GREATER CAUTION NEEDED BEFORE SUPPORTING THINNING/BIOMASS PROJECT

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS

Fire suppression effects on fuels are likely exaggerated. Most forests types are well within their historic range of variability. Most of the acreage burned in fires annually is in forest types that historically experienced moderate to significant stand replacement blazes. Thus the idea that large fires that occur are the result of fire exclusion is inaccurate.

There is new evidence that suggests that even low elevation dry forests of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir occasionally experienced large stand replacement blazes. The old model that characterized such forests as primarily a consequence of high frequency-low intensity blazes that created open and park-like may not be universally applicable.

Thinning won’t significantly affect large blazes because fuels are not the major factor driving large blazes. Climatic/weather conditions are responsible for blazes.

Large blazes are driven by drought, wind, low humidity, and high temperatures. These factors do not occur in one place very frequently. That is why most fires go out without burning more than a few acres.

The probability of any particular thinned stand will experience a blaze during the period when thinning may be effective is extremely low.

The majority of acreage burned is the result of a very small percentage of blazes—less than 0.1% of all fires are responsible for the vast majority of acres charred. Most fires go out without burning more than a few acres.

Even if it were possible to limit large blazes, it would be unwise to do so since the large blazes are the only fires that do a significant amount of ecological work.

Large fires are not “unnatural”. There are many species of plants and animals that are adapted to and/or rely upon dead trees and snags. There would be no evolutionary incentive for such adaptations and life ways if large fires were “unnatural.”

Dead trees are important physical and biological components of forest ecosystems. They are not a wasted resource. Beetles and wildfires are the prime agents that create dead trees. Removal of significant amounts of biomass by thinning and/or logging likely poses a long term threat to forest ecosystems. Biomass energy is the latest threat to forest ecosystems.

Logging/thinning is not benign. Logging has many impacts to forest ecosystems including spread of weeds, sedimentation of streams, alteration in water drainage, removal of biomass, and so on. These impacts are almost universally ignored and externalized by thinning/logging proponents.

Alternatives to logging/thinning to reduce fuels that do not remove biomass and avoid most of the negatives associated with logging practices exist, including prescribed burns and wildlands fire.

Reducing home flammability is the most economical and most reliable way to safeguard communities, not landscape scale thinning/logging projects.

INTRODUCTION

The rush to formulate new forest legislation that advocates thinning forests, use of biomass for energy production, and the presumption that our forests are “unhealthy” and/or that large fires and beetle outbreaks are undesirable may soon create a new threat to our forests. There are a host of different bills before Congress including legislation introduced by Mark Udall of Colorado, Jon Tester of Montana, Ron Wyden of Oregon, among others that are all predicated upon a number of flawed or exaggerated assumptions.

Some of this legislation is better than others, and some of it even has some very good things in the language and policies that are an improvement over present policies. Nevertheless, there are many underlying assumptions that are troubling.

THE FIRE SUPPRESSION CONUNDRUM

There is a circular logic going on around the issue of fuel buildup and fire suppression. Currently the major federal agencies including the Forest Service and BLM generally attempt to suppress fires, except in a few special locations like designated wilderness. Despite the fact that most agencies now recognize that wildfires have a very important ecological role to play, we are told by managing agencies that they must continue to suppress fires or face “catastrophic” blazes—which they consider to be “uncharacteristic”.

The problem is that thinning won’t solve the “problem” of large blazes because the problem isn’t fuels. By allowing the timber industry to define the problem and propose a solution we have a circular situation whereby the land management agencies continue to suppress fires, thereby presumably permitting fuels to build up, which they assert thus drives large blazes, creating a need for more logging and fire suppression. This cycle of fire suppression, logging, grazing, and more fire suppression has no end.

In addition, since thinning reduces completion, opens up the forest floor to more light, thus new plant growth, thinning can often lead to creation of even more of the flashy fine fuels that sustain forest fires. Unless these thinned stands are repeatedly treated, they can actually acerbate fire hazard by increasing the overall abundance of the very fuels which are most problematic—the smaller shrubs, grasses, and small trees that sustain fire spread.

In addition, thinning can increase solar penetration leading to more rapid drying and greater penetration of wind—both factors that aid fire spread.
This is not unlike the approach taken with predator control, whereby agencies for years have shot, poisoned, and trapped coyotes in the belief that they were reducing coyote numbers. But since coyotes respond to such persecution with greater fecundity, predator control becomes a self fulfilling activity whereby predator control begets more predator control.

While fire suppression (and logging, grazing, and so forth) may be a contributing factor in fire spread in some forest types (primarily ponderosa pine), they are not ultimately what is driving most large fires. Large blazes are almost universally associated with climatic features like severe drought, wind, and ultimately by shift in oceanic currents such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Therefore fuel reductions will not substantively change the occurrence of large blazes.

Even if one wanted to buy into the fuels-is-driving- large blazes story, it would behoove us to rethink the range of solutions. The National Park Service, the only agency that does not have a commercial logging mandate, has effectively dealt with fuel reductions through wildlands fire and prescribed burning. At the very least, any fuel reduction that may be needed should be done by prescribed burning.

QUESTIONING FIRE SUPPRESSION

One of the underlying assumptions of all these pieces of legislation is the idea that our forests are unhealthy and possess unnatural fuel loads due to fire suppression or fire exclusion. There is, of course, a bit of truth to the generalization that some forest types may have had some fuel build ups as a consequence of fire exclusion, but whether these fuel build ups are outside of the historic range of variability is increasingly under scrutiny.

