.
Beyond the economic costs I have outlined, there is an ecological
cost that we must also weigh. The Red Star and Gap Fire areas occur
within a fire regime that experiences a frequent fire return interval
(30-35 years). By delaying treating in these areas, the trees that were
killed by the fire may remain standing for a decade or perhaps two, but
they will eventually fall to the ground and create a very significant
dead fuel component that, with subsequent wildfire events, could
consume the young stand that becomes established within these areas.
Through active management in some forest types, we can accelerate
by many decades the development of large tree structure and we can
better protect the replacement forest. By letting nature take its
course for these projects, we run the risk of delaying or not achieving
these objectives.
Summary
Mr. Chairman, post-catastrophic forest restoration is a complex
process which begins almost immediately following a destructive event.
Forest Service research works with managers to develop tools and
information that these managers need to do their jobs better. Forest
Service managers strive to use the best science available in their
decision making. We realize there are questions still to be answered
about the effects of our restoration activities, and we are working to
find these answers. We also know that we would not be responsible
stewards if we waited to satisfy all uncertainties before proceeding
with our work.
We appreciate your willingness to listen to us today and look
forward to your support for active forest management based on the best
available science. This concludes our testimony. We will be glad to
answer your questions.
______
Mr. Walden. Thank you very much. I appreciate your
testimony.
I think what we will do is, rather than run out of time as
you give your testimony, Mr. Shepard, we will go ahead and
recess the Committee now. I think we have three votes, I
believe, so probably be back in, I am going to guess, 30
minutes. We will try and reconvene then at 12:00 at the latest,
and we will go from there. So meanwhile we will stand in
recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Walden. We will call the Subcommittee on Forests and
Forest Health back to order. When we left off last we had heard
from Dr. Ann Bartuska, Deputy Chief of Research and
Development, and Mr. Steve Eubanks, and we were teed up to hear
from Ed Shepard, the Assistant Director, Renewable Resources
and Planning from the Bureau of Land Management, Department of
Interior. Thanks for your patience as we went over and voted.
We welcome you, and please go forth.
STATEMENT OF ED SHEPARD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, RENEWABLE
RESOURCES AND PLANNING, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Shepard. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and good morning,
Congressmen.
The BLM manages 201 million acres of public lands,
including 55 million acres of forest and woodlands.
Approximately 2.4 million acres of these forest lands are in
the O&C lands in Western Oregon, and intended to be managed
primarily for timber production.
When events such as fire or blowdown occur, our goal as
land managers is to stabilize and restore the resource.
Restoration actions undertaken soon after the event are most
likely to be successful, and conversely, delays in implementing
treatments may jeopardize the successful restoration of the
forest resources to its intended state.
Immediately after a fire, our focus is to stabilize the
soil, reseed the area, and prevent non-native and noxious
plants from becoming established. In some areas where severe
burns have occurred and on some lands that have burned with
moderate severity repeatedly, natural processes may satisfy
Land Management objectives, but in other areas, we know that
without management intervention forests will not return for
many decades and resource objectives will not be met.
Potential restoration treatments are considered on a site-
specific basis, and may include grass seeding to reduce
erosion, reforestation to hasten forest establishment, stream
enhancement to repair damages stream banks, and timber salvage
to reduce future fuel loads, provide for public safety and
recover the economic value of the resource.
Salvage is the process of preparing and offering a timber
sale contract to remove dead or dying trees before the economic
value is lost, optimally, within the first year after a fire.
The Federal share of receipts from timber sold under this
authority is paid into a permanent operating fund, and those
receipts are used for further restoration work.
Since Fiscal Year 2000, over $21 million in receipts from
the salvage of timber has gone into this fund and have funded
other forest health treatments.
In considering alternative ways to address the restoration
of a forest, the BLM follows environmental laws including NEPA.
If, for example, a fire was relatively small or did not
threaten a watershed and other resources, the BLM may do an
environmental assessment. In such cases we are able to
implement restoration within a few months after the event.
Up to a few years ago, preparing an EA was sufficient for
most of our restoration work, and we were able to proceed
rapidly. However, in other cases, restoration becomes more
complex. It is not as simple as salvaging the timber and
reforesting the damaged area. Management intervention may be
needed for restoration of severely damaged watershed, wildlife
habitats and other resources. So before implementing
restoration actions that may have significant environmental
effects, the BLM will do an environmental impact statement, and
this can take a considerable amount of time, usually about 2
years, to complete an EIS.
However, we know that significant delays before undertaking
restoration action can substantially reduce the success of
restoration, increase our costs considerably, and reduce
recoverable economic value by as much as 40 percent in larger
diameter trees and 100 percent in small diameter trees. In
fact, excessive delays can prevent us from taking any action at
all.
A few examples of BLM's restoration actions are shown in
the Oxbow Fire from 1966 and the Bland Mountain Fire more
recently in 1987. The Oxbow Fire began on August 20th, 1966 and
burned approximately 42,000 acres, including 27,000 acres in
the Oregon BLM's Roseburg, Coos Bay and Eugene Districts.
Immediately after the fire salvage of merchantable timber was
started to protect against insects infestation, reburn
possibilities and to recover the material. 510 million board
feet of timber was recovered.
After 40 years of forest management treatments, the stands
in the Oxbow Fire are now healthy and robust. Competition
related mortality is occurring which is creating small diameter
snags and down-woody material. These stands provide both
ecosystem value and future timber production.
I have some slides of the area. This is right after the
fire. You can still see smoke in the picture from 1966. From
that photo point--go to the next slide--this was the salvage
operation that was kind of the practice at that time. If this
were to occur now, there would be more snags left. You can see
snags on the ridge top. We would distribute them more
throughout the area and we would leave more material down in
the draws in the bottoms and the riparian.
Next slide. In 1983, from the same photo point, this is
what the area looked like after several years of intensive
forest management. The final slide, this was in 1985, this was
that same area a little closer in. The area has been pretty
commercially thinned, and they are fertilizing it right there
with nitrogen fertilizer. It is anticipated that while this
area is now ready, it is commercially available for commercial
thinning, and we are looking at producing over 1-1/2 billion
board feet of timber in the future, and it is also providing
habitat for many of the species out there.
The Bland Mountain Fire began on July 15th, 1987 near
Canyonville in Southwest Oregon, and that fire burned
approximately 10,000 acres. Tragically, two local forest
workers lost their lives in this fire, and there was
significant property to residents, outbuildings and logging
equipment.
Restoration in this area included planting trees, grass
seeding on stream side areas, seeding and mulching of more than
27 miles of road and fire trails, and the salvage of 55 million
board feet of timber.
Reforestation in that area overall has been very
successful, and the stands reforested after the fire are
currently 15 to 30 feet tall and are being thinned pre-
commercially for future timber management opportunities and for
wildlife habitat development.
In contrast within this fire area, there were small areas
that were not restored, and those areas are now dominated by
low shrubs rather than trees, and these areas are now being
retreated at significantly higher costs.
Fire is not the only event that causes us problems. Wind
and water also cause catastrophic damages, and in the winter of
95-96 a series of storms with heavy snows, followed by rain on
snow events, and high winds occurred in BLM South River
Resource Area in Southwestern Oregon. Many of the trees were
blown down and broken off at 10 to 50 feet above the ground.
Although this was an area where we had to do no immediate
stabilization work, we did go in and do a lot of restoration
work in there, including the salvage of 8 million board feet,
treatment of slash from the downed material to prevent insects
and fire danger, and planting new trees. Some of the areas we
just went in there and thinned the area out and allowed the
area to reforest itself because there wasn't that much damage.
Mr. Chairman, before I end my statement, I would like to
thank you for your leadership in the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act. This new law allows the BLM to use expedited
administrative processes to get hazardous fuels reduction
projects started, and we all know we would rather treat the
forests earlier than wait until we have to come in after a
fire.
Earlier this year, we issued guidance to our field offices
on implementing the law, and we believe the additional tools
this law provides will greatly help our efforts to reduce the
risk of severe wildfire, and restore forests and rangeland
health.
In conclusion, the BLM believes that all restoration tools,
including salvage logging, should be available to us. To be
successful, restoration tools must be used in a timely, cost
effective and efficient manner. The BLM has been challenged
over the past several years to find an approach to rapidly
address restoration issues without being held up in lengthy
litigation into other issues.
I thank you and I would be glad to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shepard follows:]
Statement of Ed Shepard, Assistant Director, Renewable Resources and
Planning, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's hearing on
``Restoring Forests after Catastrophic Events.'' Although rangelands
comprise much of the land administered by the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM), we also manage substantial forest resources on the public lands.
The BLM manages 55 million acres of forests and woodlands, 2.35 million
of which are O&C lands in western Oregon. The O&C lands are managed
primarily for timber production under the Revested Oregon and
California Railroad and Reconveyed Coos Bay Wagon Road Grant Lands Act
of 1937.
Over the years, some of these forests have suffered catastrophic
events, usually fire, occasionally blowdown, often exacerbated by
outbreaks of disease or insect infestation. In the aftermath of such
events, our first priority is public health and safety. Our goal as
land managers is to take the steps needed to stabilize and restore the
resource. Those steps need to reflect the desired condition of the
resource, as well as the science about ecosystem restoration. Our
experience with post-fire resource rehabilitation indicates that in
some cases an ecosystem that has experienced a catastrophic event will
readily meet a desired condition of the resource when restoration
actions are undertaken soon after the event. Conversely, delays in
implementing treatments after a catastrophic event--whether due to
litigation, weather, or other factors--may jeopardize successful
restoration of the forest resource to its intended state.
Based on our experience with forest rehabilitation after several
major wildfires, and drawing upon the best available science, the BLM
has developed a multi-step approach to restoring the forest resource
after a catastrophic event.
Immediately after a fire or catastrophic event, the BLM's focus is
two-fold: 1) to stabilize the soil, re-seed the area, and prevent non-
native and noxious plants from becoming established; and 2) to address
short-term impacts to local communities, such as threats to public
health and safety from fire-damaged hillsides and watersheds. Next, the
BLM examines whether longer-term management interventions may be
necessary to restore the forest and other resources (wildlife, for
example). In some areas where severe burns have occurred, and on some
lands that have burned with moderate severity repeatedly, natural
processes may satisfy land management objectives without additional
agency action. In other areas, we know that without management
intervention, forests may not return for many decades. Indeed, some of
these forests may remain as brush fields, and in some areas soils can
be severely degraded.
When deciding which management interventions to consider, the BLM
looks at several factors: the Resource Management Plan (RMP)
objectives; the scope, intensity and severity of the event; the
possibility of further on-site or off-site damage; the potential
economic value of the resource; the timeframe desired to meet resource
objectives; and the possibility of success and the cost of failure.
Restoration and potential treatments are considered on a site-
specific basis. BLM considers several types of treatments, including:
seedings to reduce erosion; reforestation to hasten forest
establishment; timber salvage to reduce future fuel loads, recover the
economic value of the resource, provide for the safety of forest
workers, and prepare the site for future resource conditions to meet
RMP objectives; stream enhancements to repair damaged streambanks; and
erosion and runoff control structures. The tool or tools that are
selected must be tailored to the site and to the intended objectives.
The removal of dead and dying trees, sometimes referred to as
salvage, is among the various management tools the BLM may consider in
restoring the forest resource after a catastrophic event. Salvage is
the process of preparing and offering a timber sale contract to remove
dead or dying trees before the economic value is lost, optimally within
the first year after a fire. The Federal share of receipts from timber
sold under this authority is paid into a permanent operating fund to be
utilized for further restoration work. Since FY 2000, over $21 million
in receipts from salvage timber sales and other forest health
treatments have been deposited into this fund and used for additional
restoration work and for the planning and preparation of additional
salvage sales.
If salvage is an option, the agency must consider how much timber
to remove and how much to leave for wildlife habitat, nutrient cycling,
and other ecological functions. Again, this is a site-specific
determination. If too much material is removed, site productivity can
be affected. If too much material is left, there is a risk of insect
and disease attack as well as potentially heavy fuel loading that may
drive future wildfires.
Depending on the size of the fire and the complexity of issues
involved, the BLM may prepare an environmental assessment (EA) or an
environmental impact statement (EIS) to consider alternative ways to
address the restoration of a forest. This process also gives the agency
and the public a chance to evaluate the possibility for economic
recovery of the trees killed in a fire or other catastrophic event.
Beyond the immediate stabilization of a fire area, the BLM is
required to follow all environmental laws when preparing restoration
projects, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and
the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In the past, BLM relied on
documentation included as part of our land use planning process to
cover the majority of our restoration actions, and we were able to
include these documents by reference with an EA. In such cases we were
able to implement restoration within a few months after an event.
More recently, however, on the advice of agency counsel and in
light of certain trends in court decisions, we are preparing EISs
before implementing those restoration actions that may have significant
environmental effects, which can take considerable time to prepare.
Significant delays before undertaking restoration actions can
substantially reduce the success of restoration, increase costs
considerably, and reduce recoverable economic value by as much as 40
percent in larger trees to 100 percent in smaller diameter trees.
Excessive delays can prevent us from taking any action at all.
The following are two examples of forest restoration actions
following catastrophic events: the Oxbow fire (1966) and the Bland fire
(1987).
Oxbow Fire: The Oxbow Fire began on August 20, 1966, and burned
approximately 42,274 acres, including 24,359 acres managed by the BLM,
17,601 acres owned by the International Paper Company, and 915 acres of
other private land.
Within a short time after the fire, salvage of all merchantable
timber began to protect against insect and reburn possibilities.
Salvage logging in the Coos Bay, Roseburg, and Eugene BLM Districts
resulted in 82 timber sales contracts, representing 510 million board
feet, purchased by 20 separate timber companies.
In the 40 years since the Oxbow fire, the vegetation pattern of the
area has changed considerably. The current vegetation pattern reflects
years of forest management treatments following the Oxbow Fire. At
present the stands in the Oxbow Fire are healthy and robust. Most of
the stands are classified as Pole-young: that is, pole--5 to 11 inches
in diameter at breast height, and young--11 to 21 inches in diameter at
breast height.
Within the stands, competition-related mortality (suppression) is
occurring, creating small diameter snag and down-woody (suitable for
nesting) material. Most of the stands are ready for commercial
thinning, or will be ready for commercial thinning within the next ten
years. These stands currently provide both ecosystem values and future
timber production value. Estimated commercial volumes will be 1.5
billion board feet in thinning and regeneration harvest over a ten year
period. Without years of forest management treatments these stand would
be decades behind their present condition.
Bland Mountain Fire: Near Canyonville in southwest Oregon, the
Bland Mountain Fire began on July 15, 1987. Approximately 10,000 acres
burned, including 4,000 acres of BLM-administered land and 6,000 acres
on private lands. Tragically, two individuals lost their lives in this
fire. Property destruction included eleven residences, 18 vehicles,
twenty outbuildings, the loss of two log yarders, one log loader, and
one dozer.
Restoration activities on the BLM-managed lands included: tree
planting on all burned BLM acreage; grass seeding on 790 acres of
stream side areas; creation of 140 waterbars; creation of one 8,000
cubic yard capacity sediment pond; seeding and mulching of 27.3 miles
of roads and fire trails; creation of 320 temporary sediment catch
basins and check dams; and 55 million board feet of timber salvage.
Reforestation has been successful overall on both BLM and private
lands. Trees planted post-fire are currently between 15 to 30 feet
tall. Stands reforested after the fire are currently being thinned for
future timber management opportunities and wildlife habitat
development.
In contrast to areas with active restoration management, small
areas which were not restored are in distinctly different condition.
These are dominated by low shrubs, rather than trees. These small areas
are actively being restored. However, the delay in active restoration
has resulted in a delay of future timber harvest opportunities of
approximately 20 years.
While fire is the most common cause of damage to forests on lands
managed by the BLM, wind and water may also cause catastrophic damage
requiring restoration measures. In the winter of 1995-1996, for
example, a series of storms--heavy snows, followed by rain-on-snow
events and high winds--occurred in the BLM's South River Resource Area
in southwestern Oregon. Most of the trees on 500 acres of BLM-managed
forests (at elevations of between 3,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level)
were blown down or broken off at 10 to 50 feet above the ground. Unlike
in a fire, no emergency stabilization measures were needed. In the
spring of 1996, the BLM initiated an EA on management actions to
salvage the broken and blown down trees, and undertook various
restoration actions. Under the Standards and Guidelines of the
Northwest Forest Plan, nearly 8 million board feet of timber were
salvaged. On some sites, the BLM burned the remaining slash [debris]
and planted new trees. At other locations, the BLM removed relatively
few trees--similar to a thinning--and allowed the area to reforest
itself.
The Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) [P.L. 108-148], signed
into law on December 3, 2003, gives Federal agencies additional tools
to reduce the risk of severe wildland fire and to restore forest and
rangeland health. HFRA recognizes that delays in critical fuels
treatment and forest and rangeland restoration projects place rural
communities, as well as ecological values, at risk of damage or
destruction by wildfire. The new law authorizes federal agencies to use
expedited administrative processes on hazardous fuels reduction
projects. We thank the Congress for passing this important legislation.
The BLM believes that all restoration tools, including salvage
logging, should be available for use by our resource managers. To be
successful, restoration tools must be employed to meet land and
resource management objectives in a timely, cost-effective, and
efficient manner. The BLM has been challenged over the past several
years to find an approach to rapidly address restoration issues without
being held up in lengthy litigation.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I would be glad to
answer any questions.
______
Mr. Walden. Thank you, and thanks to the other panelists
for your testimony on this first panel, and I appreciate your
comments on the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. It was, as you
know, a bipartisan measure that achieved I think unanimous vote
in the Senate and overwhelming vote in the House and is being,
hopefully, implemented aggressively across the country so we
will have healthier forests, safer communities and protect
habitat and watersheds.
