WOW!.... Study confirms that logging in the 60's was bad! Who knew, before this study, that highgrading and clearcutting were bad forest practices??!!?? Let's do a study on more modern styles of forest restoration. It's not fair to compare the ancient 40 year old logging and equipment to today's surgical styles of selective logging.

Or, try comparing thinned forests, along with their regular prescribed fires, to unthinned snag patches and brushfields.

Fotoware,

Wake up, clearcutting is making a comeback. What do you think Tester's bill is all about? There still is no prohibition on clearcutting, after all that "bad."

You're going to have to show me a credible link, as I have seen not a shred of evidence that clearcutting would be allowed. Since Tester's Bill will never make it to the ground, I'm not worried. Where I live, clearcutting was banned by the Forest Service since 1993! Ditto for highgrading so, I'm not worried that we'll be going back to the logging styles of the last millenium. Restoration forestry is where it is at but, the powers that be refuse to try that avenue. One thing that the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration and most eco-groups agree upon is that we will burn our forests and see what grows back. Nope, no analysis or study. Nope, no public input or formal scientific procedure. Nope, no collaboration, consensus or compromise.

If this is what you want, all you have to do, is do nothing at all! So easy, without all those environmental laws in the way! Burn our forests down....to save them?!?

The public has demanded "responsible" forestry, and over planting is one result. The law requires x number of "free to grow" trees on any acre post logging within a prescribed period of time. To obtain that goal, herbicides or broadcast burning of clear cuts was necessary to minimize competition with the newly planted seedlings. In Oregon 's Coast Range, sometimes it is necessary to density trap mountain beavers, which are a gopher sized rodent that will eat every newly planted tree if given the opportunity. All that said, overplanting is a result of law and regulation, both enforced by prosecutors and at the point of a gun, by government, for the people and by the people. We created our own problem with too high of reproduction density. Then we have the unknown, and that is how many "naturals" or wild seed reproduced trees will use available open ground in the very same clear cut acre. As a result, the typical reproduction on prior logged ground is over stocked conifers after a decade. The need to pre-commercial thin is evident. However, that is a capital cost in the tax code, and a budget item expense in the Congress. That the USFS did collect money at the time of the timber sale to pre-commercial thin with their timber sale "deposits" column is never mentioned. Those "trust funds" for future silvacultural needs were raided by the agency and Congress long ago. The timber industry did pay ahead, as a part of timber purchase, for those activities to take place. It is now a long time down the road, and people forget that the money was paid as a part of the timber sale contract, as was future road maintenance and rock replacement, slash disposal, planting, and tending the stand until age 20, after which time the assumption was that commercial thinning and better utilization as technology got better would take care of the stand density problems. The unknown was the endless litigation that opposed any removal of any tree for any reason. The concept that a timber sale has to result in a profit for the purchaser, in the appraisal by foresters prior to bidding, has been lost on the urban armchair critics. So adding a lot of ancillary baggage to a timber sale reduces the value of the finished product and many times, timber has gone unbid and without a market. Too much expense for too little product kills the sale. And then there is why tie up your money in a deal that will face certain litigation that will be endless, all the while your capital is in some US Govt deposit and already spent on bridge painting in West Virginia.

So, forest health is a tight rope. Fiber or fuel does have to be removed, and every acre of forest grows more each year, less in times of drought and stress, and more in times of adequate water. But always the increase in fuel, as wood is added, and other dies and is sloughed off to the forest floor. Always more fuel, and over time, not unlike the sawmills of old, if you did not have a plan, a method, the facility, to get rid of waste material, of slabs and sawdust, the mill would have to be torn down and moved. In times long ago mills would dump the waste in a river, and let freshets move the waste to the sea. Then they created wigwam burners, and the afternoon breeze, all summer long, had the hint of wood smoke from dozens of wigwam burners up wind. All that became utilized, with beauty bark for mulching, sawdust for livestock bedding and mulching and hog fuel for boilers, and the wood chips to provide fiber for pulp mills. If you hauled a million pounds of logs into the mill, you had better haul away a million pounds of bark, sawdust, wood chips, planer shavings and lumber or veneer. Either that, or you were up to your ass in by product and no place to put it, all at expense. Nowadays, those byproducts are value, and that value is included in the appraisal for the standing timber to be bought.