It’s also very important to note that the majority of all forests/plant types in the West like lodgepole pine, subalpine fir, aspen, juniper, red fir, silver fir, Engelmann spruce, western red cedar, Douglas fir in west coast ecosystems, and many others have such naturally long fire intervals, that suppression, even if it were as effective as some might suggest, has not affected the historic fire frequency.

Indeed, the majority of acreage of forest types burned annually tend to be characterized by moderate to severe fire, and are not the forest types where fuel build up is presumed to be a major problem—namely ponderosa pine forest type. Yet most people apply the ponderosa pine model of less intense frequent fires to all other forest types and thus assume that fire suppression has created unnatural fuel levels.

In particular the timber industry has adopted the convenient theme that fire suppression has created a presumed “fuel build-up” responsible for large wildfires. (Never mind that there were always large wildfires long before there was any effective fire suppression—for instance, the 1910 Burn which charred more than 3 million acres of northern Idaho and western Montana)

Thus logging proponents have created a “problem” namely fuel build up, and then by happy coincidence, have a solution that just happens to benefit them-- logging the forest.

Fire suppression may have influenced some low elevation dry forests like those dominated by pure ponderosa pine, but perhaps not nearly to the degree or over the large geographical area that timber interest and logging proponents try to suggest. Those who want to justify logging try to conflate low elevation forests with all forest types—many of which such as lodgepole pine—are very likely not affected by fire suppression due to the naturally long intervals between fires in these forests.

CLIMATIC DRIVERS OF LARGE BLAZES

The emphasis on fuel reductions has obscured the fact that nearly all large blazes are climate/weather driven events. Evidence is building that wet, cool climatic conditions may be more responsible for dense forest stands and/or lack of fires than anything to do with fire suppression. In other words, fire suppression may not be as effective as some suggest and any fuel build up may be within natural or expected range.

In addition, there is also a growing body of scientific analysis that calls into question the very methods and conclusions used to construct fire histories. These analyses suggest that historic fire intervals, even in lower elevation dry forests like ponderosa pine, are biased. Fire intervals may be far longer than previously assumed. Because of this longer fire interval, dense forest stands may be natural, and/or no different than what existed in the past. There is also new evidence for mixed “severity” (i.e. moderate change) fires as well as crown fires in these dry forests. The implications of these findings is that many forests, even low elevation forests, may well be within the historic range of variability.

LARGE BLAZES NECESSARY

One of the issues missed by thinning proponents is that the vast majority of all ecological work occurs in a very small number of fires—the big so-called “catastrophic” fires. Even though most agencies and environmental groups now profess to believe that wildfire is important to healthy forest ecosystems, they are not willing to let fires do the work.

For example, in the years between 1980 and 2003, there were more than 56,350 fires in the Rockies. These fires burned 3.6 million hectares (8.64 million acres) Most of these fires were small—despite all the fuels that has supposedly made conditions in forests ready to “explode”. Out of these 56,350 fires, the vast majority of blazes totaling 55,228 fires or 98% of all blazes only charred 4% of the acreage.

On the other hand, a handful of fires—1,222 or less than 2% of the fires accounted for 96% of the acreage burned. Even more astounding is that 0.1% of the fires or about 50 fires charred more than 50% of the acreage burned.

This suggests four things to me. First, fuels are not driving large blazes. There is plenty of fuel throughout the Rockies, but most fires never burn more than a few acres—despite all the fuels that is sitting around. Fire suppression if it was responsible for a fuels build up doesn’t appear to be creating a lot of big fires.

The few very large fires that everyone is concerned about occur during very special conditions of drought, combined with low humidity, high temperatures and wind. And these conditions simply do not occur very often. When they do line up in the same place at the same time than you get a large fire—no matter what the fuel loading may be. My conclusion is that large blazes are climate driven events, not fuels driven.

Finally, the take home message for me is that even if we were successful at stopping big blazes through thinning and/or fire suppression, we would be in effect eliminating fire from the landscape. Since almost everyone today at least professes to the goal of restoring fire, than we have to tolerate the few large blazes—not try to stop them. Of course, it appears that despite our best efforts with logging, thinning, and all the rest, we have not had that much influence on eliminating the large blazes.

FRAMING THE ISSUE

One of the other major problems I have with the way many organizations have chosen to work on these issues is the way they “frame” the issues. When words like “working landscapes”, “restoration” , “unhealthy forests” “catastrophic blazes” “beetle outbreaks” are used in any discussion related to forests, they solidify in the public’s mind that there is a major problem with our forests, and more importantly that the “cure” is some kind of major invasive manipulation of forest ecosystems.

One must be careful about how you frame this issue. Even though most environmentalists do not support large scale commercial logging of our national forests, and have a lot of sidebars on how any logging should be done to address ecological concerns, when environmental groups say things like “we need to maintain our timber industry to restore the forests” the public just hears that our forests are a mess and the ONLY solution is more logging. I maintain that is not a message environmentalists want to be conveying. The public does not hear the sidebars, nor the cautionary words, rather they hear that we need to log our forests, and do so in a big way or ecological Armageddon is about to befall the West.

WHAT IS PRUDENT BEHAVIOR?