It is my hope that we could find out of the information we
gather here from all sides and across the country in field
hearings I hope to hold soon, the kind of data we need to
figure out if there is a way we can expedite the process in a
post-catastrophic event so that we can protect the
environment--I don't want to do any degradation there--but so
we don't lose the value of these trees while they still have
value, and moreover, so we can get in and do the reforestation,
prevent the invasive species and noxious weeds from taking over
while we wait to act. It just strikes me if we are going to be
true good stewards and true to the sort of philosophy that
Theodore Roosevelt and others put forward in the beginning
about protecting these forests, we need to put a better
strategy for moving quicker while still fully involving the
public, including rights of appeal.
I appreciate, Dr. Bartuska, your statement that in the
presence of some uncertainty action is still often warranted.
But I question that there's a huge gap of information and
science in some forest types and regions. For example, I
wondered if you have seen this book, ``Reforestation Practices
in Southwestern Oregon and Northern California?'' If so, do you
find that useful, and those in your agency?
Dr. Bartuska. I have not personally seen that particular
reference, but my suspicion is that many of the authors are
people we have been working with over time.
Mr. Walden. I want to go to Mr. Eubanks. What did the
Forest Service learn about the forest restoration efforts after
the 1960 Volcano Fire? I understand you may have some slides
you can share with us.
Mr. Eubanks. Yes, I have actually I think three photos, and
maybe we could take a look at those. Basically the fire was a
very large fire in 1960, had extensive--
Mr. Walden. Where was it?
Mr. Eubanks. It was in the area around Forest Hill in
California. It is the west slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, the
lower west slopes, not too far out of the town of Auburn and
about an hour out of Sacramento.
It had an extensive amount of high-intensity fire, and
similar to the photos that the gentleman from the BLM showed,
in those days we did fairly extensive salvage logging, and
probably by today's standards not real gentle on the sites and
on the forests in terms of our approaches. But we did extensive
salvage logging and restoration on national forest lands.
This first photo shows the difference between national
forest that was in fact treated; it was salvaged, planted and
thinned over time, and--
Mr. Walden. What are those three--
Mr. Eubanks. That is on the left-hand side.
Mr. Walden. Are those pine trees or--
Mr. Eubanks. Those are primarily pine trees, yes, but it is
somewhat mixed conifer. There are other species there as well.
What was planted was primarily Ponderosa pine. On the right-
hand side of the photo is unrestored private land, and I think
you can see the contrast in that particular photo, and I would
like to move on to the next one.
This basically is a ground level photo today of the brush
that is growing on private land where no restoration activities
occurred. Then I would move on to what the forest looks like
today.
Again, this is a photo just recently, within the last few
weeks, of the area that was restored, and I think the
difference is that regardless of whether we would do that
intensive a management today, the fact is that there is a
reasonably healthy forest growing there today, and it provides
the values of a forest, and over time that will move to an old
forest situation. Our management focus would be getting back to
a more open large forest situation that provides good wildlife
habitat, protection for soils and water.
This particular area is now being actively thinned to
provide better fuels treatment over time. The trees are large
enough that they actually have economic value after about 44
years.
Mr. Walden. There doesn't seem to be too much doubt about
the outcome when forests are not reforested quickly. I mean we
have seen this on the Mt. St. Helens example. We see it in this
example, in the Volcano Fire. I wonder, are those brush fields,
I assume, pretty big fire hazards compared to the forest?
Mr. Eubanks. Certainly the issue would be that if a fire
went through those brush fields, it would be very difficult to
maintain any kind of control. Those are the kinds of situations
where if you have any kind of fire danger like this time of
year, you kind of back off to some kind of a control area and
hope that you can stop it.
Mr. Walden. One of the things I would like to get answered
is, what does the science show where landowners, whether they
be private or public, go in and move quickly after a
catastrophic event versus where they don't, with regard to soil
erosion, effect on streams and habitat. I think that is the
underlying issue. None of us wants to do anything that is going
to worsen the situation for fish or fowl or the land. Does
moving rapidly, is there science that shows by doing what you
did here, it is worse than what was not done on private land
and vice versa? Can anybody address that?
Dr. Bartuska. During my testimony I mentioned work that had
been done by two of our scientists that tried to get a handle
on--of the 21 studies that had been done to that point, what
were we able to learn? I think what we are finding is in some
cases success is apparent, and you certainly have an ability to
respond to soil erosion, minimize soil erosion, minimize
sediment loading, maintain the healthy water quality and
quantity, and get a good recovery. But that one case study put
on another piece of the landscape doesn't necessarily end on
the same point. I think what we are trying to do is fill in
those gaps so that we have a better understanding for different
forest types, for different types of soils and different
conditions, that we increase our likelihood of success.
Mr. Walden. Is it possible, once you complete those studies
or if there are others out there, to create some sort of
template that could be applied to similar sorts of areas around
the country when there is a similar sort of catastrophic event?
In other words, western forests of Southern Oregon and eastern
forests of Eastern Oregon, can you look at a Ponderosa pine
forest with certain types of hillsides and say, OK, here is
what science shows happens in areas like this, so here is where
we should be able to come up with a recovery plan?
Dr. Bartuska. To me the ideal thing is exactly what you are
talking about, would be a decision support tool for managers
that would lay out, given certain characteristics, here are the
treatments that one could do, and here are the outcomes that
one would expect to achieve over a certain period of time. I
think we have done that successfully in other areas. So the
more we have studies like this, after the Biscuit Fire, after
Hayman, and others that fortunately have not burned and we are
still able to study, putting that all together gives us a much
better understanding of management, and it is the same--it is
making sure that we have a good understanding of what sites and
what forest types and what the soils are doing, and use all of
that to figure into our decision process.
Mr. Walden. I have overrun my time, unfortunately. Did you
want to make a comment, Mr. Shepard? No, OK.
Mr. Inslee?
Mr. Inslee. I would yield as much as the Chairman wants to
consume, keep going. If you would want to just keep going, I
bet you Mr. Renzi would agree too.
Mr. Walden. I do have a couple other questions.
Mr. Inslee. Mr. Renzi, should we defer to the Chair?
Mr. Renzi. Certainly.
Mr. Walden. I like this chairmanship thing. It is pretty
good. I have a gavel and all the time I want.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Walden. Thank you.
I guess what I am trying to get to, it seems to me that in
some of these private landowner situations they are able to
move quicker. In some they don't, which is of course the case.
What I want to know--and maybe you can't answer this--but what
I want to know is what is the outcome in 2 months, 6 months, 6
years? I mean is there a short-term degradation but a long-term
benefit by moving quickly? How do we analyze that, and how
much--it just strikes me as amazing that every other landowner
type, whether it is State, city, county, private, seems to be
able to move quicker than the Federal Government. The question
is, by moving quickly, do they cause environmental degradation
or are they able to move in a way that is beneficial to the
environment, but it is just the sort of regulatory scheme you
all have to work under in the Federal Government?
Mr. Shepard, do you want to touch that one?
Mr. Shepard. The regulatory scheme that we work in under
the Federal Government does slow us down. The foresters from
the private land, they know what to do and how to do it. The
science is there to support them. Our resource specialists know
what to do and how to do it, but we do have to go through that
regulatory process. There are questions raised. There is
differences in the science from both sides, and we have to try
to rectify that the best we can, but the quicker we can move
into action on the ground, the quicker that we can get the
forests back to our desired conditions that are the objectives
that we put out in our land use plans, where industry, the
timber industry or another private landowner, their objectives
may be timber. It is to their advantage to get that timber, the
reforestation done as quickly as possible. And depending if our
objectives are maybe an early stage for big game or something
like that, we may not take rapid action. But if our objective
is timber or trying to replace an old forest quickly, the
quicker we can get in there, the better we will be.
Mr. Walden. It strikes me now in the Biscuit Fire, having
lost 80,000 or 90,000 acres of spotted owl habitat in late
successional reserve, that the goal has been to protect the old
growth because that is the spotted owl's habitat. It would seem
to me therefore our responsibility to try and recreate that
habitat as rapidly as possible. And some of the studies--and I
know, again, everybody's got a little different science on
this, but some studies indicate moving quickly can regenerate
that forest in 50 to 100 years faster than delaying by even a
few years.
Do you find that? I mean is that what your science shows in
general?
Mr. Shepard. I think you will hear from Dr. Sessions who
synthesized a lot of the science there and that supports that
book that you held up, was the product of Forestry Intensified
Research Program, the FIR Program, in Southwest Oregon, and I
think a lot of what that showed is whether--you know you're
trying to restore an area after a fire or reforest it after
timber harvest, the quicker you can get in there, the quicker
you're going to get conifers established because the brush
species, particularly in Southwest Oregon and areas like that
are--have a competitive advantage early on right after
disturbance. So if you can get in there before they get
themselves established, you may have a much better chance of
success reestablishing a mixed conifer forest and getting the
trees up to where they're going to be able to compete with the
brush.
Mr. Walden. The other issue I would like somebody to
address is--I believe, Dr. Bartuska, in your testimony, you
indicated that reforestation need is roughly 899,000 acres, and
last year the Forest Service completed treatment on 160,000
acres, 79,000 of which regenerated naturally. It sounds like we
are falling way behind where we should be on reforestation. Why
and what can we do about it?
Dr. Bartuska. We are trying to treat our highest priority
areas, and so the 160,000 value for 2003 reflects that, and we
are doing that within the appropriation. I think where there
are additional needs on the national forest, they are
identifying that within program and trying to address those
also.
But you raise a very important point, and that is, it is
not all about active treatment. Some natural regeneration will
take place, and I think we need to, through our analysis,
determine where do we have to actually do some planting or do
some aggressive treatment to get that restoration, or where do
we just let nature take its course, so that analytical part is
really critical.
Mr. Walden. Now go to my Ranking Member on the Committee,
Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. Before I forget, I want to put in
the record a statement by Dr. Jerry Franklin, Professor at
College Forest Services at UW, if I may.
Mr. Walden. Without objection, absolutely.
[The statement submitted for the record by Dr. Franklin
follows:]
Statement submitted for the record by Dr. Jerry F. Franklin, Professor
of Ecosystem Studies, College of Forest Resources, University of
Washington, Seattle, Washington
Our scientific understanding regarding how forest ecosystems are
affected by and recover from major disturbances--including intense
wildfire and windstorm--has increased dramatically during the last 20
years. Much of this ecological knowledge is not yet fully assimilated
into forestry philosophy and practices. My objective in this testimony
is to identify for you some important aspects of ecological science
that need to be considered when developing plans for restoration of
forests following stand-replacement disturbances by fire, wind,
insects, and other agents.
A first principle regarding forest disturbances is understanding
that intense forest disturbances invariably leave behind significant
legacies of organisms and organic structures (e.g., snags and logs)--
``biological legacies''--which are critically important to recovery of
the forest ecosystem (Franklin et al. 2000). The concept of biological
legacies emerged from research following the 1980 eruptions at Mount
St. Helens where an incredible diversity of organisms and immense
legacy of snags and logs survived the devastating disturbance and
contributed to the rapid redevelopment of the ecosystems within the so-
called devastated zone.
Legacies of snags, logs, and other woody debris are typically very
large following an intense natural disturbance since such events kill
trees but rarely consume or remove much of the dead wood. Even an
intense wildfire typically consumes no more than 15% of the biomass and
typically much less. A catastrophic windstorm blows down trees but
consumes or removes essentially none of the organic matter!
Types and amounts of biological legacies persisting on impacted
sites are probably the most important variable in assessing the actual
ecological impacts of a disturbance because of their important roles in
recovery. The most conspicuous and among the most important of the
biological legacies are the surviving live trees, standing dead trees
(snags), and logs and other woody debris on the forest floor and in the
streams. The living trees, snags, and logs play critical roles in
lifeboating many animal, plant, fungal, and microbial organisms, such
as by providing essential habitat (e.g., places to live and hide) and
keeping the microclimate of the disturbed site within acceptable
levels. The trees, snags, and logs also greatly enrich the structure of
the young forest as it develops, increasing diversity and rate at which
species that have been displaced and which need structural complexity--
such as Northern Spotted Owls--can return to the site.
So, how does this legacy of dead wood contribute to the recovery
and ultimate functioning of the post-disturbance forest ecosystem? In
earlier times we believed that once trees were dead they provided
little value to the ecosystem or to recovery processes. In fact, they
were often viewed as waste, potential fire hazard, and an impediment to
proper management. However, research during the last 30 years has shown
the critical role that structures such as snags, logs and wood debris
play in the functioning of forest and stream ecosystems including
(Harmon et al. 1986; Maser et al. 1988):
Provision of wildlife habitat;
Long-term sources of energy and nutrients;
Sites for nitrogen fixation;
Seedbed for trees and shrubs; and
Creation of fish habitat.
These and other functional roles of woody debris are well
documented in the peer-reviewed reviews by Harmon et al. (1986) and
Maser et al. (1988) and literally hundreds of articles that have been
published since.
Snags, logs, and woody debris provide critical habitat for the
majority of higher (vertebrate) animals (birds, mammals, reptiles,
amphibians, and fish) and, probably, lower (invertebrate) animals
(e.g., insects), as well. In many western coniferous forests the
overwhelming majority of higher animals make some use of snags, logs,
and woody debris and for many--including groups as diverse as
woodpeckers and salamanders--woody structures are absolutely critical
(see, e.g., Thomas 1979).
The larger and the most decay-resistant snags and logs are the most
important ecologically. Larger snags and logs will serve a large array
of organisms and functions than smaller snags and logs as well as
persist longer. For example, large snags are necessary for large cavity
excavators, such as the Pileated Woodpecker and large logs are critical
elements in creating stable aquatic habitat. Large snags and logs of
decay-resistant species--such as cedars and Douglas-fir--can also
persist and fulfill habitat and other ecological functions for several
centuries in terrestrial environments or even millennia, in the case of
stream and river ecosystems.
The levels of biological legacies such as snags and logs that need
to be retained following a major disturbance very much depends upon the
natural resource objectives for the property and the natural
disturbance regime of the site. Where recovery of natural ecological
functions is a primary goal, removal of significant legacies of living
trees, snags, and logs through timber salvage is not appropriate. This
is particularly true in forest types and on forest sites where stand-
replacement (``catastrophic'') disturbance regimes are characteristic.
It is sometimes argued that following a stand-replacement fire in an
old-growth forest that snags and logs are present in ``excess'' of the
needs of the site, in terms of ecosystem recovery. In fact, the large
pulse of dead wood created by the disturbance is the only significant
input of woody debris that the site is going to get for the next 50 to
150 years--the ecosystem has to ``live'' off of this woody debris until
the forest matures to the point where it has again produced the large
trees that can become the source for new snags and logs (Maser et al.
1988).
In conclusion, the scientific lessons regarding biological legacies
and the importance of retaining snags, logs, and other woody debris are
being applied in regular timber harvesting practices (i.e., structural
retention) but have not yet been fully incorporated into restoration
policy. Timber salvage may be carried out for economic reasons.
However, timber salvage will rarely achieve any positive ecological
benefit as has been pointed out in a recent article in Science
(Lindenmayer et al. 2004). Timber salvage should be viewed as a ``tax''
or debit on the recovery process. Removal of large, decay-resistant
snags and logs is particularly negative because of impacts on long-term
recovery and stand development processes.
Literature cited:
Franklin, Jerry F., David Lindenmayer, James A. MacMahon, Arthur McKee,
John Magnuson, David A. Perry, Robert Waide, and David Foster.
2000. Threads of continuity. Conservation Biology in Practice
1(1):8-16.
Harmon, Mark E., et al. 1986. Ecology of coarse woody debris in
temperate ecosystems. Advances in Ecological Research 15: 133-
302.
Lindenmayer, D. B., et al. 2004. Salvage harvesting policies after
natural disturbance. Science 303:1303.
Maser, Chris, Robert F. Tarrant, James M. Trappe, and Jerry F.
Franklin. 1988. From the forest to the sea: a story of fallen
trees. 153 p. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PNW-
GTR-229.
Thomas, Jack Ward. 1979. Wildlife habitat in managed forests; the Blue
Mountains of Oregon and Washington. 511 p. USDA Agricultural
Handbook 553.
______
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. I want to talk about the, or ask you
to distinguish something I think it is easy to lose the forest
for the trees on this, and that is to distinguish replanting
from harvest of the dead and standing timber. I have seen
pictures of some of these projects, or on the video, and on
this picture and the like. Do they go hand in hand? For
instance, can your replant successfully and remove none of the
snags and stumps? Is there a relationship between those two?
How do those two functions interrelate? That is for anyone who
might tackle that.
Mr. Eubanks. I can address that, particularly as it applies
to the two fires that I spoke about, Gap and Red Star. We did
in fact reforest the areas where we were able to remove almost
no dead standing timber. It is not so much an issue of whether
we can successfully plant the trees. We can certainly do that.
I think the real issue is whether we can protect those trees in
the long run, and whether or not they are going to be very
susceptible to additional catastrophic wildfire. But we
certainly can go in and plant them, as long as we do it soon
enough that there is not a hazard from the dead trees to the
planting crews. I mean if you waited too long there would be a
hazard there just from falling material. But if we get in there
soon enough we can certainly plant them.
Mr. Inslee. So if your goal was solely kind of ecologically
based, in other words, you wanted to build an old growth forest
as rapidly as possible, economics was not an issue at all, is
there a reason, would you want to clear-cut the dead timber for
an ecological reason?
Mr. Eubanks. I would say that we would not clear-cut on
national forest in the traditional sense. In fact, our plans in
these projects from the very beginning, called for leaving some
of the largest dead trees for long-term habitat and for soil
nutrient recycling, those kinds of values, but we would have
removed a significant number of the large and smaller dead
trees simply to provide protection in the long run from
wildfire, the reoccurrence of wildfire, because as I mentioned
in my testimony, these part fire areas are in true fire ecology
systems. It is not a question of whether fires are going to
come back, it is when they come back, and generally in these
areas, we anticipate it would be less than 35 years recurrence
of fire.