There is a decision in the Browner EPA to regulate biomass burning to the letter of the law that coal burning is regulated to. In essence, that will pit coal against biomass, and coal will be the cheaper alternative. The cost to remove forest biomass to reduce fuel will not be able to produce affordable electricity without great subsidies, and the indications are that the smoke from either is comparable. I hear a lot about mercury and other heavy metals in coal smoke. I would like to know what types of damaging chemistry and particles are from wood smoke.

Lots of blather and hot air in the current political huffing as to using our idle forests for energy production, and "putting people back to work in the woods." Bullshit. That will not happen. The scorpion is going to sting that turtle, frog, because that is his nature, and we ought to know that up front, even if politicians of either stripe deny it. The real problem with the whole concept is that the equipment and capital are not present, and who in their right mind will loan money to build a plant whose raw material demand can be interrupted any hour of any day by Federal courts, and will be?

After creating tens of thousands of acres of "wind farms" with the almost 400 foot tall white turbine picket fences across the landscapes of the West, we have one now being denied in Oregon due to its being too close to present and possible golden eagle nesting and foraging sites, as per USFWS opinion. The scorpion stung another turtle. Renewable, locally produced, green energy can displace wild life just like drilling rigs and site access roads. And the blades of a turbine travel at close to the speed of sound at their tips, and noise becomes a problem, as well as their macerator effect on night flying birds and bats migrating south in fall and north in spring. No proposals, yet, to ban their use, have them silent and not spinning, during the epicenter of spring and fall avian migrations. But that does need to be broached, and as it is an interruptible source of power, only the owners and lenders are impacted. All that wind power is there, in the West today, due to its proximity to existing high tension lines from hydropower and nuclear power. Oh, and with government subsidies that run as high as forty times the cost of other available power. Nobody in the wind business is building or adding to the grid to distribute power. No subsidy in that. Purchasers do that. And when the wind blows during high water events, there is a hell of a fight to determine who gets to send whose power down what power lines, due to our lack of grid efficiency and size. Dumping water over dams to allow wind to be utilized, in spring during bird migration, not only kills birds, but the excess water is very harmful to salmon young migrating to sea. Not that it matters to the "greenies" who bow at the subsidized altar of wind and solar. The dams kill the salmon, not the water released to let turbines spin. You get a "two fer", a bird and a fish with the same stone, all in the name of environmental protection.


So we add to the grid issue with our new high school and the double line of solar panels putting power into the grid during daylight hours. Solar to power lights during day light. That somehow has its limitations. And hydro in Oregon was deemed NOT renewable energy according to our present Democrat governor, by his edict, which bolloxes a lot of interest and common sense inputs to the biomass burning as a green source of power. If you see a naked governor, it is ours. No Clothes Kulongoski is his Chinook name. And, his opposition to siting an Indian casino in the Columbia Gorge on Indian land is more of the same thinking. Evidently, he is not aware that most of the Columbia River Gorge, not near Portland, is now lined on either side by multiple rows of white wind turbines, like some canard foisted on us by another French artist with grand designs. Maybe it is time to drape the basalt rims lining the Gorge with fabric to blow in the wind, as the turbine blades spin in their mindless pursuit of clean power and bird guts.

You talk about opportunists. The whole of the Columbia River gorge is beset by opportunists seeking to profit from the hydropower system BPA has created. Aluminum plants are being bought by high tech providers, as they assume their power contracts. Google, Facebook, both are now using former aluminum plant hydropower to run their gigantic server blocks with cheap hydropower, and they can claim some sort of green credentials by buying a teeny bit of wind power, all the while the majority of the their power, 24/7, comes from the ever flowing river and not the off and on vagaries of wind, or the nightly cessation of solar power. Just showmanship for the socially progressive types and merit badges for the boy scout conscience.All that is to avail themselves to great blocks of power at cheap prices, a good business decision, and at the same time claim some sort of green credential by buying a teeny bit of wind power.