There is an important lesson in science called the precautionary principle. In the absence of full understanding of a problem, it is usually best to prescribe the least invasive and least manipulative actions. Conservation groups would be wise to apply this principle to forest policy.

That doesn’t mean I don’t support some “restoration” activities. To make an analogy, let’s look at the issue of wolf restoration. Putting wolves back on the land restores predation influences, but this is a very different thing than allowing hunters to kill elk. Especially because it allows the wolves, and natural conditions like drought, etc. t o determine what is the “right” number of elk and deer, not some agency with an agenda to sell licenses. Hunters influence elk differently than wolves and logging is different than say fires. Just as an elk killed by a wolf leaves behind carrion that other animals can use, a forest with fire leaves behind a lot of biomass that helps to sustain many other functions in the forest.

Logging short circuits those ecosystems functions. As with hunting whenever you have a commercial enterprise involved in natural resource policy, it distorts the conclusions and it’s convenient to ignore anything that suggests the activity—whether hunting or logging is creating problems.

NEW PARADIGM

There is a growing challenge to many of the assumptions about fires and its influence on forests. These challenges to assumptions about constitutes forest “health” and the historic role of large blazes and beetle influences is not unlike the challenges to common assumptions about predators that began with people like Adolph Murie, George Wright, and other scientists back in the 1930s and 1940s who started to question predator policy. These early ecologists were not only challenging politicians and citizens, but many other scientists who were advocates of killing predators to create “healthy” populations of deer and elk.

I need not remind many conservationists that there are still plenty of scientists around that will support killing predators like wolves, despite decades of research about the ecological need for top down predators. So assurances that any logging on public lands will use the “best” science are not reassuring to me. When there is a commercial/economic aspect to any management, that tends to distort and often compromise the science and scientists that are consulted. It would naïve for anyone to believe that this is any difference when dealing with fire and forest policy issues, especially when there’s an economic benefit to some industry and/or individuals for the policy.

QUESTIONING SUPPRESSION

There is a growing scientific body of work that is challenging the notion that fire suppression is responsible for dense forests and/or that crown fires, even in low elevation forests consisting of ponderosa pine and/or Douglas fir. The implications of this for forest policy are significant for if this is correct, our current conditions are not outside of the historical normal range of variability, especially when you consider past climatic conditions that are similar to the current dry, warm conditions.

One can find plenty of scientists who think our forests are out of whack, and prescribe logging to reduce fuels and so forth, however, if one is monitoring the scientific literature one would find enough evidence here and there to question the current assumptions about “forest health” and the presumed need for logging.
At the very least, it would seem a prudent approach to avoid endorsing logging when there is at least some evidence to suggest that our forests are not as out of whack as previously assumed, and/or that logging cannot do what advocates suggest—like restore the ecosystem or prevent large blazes.

PROBABILITY OF FIRES

Another unchallenged assumption of those prescribing thinning to protect say old growth ponderosa pine is the idea that somehow without thinning, we would lose all the old growth to fires. However, that ignores the low probability that any particular acre of land will burn in a fire. For one thing, most fires are small as mentioned earlier. They do not burn more than a few acres and go out. The few fires that do grow into large blazes occur under very special climatic/weather conditions of extreme drought, high wind, low humidity and high temperatures. These conditions do not occur that frequently, and to this you must provide an ignition. So even if you have drought, wind, low humidity, etc. you may not get a blaze.

In addition, even big blazes do not consume all the forest. Most large fires burn in a mosaic pattern for a host of reasons, the likelihood that any particular acre of old growth will burn is extremely small.

Finally, since thinning effectiveness even under the best circumstances rapidly declines over time, in order to protect old growth stands, thinning of that particular location in a forest must be very recent otherwise new growth generated by the opening of the forest, reduced competition, etc. often negates any advantage created by forest manipulation (logging).

LOGGING IS NOT BENIGN

Even if one disagreed with these new insights and interpretation of forest an ecosystem, and the presumed effectiveness of thinning projects, that doesn’t necessarily lead to logging as the “cure”. It wasn’t that long ago we heard many groups outlining the many ways that logging created ecological outcomes that were undesirable—the spread of weeds, changes in the abundance of snags, and down wood, that human activity in the woods disturbs and displaces sensitive wildlife, that disturbance of the land and use of logging roads (even temporarily logging roads) adds sediments to our streams, and so forth. Most of those critiques are still valid today, but we don’t hear that kind of criticism coming from many environmental groups anymore. This silence and unwillingness to continuously remind the public that logging has many, many negative impacts on forest ecosystems has compromised the environmental effectiveness as defenders of our public forests. After all who is going to assume that role if environmental groups do not continuously remind the public that logging has many unexamined and ignored externalities.

LESS MANIPULATE ALTERNATIVES EXIST

Even if one did not want to challenge the common perception that we have an “emergency” as Senators Wyden, Udall, Tester and others proclaims, logging isn’t necessarily the only or the best way to address this presumed emergency.

The National Park Service does fuels reductions and ecosystem restoration without logging. They have a long track record demonstrating that one can modify fuels and restore the ecological value of wildfire to the landscape without logging, and without jeopardizing communities. Yosemite NP, for instance, does prescribed burning in the crowded Yosemite Valley as does Muir Woods adjacent to Muir Woods, as well as many other national parks. That is not to suggest that prescribed burning will alleviate all concerns, but at the very least, it should be the approach that environmentalists advocate. Prescribed burning combined with natural wildfire can “restore” forest resilience as well as reduce fuels. Such an approach avoids many of the negatives associated with commercial logging, including the need for roads, the disturbance of water drainage by roading, soil compaction, removal of biomass, and so forth.