Mr. Inslee. In the projects you made reference to, were
those in stand replacement historic areas, where there had been
stand replacement fires in the past?
Mr. Eubanks. Yes. Although in the Sierra Nevadas, generally
the magnitude of stand replacement fires was much smaller. It
was one of those situations where there--you have certainly
seen situations in the Pacific Northwest where you are that
stand fires, even the stand replacement fires are very patchy.
There are some areas of high intensity, some low intensity.
That was normally the situation even in the Sierras. But what
we are experiencing now are much larger areas of high-intensity
fire than normally occurred because of the buildup of fuels
over the last 100 years.
Mr. Inslee. And because of the drought, do you think?
Mr. Eubanks. Certainly that has an effect. That enhances
the effect.
Mr. Inslee. Again, taking the economics out of it, I was
just referring to Dr. Franklin's statement here that I put in
the record. He was describing recent research which has shown
substantial ecological benefit of the deadened trees. Wildlife
habitat, which you mentioned, long-term sources of energy and
nutrients, sites for nitrogen fixation, seed bed for trees and
shrubs if they have other ecological values.
And he said something that is interesting to me. He said
that only 15 percent of the biomass is typically actually
consumed, even in a stand replacement fire, which is surprising
to me.
But anyway, he suggests that there is, from a biological
standpoint, value of the timber, dead timber, and you are
saying there is also a benefit of reducing fuel hazard, of
getting it out of there. How do you make a decision from an
ecological standpoint? Where is the right balance there? Do you
do it on a project-by-project basis, or is our science just too
uncertain to really be able to figure out what the net balance
is?
Dr. Bartuska. I just want to take a broad answer to that
one, and Steve will follow up with his specific examples. I
think the science does know enough that we can go in and look
at certain of these ecosystems and determine where you would
have on a landscape the value of leaving snags and down-woody
debris where it adds to either the stream quality or to the
structure of the forest. But it is also clear that if we want
to take a part of that landscape and get it to the desired
condition faster, which means bringing in the next generation
of species and retaining them over time, then certain areas you
will have to do some treatment.
I think part of our challenge, like the Biscuit Fire
Recovery is--
Mr. Inslee. Can I stop you just for a moment, because I
think this is an important point.
Dr. Bartuska. Sure.
Mr. Inslee. You said you have to do some treatment. Again,
I am trying to distinguish the replanting from the removal of
the snags, and you seem to lump them together. Maybe I
misunderstood.
Dr. Bartuska. Those are all different kinds of treatments,
so there are multiple things going on, and I think leaving--it
is a deliberate decision, so it is a treatment, if you will, to
leave dead and dying material as snags and as coarse woody
debris. But similarly, if you wanted to take a piece of this
landscape and move it to your future condition faster to ensure
you have that late successional forest faster, then removing
some of that material, harvesting some of that, and planting or
possibly not--natural regeneration is still part of the
picture--so you have all of these different pieces, and part of
what we have been doing with I think the science is pulling
those pieces together and then having the tools for managers to
make some decisions.
The other thing I would like to just comment, in the big
scheme of things we have been focusing on fire in the West, but
this same scenario we dealt with it after Hugo in South
Carolina, we dealt with it after Boundary Waters Canoe Area
blowdown, where you had this huge tract, 10,000 acres of land,
and if you had not done some treatment and recognized the role
of downed material versus the regeneration, then we would have
ended up with a very different forest. And certainly in South
Carolina, we might have lost part of Charleston, South Carolina
due to fire.
So I think those are all part of pieces that Jerry's very
approximately pointing out you have got to look at.
Steve?
Mr. Eubanks. Well, I would just mention Jerry Franklin is
one of my mentors. I worked with him extensively in the
Northwest, and so I respect what he is saying.
Your question was really along the lines, do we have sort
of broad guidelines, or do we do some project specific
assessment, and it really is project specific assessment. We
try to take a look at the conditions that we are dealing with,
and not use some broad brush guidelines.
I just mention that in the case of the Red Star Fire, the
fire burned on the Tahoe Forest about 10,000 acres. Of those
10,000 acres we were proposing to come back in and actually do
some salvage logging, replanting and restoration on about 1,000
acres, actually, 1,039 I think is the figure I used. And those
were the areas that had at least 79 percent of the trees that
were dead. So one of the things I would point out is that we
had areas that had 74 percent of the trees that were dead that
we were not treating, on down to that very low intensity fire.
But we had lots and lots of acres out there that had extensive
dead trees beyond what we were proposing to treat. We were
trying to pick the strategic areas that we could best deal with
that enabled us to restore old forests more quickly.
Mr. Inslee. Just one more quick question if I can. In our
decisions regarding harvest of standing timber now, what
percentage decisions are made taking into consideration the
economics of it, in other words, generating some stream of
revenue for someone, and what percentage of these cases where
that is really not an issue in the decision? In other words,
are these decisions biologic, or are they economic, or both,
and how do you distinguish those?
Mr. Shepard. It really depends on the objectives that you
are trying to meet under the Land Use Plan which vary across
different areas. If you take the Northwest, for example, under
the Northwest Forest Plan, we have approximately 80 percent of
the land that is in some type of reserve. Where we get large
fires in there, we may do some salvage, but that is secondary
to trying to reestablish there and move it toward an old growth
condition because we are trying to manage for spotted owls and
marbled merlet. Other areas with the matrix land, where we are
managing predominantly for timber production off those lands.
While we would not go in there and take off all of the dead
material because there is value in standing dead and in down
woody material, we would go in there and take out more trees in
an area like that.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. Walden. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from South Dakota.
Ms. Herseth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank each of you for your testimony today, and
how this hearing and your testimony and that of others later on
will help guide us as we go forward on the best way to be part
of our future efforts to help forests recover from devastating
fire.
I represent South Dakota, and we have had several major
forest fires in the Black Hills National Forest in the past
number of years, including the Jasper Fire, which affected
83,000 acres. It was the largest forest fire in the Black Hills
in a century, and as we have seen in South Dakota and some of
what you have testified to today, the effect very large hot
fires can have in inhibiting our efforts to fully recover the
forest, and how they inhibit those recovery efforts. I
certainly acknowledge how critical it is for the Forest Service
to be in the best position possible and how we need to improve
the manner in which you can go about undertaking the recovery
efforts.
You had mentioned, Dr. Bartuska, at the outset, as it
relates to the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, that most of the
focus in on the fire safety issues prior to a devastating fire,
and what we do in treatment management, thinning of the forests
to reduce the fire hazard, whether it is because of disease,
storm-fallen trees, other issues that we have had, just because
of how quickly the Ponderosa pine in the Black Hills
regenerates, that we have had in the Black Hills.
Recently, a couple weeks ago, when I was visiting with some
of the folks with the Forest Service in the Black Hills, as
well as individuals in the timber industry and others that live
in the communities within the Black Hills, there has been what
is called the Prairie Project, which has been a timber sale
that included a lot of public input to try to find some
consensus because of the public awareness in the Western part
of South Dakota, especially in those communities near and
within the forest about the fire hazards, the need for fire
safety. One of the interesting things that came out of that
discussion with the district supervisor is, because of some of
the controversy in the past, what they did as it related to the
consensus building efforts to get the public input to generate
more levels of public trust, and to ask the first question, not
how we are going to achieve the desired result for thinning or
reducing the fuel hazard, but what do we want to see? What can
we agree is going to be the best thing to see, you know, in
this parcel of that sale?
When they sought the input and arrived at that consensus,
the tools they then used became much less controversial, and it
has been a really good example, in the Black Hills anyway, of
how they can go about minimizing some of that controversy that
has dogged these efforts in the past for thinning.
But now I want to move toward this recovery and restoration
and rehabilitation, to ask you what your thoughts are,
regardless of what legislation we have in place, regardless of
the regulatory issues that come into play, directives,
categorical exclusions. Those are going to be there. We can
work toward what tools the Forest Service needs. But over and
above that, your thoughts on how in this case we can find and
try to develop that kind of consensus and that type of public
input based on some of the science that you have testified
about today to move forward, understanding the need to try to
avoid some of the unnecessary delays and very lengthy delays
that litigation can cause when we don't have that kind of
consensus.
Dr. Bartuska. It sounds like you were involved in a very
interesting process with the Prairie Project. I am not familiar
with that one.
The only response I guess I would give to your remarks is
that you hit a very important part of what researchers have
been doing with managers, and that is the idea of developing
data visualization tools, so that whether it is in a public
meeting or ourselves as managers, we can see what the condition
is, what that forest is that we want to have, what it looks
like, how it functions, but see it in front of us, and then
manipulate it so that you could actually put different
treatments on that landscape.
I mentioned the forest vegetation simulator. It is a really
good tool to have a--it is computer generated, but it still
looks like a forest. Then you change the condition of the
forest based on different treatments, or you introduce a bark
beetle outbreak or you introduce a fire. It allows a member of
the public to see what each of those different forests will
look like given this background. In some experiences we have
had in the past that I am familiar with, on the Dixie National
Forest some years back, and also in Colorado, those tools have
been very important and effective to talk through the community
about what they want from the forests, and I think that is a
real good way of how science and management has come together.
Now, the challenge is, of course, backing up and saying,
just as you indicated, ``you have your desired condition. We
agree that is what we want. How do we get there?'' But I think
seeing it and agreeing that this is what we want makes it a
much better product at process.
Ms. Herseth. I appreciate that, and it sounds in the
sharing of information with people in the community and
building that consensus, and you know, this really is, in
addition to the testimony you have offered today about what we
do to restore the health in a post-fire situation, but when we
are looking at the political question here, and the local input
involved in finding the consensus that I think is part of the
key to moving forward in a way that even by some of the
questions that have been posed and what science will tell us,
from what I think you are saying there is the research projects
that you are introducing, and even to a greater degree right in
some of the other forests across the country as it relates to
the restoration, the rehabilitation efforts, and then sharing
the results of some of those projects as well as the efforts as
they varied, understanding, as I think, Mr. Eubanks, you said
that each, based on the unique ecosystems involved with our
different forests, that a project-specific assessment is
generally required in addition to what science may tell us more
broadly. That is where I am just--if you have any other
thoughts to share about how the Forest Service can go about
improving the manner in which it seeks some of these--the local
input, the public input, to find the consensus as it relates to
the post-fire operation.
Dr. Bartuska. I think if I understand the question you
have, clearly we have a commitment to working at the community
level and being, because of the site-specific nature of some of
our projects, even if we have these broad analyses ultimately
you have to get it down to the local level, and I think over
and over again we are trying to improve that particular
community interaction. The example I gave was just to provide a
tool to help improve that particular discussion and improve
those kinds of communications.
Ms. Herseth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walden. Thank you.
I believe Mr. Inslee has one more question, and then we
will move to the second panel.
Mr. Inslee. I wanted to ask you about the return on sales
of harvesting of these salvage sales. My understanding, they go
into the salvage sale account that is meant to be used for
other salvage activities, restoration activities. Is that
generally correct?
Mr. Shepard. Well, for BLM it is, and Steve would have to
answer for the Forest Service, but I believe it is also the
case with them.
Mr. Eubanks. In the case of many of our projects, there is
not just the Salvage Sale Fund, but it would also be Knutson-
Vandenberg Fund, and Brush Disposal Funds. There are different
kinds of cooperative funds that we use that would do further
work on the project area. Knutson-Vandenberg can do fuels
treatment work, but it can also do wildlife habitat improvement
work, reforestation, further thinning later on down the line.
Brush disposal work would deal with just fuels treatment of the
materials that needed to be treated as a result of that
project. Salvage sale would be one of the funds that we would
also use certainly to use on future projects.
Mr. Inslee. Let me ask you a hard question. You have a very
difficult job balancing these multiple needs of the forests,
partly in salvage sale situations, deciding what should be
harvested, what should not. Those are really hard decisions
that you have as professionals, to balance the community
interest and all this, and some have suggested, myself
included, that it is an unhealthy incentive to have the agency
that is charged with that responsibility to have an incentive
on one side of the ledger, in this case to make harvest
decisions that would increase the revenues to allow you to
fulfill your other obligation, that that is just a bad policy
that creates an incentive for the Service to go this one
direction rather than another. Then it would be asking you to
engage in some sort of super human beneficence to sort of
ignore that when you have to make these tough calls.
What would you say about that? In my view, this money ought
to go to the General Fund so you are relieved of the decision
or any economic incentive for your own agency on what you do.
You ought to be driven by your policy decisions and the
community input and not your own budget. What is your reaction
to all that?
Mr. Eubanks. If we had no guidelines under which we are
operating to begin with, I think perhaps some of your fears
might be realized. The bottom line is that we do have in fact a
forest plan that guides what the desired future condition is.
This really fits with what the Congresswoman from South Dakota
was talking about in terms of looking at what we want in the
future.
There has been a fairly broad consensus in terms of what we
would like the forest to look like in the future, and that is
what really guides our actions. It is not purely the economics.
Certainly we are concerned about how do we get that work done
and the economics that--if we decide ahead of time that we in
fact want to have a salvage operation to provide long-term fire
protection and protection of a new forest and get it
established quickly. The quicker we do that, the more economic
return there is. That is where the economic comes in. It is not
in deciding what job we want to do ahead of time.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. Walden. I want to thank the witnesses for your
testimony today. The record will remain open for 10 days, and
other members on the Committee who may have had other conflicts
today may have questions they would like to submit. We would
appreciate your response to those in writing.
Now I will ask our second panel of witnesses to prepare to
come up to the table, and we appreciate your patience with us
today. On Panel II we have Steve Thomas, who is the Assistant
State Forester of the Oregon Department of Forestry; Mr. John
Sessions, the Stewart Professor of Forest Engineering at Oregon
State University; Chips Barry, the Director of the Denver Water
Board; and Cate Hartzell, City Council Member, City of Ashland,
Oregon.
We welcome all of you today. We appreciate your time,
talent and input, and we look forward to hearing from you. Let
me remind you that under our Committee Rules, you are supposed
to limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. Your entire
statement will appear in the record.
I would first like to recognize Mr. Thomas for his
statement. Good morning, and we welcome you--or good afternoon.
It is still morning in Oregon, but afternoon here. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN R. THOMAS, ASSISTANT STATE FORESTER, OREGON
DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY
Mr. Thomas. Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of the
Committee. It is a pleasure to be with you this morning. Oregon
is very proud of the work that has gone on the Tillamook Burn,
and I am pleased with the video you showed. Maybe I should just
have you ask questions now. Dr. Moore did a pretty good job of
trying to explain what has gone on there. Let me give you a few
comments that may help your deliberations.
I want to talk to you briefly about the Tillamook State
Forest. The Tillamook State Forest is on the Coast Range about
40 miles west of the City of Portland, with some of the most
productive forest land in the world. The State has a forest
there, Tillamook State Forest, 360,00 acres, of which about
250,000 acres were included in the Tillamook Burn, and the
Tillamook Burn, as also mentioned by Dr. Moore, was one of
North America's largest wildfires.
The Department has been engaged in the Tillamook for over
70 years, from the fire suppression efforts that started in the
'30s up until the current day management. We are the managers
of the Tillamook.
I will hit a couple highlights for you this afternoon,
first talk a little bit about the fires, then about the
rehabilitation reforestation efforts, and then finally close
with where we are with the forest today. I also welcome the
members of the Committee to come to Oregon if your work takes
you there and have a tour of the Tillamook. Sometimes that is
the best way to really see what is going on on the ground and
what might be potentially available to you.
To start with, before the fires, the original forest
covered the Coast Range with stands of large trees, and some of
these were 3 to 7 feet in diameter. Very little logging had
gone on on the Tillamook. By 1933, most of the logging had been
on the periphery of the forest and not on the interior, had
been done with trains and steam donkeys.
But then there were the fires, four of them basically. We
talk about the Tillamook Burn, and everybody thinks maybe it is
one fire, but there were actually four fires that were at 6-
year intervals, called the 6-year jinx, starting in 1933 and
running through 1951. The fires devastated the landscape and
the economies of the surrounding area. Coming on the heels of
the Great Depression, it was a devastating blow for all of
Oregon.
The 1933 fire was the largest fire. The first 10 days had
burned 40,000 acres. Then in 20 hours it burned 200,000 acres,
so 240,000 acres in basically an 11-, 12-day period, but most
of that coming in 20 hours. In total, the four fires burned
around 350,000 acres, of which 250,000 of that eventually came
into State ownership.
So despite this devastation, there was lot of early
visionaries that foresaw a new forest from the ashes, and what
followed was the beginning of a remarkable transformation of
the landscape. The transformation occurred generally in two
specific periods, and I think what is interesting here is the
longevity of this transformation. It did not happen over night.
The first period was from 1933, which was the date of the
first fire, to 1948. Not much reforestation occurred in the
Burn during that period of time because no one had undertaken a
project of this magnitude, so there were many questions to be
answered.
In addition, the salvage logging was underway, and these
were fairly large logs, and so salvage logging went on for
years, and some records indicate that 7 to 10 billion board
feet of the 13 billion that were destroyed in the fire were
eventually salvaged from the burn. Many questions about who
should own the land. Many of the private landowners have gone
tax delinquent. So should the counties own the land? Should the
state own the land, or should the Forest Service own the land?
Who was going to undertake the restoration of this forest? Who
was going to finance it? How was it going to be financed? No
one had undertaken a project of this magnitude. And how would
public funds be acquired to do that? Eventually the funding was
put up by the State of Oregon. There were no Federal funds
involved in this project.
Planning. We have several research projects underway, and
plans put together so that people have some idea, if this
project was undertaken, how it would be accomplished.