We need to understand that there is no real public will to address forest overcrowding of trees even though that is wholly a man made problem. No political will. Entrenched mindless opposition. I would think that the USFS has come to the best of answers for the worst of problems, and that is the situational ethics they have adopted to let fires burn. That NEPA has never been involved in the decision is a travesty of law, but that aside, burns will remove timber enough to let in sunlight, that will put some solar power at the ground and grow some feed for the ungulates, and perhaps keep their wolves out of town. And, the EPA evidently has no say-so on untrammeled wildland fire, and that CO2 addition to the atmosphere will happen whether the tree burns or just decomposes, or burned in a biomass energy plant. The carbon is going to be released. The only really sequestered carbon is in 100 year old wood houses made from 100 year old wood. YOu get twice the sequestration by building a house. Or not. When there is no demand for housing, fires must be a better option than logging to the unwashed and over propagandized urban masses. The energy from thinning to burn in biomass is a weak sister, and if you look it up, all the time Enron was gaming California power production, the two biomass electrical generation plants were idle due to litigation over their fuel sourcing from public lands. Even with blackouts and escalating power costs, nary a stick was available to burn in those power plants. Not one. And since then, several million acres of that sourcing area have burned, and I wonder if those plants have yet to operate. When those two in place biomass burner plants run for two years, without a stoppage due to no fuel, I would consider that as a possible source of energy. That experiment is ongoing, and unsuccessful to this point. It was not available when needed, due to enviro litigation, and maybe today is not available due to cost and other sources of power that are cheaper. Like all the power created by diverting the Trinity River, the cold water tributary to the Klamath River, through the Trinity Alps and into the Sacramento River, creating hydro power several times along the way to its final destination irrigating desert lands in the far southern San Joaquin valley, that water never nurturing a fish in the Klamath River watershed, all the while four hydro dams are considered on the Klamath for removal to "help salmon." How can salmon be helped that way, when you dewater the most important tributary to the river?? Beats me. Makes no sense. But biomass burning when you can't slash burn, but don't fight fires, makes no sense either. And then making them equivalent to coal fired plants drives the coffin nails deeper. Making our forests "healthy" is now all political horsepucky, and we need not listen to any of it, because it contains not one whit of reliable fact and doable tasks. Power is produced into an inefficient and inadequate grid for distribution, a cart before the horse, and we don't address that issue, so why would we think that we can restore healthy forests? Not politically possible at this time in this country. Our institutional memory is wiped out, our agency legacies and skills are gone, and now instead of having a lean hard working ranger working daily on the forest to protect the forest, we have an over weight clerk sitting at a desk or a computer deciding that we can't do a thing and neither can she or he, and the ranger is at a regional conclave about how to meet workforce diversity goals.

Photoware: That was the MacNamara LBJ Sec. of Defense Vietnam strategy: burn, destroy, the village to save the village from the communists. We have been there with that kind of policy from a high. Didn't work then, and is not working in our forests. When in doubt, evidently, just kick the shit of out something, and then there is work for all rebuilding it. I will never understand the need to wipe out Iraq's water and electricity infrastructure, and ten years later, no even be close to rebuilding it to anywhere near what it was....or should be for all the bucks spent. But, that is how our government now works, and the public lands issue is no different. Bean counters in the Auditor General for the USFS will determine the resource management course, not the "ologists" or land managers. The Auditors are running the show. Right now. All actions current and planned have to go through the auditors first. The Chief is second in command. The Auditor General runs the outfit today.

To respond to some of this discussion it is important to note that the logged stands in our study were never planted. Also, we were not studying the effects of clearcutting as our logged sites were generally harvested well before clearcutting began. Most of our sites were logged in the 1900s-1940s with selective harvest or small group selection harvests. We intentionally avoided old clearcuts. Our point in referencing modern silviculture is that there is very little quantitative information on exactly what types of harvest are occurring today and what long term stand responses to such treatments may be. Without this information, we argue that it is not a defensible or wise position to simply assume that modern treatments will produce little to no negative effects along the lines of those we documented for historical logging and move forward with a national policy implementing such practices. This is especially true when many modern silvicultural prescriptions depend upon selective harvest methods of large and medium trees to reduce canopy spacing and recoup project costs. Below are a series of quotations from the paper that further address this issue.