REDUCE HOME FLAMMABILITY AS FIRST DEFENSE AGAINST FIRE

There is an abundance of evidence to suggest that if community security is a concern, the best way to achieve that is through reduction of flammability of homes and the area immediately around the community, not wholesale logging for the forest ecosystem. Jack Cohen’s research at the Missoula Fire had demonstrated that thinning the forest is not the best way to protect homes.

Advocating for logging as the “cure” is like suggesting that the best way to reduce elk herds is by hunting, instead of being an advocate of wolf restoration. Any time you get an economic activity involved in natural processes you compromise the integrity of the goals and measures.

ADVOCATE FOR NATURAL PROCESSES

Even if the majority of you believe our forests are out of whack and are unwilling to accept the critiques from those who suggest that our understanding of forest ecosystems may be incorrect, that doesn’t mean one has to be a hand maiden for the timber industry. Nature does the best management—that is why we all are advocates for wilderness—we believe that allowing wild places to determine what is right for the landscape is the best way to preserve “healthy ecosystems”. If the forests are overstocked as some may want to conclude, than let natural processes select which trees should survive and do any thinning that is necessary using insects, disease, drought, fire, wind storms, and all the other mechanisms that regulate plant communities—and Nature will do a far better job of determining which trees should survive than any forester.

Our role as humans is to get out of the way as much as possible, not to intrude and advocate for invasive solutions like logging. The only role for logging on public lands that I see is to strategic as listed below.

WHEN TO SUPPORT LOGGING/THINNING

If you must support logging, make sure it is very limited, and framed not in terms of forest health, but as a useful way to reduce human anxiety. Logging around houses and communities to reduce public anxiety over fires may be a political necessity. A fire break of significant size around the perimeter of a community may reduce public fears about large fires; however, as has been shown in numerous cases around the West fuel breaks alone will not ensure that homes are safe. Flammability of individual homes must be addressed.

BIOMASS WOOD ENERGY—BEWARE OF THE COSTS

After the Smurfit-Stone Container Corp.’s linerboard plant in Missoula announced that it was closing permanently, there have been many people including Montana Governor Schweitzer, Missoula mayor John Engen and Senator Jon Tester, among others who advocate turning the mill into a biomass energy plant. Northwestern Energy, a company which has expressed interest in using the plant for energy production has already indicated that it would expect more wood from national forests to make the plant economically viable.

The Smurfit Stone conversion to biomass is not alone. There has been a spate of new proposals for new wood burning biomass energy plants sprouting across the country like mushrooms after a rain. Currently there are plans and/or proposals for new biomass power plants in Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, Idaho, Oregon and elsewhere. In every instance, these plants are being promoted as “green” technology.

Part of the reason for this “boom” is that taxpayers are providing substantial financial incentives, including tax breaks, government grants, and loan guarantees. The rationale for these taxpayer subsidies is the presumption that biomass is “green” energy. But like other “quick fixes” there has been very little serious scrutiny of biomass real costs and environmental impacts. Whether commercial biomass is a viable alternative to traditional fossil fuels can be questioned.

Before I get into this discussion, I want to state right up front, that coal and other fossil fuels that now provide much of our electrical energy need to be reduced and effectively replaced. But biomass energy is not the way to accomplish this end goal.

BIOMASS BURNING IS POLLUTION

First and foremost, biomass burning isn’t green. Burning wood produces huge amounts of pollution. Especially in valleys like Missoula where temperature inversions are common, pollution from a biomass burner will be the source of numerous health ailments. Because of the air pollution and human health concerns, the Oregon Chapter of the American Lung Association, the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Florida Medical Association, have all established policies opposing large-scale biomass plants.

The reason for this medical concern is that even with the best pollution control devises, biomass energy is extremely dirty. For instance, one of the biggest biomass burners now in operation, the McNeil biomass plant in Burlington, Vermont is the number one pollution source in the state, emitting 79 classified pollutants. Biomass releases dioxins, and as much particulates as coal burning, plus carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and contribute to ozone formation.

BIOMASS GENERATES MORE CARBON THAN COAL

Besides ignoring the human health aspects of large scale biomass burning, assertions that biomass energy is “green” is a misnomer. Wood burning generates 50% more carbon dioxide than coal. This is largely a factor of the lower heat content in wood which means to generate the same amount of megawatts requires burning far more wood than coal to achieve the same amount of electricity. Biomass burning releases about 3,300 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt, while coal releases 2,100 pounds.

BIOMASS IS NOT CARBON NEUTRAL

Proponents of biomass often claim that biomass is “carbon neutral.” The reasoning behind this claim is the fact that growing trees will sequester carbon. On the surface this may make sense, however, it ignores that the it takes decades for new forest growth to capture the carbon that is released by trees consumed in a biomass burner. And that assumes there will be new trees growing—something that one can’t assume because climate change could make many places less suitable for forest growth. In an era of climate change, the assumption that a forest cut will grow back on the same site is optimistic at best.

The problem for humanity is that we need to reduce large scale carbon emissions now, not in 50 or 100 years as forests sequester carbon over decades.