In addition to that, remember, between 1933 and 1948 there
were two additional fires in the Tillamook Burn, the 1939 fire
and the 1945 fire. While these actually increased the size of
the total burned area, they also reburned a significant amount
of the burn. So there were a number of people who were hesitant
about reforesting the burn until it could be fireproofed and
they didn't want to invest the money until they felt it wasn't
going to burn up again. I might add there was a fire in 1951,
and it was mostly within the old burn.
So there was a big challenge for Oregonians, the size of
the area, the logistics required, the organization of people,
equipment and funds, the need for seed and seedlings. It wasn't
until about 1948 that things really got underway in terms of
reforesting the burn. In 1948, Oregonians passed a
constitutional amendment that allowed for funding of the
reforestation's rebonding process.
That really started the second phase of this reforestation/
rehabilitation effort, which went on from 1949 to 1973, 24
years. During that period approximately $12 million were spent,
millions of trees planted, billions of seed dropped from
helicopters, 220 miles of firebreaks belt to get the snags out
of the way so that it wouldn't burn up again, and many
Oregonians were involved, contractors, inmate crews,
volunteers, school children. It was an effort by all Oregonians
to reforest and rehabilitate the burn.
So what is the legacy of that fire, the salvage and the
replanting? Well, the result is--and I would like to have quite
as glowing a report as Dr. Moore made--but the fact is we have
a very densely packed, even-age, single species forest, which
today is probably what we do not necessarily want for the
future forests. Nearly 65 percent of the Tillamook is in this
type of forest structure, providing limited biodiversity.
Our view of biodiversity today would have a variety of tree
species, ages, and forest structures across the landscape.
These conditions are not prevalent on the Tillamook today, and
that knowledge informs our activities and plans for the desired
future condition of the forest, which would have about 50
percent of the forest being an older forest structure, and the
remaining 50 percent being through regeneration through younger
stands.
Some ask what would the Tillamook look like today if no
rehabilitation and reforestation occurred. Remember, some of
the recommendations were to turn this into grazing land, and
some said put a super fire line around it and just let nature
take its course. Neither of those particular alternatives were
followed up on.
Certainly some regrowth would have occurred. The problem
was that due to the multiple burns and the complete loss of
seed sources within the area, I mean it would be difficult to
imagine a landscape that would have a vigorous forest upon it.
A much higher degree of alder and brush species would exist,
and we would expect much lower levels of habitat recovery.
Thanks, however, to our predecessors, the former Tillamook Burn
is a productive forest which grows like a sea of green across
this stretch of the coast range.
An interesting sidelight is that the sea of green is valued
by all Oregonians, no matter what their view on forest
management might be. During the last State legislative session
two bills were proposed. One person called them bookend bills.
One bill said we ought to manage to forests for timber
production. One bill said we should set 50 percent of the
forest aside for reserves and old growth, and grow old growth,
and then manage the other 50 percent. Both of those groups,
with quite different values on how forests could be managed,
saw the value of the Tillamook in being able to achieve their
goals in the future. So the foundation that we have out there
allows many pathways for Oregonians to manage their forests
into the future.
Today we manage the forests to provide a sustainable flow
of social, economic and environmental values, and at the same
time we manage today to leave options available to the future.
The rebirth of the Tillamook Burn into a healthy and
sustainable forest is one of Oregon's most dramatic success
stories, and it is a forest and a story that will continue to
grow, and one that we will continue to tell.
Thanks in part to strong support from the Oregon
Congressional Delegation, including Representative Walden, I am
proud to say that next year we will open a forest education
facility known as the Tillamook Forest Center to help share the
incredible story of recovery and sustainable forest management
with hundreds of thousands of visitors. The landscape of the
Tillamook has witnesses dramatic change in the last century.
The events that played out there have defined the times and
shaped the options we have available today. The decisions we
make today are thus linked to the past and will in turn shape
the future.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thomas follows:]
Statement of Steven R. Thomas, Assistant State Forester,
Oregon Department of Forestry
INTRODUCTION
Good Morning Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is
Steve Thomas and I serve as the Assistant State Forester for the Oregon
Department of Forestry--based in Salem, Oregon--responsible for the
management of just under 800,000 acres of Oregon's state-owned forest
land.
As Representative Walden has no doubt told you, and perhaps many of
you have seen, Oregon has been blessed with rich and diverse forests
that blanket nearly half of our state. There are 28 million acres of
forestland in Oregon--our total statewide land mass is just over 64
million acres.
I am very pleased to be here this morning to address the past,
present and future of one particularly renowned piece of that 28
million acre forest landbase: the 364,000-acre Tillamook State Forest,
located in the far northwest corner of Oregon.
We offer to the committee our experience with the restoration and
management of the Tillamook, for over 70 years, from fire suppression
to the current day management of the forest.
FOCUS
I come before you as a person who knows the Tillamook as an
Oregonian, a Forestry Department employee, and more recently as a
person who has helped set policy for the future of the forest. This
morning, I will highlight key chapters of the Tillamook State Forest
Story:
How the original forest was devastated by a series of
wildfires in the 1930s and 1940s;
How rehabilitation and reforestation brought communities
together, while also beginning to restore the forest;
How two generations of forest management created options
for the future;
How sustainable forest management today in the Tillamook
seeks to address social, environmental and economic values.
I have submitted additional materials to staff, that will be
entered into the record. In addition, we welcome members of the
committee to a tour of the Tillamook State Forest should your work
afford you an opportunity to visit Oregon.
OVERVIEW AND EARLY HISTORY
To begin, I felt it would be helpful to describe where this forest
is: The Tillamook State Forest is located in the northern Oregon Coast
Range Mountains, about 40 miles west of Portland. The forest covers
about 364,000 acres, roughly 570 square miles.
Understanding the history of this forest is crucial to
understanding the challenges and opportunities we face today and in the
future. For the most part, the outline of today's Tillamook State
Forest follows the footprint of areas burned during the 1930s and
1940s. Prior to the fires, the entire area was privately owned. The
story of the Tillamook (and really of any forest) is defined by change.
Here's one interesting facet of that: The nearly complete change of
property ownership in the Tillamook, from private to state ownership as
a result of the fires.
Before the fires, the original forest covered the coast range with
large stands of old trees, openings created by wind, fire, disease, and
many stands of vigorous young trees. By 1933, when the first fire hit,
there were few roads through the area, and much of the forest had not
been logged. Steam donkeys and rail lines were beginning to operate
around the edges of the forest, and communities at the forest's edge
were depending on the jobs, raw material and revenue that came from
these private forest lands.
But then there were the fires. Four of them, burning at six year
intervals, devastating the landscape and the economies of the
surrounding area. Coming on the heels of the Great Depression, this was
a devastating blow for all of Oregon.
The 1933 fire, like those that followed, stemmed from a logging
operation. At first, the loggers thought they could contain it, but it
quickly outran them. CCC firefighters, conscripts, loggers and
volunteers had all they could do to stay out of the way. Hard to
imagine, but the 1933 fire burned 200,000 acres in 20 hours. That's an
average of 10,000 acres--or 15 square miles--per hour.
In the hard years immediately after the fires, many landowners in
the burned-over area stopped paying taxes and let their lands revert to
the counties. The fires left behind a landscape virtually devoid of
green trees. As far as you could see, only brown, gray and black.
RESTORATION AND TRANSFER TO THE STATE
Despite this, a spirit of cooperation, forged in part by the fires
themselves and the hard economic times, began to arise about the
Tillamook Burn. Early visionaries foresaw a new forest from the ashes.
What followed was the beginning of a remarkable transformation of
the landscape. Remember that this is the depression. Remember that this
entire landbase is privately owned. Salvage operations began,
ultimately reclaiming about 10 billion board feet of timber from the 13
billion board feet burned by the fires. Companies--former rivals--
banded together to create a consolidated company that salvaged and
milled the burned timber.
Put in today's terms, the Tillamook Burn salvage era produced
almost three times the amount of today's total annual timber harvest
from all of Oregon's forests: state, private and federal combined.
In a series of agreements begun with the 1939 State Forest
Acquisition Act signed by then-Governor Charles Sprague, these burned-
over lands were transferred from the counties to the state. As new
state forests, these lands would be managed to provide revenue for the
counties and to provide a wide range of forest values for all
Oregonians. This early vision shaped the forest we know today.
Then, there was the reforestation. It started modestly at first, as
an experiment really. The challenge was formidable in every way. The
size of the area, the logistics required, the organization of people
and equipment and funds, the need for seeds and seedlings. It was a
time of great innovation. Reforestation gained speed as Oregonians
passed a constitutional amendment in 1948 to fund the reforestation
process.
Hundreds of thousands of volunteers and contract tree planters
helped restore the Tillamook Burn. In the period between 1949 and 1972,
more than 72 million seedlings were planted by hand, creating a new
forest from the ashes. More than a billion seeds were dropped from
helicopters. Students from across northwest Oregon helped replant the
burn. Though the territory they planted was less than 1 percent of the
landscape, their memory of that collective act lives on today. One
teacher, reflecting on the completion of reforestation, wrote: ``We
have completed our mission of planting trees and growing citizens.''
THE LEGACY OF FIRE, SALVAGE AND REPLANTING
The wildfires of the 1930s and 1940s--and the salvage operations
that followed--had huge impacts on this region. The volume of green
timber killed by the fire has been estimated at 13 billion board feet.
Natural reseeding processes were interrupted and in some areas seed
sources were destroyed. Fish and wildlife habitat was devastated. The
local economies and communities suffered lost wages, lost taxes, lost
jobs. Land ownership patterns and practices were significantly changed.
At the time, common practice was to plant 1,000 trees per acre.
That's different from what we plant today. Today, 400 trees per acre in
the Coast Range is considered fully stocked, and that's with an eye
toward early thinning. Of course, at the time, there was little science
or empirical evidence to suggest how to accomplish this kind of
project. The other element to note was that during the 23-year
reforestation process, Douglas-fir was the only species of tree planted
in The Burn. We know that Doug-fir was and is the predominant tree in
this region, but there were plenty of other species, very few of which
were planted at that time.
How does that legacy affect practices today and options for the
future? Today we have a 570 square-mile forest of trees that are
essentially all the same species and all planted about the same time.
This context poses plenty of challenges for today and the future. How
do you create a forest management plan for such a vast even age single
species forest? How do you work to restore biodiversity? The context of
today's forest--shaped by the events of the past--means we have a lot
of work to do. Getting the trees in the ground, as it turns out, may
have been the easy part.
We have a very densely packed, even aged, single species forest.
Nearly 65 percent of the Tillamook is in this type of ``forest
structure,'' providing only a narrow niche of habitat, and very limited
diversity. Biodiversity comes through having a variety of tree species,
ages, and forest structure or stand types. These conditions are not
prevalent in the Tillamook today and that knowledge informs our
activities and plans for the future.
What would the Tillamook look like today if there had been no
rehabilitation and reforestation? Certainly, some regrowth would have
occurred. But due to the multiple fires, and the complete loss of seed
source in some areas, it is fair to imagine a landscape still
struggling to support a vigorous forest; a much higher degree of alder
and brush species; and lower levels of habitat recovery, particularly
in riparian areas. Thanks, however, to our predecessors, the former
Tillamook Burn is a productive new forest, which grows like a sea of
green across this stretch of Coast Range.
Today, we manage the forest to provide a sustainable flow of
social, economic and environmental values. And at the same time we
manage today to leave options available to the future. The rebirth of
the Tillamook Burn into a healthy and sustainable forest is one of
Oregon's most dramatic success stories. And it's a forest and a story
that will continue to grow, and one that we will continue to tell.
Thanks in part to strong support from the Oregon Congressional
Delegation, including Representative Walden, I am proud to say that
next year we will open a forest education facility known as the
Tillamook Forest Center to help share this incredible story of recovery
and sustainable forest management with hundreds of thousands of
visitors.
The landscape of the Tillamook has witnessed dramatic change in the
last century. The events that played out there have defined their times
and shaped the options we have available today. The decisions we make
today are thus linked to the past. And will in turn shape the future.
______
Mr. Walden. Thank you. We appreciate your testimony too,
and the State's work on the Tillamook.
I now would like to recognize Mr. John Sessions for his
statement. Good afternoon and welcome.
STATEMENT OF JOHN SESSIONS, UNIVERSITY DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
OF FORESTRY AND STEWART PROFESSOR OF FOREST ENGINEERING,
COLLEGE OF FORESTRY, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am John Sessions, Professor of Forestry at Oregon State
University. Last year I was lead author of a study to examine
the cost of management delay on restoration following the 2002
Biscuit Fire, the largest fire in recorded Oregon history,
burning more than 400,000 acres.
Most of the Biscuit is being managed for wilderness and to
provide habitat for species that live in older conifer-
dominated forests and for recreation and watershed production
purposes. A small part is managed for multiple use, including
timber production.
I want to make six points regarding opportunities to hasten
forest regrowth and the costs of management delay after
catastrophic fire in Southwestern Oregon.
Point 1: Natural recovery of large, intensively burned
areas to mature conifer-dominated forest is typically slow and
uncertain, and in this area, will take perhaps 200 years.
Point 2: Well-established silvicultural techniques can
hasten conifer regrowth. We have learned through $25 million in
research and more than 20 years' experience, that we can
successfully plant and establish conifers in Southwest Oregon.
With control of competing vegetation we can maintain rapid
height growth, double the conifer diameter growth rate, and
substantially reduce the time necessary to regrow a conifer-
dominated forest. The science is very clear on this point.
Point 3: Conifer regeneration costs rise rapidly as a
function of time since wildfire. Conifer forests, if planted
immediately, can be reestablished at a fraction of the cost,
than if delayed 5 years.
Point 4: Standing fire-killed trees, while having other
values, contribute to future fire risk, including the potential
of long-term soil damage.
Point 5: Salvage value of standing fire-killed trees
declines rapidly. Delay results in lost opportunities to
provide resources for society, employment, and to provide finds
for restoration. Currently, by the time decisions are made and
implemented on Federal forests, only the largest most
commercially valuable species have remaining economic value.
More rapid decisionmaking could provide a win-win situation
where smaller dead trees could be salvaged while they have
economic value, and larger dead trees left onsite for wildlife
and other values. If agencies were allowed to move quickly to
utilize the smaller dead trees that the industry is now geared
for, the debate over salvage and over the large dead trees
would be much reduced.
Point 6: Time is not neutral. The window of opportunity to
rapidly restore conifer forests closes quickly. With regards to
the Biscuit, the restoration decision have been made. The
record of decision is now public. 4 percent of the burned area
will be salvaged, 7 percent will be planted, and the majority
will be left for nature to chart its course. On the actively
managed lands, effectiveness of forest restoration and its cost
now depends on whether wood products firms will take the risk
of investing in fire-killed timber entering its third summer,
and whether groups opposed to reforestation and utilization try
to obstruct agency action.
My key message is there is substantial ecologic, economic
and social costs to delays in post-fire restoration activities.
They are large. They are important, and they are real.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sessions follows:]
Statement of John Sessions, University Distinguished Professor of
Forestry and Stewart Professor of Forest Engineering, College of
Forestry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
Introduction
Mr. Chair, I am John Sessions, University Distinguished Professor
of Forestry and Stewart Professor of Forest Engineering at Oregon State
University. I have advanced degrees in civil engineering, forest
engineering and a PhD in forest management. I have been teaching and
doing research in forest planning and transportation planning at Oregon
State University for 20 years. I also provide strategic planning
support to the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) on the Tillamook and
Elliott state forests. I have prior experience in harvesting operations
and management with the forest industry and 10 years experience with
the USDA Forest Service at the district, forest, regional office,
research station and Washington Office levels. I have provided planning
advice and services to companies and agencies in 16 countries on five
continents. Specific experience relevant to my testimony includes hot
shot crew fire operations experience, forest planning and fire modeling
on the Congressionally mandated Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, the
Applegate Project, and currently the Jackson County Wood Utilization
and Fire Risk Reduction Project. In 2003 I was lead author of a study
on management options on the Biscuit Fire that originated with a
request by the Douglas County Commissioners, concerned about the large
wildfires that occurred in southwest Oregon during 2002.
Wildfires that burn with uncharacteristic intensity can affect the
natural recovery of conifer-dominated forests by elimination of conifer
seed sources, creation of conditions for dominance by competing
vegetation, and lock in cycles of fire and shrubs and hardwoods for
long periods. There is a short window of time in which cost efficient
management actions can be taken if rapid restoration of conifer-
dominated forest is desired.
I am going to discuss the rapid restoration of conifer-dominated
forests in fire-prone landscapes after uncharacteristically intense
wildfire in order to describe the significant ecological and economic
costs that can result from management delays in decision-making and
implementation. I use the southwest Oregon Biscuit Fire of 2002 as a
case study.
During the summer of 2002, the Biscuit Fire, the largest fire in
recorded Oregon history, burned more than 400,000 acres over 54 days
and cost more than $150 million in direct suppression costs. Most of
this land was being managed for wilderness and old forest conditions to
provide habitat for species that live in older conifer-dominated
forests and for recreation and watershed protection purposes.