“Logging reconstructions indicated that all logged sites experienced removal of many medium and large overstory trees (average reconstructed dbh of trees harvested =49 cm, range 27–80 cm) although a number of large and medium trees remained in most sites (average density of backcast trees ≥ 40 cm dbh harvested = 72%, range 0–100%). On average, 68% of backcast basal area (range = 24–100%) was harvested.”

“It is also important to note that long-term responses to timber harvest are likely sensitive to differences in the specific nature and intensity of silvicultural treatments. Our results are specific to single entry individual selection and small group selection harvest of medium and large trees, as was common during the early 20th century in the Inland and Pacific Northwest and many other regions”

“…our results point to potential long-term risks associated with mechanical treatments, especially in previously unlogged forests. While modern fuel reduction or restoration techniques certainly differ from historical logging practices in many ways, there are also some important similarities. As opposed to historical timber harvest, current silvicultural practices emphasize slash treatment and retention of more large, fire-tolerant trees. However, both involve soil disturbance and reduction of canopy cover. Furthermore, some modern fuel reduction methods specifically recommend removal of medium and some large overstory trees in order to increase canopy spacing and reduce crown fire spread. Others benefit from the harvest of medium or large, commercially valuable trees to help minimize treatment costs. While there is a significant body of modeling work which predicts short-term alteration of fire behavior associated with such treatments, their effects under different long-term fuels management scenarios, or if treatments are not well maintained, have not been thoroughly evaluated. As a result, the extent to which modern mechanical treatments could have similar longterm counterproductive effects to those reported here for historically logged sites when treated stands are left unattended is largely still unknown.”

“It is important to emphasize that our intent is not to make direct inferences of the effects of contemporary treatments from historical logging, but rather to highlight the lack of data on long-term effects of various modern silvicultural practices. Such lack of scientific evidence incorporates a fundamental element of risk, particularly if recurrent fire is not effectively restored to fire-prone ecosystems or substituted by other means of long-term fuels management. The successful reintroduction of fire is contingent on the long-term commitment of financial resources and consistent management policy that promotes a greater use of prescribed and wildland fire on a landscape (i.e., greater than stand-level) scale. Currently, where over half of the Forest Service budget is spent on fire suppression and other wildfire-related activities and 97–99% of all fires continue to be purposefully extinguished, it is apparent that neither the financial resources nor the policy imperatives for such a commitment have yet been put in place. Where allowance of natural wildfires is infeasible and alternative fuel treatments (e.g., mechanical thinning) are deemed necessary, their potential negative impacts on future forest conditions, wildlife habitat, and other values should not be ignored. Clearly, there is a need for careful consideration of the long-term effects of modern silvicultural treatments as part of a forward-looking fuels management approach that balances fire hazard reduction with wildlife habitat needs and other ecological values and is commensurate with the realistic financial and institutional ability of public land management agencies to maintain such treatments over time.”

There are also huge risks to do nothing, some of which are known (and have been predicted for more than two decades), and some of which are not known, as "nature" has a way of being underestimated. I've been pushing for more comprehensive studies of the "No Action" alternatives of NEPA, to more fully illustrate to judges and the public what the scientific "big picture" is, as well as the economic and environmental costs of not doing the project.

I do appreciate the details and concerns, Cameron, for being more sure of longterm impacts and effects of the spectrum of management activities on specific types of forests. If we are going to fret over possibilities, we have to allow "equal time" to studying the obviously bad impacts of forest neglect and "unstewardship", so the public (who "owns" the land) can make more informed decisions about the future of their forests instead of being subject to the partisan whims of eco-lawyers, activist judges and a gullible public.

Both sides can't even agree upon assessments, much less solutions. It's all about the site-specific science, and few are capable of providing impeccable, non-corrupted, un-biased data to decide what to do with a specific piece of ground.