BIOMASS ENERGY IS INEFFICIENT

Wood is not nearly as concentrated a heat source as coal, gas, oil, or any other fossil fuel. Most biomass energy operations are only able to capture 20-25% of the latent energy by burning wood. That means one needs to gather and burn more wood to get the same energy value as a more concentrated fuel like coal. That is not to suggest that coal is a good alternative, rather wood is a worse alternative. Especially when you consider the energy used to gather the rather dispersed source of wood and the energy costs of trucking it to a central energy plant. If the entire carbon footprint of wood is considered, biomass creates far more CO2 with far less energy output than other energy sources.

The McNeil Biomass Plant in Burlington Vermont seldom runs full time because wood, even with all the subsidies (and Vermonters made huge and repeated subsidies to the plant—not counting the “hidden subsidies” like air pollution) wood energy can’t compete with other energy sources, even in the Northeast where energy costs are among the highest in the nation. Even though the plant was also retrofitted so it could burn natural gas to increase its competitiveness with other energy sources, the plant still does not operate competitively. It is generally is only used to off- set peak energy loads.

One could argue, of course, that other energy sources like coal are greatly subsidized as well, especially if all environmental costs were considered. But at the very least, all energy sources must be “standardized” so that consumers can make informed decisions about energy—and biomass energy appears to be no more green than other energy sources.

BIOMASS SANITIZES AND MINES OUR FORESTS

The dispersed nature of wood as a fuel source combined with its low energy value means any sizeable energy plant must burn a lot of wood. For instance, the McNeil 50 megawatt biomass plant in Burlington, Vermont would require roughly 32,500 acres of forest each year if running at near full capacity and entirely on wood. Wood for the McNeil Plant is trucked and even shipped on trains from as far away as Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Quebec and Maine.

Biomass proponents often suggest that wood as a consequence of forest thinning to improve “forest health” (logging a forest to improve health of a forest ecosystem is an oxymoron.) will provide the fuel for plant operations. For instance, one of the assumptions of Senator Tester’s Montana Forest Jobs bill is that thinned forests will provide a ready source of biomass for energy production. But in many cases, there are limits on the economic viability of trucking wood any distance to a central energy plant. Again without huge subsidies, this simply does not make economic sense.

Biomass forest is even worse for forest ecosystems than clearcutting. Biomass energy tends to utilize the entire tree, including the bole, crown, and branches. This robs a forest of nutrients, and disrupts energy cycles.

Worse yet, such biomass removal ignores the important role of dead trees to sustain the forest ecosystems. Dead trees are not a “wasted” resource. They provide home and food for thousands of species, including 45% of all bird species in the Nation. Dead trees that fall to the ground are used by insects, small mammals, amphibians and reptiles for shelter and even potentially food. Dead trees that fall into streams are important physical components of aquatic ecosystems and provide critical habitat for many fish and other aquatic species. Removal of dead wood is mining the forest.

Keep in mind that logging activities are not benign. Logging typically requires some kind of access, often roads which are a major source of sedimentation in streams, and disrupt natural subsurface water flow. Logging can disturb sensitive wildlife like grizzly bear and even elk are known to abandon locations with active logging. Logging can spread weeds. And finally since large amounts of forest carbon are actually tied up in the soils, soil disturbance from logging is especially damaging, often releasing substantial additional amounts of carbon over and above what is released up a smoke stack.

BIOMASS ENERGY USES LARGE AMOUNTS OF WATER

A large-scale biomass plant (50 MW) uses close to a million gallons of water a day for cooling. Most of that water is lost from the watershed since approximately 85% is lost as steam. Water channeled back into a river or stream typically has a pollution cost as well, including higher water temperatures that negatively impact fisheries, especially trout. Since cooling need is greatest in warm weather, removal of water from rivers occurs just when flows are lowest, and fish are most susceptible to temperature stress.

BIOMASS ENERGY SAPS FUNDS FROM OTHER TRULY GREEN ENERGY SOURCES LIKE SOLAR

Since biomass energy is eligible for state renewable portfolio standards (RPS), it has captured the bulk of funding intended to move the country away from fossil fuels. For example, in Vermont, 90% of the RPS is from “smokestack” sources—mostly biomass incineration. This pattern holds throughout many other parts of the country. Biomass energy is thus burning up funds that could and should be going into other energy programs like energy conservation, solar and insulation of buildings.

PUBLIC FORESTS WILL BE SACRIFICED FOR BIOMASS ENERGY

Many of the climate bills now circulating in Congress, as well as Montana Senator Jon Tester’s Montana Jobs and Wilderness bill target public forests as a source for wood biomass. One federal study suggests that 368 million tons of wood could be removed from our national forests every year—of course this study did not include the ecological costs that physical removal of this much would have on forest ecosystems.

The Biomass Crop Assistance Program, or BCAP, which was quietly put into the 2008 farm bill has so far given away more than a half billion dollars in a matching payment program for businesses that cut and collect biomass from national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands. And according to a recent Washington Post story, the Obama administration has already sent $23 million to biomass energy companies, and is poised to send another half billion.

And it is not only federal forests that are in jeopardy. Many states are eyeing their own state forests for biomass energy. For instance, Maine recently unveiled a new plan known as the Great Maine Forest Initiative which will pay timber companies to grow trees for biomass energy.