The seven points I will make are:
1) natural recovery of large, intensively burned areas of forest
in southwest Oregon to mature conifer-dominated forest is typically
slow and uncertain
2) under natural recovery, most or all the standing fire-killed
trees will be on the ground many years before the new conifer forest
can produce green trees and future snags to replace those now used by
snag dependent wildlife
3) well-established silvicultural techniques can hasten conifer
forest regrowth
4) conifer regeneration costs rise rapidly as a function of time
since wildfire
5) standing fire-killed trees contribute to future fire risk
6) salvage value of standing fire-killed trees declines rapidly
7) the window of opportunity to rapidly restore conifer forests is
closing
Natural Recovery
Historically, large areas of conifer forests that burned light to
moderate in intensity reseeded naturally. Where seed is readily
available and site conditions are conducive to Douglas-fir, the most
common conifer in the Biscuit area, natural stands begin with seedfall
of 100,000 or more seeds per acre yielding more than 1000 seedlings per
acre. Over time, through inter-tree competition, the new forests self-
thin themselves to often fewer than 100 trees per acre by age 160. Seed
crops occur naturally at irregular intervals. Most conifer seeds are
wind dispersed and the majority fall within one tree height; 90% within
two tree heights with some seeds being found at distances of 800 feet
or greater. Given that a seed falls, the chance of it developing into a
successful seedling is less than one in a hundred.
On drier sites, with long distances to seed trees, naturally-seeded
areas may develop slowly and restocking by conifers may require 100
years or more. Thus, natural recovery to the pre-fire conifer-dominated
forest can be a slow process. Although Douglas-fir is the most common
conifer in the Biscuit fire area, other conifers also occur. Three
important conifers in the area, Port-Orford-Cedar, Sugar Pine and
Western White Pine, are threatened by non-native diseases. Disease
resistant strains have been developed. Nature, alone, will not
guarantee the long-term survival of these species without planting
disease resistant stock.
Snag Dependent Wildlife
Green conifers are now absent from large areas burned by the
Biscuit Fire and snags are abundant for those wildlife species that
utilize snags. On these areas, most or all of the fire-killed trees
will be on the ground many years before green conifers return under
natural recovery. Planting conifers followed by vegetation control
could reduce the large conifer tree recovery time by half, thus
hastening the return of green trees and replacement snags before the
current snags have fallen.
There are tradeoffs between leaving many large fire-killed trees
for wildlife and the impact that might have on conifer regrowth and
future fire risk. There is no question the large dead trees are the
most significant for snag-dependent wildlife and no question that they
pose future risk from lightening strikes. The tradeoff entails how many
to leave standing, where and how decisions for snag retention will both
serve wildlife and reduce future fire and insect risks. More than half
of the intensely burned area is in Wilderness and will be left with
high snag densities and natural recovery regardless of management
decisions in the other burned areas.
Hastening Conifer Forest Regrowth
By far, the most significant problem facing young conifer
regeneration in the southwest Oregon region is competing vegetation.
Following wildfire, shrubs and hardwoods reoccupy sites rapidly from
seed stored in the soil and scarified by the fire and from sprouting.
At lower elevations, grass can aggressively reoccupy sites. All three
are vigorous competitors to conifers. Grasses and shrubs also provide
habitat for birds and seed-eating rodents. Much of the conifer-
dominated forest that burned in the Biscuit fire was established during
the waning years of the Little Ice Age. Current and likely future
climates are more favorable to root-sprouting shrubs and hardwoods than
when the burned forests originated. With limited amounts of soil
moisture, competition from woody and herbaceous vegetation greatly
reduces the survival and growth of conifers.
At the request of community leaders in the late 1970's, a major
cooperative research and technology transfer effort called the Forestry
Intensified Research Program (FIR) was initiated by Oregon State
University and USDA Forest Pacific Northwest Research Station, with
strong support from Senator Mark Hatfield and Congressman Les AuCoin.
The ensuing basic and applied research greatly expanded our knowledge
of forest ecosystems in the region and identified silvicultural
practices for successful reforestation after wildfire or timber
harvests. Some experimental treatments have now been continuously
monitored for 23 years. It has been demonstrated that rapid planting of
conifers after wildfire can have more than a 90% success rate, and with
control of competing vegetation, it is possible to double conifer
diameter growth rates and to increase height growth. This can
substantially reduce the time necessary to regrow a conifer-dominated
forest with large tree characteristics, which is precisely the forest
conditions called for in the Northwest Forest Plan for much of the
burned area. A tree's resistance to death by fire is related strongly
to its diameter and height to the live crown. The more rapid the height
growth, and the larger its diameter, the greater its chance of
survival.
In the absence of human assistance, we estimate that the larger
conifer trees (>18 inches diameter) that provide much of the character
of mature conifer forest and most of the habitat for old-growth-
dependent wildlife will take much longer to grow. On many sites, it
will take 50 years or more to supplement the surviving larger trees,
even with prompt regeneration, and up to 100 years to approach pre-fire
conditions for 18-inch or larger trees. Without planting and subsequent
shrub control, it could take more than 100 years to even re-establish
conifer forests that will be anything like the pre-fire forests.
Conifer Regeneration Costs
As an outgrowth of the FIR Program and related regeneration studies
in the Northwest, OSU researchers have estimated (1) the initial cost
of a variety of regeneration options, (2) the declining probability of
success related to time, and (3) the differences of success on north-
versus south-facing slopes. Immediately following intense fires,
conifer forests can be re-established at one-quarter to one-eighth the
cost that will be required if planting is delayed five years. Three
important conclusions can be drawn from examining regeneration costs:
(1) the most cost-efficient method of establishing conifers is
immediate regeneration; (2) planting delays beyond the first three
years (or less with aggressive sprouting) can substantially increase
costs through poor survival and high restocking costs if competition
from weeds and shrubs is not adequately addressed; (3) when delays are
unavoidable, herbicides for site preparation and release will
dramatically reduce costs of establishment over other reforestation
options. The use of herbicides could substantially reduce the out-year
establishment costs and increase forest restoration success.
Future Fire Risk
The adage ``lightning never strikes twice in the same place'' is
not true. Lightning frequency tends to be higher in certain areas, such
as southwestern Oregon. Although we do not know when fires will start,
we do know what conditions create fire hazards. These conditions
include (1) availability of snags that are easily ignited; (2) forest
litter (fine fuels) and shrubs that provide opportunities for rapid
fire spread; (3) down wood derived from decaying dead trees that
contributes to high-intensity fires; (4) tree canopies that extend to
the ground, providing fuel ladders to the tree crowns; (5) dense forest
canopies that provide conditions for spread of crown fire; (6) lack of
access that can delay or prevent suppression, and (7) falling snags
that create danger for firefighters. All of these contribute greatly to
the difficulty in developing control strategies for new fires.
We estimate there is an average of more than 160 fire-killed trees
per acre in the Biscuit fire area. These trees will fall over time and
create small and large logs that, while providing habitat for many
different species and slowly returning organic matter to soils, also
will fuel the intensity of future fires. We estimate that high numbers
of snags will persist for several decades and that down wood
accumulations on the forest floor will grow as snags fall and/or
deteriorate, reaching maximum levels in 40 years and remaining at those
levels for several decades. The numbers of snags and amount of down
wood will be higher in more severely burned areas and lower in less
severely burned areas, but are indicative of the trend. Significant
concentrations of dead and dying trees in the Biscuit area will leave
the landscape prone to large, intense wildfires for at least 60 years
into the future, further jeopardizing any potential for the forest to
return to mature conifer dominated forest.
Salvage Value
If decisions are made to assist nature in forest recovery and
reduce future fire and insect risks, actions could involve the removal
of some fire-killed and fire-stressed trees. This is often referred to
as salvage logging. We estimate that timber containing several billion
board feet was killed in the Biscuit Fire. Much of the timber in this
condition that is located outside of designated Wilderness is
accessible and could provide funds to offset restoration costs. Past
experience indicates that the recovery value of fire-killed timber will
decrease as trees deteriorate from checking, fungal decay, and
woodborer activity. Based on studies throughout the West, we estimate
that approximately 22% of the fire-killed volume that existed
immediately after the fire will be lost during the first year and by
the fifth year, only volume in the lower logs of the larger trees will
have economic value. By the summer of 2004, we estimate that the
economic loss due to timber deterioration will already be in the tens
of millions of dollars. Delay results in lost opportunities to provide
materials for society, employment, and to provide funds for
restoration. Often by the time decisions are made and implemented, only
the largest trees of the most commercially valuable species have
remaining economic value. More rapid decision making and implementation
could provide a win-win situation where smaller trees could be salvaged
while they have economic value while larger trees are left on site for
other values. Consideration might be given to a national policy on
post-fire restoration so that agencies can move ahead quickly and have
the opportunity to utilize the smaller trees that the industry is now
geared for and reduce the debate over the large trees.
In areas of limited access such as the Biscuit fire area,
helicopter logging provides an opportunity to quickly remove fire-
killed timber with little soil disturbance, and it can be done without
the construction of any new roads, thus keeping roadless areas,
roadless. Oregon is home to the majority of helicopter logging capacity
in North America and the capacity exists to remove more than 2 million
board feet per day. Helicopters were used to salvage significant
volumes in the 1987 Silver Fire (within the Biscuit fire area) and the
Rodeo-Chediski fire (White Mountain Apache Reservation, Arizona, 2002).
Logs from fire-killed trees at the Slater Creek Salvage Sale (Boise
National Forest, Idaho, 1993) were flown as far as 4 miles. Eight years
of monitoring after the Silver Fire salvage showed no adverse effects
on water quality.
Time is Not Neutral
Typical NEPA and sale preparation procedures now take up to 2
years. For green timber sales, this time investment may be reasonable
given the costs and benefits of the proposed actions. After wildfire,
however, the costs of delay are extreme. Green timber may increase 2%-
6% in volume and value over the 2-year plan preparation and decision-
making period. But, after a wildfire, fire-killed trees will lose more
than 40% of their value during the same period, and delays in
subsequent forest regeneration will further increase costs (Figure 1).
The Record of Decision for the Biscuit is now out, almost exactly
two years after the first trees burned. The federal agencies propose to
reforest 31,000 acres (about 7% of the burned area) and salvage 372
million board feet from 19,000 acres (about 4% of the burned area),
primarily by helicopter. The effectiveness of these efforts now depends
upon the speed of agency implementation, whether wood products firms
will take the risk of investing in fire-killed timber entering its
third summer, and whether groups opposed to reforestation and
utilization of a small portion of the trees killed by the fire try to
obstruct agency action.
There is evidence that agencies have begun to react to the urgency
for restoration after wildfire. On June 28, 2003 the 21,000 Davis Fire
started on the Deschutes National Forest in eastern Oregon. The Draft
EIS was issued in May, 2004, less than one year after the first trees
burned. The agency rationale for the aggressive timeline--(1) rapid
restoration of late successional reserves and (2) more timely salvage
to finance restoration and to reduce future fire risk.
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Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Sessions. we appreciate your
work and your testimony today.
Now I would like to welcome Mr. Chips Barry from the Denver
Water Board. We appreciate having you back before our
Committee.
STATEMENT OF HAMLET J. BARRY, III, MANAGER,
DENVER WATER BOARD
Mr. Barry. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am pleased
to be here again. I am Chips Barry. I am the manager of the
Denver Water Department.
It has been many years since Teddy Roosevelt was here to
testify, but I am going to be Teddy Roosevelt for exactly 30
seconds, and give you some enlightenment from Teddy, which is
in fact relevant to these proceedings. Teddy said, ``When wood
and water are endangered, the political differences between men
of power are dissolved.'' Point one.
Point two: ``The water supply itself depends upon the
forest. In the arid region it is water, not land, which
measures production.'' Both of those things come from my
message to Congress in 1902, and I thought you should here
about them now before I revert to my later self.
I do think Teddy Roosevelt is extremely relevant to these
discussions and this debate about what we do about forests, so
I just had to do my little piece there for you.
Now let me talk a little bit about Denver Water and what we
have done. Ryan has got some slides that he is going to run
through, but the purpose is for me to explain a little bit
about what happened to the watershed that serves Denver Water.
We have had two big fires, one in 1996 called the Buffalo Creek
Fire. It burned 12,000 acres. We thought it was a big deal at
the time. What happened to us after that was within a period of
about 8 weeks. We got two inches of rain on top of the burned
area. Two inches of rain then produced 400,000 cubic yards of
sediment into one of our major reservoirs. 400,000 cubic yards
was more sediment then we had received naturally in the
preceding 12 years.
The picture at the top right, which you cannot see, but you
may have copies of, shows you that after the Buffalo Creek Fire
the surface of our reservoir was covered with porta-potties,
driftwood, propane tanks, campaign yard signs, all kinds of
stuff. It was an enormous problem, and the sediment beneath
that debris was even a bigger problem. That was 1996. We did
not have any time to do any rehabilitation, but we certainly
learned a lesson. What we learned was when you have a big fire,
you had better get in and move as quickly as you can.
In 2002, we had the Hayman Fire. Reference has been made in
front of this Committee today, and I think I testified to your
Committee in California about the Hayman Fire. The Hayman Fire
burned 134,000 acres of land. There is the Hayman Fire. You can
see in the middle of that slide is a black square, and in the
middle of that square is Cheesman Reservoir. The intensely
burned area was right around our reservoir. That is 8,000 acres
of our land and 134,000 acres of the Forest Service land.
Having learned our lesson from the Buffalo Creek Fire,
immediately after the Hayman Fire I had 50 people working in
the forest for 5 days a week for more than 40 weeks, and we did
everything that it is possible to do to rehabilitate a burned
area because we feared again we might have a rainstorm of 2 or
3 inches, which could bring us as much as 2 million, 2 million
cubic yards of sediment into that reservoir.
Now, fortunately, that fire was a year and a half ago or
almost 2 years ago now, and we have not had a rainstorm of that
magnitude. We can therefore say we have had reasonably good
reclamation so far.
This illustrates an area around that reservoir where the
area marked in yellow is where we had treated the area before
the fire to do the kind of forest management that you need to
do. We cleared the brush. We thinned the trees, no clear-
cutting. Where that occurred, we did not have fire damage. We
did not lose our structures around the reservoir, and where we
had done forest treatment, we in fact avoided the major damage.
Where we had not gotten to that yet, we had major damage.
We can go to the next slide. Here is what the area that
burned looks like today. I cannot say it is completely
reclaimed, but you can see we have reasonably good growth of
grass. The areas has been somewhat stabilized. I want to now
simply take you through basically what Denver Water did.
We put up 2,000 straw bale dams, 50 log sediment dams at a
cost of $600,000. We did tree contouring and directional
filling to the tune of $20,000. We did hydro seeding and hydro
mulching to the tune of $200,000. We put on an aerial
application of polyacrylamides. We hydro-axed--and a hydro-axe
is a thing that looks like--it is the functional equivalent of
a pencil sharpener that you put at the top of a standing burned
tree and grind into mulch in about 30 seconds. It is a
remarkable machine. It really does look like putting a tree in
a pencil sharpener. We spent $900,000 doing that, and we hydro-
axed 400,000 trees in a space of about 2 months. It turns a
tree to mulch and it is extremely helpful in getting
revegetation started. We did salvage timbering on 1,700 acres.
We salvaged 10 million board feet of lumber. We did that at no
cost. We didn't make any money, but it didn't cost us anything
to have it done. The people who came in and did it said they
would do it for the value of the salvaged timber. We were not
caught up in any of the forest service procedural delays, so we
could do that almost immediately. We aerial-seeded 7,000 acres
and we are now planting 25,000 pine seedlings a year for the
next 10 years.
That is sort of the sum total of what we have done. We
spent about 4-1/2 million dollars to rehabilitate our 8,000
acres. On the whole we have probably out spent the Forest
Service 10 to 1 on an acre-for-acre basis. We are kind of the
poster child for what you do after a fire, but I do have to
tell you, until we get a 3-inch rain on top of the land we have
rehabilitated, I cannot tell you that everything we did worked.
I can say that we have worked very hard to make this as
successful as we can.
That is a list of what we did. We built these sediment
trash racks. We did 60 of those to catch the sediment. Then we
got to go in and clean them out.
Another one, that just shows the straw bale applications.
That is contour filling where we cut the trees and laid them
horizontally across the slope. That is a completed series of
treatments, where you see seeding, hydro-axe and mulching and
contour filling all together on the ground.
One more. One last thing we did, we have built two enormous
sediment traps, $850,000 apiece. They are in essence a leaky
dam. It is interesting to go to a water utility that I run and
ask your engineers to build a leaky dam. They had a little
problem with the concept at first, but the concept is to let
the water through and catch the sediment. We have built two of
those on the major small tributaries coming into Cheesman
Reservoir. They are successful. We are catching an enormous
amount of sediment in those even from the small rainstorms.
That is sort of my sum total of what we have done. We did
not rely on the Forest Service for help. We would get some
advice from them from time to time, but frankly, their problem
was much bigger than ours, and their budget was comparatively
much smaller. So if I bring a message, it is the locals know
what to do. If the Feds could help, that is terrific. We got in
there and did everything we could do. We have been reasonably
successful so far.
With that, I can see my light is on and I have exceeded by
time either as me or as Teddy.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Barry follows:]
Statement of Hamlet J. Barry Iii,
Manager of Denver Water, Denver, Colorado
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for allowing me to appear before you to address the
important issues of forest health and the attendant protection of
municipal water supply. The Denver Water Board is a municipal
corporation that supplies water to almost 1.2 million people: that is
one of every four people who live in Colorado. Denver Water's supply is
almost entirely dependent on water generated within the boundaries of
watersheds located on Forest Service and other public lands. Denver's
water system gathers diffuse surface flows originating on public
watersheds and moves the water to treatment plants and drinking water
systems located as much as 80 miles away from the water's origin. [See
Exhibit ``A'']
Denver Water has extensive experience in responding to and trying
to prevent wildland fires in our watershed, while continuing service to
our broad customer base. Since 1996 Denver Water has been the victim of
six fires in its Upper South Platte watershed, a major water supply and
delivery system for Denver Water. [See Exhibit ``B''] The effects of
these fires on Denver's system have varied, but the overall result is
one of vitiated water quality and diminished reservoir capacity due to
large amounts of fire-related debris and sediment filling our
reservoirs. For example, approximately twenty miles of the South Platte
River is subject to fire erosion that has resulted in severely reduced
water quality, high stream turbidity, and diminished reservoir capacity
due to foreign debris caused by the fire. To date, the costs of
responding to the fire damage has been almost $8,000,000 and continues
to grow. [See Exhibit ``C'']
As a result of dealing with forest fire issues, Denver Water
provides the following information that may be useful in your decisions
regarding the appropriate level of federal response, including
appropriations, to assist in recovering fire-degraded watersheds as
well as establishing an effective fire prevention program:
1. Fuel reduction can control or limit forest fires. Select cutting
and fuel reduction limited damage to Denver Water's property during the
2002 Hayman Fire. The fire began during times of drought, and was
fueled by an overgrown, under-managed forest. The fire burned for six
weeks and consumed 138,000 acres in Denver's South Platte watershed.