Right now, political partisanship precludes true scientific study in our National Forests. Most of us already know that highgraded and unplanted forests have seen a decrease in "good genetics". Of course, no one cared about that during the 60's. You've quantified that but, how is the study specifically applicable to today's much more benign forest treatments, including feller-bunchers and processors? Logging impacts can be almost fully mitigated, where catastrophic wildfires have impacts that can last for centuries.

Just a couple observations.

#1--It's hard to make it out, but Looking at your graph it appears that the average density of your "unlogged" forests were around 50 tpa that were larger than 16" DBH.That must be a canopy closure around 70-90%. It doesn't surprise me there would'nt be as much understory in that shade. However, I don't want to quibble, but didn't the "pre-settlement" ponderosa stand trend a little closer to around 20 "large" tpa. How many of your sites had that density and what was the "understory" density in those stands? Probably quite similar to the "logged" areas.

#2-- In the "logged" stands, you clarified above that they were logged in the early 1900's. Were any of the stands ever "thinned" since then. Where I come from they would have been thinned twice since then. By now such a stand would have been "whole tree" thinned (no fire slash) to a density similar to the unlogged stand. Of course, there wouldn't be as many 24"ers. Or are we to presume there will never be any active management once a stand was overstory removed a hundred years ago.

#3--In a way, couldn't one draw the conclusion that the results of your study actually encourages returning the "logged" stands to the "unlogged" stand desnity?

CAMERON NAFICY?
The Earth Firster from Texas?
Now he has a masters' degree and is a "scientist." Oh, joy.
Cameron, give Mildrexler my best wishes.

Okay, let me get this straight....the protocol was selecting unlogged sites and sites with one entry prior to 1940 and no management since besides fire exclusion?
In other words, we're talking the most primitive forestry methods, the most unenlightened vegetation management of all, versus the pristine model. Very limited in scope and usefulness, except as filler in the newspaper.

To respond to Dave first. I would respond by pointing out that the great majority of ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forest has experienced land management history similar to what we studied. Steve Arno estimated that only 1% of seral old growth ponderosa pine remained in MT due to past logging. While I would argue that this number is likely an overestimate, it is true that the great majority of ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forest has been logged at least once, and much of that within our study's timeframe or within a few decades afterwards. So if you are uninterested in why the majority of ponderosa pine/Douglas fir forest looks the way it does today and how this relates to wildfires and beetle outbreaks, then I guess you could make the point that our results are useless.

Logger, in response to your first question if you break down the stand data as you suggest to 16" and greater and compare unlogged, fire excluded stands to adjacent unlogged stands burned relatively recently we actually don't see a large difference in stand density. In both cases, we find on average about 65 tpa larger than 16". The difference in stand conditions between the two types is in the small douglas fir and sometimes grand fir that have encroached beneath the large trees. In all of our recently burned sites, there was only one that fell below the 20 tpa threshold you reference.

As for your 2nd question, yes we only studied forests with one harvest event. What the long term effects of multiple harvests would be is outside the scope of our data. This is one of our points, however. That if unlogged sites are entered and harvested, then we may set ourselves up for a long term need for repeated treatments or potentially see the kinds of long term density feedbacks we documented. The downsides to repeated treatments are that the effects of these are unknown and given funding trends for the FS and the high cost of thinning small tree ingrowth, repeated treatments on relatively short timescales seems uncertain.

As for your third comment. In the paper we recommend that previously logged sites should be considered a priority for mechanical thinning treatments, especially if fuel treatments are the goal. I actually think this is a potential source of common ground that collaborative groups working on FS projects should take advantage of. The main consideration here, I think, is that since logged stands are mostly comprised of younger trees, you may not want to thin to old growth stand density exactly but leave some greater portion of trees with the understanding that young forests are naturally more dense than older ones and self thin over time. Still, I would argue that fuel reduction and restoration goals converge in previously logged forests to a substantial extent and that common ground should capitalize on this opportunity.