JOB LOSSES

Ironically one of the main justifications for biomass energy is the creation of jobs, yet the wood biomass rush is having unintended consequences for other forest products industries. Companies that rely upon surplus wood chips to produce fiberboard, cabinet makers, and furniture are scrambling to find wood fiber for their products. Considering that these industries are secondary producers of products, the biomass rush could threaten more jobs than it may create.

BOTTOM LINE

Large scale wood biomass energy is neither green, nor truly economical. It is also not ecologically sustainable and jeopardizes our forest ecosystems. It is a distraction that funnels funds and attention away from other more truly worthwhile energy options, in particular, the need for a massive energy conservation program, and changes in our lifestyles that will in the end provide truly green alternatives to coal and other fossil fuels.

TESTIMONY OF GEORGE WUERTHNER June 19, 2009

Representative Raul Grijalva, Chair
House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands

Representative Grace Napolitano, Chair
House Subcommittee on Water and Power

Joint Oversight Hearing on "Mountain Pine Beetle: Strategies for Protecting the West”

Dear Representatives Napolitano and Grijalva:

Thank you for allowing me to provide testimony on the mountain pine beetle issues in the western United States. I believe I can bring an ecological perspective to the concerns and I ask that my comments be submitted as part of the hearing record.
First let me introduce myself. I have lived in a number of western states either for school or work. These states include Wyoming, California, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and Oregon and have visited many others in the course of my work which I will discuss below.

I attended the U of Montana in Missoula for my undergraduate degrees in wildlife and botany, and was enrolled in three separate graduate programs at Montana State University, University of California, Santa Cruz and the U of Oregon.

For quite a few years after leaving academia, I earned my living as a writer and photographer and have published 34 books covering national parks, conservation history, geography, environmental and ecological topics. Two of particular relevance to the topic of pine beetles and wildfire issues are Yellowstone—the Fires of Change, and Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy.

In researching these books I have had the luxury of traveling extensively across the West to view the aftermath of major wildfires, and the time to read the latest scientific literature related to wildfires, beetles, and other issues. Indeed, at one time or another I have visited every national forest in the West, which, along with my ecological training, gives me a geographical perspective few can provide.

I will address some of the common misconceptions and provide some alternative viewpoints on specific issues. I encourage you to view a recent powerpoint talk I gave that covers many of the major points I will make below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySqngrG_H6M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6sWLTfI9jw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEJIUMwVyr4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2jPQcG1ImI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYlZtayRosE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZsKXPfpiKc&feature=related

I would also encourage you to review the paper by Romme el al.
Recent Forest Insect Outbreaks and Fire Risk in Colorado Forests: A Brief Synthesis of Relevant Research for a good overview of beetle ecology and relationship to wildfire. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:JDj5CMoOWjoJ:www.cfri.colostate.edu/docs/cfri_insect.pdf+pine+beetles+romme+Colorado&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

I want to highlight a few of their major points here.

First they conclude that: “There is no evidence to support the idea that current levels of bark beetle or defoliator activity are unnaturally high. Similar outbreaks have occurred in the past.”

Second, the idea that dense stands of trees are a consequence of fire suppression is very dependent on the forest type. Higher elevation forests are naturally dense and have not changed significantly due to fire suppression or any other human activities.

Finally, their concluding remarks are worth keeping in mind. They state: “Although it is widely believed that insect outbreaks set the stage for severe forest fires, the few scientific studies that support this idea report a very small effect, and other studies have found no relationship between insect outbreaks and subsequent fire activity.”

And they go on to say … bark beetle outbreaks actually may reduce fire risk in some lodgepole pine forests once the dead needles fall from the trees.”
I will elaborate on all these points below.

PEJORATIVE WORDS
Let me start my testimony by suggesting that many of the phrases and words used to describe natural ecological processes like episodic pine beetle events and wildfire are pejorative in tone. We heard a lot of people testifying in this hearing that pine beetles were destroying the forests and/or wildfires were catastrophic and so forth. From the perspective of human values, these words might resonate—certainly if a wildfire burns down someone’s home, it is a devastating experience. However, it is less clear that these terms are appropriate in describing natural ecological events like pine beetle events or large blazes. (See my comments on this in Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy or Rocca and Romme (2009).

Indeed, pine beetle events, wildfire, and killing droughts are natural ecological processes that are critical to the maintenance of forest ecosystems. To the degree possible, I try to avoid using words with regards to wildfire and beetles such as “destroyed”, “damaged” “unhealthy”, and so on.

As we shall see later in my testimony, dead trees may be more important to the long term “health” and sustainability of forest ecosystems than live trees. There are even some ecologists who believe we do not have enough dead trees to sustain forest ecosystems.

CLIMATE FACTORS
As many of those testifying alluded to, climate/weather may be a big factor in current beetle population increases as well as wildfire size and occurrence (Meyer and Pierce 2003; Whitlock 2004, Westerling, et. al. 2006, Heyerdahl,E. et al. 2008). As has been noted warm winters tends to increase survival of pine beetle allowing their populations to grow rapidly.

Warmer summer temperatures, combined with drought, increases tree vulnerability to beetles, and is a key ingredient in wildfire spread. The importance of climate and large scale oceanic influences on wildfire are obvious from this graph below has the Pacific Decadal Oscillation superimposed over the acreage burned annually by wildfire.