[See Exhibit ``D''] The Hayman fire completely consumed trees on
acreage surrounding Denver Water's Cheesman Reservoir. Denver Water was
in the process of thinning our trees on its own 8,000 acres prior to
the Hayman Fire.
In the areas where fire-prevention treatment was completed, the
fire dropped from the tops of the trees to the ground, and fire
intensity was diminished. Four caretaker houses, an office and
maintenance facilities survived the fire. Of the 8,000 acres owned by
Denver Water at the Cheesman site, everything burned to extinction
except for the treated areas. [See Exhibit ``E'']
2. Ongoing water quality and reservoir clean-up issues continue
long after a fire is contained. Forest fires themselves are only the
initial onslaught on the integrity of Denver Water's system. Denver
Water's facilities and its water quality have suffered from the Upper
South Platte Fires. For example, the Buffalo Creek Fire of 1996, dumped
400,000 cubic yards of sediment in Denver's terminal Strontia Spring
Reservoir. This debris meant that after the fire and related flooding,
Strontia Springs Reservoir received as much fire debris and sediment as
had accumulated in the prior eleven years. [See Exhibit ``F''] For this
relatively small fire the water quality and clean-up costs were nearly
a million dollars, with an estimated future cost of 15 to 20 million
dollars to dredge this reservoir. It is estimated the after effects of
erosion will negatively affect water quality at a cost of $250,000
annually for the next ten years.
Six years later, the Hayman fire dealt another blow to the Denver
Water delivery system. As a result of the Hayman fire alone, it is
estimated that more than 2,000,000 cubic yards of debris and sediment
could erode into Denver's Cheesman and Strontia Springs Reservoir.
3. Restoring a watershed destroyed by fire is an expensive,
continuous, and long-term process. Since July of last year, the
following restorative efforts have occurred on the Cheesman Reservoir
property:
To stabilize soils and reduce erosion Denver Water crews
and aerial contractors have applied more than 210,000 pounds of grass
seed over 7,000 acres. [See Exhibit ``G'']
2,000 temporary sediment dams have been created by
placing nearly 30,000 straw bales in gullies to slow the flow of debris
carried in rain runoff. Sediment dams are also created by contour
felling of dead trees which is the process of cutting and aligning
trees perpendicular to the slopes to prevent erosion.
Mulching of standing dead trees helps break up
hydrophobic soils and returns organic materials to the soil, replacing
those destroyed in the fire. This was done in areas that were already
seeded, providing mulch over the seed as well as removing unsightly
burned trees.
Salvage logging was very effective combined with the
aerial seeding. Under private contract, 1,700 acres of burned land were
logged by timber salvage companies. About 10 million board feet of
lumber were salvaged. [See Exhibit ``H'']
To reforest the burned area on its property, Denver Water
planted 25,000 ponderosa pine seedlings for each of the past two years
and plans to plant the same amount annually for the next eight years.
Aerial applied PAM (polyacrylamide) treatment was used to
temporarily bind the soil and thereby reduce erosion. Use of PAM
continues to be evaluated.
Denver water spent $1,500,000 on two sediment dams in
order to prevent filling Cheesman Reservoir with the large amount of
debris and sediment from burned areas on federal lands. [See Exhibit
``I''] The Goose Creek sediment dam contains about 14,000 tons of rock.
The Turkey Creek sediment dam will be 140 feel long with a 40 foot high
span. Both sediment dams are designed to be water permeable.
4. Costs of remediation to protect fire ravaged watersheds are
high, but the aforementioned techniques are proven to control erosion
and return the landscape to a native forested condition over a long
period of time. The costs of the Denver Water response to the Hayman
fire at Cheesman have totaled nearly $6,500,000. Federal help from the
National Resources Conservation Service and the EPA has taken the form
of technical advice and reimbursement of $2,490,000. Of course, future
dredging costs have not been estimated, but fire debris and sediment
have filled reservoirs, diminished storage capacity, and shortened
their estimated useful life. As mentioned before, the costs of the
Buffalo Creek fire are over $1,000,000 with anticipated reservoir and
dredging costs of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000. Again the need for
reservoir dredging has been accelerated by the fire-caused erosion
filling the reservoir.
It is important for the federal government to stabilize their own
land, not only to reduce the erosion that is fouling the water for
Denver and other municipal suppliers, but also to assure a restoration
of the forest environment. While expenditures are always of concern to
a government, the damage caused on federal land has created a dangerous
condition and endangered the public water supply that is an integral
part of forest management.
5. Fire conditions on federal lands have not been sufficiently
remediated, so that adverse impacts on municipal watersheds will
continue and wildfire danger will remain high. In my opinion, Denver
Water's experiences with the forest fires in the Upper South Platte can
serve as a baseline for how to respond to large-scale wild fire
watershed damage involving federal and private lands.
First, potential damage from forest fire can be significantly
reduced by careful, deliberate forest management. Passage of the
Healthy Forest legislation last year demonstrates Congress is aware of
the activities that need to occur to protect watersheds from
irreparable harm. It is useless, and perhaps unconscionable, to
legislate a well-defined forest protection policy and fail to fund it
adequately. There is too much fuel load in our forests, and these
forests need to be treated and thinned regularly and scientifically.
Second, sediment control measures, most of them small in scale,
have helped to control fire caused erosion, but have not been severely
tested by a large rain event. I am hopeful, but not particularly
optimistic that we will succeed in preventing two million cubic yards
of decomposed granite from moving downhill into our waterways.
Third, the federal government agencies, namely the Natural
Resources Conservation Service, the United States Forest Service, and
the Bureau of Land Management are occasionally helpful and usually
sympathetic. However, their budgets are limited and the acreage they
deal with is vast compared with our own. Following the Hayman fire, we
out-spent these agencies nearly ten to one on an acre-for-acre basis
comparing our land to theirs. The point is that to date municipal
systems injured by a forest policy that failed to protect municipal
watersheds cannot depend on the Federal Government to do a great deal
for you no matter how big your problem is and no matter how much their
actions contributed to it.
Fourth, Denver Water remains concerned about over-grown forests
both publicly and privately owned. The ``red zone'' is the urban/wild
land interface west of Denver over the entire Front Range. We have not
discovered the right mixture of carrot and stick that will motivate
private or federal landowners to treat and thin the forest on their
property to avoid catastrophic wildfire.
The above observations lead clearly to the conclusion that the
local government agencies know as much or more than anyone about the
issues of watershed/wildfire and what will help alleviate future water
quality, sediment and erosion problems. Based on our experience, any
combination of these measures will work, but we need help from the
federal agencies to solve problems on their own lands and to protect
the watersheds that serve the forest as well as the people of Colorado.
Congress has a blueprint in the Healthy Forest Act, now it needs to
provide the money so restoration and wise forest management can occur
on all federal land. I urge your support of the requests for funds to
carry out the Healthy Forest mandates.
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______
Mr. Walden. We will forgive both. Thank you for your
testimony.
Now, I would like to welcome Councilor Hartzell from
Ashland, Oregon. We look forward to your testimony. Thanks for
being here.
STATEMENT OF CATE HARTZELL, ASHLAND CITY COUNCILOR, CITY OF
ASHLAND, OREGON, AND PROGRAM COORDINATOR, COLLABORATIVE
LEARNING CIRCLE
Ms. Hartzell. Thank you, Representative Walden. I
appreciate the time that you have given both this morning to me
personally and to this hearing, as well as your staff and what
they have done to contribute to it.
I am the City Councilor in Ashland, Southern Oregon, just
over the State of California. I am also Program Director of
Collaborative Learning Center. It is a regional network in
Northern California and Southern Oregon of community based
groups working on watershed restoration, small diameter
hardwood utilization. I have done that for over a decade, both
in my local community as well as regionally and nationally.
Today I want to touch upon briefly the challenges and
progress we have made in that regard, the current situation, as
some people in the communities that I live view this topic, and
also some suggestions that we have learned from you for moving
forward in the midst of the decade that we have lived through
that has had social and economic change in it.
What many of us in the community have done is to look for
the common ground and try as best we can to find areas where we
can work there that would produce some experience that was
successful. We have also advocated for decisions that integrate
the different issues and perspectives so that, again, we can
find more common ground. We have begun to work in the areas of
agreement.
One of those areas that I want to highlight today is
something that you as Congress members have been integral in
providing for us, and that is the National Fire Plan. It has
been extremely successful in my part. Having watched what we
have done for 10 years and come to ask for when we come to
Washington, D.C., this is a significant part of the answer.
The elements of success in that National Fire Plan, from my
perspective, are severalfold. One, that it is far less
expensive than to do the kind of treatments that we are
highlighting in today's hearing. To get in before the fire
comes is far less damaging on the landscape and far less
expensive in tax dollars.
We are also finding that it produces local and consistent
jobs; produces a steady flow of small and medium-size timber
which we have begun to do utilization and biomass on; and it
forms really critical partnerships in being able to treat both
the private and the public land, both of which are essential in
protecting the forests and community infrastructure.
Today's topic. I am here to bring, or to perhaps highlight
some of the comments that have been made earlier about the
controversial nature both of post-fire restoration as well as
post-fire salvage logging. Socially, from my perspective or
from the perspective of many of the people who live in the area
where I am from, is that it is reminiscent of the more
traditional industrial or agricultural model of forestry, and
that raised concerns that we dealt with in the '90s and are
trying to grow through. Also the concern about the protections,
both in public participation as well as ecological protections
that we are seeing at least in our area of the Northwest.
Scientifically there is uncertainty, not only uncertainty,
but disagreement. Disagreement involves definition of what our
end goal is. What are the goals that we are trying to achieve
and what are the characteristics of the forests that we are
trying to restore and rehabilitate? Also disagreement about the
characterization of the impact of the fire. There is
disagreement and certainly uncertainty about the
appropriateness and the success of the traditional intervention
strategies. There is disagreement about the impact or the
theory of reburn, and again I think, as I mentioned in my
testimony, we are touching an elephant here, and I would not
invalidate the experience of people who would come from any
part of the country and talk about their experience. There are
distinct differences because they are distinct ecosystems, but
there is differences there. And also the unintended
consequences of the traditional strategies, the leaving of
slash, the use of fertilizers and herbicides, weeds is
certainly an issue that we are all paying attention to.
So with those levels of uncertainty and social disagreement
around where to go, I wanted to bring forward some of my
experiences of myself and my colleagues, and I want to talk
briefly about them in the context of what we have done locally.
Ashland owns land in our municipal watershed. We have,
through official commissions that the city has established and
supported, just completed Phase 1 of a forest health project up
in our watershed. What we did there was very important, and I
want to share a couple of those lessons. One was that we phased
it. We had areas lower down in our watershed where it was very
important that we get up because of drought and overstocking,
and thin out. We started doing below 7-inch thinning back in
'95 with the use of our water funds. So we are familiar with
some of the work that has been done up there already, but we
wanted to go in and do a commercial sale. We also had an area a
little bit higher up with old growth in it. The Commission
decided that because of the diverse range of perspective in our
community, we were going to start where we knew we would be
successful. We did that. We just finished it. We were at cost.
We wound up paying $500, but that is not bad considering the
number of acres that we treated, and we did helicopter log.
We collaborated. The fire chief is very frequently
reminding me to slow down, because he has realized how
carefully he has to work in the community and not to get ahead
of himself. We are very interested in and invested in multi-
party monitoring, bringing multiple stakeholders to the table,
asking the questions and going out collectively to answer some
of those questions. We do not have the constraints of NEPA, and
yet we pay very careful attention to the involvement of the
public and even more so investment in the analysis up in the
watershed. We have a forester who may as well be on retainer,
knows a great deal about our watershed, about the private and
the public, and this commission charged him with going up and
getting the information very site specifically.
The choice of where to work, I mentioned before we stress
the--instead of the old growth. The goal was, in our project,
forest health, and in order to move this forward in our
community we needed to stay on point guard with that, and I
believe that we did. The emphasis also was on working with our
local workforce and our local businesses. That was very
important to us. One of the things that does not come directly
out of this, but that I mention in my testimony that I think is
also important, is that as we talk about where do we spend that
precious one dollar of the taxpayer and up from there, we have
to make sure that we are spending it in the most cost-effective
way that we can, and I think it is important that we analyze
all the costs, not only what we are getting in revenue, but
what we are spending to do that.
These principles, I think, are very important for us and
perhaps for you in guidance. We have HFRA status as a
watershed. We are still learning what that means. The rest of
the time in D.C. I am going to try to go out and hunt down not
only what it means but where the money might come from because
we have identified cooperatively in our community where the
next round of Federal work will be. We are developing a
community wildfire protection plan alternative. We have it
already. We are refining it right now. The importance of that
is that we are bringing the principles that we learned working
with our municipal land into the Federal land, and we believe
it is possible and very important to do so.
What I would stress to you is that we built social capacity
and we are doing what you asked us to do in allocating the
money for the National Fire Plan. It is very important to us
that you make very careful decisions about how to move forward
in the post-fire area because of Biscuit. Biscuit, I brought
newspapers. I will not bore you with them, but they are
starting to show the headlines of protests and conflict and
trying to mediate that conflict. The risk of moving in a
direction that takes us backwards instead of forward, while we
are really making progress on the early treatment for at least
the area, the Rogue Valley, that I come from, is very, very
critical, and I appreciate the interest that you are showing in
doing it carefully, and we are available.
I would also offer that we are also open for tours and to
become a good example of how it can be done with less conflict
and product on the ground.
Thank you very much for allowing me this time to speak.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hartzell follows:]
Statement of Cate Hartzell, Ashland City Councilor, City of Ashland,
Oregon, and Program Coordinator, Collaborative Learning Circle
Thank you for this opportunity to offer my perspective.
I am a City Councilor in Ashland, Oregon, a town of 20,000 in
southwestern Oregon. Our residents are actively involved in caring for
our municipal watershed. We began thinning small trees on City land in
our municipal watershed in 1995. We developed an Interface Management
Plan for private lands and we partner with the U.S. Forest Service in
the stewardship of federal lands. We are a Healthy Forest Restoration
Act project and are currently updating a Community Wildfire Protection
Plan. We have had fires ``just over the ridge'' the past two summers.
I also coordinate the Collaborative Learning Circle, a ten-year old
regional network of community-based organizations in southern Oregon,
northern California. Our member organizations responded to declining
conditions in their communities and forests by creating training
programs and jobs doing watershed restoration, hardwood and small
diameter utilization, monitoring, and non-timber forest products.
My testimony addresses issues related to fire, as opposed to other
catastrophic events; it is the disturbance I am most familiar with.
In the last ten years, our region has experienced a major social,
economic and political transition. The demographics and industries have
changed; the recreational value of the land is causing people to look
differently at wild places. Much less of our economy is dedicated to
extraction. Most mills closed or retooled for smaller trees.
Congress both stimulated and invested in this transition. Through
the Northwest Forest Plan and the 1.2 billion dollars associated with
the Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative, a long-term commitment to
fund the National Fire Plan, and the initial efforts to support the
Healthy Forests Restoration Act, Congress has demonstrated its interest
in a framework built on broad policy goals and common ground. These
programs responded to the need to transcend the ``boom to bust'' cycles
that communities faced and create continuity in management that's based
on trust and good science.
Over the last ten years, our region adjusted to new policies,
weathered controversies, cooperated with former adversaries on
projects, lobbied for and implemented cost-share programs to leverage
the public investment on private lands, and created businesses and
training to implement new forestry practices. We painstakingly built
delicate social agreements to move from conflict to collaboration.
Of course, there are issues that will not be resolved, despite the
best intentions. Hopefully we will find compromises that move us
forward, but the differences in the core values behind the debate
change slowly, if at all. Part of our challenge as decision makers is
to cleave out new decision space that involves integrative decision
making. We have an opportunity for innovation that moves beyond
supporting one interest group over another, instead exploring genuine
work towards multi-stakeholder-supported and integrative decision
making.
I believe that the questions you are exploring today relative to
restoration practices on damaged forests fall into this
``irresolvable'' category. In my region, and I suspect the country,
there is not agreement on whether there's an ecological imperative for
post-fire restoration, or what ``restoration'' means or looks like on
the landscape There is broad public support for post-fire restoration.
In fact, the National Fire Plan and the 10-Year Implementation Plan for
the Western Governors Association's Comprehensive Strategy identify
``restoring fire-adapted ecosystems'' as one of four major goals.
Questions about post-fire restoration revolve around what it should
look like and how it should be done, but there is broad support for
goals such as ensuring soils stability, minimizing impacts on
watersheds, minimizing the impacts of invasive species. These goals
focus on restoring the health of the land, or the functioning of these
forest ecosystems.
After a wildfire, managers and legislators are pressured to act
fast for a number of reasons. Using the trees to fill industry's
resource need and spending the revenue to offset the cost of
restoration has some logic.
