It
is estimated that up to one billion board feet of fire-killed timber can still
be salvaged out of the forests devastated by the Yosemite Rim fire, but it
requires immediate action. As time passes, the value of this dead timber
declines until after a year or so it becomes unsalvageable.
The Reading Fire in Lassen
occurred more than one year ago. The Forest Service has just gotten around to
selling salvage rights last month. In the year the Forest Service has taken to
plow through endless environmental reviews, all of the trees under 18” in
diameter – which is most of them – have become worthless.
After a year’s delay for
bureaucratic paperwork, extreme environmental groups will often file suits to
run out the clock, and the 9th Circuit Court of appeals has become infamous for
blocking salvage operations.
We have no time to waste in
the aftermath of the Yosemite Rim Fire, which destroyed more than 400 square
miles of forest in the Stanislaus National Forest and the Yosemite National
Park -- the largest fire ever recorded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The situation is particularly
urgent because of the early infestation of bark beetles which have already been
observed attacking the dead trees. As they do so, the commercial value of those
trees drops by half.
Four hundred miles of roads
are now in jeopardy. If nearby trees are not removed before winter, we can
expect dead trees to begin toppling, risking lives and closing access. Although
the Forest Service has expedited a salvage sale on road and utility rights of
way as part of the immediate emergency measures, current law otherwise only
allows a categorical exemption for just 250 acres – enough to protect just 10
miles of road.
By the time the normal
environmental review of salvage operations has been completed in a year, what
was once forest land will have already begun converting to brush land, and by
the following year reforestation will become infinitely more difficult and
expensive – especially if access has been lost due to impassibility of roads.
By that time, only trees over 30 inches in diameter will be salvageable.
Within two years, five to
eight feet of brush will have built up and the big trees will begin toppling on
this tinder. You could not possibly build a more perfect fire than that.
If we want to stop the
conversion of this forestland to brush land, the dead timber has to come out.
If we take it out now, we can actually sell salvage rights, providing revenue
to the treasury that could then be used for reforestation. If we go through the
normal environmental reviews and litigation, the timber will be worthless, and
instead of someone paying US to remove the timber, WE will have to pay someone
else to do so. The price tag for that will be breathtaking. We will then have
to remove the accumulated brush to give seedlings a chance to survive – another
very expensive proposition.
This legislation simply
waives the environmental review process for salvage operations on land where
the environment has already been incinerated, and allows the government to be
paid for the removal of already dead timber, rather than having the government
pay someone else.
There is a radical body of
opinion that says, just leave it alone and the forest will grow back.
Indeed, it will, but not in
our lifetimes. Nature gives brush first claim to the land – and it will be
decades before the forest is able to fight its way back to reclaim that land.
This measure has bi-partisan
precedent. It is the same approach as offered by Democratic Senator Tom Daschle
a few years ago to allow salvage of beetle-killed timber in the Black Hills
National Forest.
Finally, salvaging this
timber would also throw an economic lifeline to communities already devastated
by this fire as local mills can be brought to full employment for the first
time in many years.
Time is not our friend. We
can act now and restore the forest, or we can dawdle until restoration will
become cost prohibitive.
This is Rep. McClintock's statement on H.R. 3188, the Yosemite Rim Fire Emergency Salvage Act.
As I've stated before, Congress should grant the same authority to waive environmental laws to the Secretaries of Ag and Interior as they have already granted to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
It
is estimated that up to one billion board feet of fire-killed timber
can still be salvaged out of the forests devastated by the Yosemite Rim
fire, but it requires immediate action. As time passes, the value of
this dead timber declines until after a year or so it becomes
unsalvageable. - See more at:
http://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/wood-blogs/industrial-woodworker/production-industry-guest-blogs/Fire-killed-Timber-Can-Be-Saved-If-Congress-Acts-227760341.html#sthash.jav95zE3.ewvR3C5p.dpuf
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