Source: Dave Peterson USFS
This graph shows how the Pacific Decadal Oscillation may have affected wildfires. Cool, moist weather in the 1945s-1980s would have limited fire ignitions and spread. This is the same period that we attribute fuel build up to “effective” fire suppression. But it’s just possible that the conditions were not favorable for fire spread, thus the influence of fire suppression may be exaggerated and overrated.
There several messages to take home from this graph.

The first is when it’s cool and moist, fires don’t spread. It doesn’t matter how much fuel you have, you still won’t get a big blaze. Most fires go out without burning more than a few acres. To illustrate this point, think about the rainforests found in the Coast Ranges of Oregon and Washington. There’s more “fuel” sitting on the ground in those forests than you will find any place in the Rockies but in most years there are no fires. Why? Because the forest is too wet and cool to burn well.
Take home point: Fuels alone do not necessarily lead to massive fires. Thus the fact that pine beetles are killing lots of trees does not, in itself, portend large wildfires.

The key ingredients in all large fires are long term drought, low humidity, high temperatures and most importantly wind. In the absence of these factors, you might get an ignition, but the fire will remain small and likely go out quickly. The mere presence of fuel does not imply that you will have a major wildfire. Since the probability of these climatic/weather factors converging on the same geographic point at the same time is very low, not surprisingly large blazes (pejoratively called catastrophic) are relatively infrequent and rare events.

The interpretation that fire suppression is largely responsible for “dense” tree stands is also being challenged. First in some tree species like lodgepole pine and high elevation spruce-fir forests, recruitment after fires and/or insects tends to create even aged dense stands. Thus it is not “fire suppression” that has created dense forests and these forests are not “overstocked” but display the exact kind of tree age and density that occurred historically.

But more intriguing idea that is getting some traction is that periodic moist, cool periods may also lead to high rates of seedling germination and survival leading to episodic events of tree establishment. In other words, favorable weather for tree survival may be as responsible for “dense” tree stands in some tree species such as ponderosa pine as much as fire suppression (Brown and Wu 2005).

BEETLE KILL DOES NOT NECESSARILY LEAD TO GREATER FIRE SEVERITY OR SPREAD.
A common misconception is that dead trees will increase fire hazard. For instance, one study on beetles and wildfire occurrence that span the last 2500 years, found little correlation between wildfire and beetle events (Berg and Anderson 2006).

Another study (Lynch 2006) in Yellowstone on recently beetle killed lodgepole pine found that susceptibility to wildfire was not necessarily increased, though an earlier beetle event did appear to increase fire occurrence (the reasons are not due to dead trees, however, as I will explain below). Similar findings were reported for subalpine forests elsewhere in the Rockies (Bebi et al. 2003, Schoennagel et al. 2004, Biger et al 2005).

After a beetle event, there appears to be significant variability in fire susceptibility of forests that varies over time—assuming you have the prerequisite drought, wind, and low humidity that drives all large fire. Flammability is increased immediately after a tree is killed by beetles in what is known as the “red needle phase.” However, after the passage of one or two winters and the needles and small branches fall from the tree, the flammability goes way down. Thus if there is no ignition in those first few years (which as we noted earlier is very unlikely), the fire risk is significantly reduced.

It is only after the passage of several decades that susceptibility to fire increases, but not as much due to fuels, but as a result of rapid growth of small trees and shrubs that occurs after the forest canopy is opened by beetles. These small trees provide a ladder for flames to reach up into the forest canopy.

Nevertheless, even this period passes as the forest canopy once again closes, reducing forest fire susceptibility for many decades, even hundreds of years. (See Romme et al. 2006)

DEAD TREES DON’T BURN WELL
Another misconception held by many is that dead trees will increase fire hazard. As explained earlier fire hazard varies over time. But it is fine fuels that carry fires, not large boles. We see that easily after a wildfire. What do you see? Lots of snags. The needles and small branches burn off, but the core tree boles remain. One intuitively understands this from camping. When you try to start a campfire, you gather up “kindling” and small branches to start a fire. If you pile up a bunch of large logs and try to light it, you will likely get nothing for your efforts.

So while dead trees may not increase fire hazard, in reality the presence of green trees may. So in effect the large occurrence of dead trees killed by beetles may actually be reducing the fire hazard for nearby communities.

UNDER SOME CONDITIONS GREEN TREES DO BURN WELL
Let me explain. Green trees are often more flammable than dead trees, especially compared to dead trees (snags) where the needles and small branches are gone. The reason has to do with fine fuels. A living tree has a lot of fine fuels in the form of needles, branches, etc., plus at least for many conifer species, the needles and branches are full of flammable resins. Under drought conditions the internal moisture of these living trees often drops to very low levels. In Yellowstone NP during the 1988 fires, the internal moisture content of green trees was reported to drop below that of kiln dried lumber. Under such conditions of low humidity, drought, and high temperatures, combined with high winds, some green trees with high resin content will burn exceedingly well. (Bunting 1983, Perry 1995)

THINNING AND LOGGING MAY NOT REDUCE FIRE HAZARD
There’s a natural assumption that logging, by removing fuels, will reduce fire hazard. However, the evidence for this is inconclusive at best. There are examples of where thinning appears to have slowed the spread of fires and increased the ability of trees to survive stresses like beetles, drought, and fire (Youngblood et al. 2009), and in some cases reduce fire severity, but fires were not necessarily stopped or controlled as a result of fuel treatments (Pollet and Omi. 2002).