Salvage logging is not the same as restoration, although logging
might be part of some restoration strategies. Salvage logging, however,
focuses on capturing the economic value of trees damaged in a wildfire,
generally for social and economic purposes, such as providing jobs and
timber supply for local mills, and possibly providing revenues to the
federal agencies. As a tool for post-fire restoration, salvage logging
is controversial for a variety of reasons. People in various fields of
science disagree over the range of impacts of post-fire logging,
including possible adverse environmental impacts due to the logging
activity and increased fuel loads from post-logging slash. There are
fundamental differences in how we define the value of a stand of burned
trees, and about the appropriate function of a roadless area. Those
differences directly affect what we think should happen after a fire
and how fast it should happen.
In the mid-90s, when representatives from rural communities were
committed to working in the forest in the face of scientific
uncertainty and social distrust, they heeded the advice to ``start
small, go slow'' and to ensure learning and corrective action. You are
looking today at examples of wildfires and how people responded to
them, but, of course there are other examples that proceeded quite
differently; we are touching the proverbial elephant.
In our search for identifying best practices and building common
ground, I offer the following suggestions:
Start at a scale that most stakeholders find acceptable or on the edge
of comfort, and build experiences of success.
The increased frequency of fires and the convergence of multiple
fires into large acreages, as happened in the Biscuit creates
opportunities for potentially large revenue streams and projects.
Unfortunately, in my region, people question the agencies' ability to
complete non-commercial post-fire restoration as effectively as they
complete salvage logging. One way for land managers to rebuild the
necessary support for restoration after disturbance events is through
projects that are at a scale that people feel comfortable with, can
monitor and consider successful.
A good example from my region is the Forest Service's first
``Proposed Action'' for the Biscuit Fire area that came within ten
months of the fire. It suggested logging 55,518 mbf from 4,029 acres
without entering Inventoried Roadless Area or Late Successional
Reserves (Table ES-1; FEIS). That modest post-fire salvage sale, had it
complied with the environmental laws would have provoked far less legal
and social conflict and could have been done with a more appropriate
allocation of agency resources. The timber sales conducted under
Categorical Exclusions on the Biscuit Fire this year removed Hazard
Trees and fire line trees; they were monitored by environmentalists,
but not challenged, despite alleged violations.
Had county and timber industry representatives not intervened with
Dr. Sessions' study and the Administration redirected the project, it
would have served as an important opportunity to realize revenue
quickly, conduct limited rehabilitation, and allow the area to restore
itself.
Maintain existing NEPA requirements for public participation and
analysis of post-fire projects.
Projects developed under existing regulations and properly
administered are cheaper and more effective than those proposed under
regulations designed to truncate scientific analysis. Often delays and
increased costs are blamed on ``excessive'' regulations and ``analysis
paralysis.'' In fact, delays and increased costs often result from
agency project proposals that are not scientifically defensible. If
projects are defensible based on their science, they are also likely to
be more easily arbitrated on their values.
Ignoring or out-maneuvering opponents doesn't eliminate the issues;
it fuels social conflict. In the case of the Biscuit Fire project,
local newspaper headlines are already reinforcing this conflict. The
kind of conflict that can be sustained in a big city like Washington
DC, tears at the fabric in communities like Ashland and Cave Junction.
The Administration has made recent, significant changes to rules
affecting the public's right to participate in management activities.
We need time to try the additional categorical exclusions, emergency
exemptions, and modified access to the courts without having those
changes coupled with overly large projects that stimulate concerns
about forest and watershed degradation. Fire brings its own set of
changes and stresses; it is vital that your decisions and that of the
Administration empower citizens to work out problems on the ground
together.
Develop restoration goals through plans developed at the local level.
The best way to develop broadly supported restoration goals is
through collaborative processes at the local level where there is
opportunity for all stakeholders to be involved. Authorities for
``community wildfire protection plans'' in the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act establish a local planning process through which
communities have a strong voice in prioritizing where on the forest
landscape fuel-reduction projects should be done and the methods of
treatment. Generally, I believe, these authorities were intended for
pre-wildfire treatments, to reduce fuel loads and protect communities
and watersheds from wildfire risk. However, questions regarding post-
fire restoration goals should also be dealt with through an open,
community-based planning process, such as that envisioned for community
wildfire protection plans.
Direct agencies to maintain a firm check and balance on ecological
protection where economic- and time-driven post-fire salvage
logging is implemented.
Prescriptions for active restoration should be clearly related to
the factors that limit ecosystem recovery and integrity. Under the NW
Forest Plan, not all land is managed for its commercial value; the
agricultural model of salvage logging immediately after fire,
suppressing competitive vegetation with herbicides, and replanting is
not appropriate on all Federal forest areas.
Create mechanisms that ensure that the non-commercial restoration work
is completed at the same level of performance and timeframe as
commercial restoration work.
While there may be few practices that can be applied to all post-
fire forest restoration, the scientific literature appears to be
consistent on the point that slash from logging or post-fire logging
intensifies the impacts of fire in those areas and must be promptly
removed from the system. A December 8, 2003 Los Angeles Times article
``Dead Trees Fail to Bring Life to Forest,'' highlights problems that
federal agencies face in our region obtaining sufficient bids on post-
fire salvage sales and in producing revenues that ensure that slash
left from logging is treated, and that other non-commercial restoration
goals are met.
The Congress and Federal land managers promised pre-commercial
thinning that was not delivered after high-grade logging in the 1970-
1980s. The agencies must earn back the public's trust that it will
complete non-commercial work after the big trees are removed.
Create incentives for post-fire restoration work that is accessible to
people in nearby towns, while avoiding the creation of a new,
fire-dependent industry
Community-based and non-profit organizations engaged in forestry
and restoration work try to create or package natural resource-based
jobs for rural people that are year-round and closer to home. Projects
that support long-term capital investment, provide family wage jobs,
and produce resource flows for value-added markets allow residents in
rural towns to remain there. David Schott, the new Executive Director
of Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, stated that industry
will not hire new workers to harvest the Biscuit volume, but will
redirect existing employees from other volume while Biscuit is being
cut.
In December of 2003, the LA Times reported that in 2002, salvage
harvests made up nearly half the timber volume cut in California's 18
national forests. It is logical to examine the potential for salvage
logging to pay for post-fire restoration in certain situations, however
attempts to realign the agencies' administrative and legal systems to
rely on and expedite fire-dependent timber production off national
forests falls short of the goals that community groups hold in the
following ways:
It fails to produce a predictable resource flow,
reflecting more the boom-bust industry model, especially for smaller,
less mobile companies;
It can create unintended ecological consequences;
It will fuel social conflict because the ecological
stakes are perceived to be higher when the forest is in a recovery
mode.
Fund and support multi-party monitoring of post-fire restoration
Multi-party monitoring processes that include multiple stakeholders
in the design, implementation and analysis of feedback provide venues
for the questions and disagreements to be articulated and addressed. It
assures that diverse perspectives are brought into potentially
contentious processes, and in so doing can reduce conflict by reducing
appeals and increasing trust building. Multi-party monitoring is a key
tool for shared learning among stakeholders and with the agencies.
However, it remains under-funded and under-prioritized.
Ensure that post-fire salvage logging is assessed on the basis of both
the cost and return to the government and that its purposes are
clear--as part of a restoration strategy.
The economics of post-fire salvage logging can be complex and
tenuous. Economic returns are most often referenced to whether or not
the timber purchaser can cover its costs and realize a profit margin;
the cost and return to the government should be considered, as well.
Economic motivations are heavily favored in salvage logging, so the
public expects that they will be considered across the board. The
availability of thorough economic information that internalizes
typically externalized costs helps to address concerns about
insufficient revenue for non-commercial work and allows people to track
investments in restoration.
Act carefully relative to post-fire restoration so as not to disrupt
the social and financial momentum behind fire hazard reduction
and prevention efforts.
When community organizers started working over a decade ago on
value-added strategies for the by-products of watershed restoration,
few expected to do more than reduce the cost of treatment with the
small trees, hardwoods, etc. We knew that the job required the kind of
reinvestment we're most familiar with in urban renewal projects and
that the National Fire Plan is making. We did not expect that post-fire
restoration would be paid for by salvage logging and feared that if too
much emphasis were placed on this strategy, the restoration goals might
be compromised by unanticipated or ``perverse'' economic incentives.
It is problematic, therefore, that the Forest Service's
Rehabilitation and Restoration program, the primary program through
which the agency pursues the National Fire Plan's major goal of post-
fire restoration, has been funded at such a low level over the past
three years. Congress provided $142 million for this program in FY
2001, the first year of strong funding for the National Fire Plan.
Since then, funding has dropped dramatically. The Administration
proposed to eliminate funding for this program in FY 2004 and has
requested only $3 million in FY 2005. Our question is if the
Administration is not requesting funds from Congress for this key
program, how does it expect to pay for post-fire restoration. We do not
think its primary strategy should be to pay for restoration with
revenues from salvage sales.
Similar questions were asked by stakeholder groups about the
initiatives to reduce hazardous fuels. The compromises made in the
process of adopting the President's Healthy Forest Restoration Act
offer a clear indication of public sentiment towards work on public
lands; they mark some common ground.
Focus strong emphasis on doing projects around
communities;
Focus on treatments that involved ``thinning from below''
i.e., attention to smaller trees;
Protect old growth forests;
Participate in local collaboration to ensure public
involvement and build public trust; and
Ensure sufficient federal investment to do the projects
without relying on revenue from timber sales.
Certainly, the highest level of agreement that we have is around
reducing the risk of wildfire. Investments in the Forest Service's
State and Private Economic Action Programs contributed critical support
for raising communities' capacity to plan, fund, and coordinate fuels
reduction. The implementation of the National Fire Plan primed the pump
for on-the-ground results and vital interagency partnerships, leveraged
investments by private landowners, and created jobs. Since early
treatment of fire risk is the most cost effective approach to our
situation, people are counting on the longevity of the National Fire
Plan. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act holds the potential to build
on this work if the resources authorized are allocated.
Summary
Restoration of intensely burned forests involves far more
ecologically and operationally sensitive components than implementing
management strategies that focus on decreasing the likelihood of fire.
Our restoration tools and options for intensely burned forestlands pale
almost into insignificance compared with those available to us with
intact forest ecosystems.
There is an impressive level of activity in watersheds across the
West. It's happening on the slopes, in streams, and in meeting rooms.
It's making a difference on the landscape and in our communities. The
social capital that it takes to do this is an expense that doesn't
appear in budget line items, but it nonetheless requires investment on
your part. We are partners in this endeavor.
______
Mr. Walden. Absolutely. Thank you for coming all the way
back. I appreciate it. For all of our panelists, especially
those from the West Coast, which three of the four are, and the
fourth one is pretty close.
Mr. Sessions, I want to start with you on some questions.
Is it true that the Oregon industry just wants big trees? I
mean is that what you hear, and what can be done in a post-fire
environment to provide wood fiber for industry and yet continue
to provide the snags that are necessary for wildlife and proper
management?
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, that is a big question, but I
think certainly the Oregon forest industry has restructured
over the last 15 years, such that the average size log going
through an Oregon Mill now is less than 10 inches in diameter
on the small end, probably much less, probably closer to 8
inches. There are very few mills left in Oregon that will
process the large logs, and in fact, on our own college forest,
we have to haul an extra 50 to 100 miles to get our larger logs
processed.
What I have tried to comment on is that with the protracted
Federal process, by the time a sale is implemented, only the
larger trees have value, and that is why we seem to get caught
in this no-win situation where the only trees that have value
then are the larger trees. What I have suggested is if we could
move more quickly, those smaller diameter trees, those trees 24
inches and less, really make up the bread and butter of the
forest industry.
Mr. Walden. Is it the larger trees that hold the greatest
value for habitat because they stand longer and therefore
provide the snag habitat you seek?
Mr. Sessions. That is correct, that the wildlife biologists
that I have talked to, they are primarily interested in the
larger trees, and in fact the rationale is that you want to
leave the largest trees because those will stand the longest.
And what you would like to do is bridge the gap until the new
forest can produce trees of equal size to the trees that are
there before, and that brings us to restoration. In the Biscuit
area, those trees of large size will take 200 or more years to
come back under natural regeneration. If we come in and plant,
and I am fully cognizant of what my colleague, Steve Thomas,
said about planting dense plantations, but if we come in and
plant at reduced densities, but with a sufficient number of
conifers to reach the goals, that we can reestablish these
forests 50 to 100 years earlier than would otherwise take
place.
Mr. Walden. What effect would that have on the very
species, the marbled merlet, the spotted owl that we are
entrusted with trying to safeguard their habitat or restore it?
Mr. Sessions. Those two species utilize older conifer
forests, although the owl does depend on its prey, does depend
on wood rats which do live in some younger forests, but I would
say that restoring the green trees as quickly as possible will
provide for their long-term habitat for the owl and the merlet.
There are other species though, for example, the
woodpeckers, they depend on dead trees. The question is, what
is the appropriate amount of dead trees to leave? What are the
appropriate restoration activities to get the large green trees
back so they can produce the future dead trees? What materials
should be utilized for social and economic needs?
Mr. Walden. That is the question. Who has the answer to
that? Because that seems to me, given Mr. Inslee's questions of
the last panel, some I certainly share, of what do we leave
behind? What do we do we take out? What does the most good to
the environment, and in my opinion, restores the forest to its
healthiest state the fastest? Where do we get those answers if
not from people like you who are certified smart, and on books
and in universities and spend your life doing this research?
Mr. Barry. I will venture an answer from the point of view
of a water utility, which is less concerned with the state of
the forest than with the state of potential erosion out of the
forest into the reservoir. So from our point of view, we did
not spend a lot of time or difficulty deciding what we were
going to salvage and what we were going to hydro-axe. We did as
much of both as we could reasonably do under the circumstance,
because both those measures were important to restore some
stability to the forest floor and to reduce the erosion as
quickly as possible.
There are not any major endangered species--there is a
Pawnee montane skipper butterfly in the Hayman Fire area, but
we were reasonably sure that nothing we were doing or failing
to do was going to have any effect on the butterflies. So we
simply did everything we could do to reduce erosion as quickly
as possible.
I know that does not answer your question. It simply gives
you a different perspective on how one manager of only 8,000
acres took care of that problem.
Mr. Walden. On the Biscuit, Dr. Sessions, you talked about
4 percent being salvaged, 7 percent being planted. What do you
think happens to that other piece, that 89 percent that nobody
touches, versus that which is actively being proposed for some
sort of management?
Mr. Sessions. Well, certainly for people not familiar with
the Biscuit, about half of that area was in wild and scenic
rivers and in wilderness.
Mr. Walden. Right.
Mr. Sessions. That area, under law, will recover naturally,
although I think we need to be careful what ``naturally''
means. Naturally in the climate that we have means a return to
shrubs and hardwoods with a slow return to conifers.
Mr. Walden. Slow being what period?
Mr. Sessions. Slow meaning this 150, 200, perhaps longer
years, perhaps more years than that to restore the forests that
were there now. Now, people ask me, well, why doesn't nature
just do what it did before? But what we need to understand is
that the physical factors do not remain constant. The weather
has changed. If you look at a lot of the stands on the Biscuit,
they were formed in the 1800 to 1900 period when the climate
was much different than it is now. The current climate favors
shrubs and hardwoods over the conifers. That does not mean that
conifers cannot be reestablished or will not be reestablished,
but it means that if we want conifers back and if we want them
back quickly, then we will have to take some action.
So if you ask what is going to happen on the other area?
Recovery, if you call it recovery, is going to be slow, meaning
the return of conifer forests. The return of ground cover
though is going to be relatively quick, that there are going to
be shrubs and hardwoods.
Mr. Walden. But if you want a conifer forest you are going
to have to wait for it. So if this were the Tillamook, if this
strategy had been applied to the Tillamook--I realize they are
at different ends of the State--would we be looking at a
hardwood shrub forest on the Tillamook today as opposed to a, I
assume, Doug fir forest?
Mr. Sessions. We would be looking at more of a hardwood
forest than was there. The forests are a little different. It
is true that in the Tillamook that a lot of the seed sources
were burned out, and it may have come back to a shrub land and
hardwoods for a while, but moisture is not the limiting
ingredient in the Tillamook, and those conifers would come
back. It is in the moisture limited areas such as Southwestern
Oregon, that the ecological succession is very different.
Mr. Walden. All right. I will stop, having overrun my time
by a full measure, and turn it over to the Ranking Member, Mr.
Inslee of Washington.
Mr. Inslee. I would really like to ask President Roosevelt
if he would have been a Democrat if he would run today, but I
don't want to interject any issues, so I will defer that
question. He was one more step to the donkeys. But in any
event, Dr. Sessions, could you elaborate on your statement
about the climate favors non-conifers right now. Is that just
in their young period, or what do you mean?
Mr. Sessions. What I mean by that is that the conifers were
established at really what we would call the latter years of
the little ice age, which ended somewhere 1850s, 1870s. It is
just under that particular regime it was easier for conifers to
get started again. That does not mean that they will not come
back, but the history is that you need a couple of things. You
need good seed years. You need spring moisture, and you need to
have the competition that is not too aggressive, and that
doesn't happen too often. It could happen that we have a couple
of good years down on the Biscuit, but last year, if it gives
any indication, we are not going to.
Usually after a fire, and if there are some seed sources
available, most seed will fall within about one tree length,
and some seed will go out 700 or 800 feet. On a study of the
Biscuit last summer, where they looked for new seedlings, new
conifer seedlings, they put in 64 plots. When I say ``they''
this is the Northwest Forest and Research Experiment Station in
OSU, put in 64 plots, totaling a total of 12 acres. You would
expect that several thousand new seedlings, that might survive,
but you would expect to find them. They found 39, 39 seedlings.
So the experience is that if we want those conifer forests back
in a reasonable time to provide the habitat for those species
that live in older conifer forests, that we are going to have
to give them a little help, and the longer we wait, the more it
is going to cost, and the less resources that we are going to
have to pay for it.