Cameron:

I still think that 65 TPA is rather high for "average" pre-settlement forests. I don't know how prolific your Ponderosa regeneration is, but I put forth that a pre-settlement stand of 20-30 TPA that went unburned for 100 years would be at a "shelterwood" density and encourage a lot of undergrowth. Did you encounter such density stands and did they have such undergowth?

Would you say that your ponderosa sights were in the "moderately warm dry" habitat (vegatative response unit 2)? If so, I do believe that 35% of the Lolo is in such habitat. That's around 750,000 forested acres. The current 5 year average timber harvest on the Lolo is 2500 acres/year(that's also about the 10 year average). Most all of that is in WUI thinnings in the exact sights you studied. At that rate it'll take 300 years to treat those acres. Now of course, I'm sure a lot is too steep and not all was previously logged in the last 100 years. Let's say that 300,000 acres was "previously logged" accesible merchantable Ponderosa/doug fir low intensity fire habitat. At the current rate it would take 150 years to restore it.

I'm trying to paint you into a corner here Cameron. Knowing how much is being logged now, would you support a much higher rate of harvest to restore "previously logged Ponderosa units". If so how much higher-a doubling? Would you "advocate" a higher number.Put a number on it.

you see, I believe in restoring Ponderosa forests too. And it is quite merchantable if there is a mill within reasonable hauling distance(< 50 miles). I've seen mills make money when 90% of the logs are < 14" DBH. I think Montana has a lot of Anaconda cutover land that's full of such trees. A month ago I tooled through the "Lubrecht" forest. Pretty impressive growth for an Anaconda clearcut. I also tooled through a Plum Creek forest WEst of Kalispell and one in the Swan that were clearcut 80 years ago. They thinned it recently on a landscape level to 80tpa (lotsa pulp came off it). Its ironic that they were doing a lot more low elevation dry restoration than the USFS. How did they make it pay?

I just wanted to add. It dawned on me that the state had just sold a DNRC timber sale a few miles south of Libby. Classic dry. It was a commercial thin. The average DBH was 11". And the state made a $1000/acre in stumpage. A month ago. How did they make it pay? I don't know the particulars of the sale, but being so close to Libby it had to have been cutover.

I still think this is "driven" advocacy "science," especially given the involvement of TWS, Y2Y initiative, and WildWest Institute? I'd love to know who "peered" this puppy.
A more-relevant study would be directed at results. If OG uncut stands are in fact still at risk, and you want to keep them, want to at least restore good fire as part of the force portfolio, you would be targeting cost-effective management options aimed at having a good survival rate of large and soon-to-be-large PP.
PP don't have to be old to be functional for wildlife, they just have to be big. They can grow like crazy and be big by age 65 or 70.
Clearly, the whacked-once-and-left stands cry for management. But so do the old, untouched parcels.
My approach would be harvest-fire-harvest with tree processing on the landing to remove fines and induced fire when it is difficult to sustain a fire -- late fall. The second cycle of harvest would be to recover those trees that get killed by the fire beyond the necessary number of snag leaves. Raking duff needs to be paid for, and the way to pay for it all is with recovery of economic wood. Period.

I have a question about P.Pine and where it occurs and why it occurs where it does. Or questions.

First, is or is not P.Pine associated with preCoumbian native Americans, their needs somehow met by P.Pine and their very frequent burning the actual creation of P.Pine homogenous stands, some in some illogical places? Like P.Pine stands were fine places to live once the detritus was burned off, which vastly decreased the ability of wildfire to burn out a village using the area. Has P.Pine in the New West had a long and extensive human element to it, prior to logging and EuroUtilization?

Second: Is the greatest danger, today, to maturing P.Pine stands the accretion of shed needles, bark platelets and limbs growing to enough biomass to now kill the trees in a ground fire, due to excess heat buildup around the root area of the tree? The meaning of my question is that we know that separated boles, with clean space around tree crowns, will be adverse to crown fires and that allows P.Pine to be around longer than the true firs and hemlock, doug fir. They get burned out at an early age by frequent fire. But why was that fire frequent, and if the fire was set, why was it set?