Mr. Inslee. If these climate changes continue, are we sort
of, if not fighting a losing battle, trying to establish a
flora regime that is just inconsistent with the climate?
Mr. Sessions. I think that is a very good question, because
we are going to have--and the Southwest Station, Ann Bartuska,
if she is still here, could comment on it, because they believe
that climate change is really, in some sense, much more
responsible for our current dilemmas in the Federal forest than
fire suppression, although others beg to differ with them. But
6 of the 7 climate models predict that most of the Great Basin
is going to become wetter over the next 40 to 50 years, that
tree cover is going to increase, as well as this biomass to
fuel future fires, and that U.S., which has been depending upon
the wood basket in the Southeastern United States, is not going
to have it because within 100 years the pine forests of the
Southeast will return to savanna land.
Mr. Inslee. Who is making this prediction?
Mr. Sessions. I am saying of these 7 major climate models
that are proposed among the meteorologists, that 6 out of 7 of
those agree that the West is going to become wetter, the
Southeast is going to become much drier, and that is certainly
going to influence the distribution of vegetation.
Now, Congressman, I am not here as a meteorologist. I am
not here as a climatologist, but I am just saying that you
asked an interesting question about climate, and there seem to
be some trends and some agreement about where climate is going.
Although, I will caution by saying this. I remember when Paul
Ehrlich came to OSU in the 1970s--and I think we all know Paul
Ehrlich--Paul Ehrlich said, ``What I am most concerned about is
that agriculture is going to fail because we are moving into
the next ice age.'' That is what Paul Ehrlich said in the
1970s. Now, of course, he speaks a very different tune. So I do
not how good these climate forecasts are myself.
Mr. Inslee. You made reference to a group that thought that
changes in fire is more responsible because of climate rather
than forest practices. Who is that group?
Mr. Sessions. If you were to talk with Dr. Connie Millar at
the Pacific Southwest Research Station--that is Forest
Service--that she has done a lot of research into this area,
and she thinks that climate and climate change has been more
important than suppression in many areas, than what it is given
credit for.
Mr. Inslee. I would like to say for the record, she may be
right, even though I agree with her.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. Walden. Seldom does a hearing go by but my colleague
makes the case that you have made now about climate change
being responsible for the forest fires. So that will be
interesting research to see.
I do not know that I have any other questions at this time,
but I do appreciate your testimony. This is an issue that I
hope the Subcommittee can continue to focus, see if we can't
find some common ground. I am intrigued by the notion that we
are better to leave the old growths, snags behind, and by
moving faster you could actually achieve what many people think
they can achieve best by moving slower. And that if you appeal
to save old growth, in fact today yo may be moving the pointer
to only old growth because it is the only stuff with value left
at the end, and maybe moving faster you protect the old growth
snags which is better for habitat, and meanwhile get out the
salvageable timber that is better for the industry. So maybe we
can find some common ground there. I don't know. We are going
to continue to work on it.
Any final comments from the panelists before we adjourn?
Yes, Councilor?
Ms. Hartzell. I was just going to state, the question about
trying to find solutions that will hasten it is sort of a
Catch-22 with the analysis because we know that there may be
some transferable scientific direction and practices, but much
of it does need to be site specific and situation specific, and
at the same time, you can't do that and move fast. I mean
hopefully we can improve on what we do, but there is the
necessity of making sure that our analysis is based well as we
move forward. I just had wanted to point that out.
Mr. Walden. There is no disagreement there.
Yes?
Mr. Barry. Just one quick comment about climate change, I
probably lose more sleep about the prospect for climate change
than anything else, because as a water utility your life rises
and falls on what the snowpack is for us. While I certainly
believe that climate change is a fact, what isn't a fact and
what people cannot predict, even the 5 models that Mr. Sessions
referred to give different results, they don't tell you what is
going to happen to precipitation.
What we think we know is that precipitation may be more
variable, but we cannot tell you where it is going to be, where
it is going to fall and where it isn't, and therefore, I
continue to persist in the belief that the only assumption I
can make is that the future will be pretty much like the past.
I have decreasing faith in that assumption, but I don't have
anything to replace it with. So I continue to predict reservoir
content, snowpack, runoff, et cetera, on the basis that it will
be pretty much like the past. Even as I do so, I know that I
could be wrong, but I don't have anything to substitute for the
assumption.
Mr. Inslee. Can I make one comment?
Mr. Walden. Sure.
Mr. Inslee. I just want to vigorously disagree. We do know
where precipitation is going to occur. It is going to occur at
any outdoor political event that we schedule before August
12th.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Walden. So just let us know where you need water.
Dr. Sessions?
Mr. Sessions. Yes. I would like to--there was a question
earlier about separating salvage and planting.
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Mr. Sessions. And I did want to comment on that. As the
supervisor from the Tahoe said, it is a question of risk, that
you can undoubtedly plant new conifers. They will have to
compete with the brush. You need to ask yourself how is it that
you are going to ensure that they survive? We only have two
ways of doing that. We either come in manually to release, to
give more growing space to the conifers, or we use herbicides.
Now, if you are going to send men in or women to clean
these areas to hold back the brush, it is very, very dangerous
among the standing dead material. Second, these areas have
return intervals of, say, 30 to 40 years on fire. If fire
returns to these areas, no crew boss is going to send in people
to build fire line among the standing snags. And third, all of
the standing deal material is coming down sometime, and when it
does come down, it creates more fuel, so that if a fire comes
by it is going to burn more intensely, and when we have these
fires burning through large dead material, they don't burn
through any faster, but they take longer, and when they take
longer, the soil, which is a good insulator for a while,
finally lets the heat down and you can burn down through the
litter, down through the duff, and even change the chemistry of
the soil particles themselves, sterilizing the soil for long
periods of time.
So there are a number of reasons about if you want to
restore forest, that you need to consider dealing with the
standing dead material. That doesn't mean remove it all, but it
means managing it so that the risks are acceptable. Thank you.
Mr. Walden. Is there a scientific template for different
stands for what you should leave behind and what you should
take out in a post-fire environment?
Mr. Sessions. In listening to the wildlife biologists,
there are. That given, depending on what wildlife is in the
area, if we are talking about wildlife, there are guidelines,
but it is generally leaving those snags that are largest and of
a species that will persist the longest until the new forest
can recover.
That leaves some leeway because you could also, by choosing
appropriate management action, move in and bring the new forest
back much more quickly. I went through this with Jerry Franklin
when Jerry came out to talk at our university, and I asked
Jerry, ``Jerry, isn't it true we could bring back those trees
much more quickly?'' And Jerry said, ``We can, but I don't want
to.'' And I asked Jerry why is that? And he says he believes
that what we are shortest of on the West Coast is early seral
stage, naturally occurring early seral stage, so we have to
decide what it is we want.
Mr. Walden. Can you for us novice U of O grads, can you
explain early seral stage? What are we talking about? Is that
brush? Is that the alder?
Mr. Sessions. We are saying--yes, it is having a lot of
large woody debris, a number of snags, letting brush,
hardwoods, whatever wants to come back. When I talked to Jerry
about Mr. St. Helens, he believes that eruption is one of the
best things that has happened here on the West Coast. Others
differ, but he look at that naturally occurring early seral
stage after Mt. St. Helens and it is true that certain bird
populations have improved, but there have been a number of
other species that have not, and there needs to be an
appropriate mix of restoration actions taken.
Mr. Walden. We will go to Mr. Thomas, and then one final
comment from anybody, and we will wrap up.
Mr. Thomas. Just two follow-ups. One, I agree with Dr.
Sessions. I think there is some information out there in terms
of the amount of down wood, the amount of snags, number of
large trees that we are using. They are built into our forest
management plan for State-owned forests, and so I think that
information is there. Perfect answers, probably not, but we
certainly have some good guidelines.
Second, just for instance on our plan, we are looking at a
landscape level. We have 550,000 acres. We are estimating the
10 to 15 percent would be in regeneration or early seral stage,
so as you work across the landscape, there is some desire to
have a certain portion of your forest in that condition because
that is what you would have expected through blowdown, through
disease, through fire and a variety of other events that would
have occurred if we weren't here. So there a number of ways to
manage that process. And can one landowner, say on the
Tillamook, if we could afford 150,000 acres in early seral
stage, well, probably not. That wouldn't meet our goals and
objectives, so you have to look at it kind of on a landscape
basis. Thank you.
Mr. Barry. I just want to give a very quick nonscientific
way to approach the question you asked. I agree with Professor
Sessions, we did not choose to have a lot of standing dead
timber left on the 8,000 acres we owned. We didn't want to
leave the standing dead timber, but we couldn't cut it all. We
cut or salvaged or hydro-axed as much as we could, and what we
couldn't do was because of the geography, the steepness of the
slope, the rock outcrops, et cetera. That is what got left. We
didn't apply any scientific formula, but we know that probably
30 or more percent of the standing dead timber that was once
there is still there because we can't get to it. And under the
spur of the moment, that was as good a way to decide what got
left and what didn't, was what can you get to?
Mr. Walden. All right. We want to again thank you for your
time and energy into this hearing, your testimony, your
comments. We appreciate it. It helps in our efforts.
The record will stay open for 10 days for anyone who wants
to submit additional comments for our record. As I say, we will
be conducting some field hearings, and hopefully members of the
Committee will be able to attend some of those as well, and
maybe we can find some way to move forward on this issue.
With that, the Committee stands adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 1:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
The following information was submitted for the record:
[A statement submitted for the record by Laura McCarthy on
behalf of The Forest Guild follows:]
Statement of Laura McCarthy for The Forest Guild
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to provide this written statement on restoration of forests
after catastrophic fire. I am the Policy Program Director for the
Forest Guild, an organization of foresters and natural resource
professionals based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Guild has a membership
of about 500 foresters and natural resource professionals who manage
over 41.4 million acres in the United States and Canada. The Guild's
mission is to promote ecologically responsible forestry with active
management to sustain the entire forest across the landscape.
This statement about the restoration of forests after catastrophic
fire is derived from the experience of our member foresters, who spend
most of their workdays planning and implementing timber sales. We are
pleased to provide this statement because the issue of how to manage
forests after catastrophic fire illustrates perfectly how the Guild's
principles are put into practice.
The Oregonian recently published an editorial that echoes the
principles of Guild members. Jack Williams, who was formerly the Forest
Supervisor of the Siskiyou National Forest and is now a professor at
Southern Oregon University, wrote the editorial. Mr. Williams suggested
that a goal of a post-fire operation should be to determine the level
of salvage that will produce net economic values in a timely manner
without risking long-term harm to the land and water. The decisions
about where and how much to salvage are key to achieving this goal. For
members of the Guild, the optimal salvage level is determined by using
ecological information as screens to filter out lands where salvage
would impair ecosystem recovery. The screens usually remove from
consideration lands with high erosion potential, steep slopes, and
stream habitat, as well as roadless areas. Operational constraints are
also factored in, such as road access and endangered species habitat.
The use of science in forest management is claimed by many, but
demonstrated in practice by the forestry of Guild members. For example,
the February 2004 issue of Science has an article by seven renowned
ecologists on salvage harvesting after natural disturbance. The
ecologists make three main points backed up by national and
international data. First, salvage harvesting activities undermine many
of the ecosystem benefits of major disturbances such as wildfire.
Second, removal of large quantities of timber can have negative impacts
on many plant and animal species. Third, salvage logging can impair
ecosystem recovery. The scientists conclude that large-scale salvage
harvesting needs to happen quickly after a wildfire and, since managers
are making rapid decisions with long-lasting ecological consequences,
salvage harvesting policies should be formulated before major
disturbances occur. Guild foresters use this kind of scientific
information to plan and implement timber salvage.
For example, the 2002 Borrego Fire in New Mexico illustrates how a
Guild member put the information into practice. The Borrego Fire burned
out of the Santa Fe National Forest onto private land. A Guild member
managed the private land, and had recently completed a fire management
plan for the landowner. The plan included an assessment of the extent
and location of hazardous fuels, a plan to remove fuels with mechanical
thinning and prescribed fire, and other information that was critical
for planning a salvage sale. The plan made it possible for the forester
to determine where salvage logging would be appropriate, and where it
needed to be prohibited to protect the recovery of the forest. Within a
few months of the fire, burned trees, cut in areas that did not harm
the prospects for ecological recovery, were delivered to the mill.
The Guild believes that the management of forests after large-scale
fire events needs to be considered in the context of the entire
landscape. Dr. Tom Swetnam at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of
Tree Ring Research has discussed the idea of using the large
catastrophic wildfires, such as Rodeo-Chediski and Biscuit, as
templates for restoration of forests at a landscape scale. For example,
severely burned areas, which usually account for about 25% of the area
within the fire perimeter, are already acting as a fire break for the
remaining green forest and for communities in the vicinity. If these
areas are maintained as fuel breaks, then salvage logging on stable
soils and gentle slopes and where roadless areas and endangered species
habitat are not involved, could be recommended. The moderately burned
areas will probably need fuel inventories and follow-up treatments
that, depending on the fuel load, could include some timber salvage.
Finally, the stage will be set to restore the low severity and unburned
areas, in both structure and process, with the fuel breaks serving both
to protect communities and to establish a landscape pattern for
recovery of the forest.
In conclusion, the Forest Guild is not categorically opposed to
salvage logging because its members have demonstrated that ecological
constraints can be successfully applied to timber salvage operations
after wildfire. The key considerations are how much is harvested, where
trees are cut, applying the necessary environmental, social and
economic constraints, and timing the operation. When making these
decisions, the Forest Guild always considers the well-being of the
forest first. The Forest Guild offers the following guidelines for
salvaging burned timber:
1. Salvage timber at the level that will produce net economic
values in a timely manner without risking long-term harm to the forest
ecosystem.
2. Only salvage the trees that can be removed in the short-term
without harming the prospects for long-term ecological recovery.
3. Do not salvage burned timber in roadless areas, on steep
slopes, on highly erosive soils, or in stream corridors and use
existing road systems for access. Avoid salvaging timber where the sale
will compromise the protection of endangered species.
4. Develop timber salvage plans in the context of a larger
wildfire restoration plan. For example, salvage trees in burned areas
that will be managed in the future as fuel breaks that provide
community protection.
5. Add planning for salvage logging to community wildfire
protection plans that, under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act,
consider broad forest landscapes, enabling land managers to salvage
timber appropriately if wildfire occurs.
______
[A letter submitted for the record by Anton R. Jaegel,
Supervisor elect, Trinity County, California, follows:]
July 9, 2004
Congressman Greg Walden
Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests and Forests Health
Committee on Resources
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Chairman Walden:
I would like to offer the following for your hearing on Salvage
scheduled for July 15th, 2004.
I am County Supervisor elect in Trinity County, California. The
Shasta-Trinity National Forest comprises 75% of our 2.1 million acres.
Our forests are among the most fire dependent in the state and are in
serious overstocked condition. Many large fires have burned here in the
last 20 years. In 1987 a dry lighting event started fires that burned
over 100,000 acres. Most of that acreage we were allowed to salvage and
used the KV and BD funds created by that salvage for reforestation.
Some areas we were not allowed to salvage and replant due to
objections from the environmental community and a court injunction in
the 9th Circuit. The case was never heard but was withdrawn because the
judge tabled the hearing for two years and made the project moot.
However, it did leave a fuel load of over 150 tons per acre in the
untreated areas. One of those areas, Grouse Prairie, re-burned in 2003.
Even though it was late in the fire season and the humidity levels were
high, this fire was uncontrollable. Imagine large standing dead trees,
some dead fallen trees and twenty years growth of deer brush and
manzanita.
The trees would burst into flame just from the heat generated from
other snags 40 ft. away. We could not put men or equipment into fight
the fire because of the extreme danger from snags and this leap-frog
effect. When they tried to used bomber and retardant they found the
snags were not affected because there were no branches left to catch
the slurry. So they dropped back to an area with a plantation on it
from a successfully implemented salvage sale from the 1987 fire, put a
line around the fire, and stopped it. The ground looked like a moon
scape. Very high intensity fire had burned to mineral soil. Recovery
will take eons. Suppression costs exceeded $2 million.
If the area had been salvaged, the fuels treated, and reforested
the fire could have been controlled with one engine and its crew.
In 1998, the Big Bar complex burned another 100,000 acres and since
then we have had six major fires in our county, four of which burned to
the edge (and sometimes through the edges destroying homes) of our
communities. None of these fires have been cleaned up.
As a volunteer fire fighter and member of the Board of Directors of
our local fire department and now Supervisor elect for our county, I am
gravely concerned about this explosive fuel load sitting next to our
towns. Who will take the responsibility when these fuel loads
(violating the forest plan standards) lead to destruction of our homes
and livelihoods? I know who will be put at risk trying to save our
communities. Forest Service fire fighters and local volunteers deserve
better consideration.
We need to stop the endless rhetoric and political agendas and work
together to solve this problem. Threats of appeals have stopped the
agencies from even proposing to clean up after these fires. It is not
only an economic waste in terms of salvage value, but it is also
creating a terrible fire risk to our natural resources and our
communities.
Please examine the relationship between salvage and restoration.
Insure that any salvage that is implemented results in fuel loads below
the forest standards, and insist the areas in the wildland urban
interface are treated immediately after the fire. We believe post fire
recovery plans must include salvage, fuels reduction and reforestation.
I am including pictures of the Grouse Prairie fire and photos of
some of the conditions that exist today near our towns. I have an
abundance of specific information on this situation and would gladly
share it with you.
We are asking the House, the Senate, and the Administration to work
together to make sure the tools, the resources, and the leadership are
available to restore our forests, reduce the fuel load created by stand
replacing fires, and protect our forest.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Respectfully,
Anton R. Jaegel
Supervisor elect
Trinity County, California
[NOTE: The pictures included with Mr. Jaegel's letter have been
retained in the Committee's official files.]