There as many examples of fires racing through previously thinned or logged stands. Indeed, logging can actually increase the likelihood of fire spread by opening up the forest to increased solar radiation and drying. Wind penetration is also increased by thinning. Wind increases drying of fuels, and pushes flames through a forest.

Though fuel treatments may appear to reduce fire spread and severity under “moderate” fire conditions, under severe climatic/weather conditions, particularly with high winds, fuel treatments do not appear to have significant influence on fire spread.

Fuel treatments could even create a false sense of security, much as the levees in New Orleans created for residents. Just as the Mississippi levees were breached when confronted by a category five hurricane, forests with fuel reduction treatments are often “breached” by wildfire under the equivalent of a “hurricane” force wildfire with high winds, low humidity and high temperatures.

DENSE TREE STANDS HAVE SOME VALUES AS WELL
The presumption that thinning forests is always a positive influence on forest ecosystems can be challenged as well. Trees growing under dense conditions tend to have tighter growth rings and are by nature stronger, and more resistant to decay as well. This has important implications for the long term biomass residency time of dead and down logs on the forest floor. Also there is some evidence to suggest that dense forests may inhibit fires due to greater shade and moisture—for instance on the Biscuit Fire in Oregon, dense forest stands tended to burn less severely than more open stands.

FUEL TREATMENTS CAN INCREASE FIRE HAZARD
Thinning, by creating more surface fuels, can increase fire hazard. Unless such surface fuels are removed, a subsequent fire can burn more severely. Thinning, combined with prescribed burning to remove surface fuels is often the most effective treatment, however, burning often does not follow thinning projects.

Furthermore, the effectiveness any fuel reduction treatment declines over time. Typically within 10-20 years, fuel loadings often approach pre treatment levels, thus thinning requires continual maintenance. This is one reason why thinning, if it is used, should be focused on the areas immediately adjacent to communities. Unfortunately, most FS fuel treatments so far are located well beyond that zone. According to a recent review of 44,000 fuel treatments implemented under the National Fire Plan only 3% were in the Wildlands Urban Interface (Schoennagel et al. 2009).

DEAD TREES ECOLOGICALLY IMPORTANT
One of the assumptions implicit in much of the angst over beetle events are the fact that many believe beetles “destroys” the forest. In reality, dead trees may be more important to forest ecosystems than live trees. Dead trees are biological legacies that are critical to ecosystem function. For a short overview see my articles in Forest Magazine Let us praise and keep the dead. http://www.fseee.org/forestmag/1102wuer.shtml

Dead trees serve many functions in the forest ecosystem and their removal can jeopardize future ecosystem sustainability (see Hutto 2006). Dead trees are a reinvestment in the next forest stand. For instance, one study found that 2/3 of all species depend on dead trees at some point in their life. Most of us are aware of the use of dead trees by woodpeckers, but up to 45% of all bird species use dead trees for roosting, feeding and nesting. Other species from amphibians to mammals depend on dead trees as well. Dead trees are important for invertebrates as well.

For example, ants are among the most important invertebrates in forest ecosystems, responsible for protecting trees from other insects to transporting and planting seeds of some flower species. Plus important pollinators like bees and wasps also utilize dead trees. Another study found that lichens were more abundant on dead trees and some species were solely dependent on dead trees for their habitat. And when dead trees fall into streams, they provide much of the habitat for aquatic ecosystems. Indeed, the studies to date do not show any upper limits on the value of dead trees in aquatic ecosystem. In short, the more dead trees, the better for fish and other aquatic life. There are even new studies that show that beetle outbreaks create higher biodiversity (Muller et el. 2008) and beetles may be a “keystone” species in some forest ecosystems.

FOREST ECOSYSTEMS NEED LARGE BLAZES
Even if thinning were able to slow or prevent fires, such a policy would not be desirable. The vast majority of fires burn a very small acreage—most ignitions burn less than ten acres. The bulk of all acreage charred by fires is the result of a handful of blazes annually. If indeed one believes that fires are ecologically important to forest ecosystems, than we have to learn to tolerate large blazes since they are the only fires that do significant ecological work. For more on the ecological need for large blazes see my chapter in Wildfire Logging and Wildfires—Ecological Differences and the need to Preserve Large Blazes (http://books.google.com/books?id=tnW7iYyp2wYC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=wuerthner+on+wildfire&source=bl&ots=oB)

It’s important to note that fires do not consume all biomass. Most fires leave a significant amount of dead wood on the site. This wood acts as a carbon storage mechanism. Indeed, charcoal resulting from wildfires stores carbon for thousands of years, and considerably more carbon than is released by combustion. One could argue we need more wildfires, not less, to store carbon in the soil.

LOGGING NOT BENIGN
When we are considering any management schemes, we must always weigh the presumed benefits against the costs. There is no evidence that logging “improves” the forest ecosystem except by using very narrow definitions of “improvement”. In the long term, logging always is a negative impact if all costs are considered. Thus we should attempt to minimize logging impacts to as small an area as possible.

What is seldom articulated by advocates of fuel treatments and other active management are the real ecological and economic costs of such management. For instance, most fuel management (thinning) involves use of logging roads which are notorious for causing sedimentation, and causing disturbance to wildlife. Logging roads by cutting across slopes interrupt water drainage and hydrology of a watershed. Logging equipment and roads spreads weeds and compact soils (Gelbard and Belnap 2003). (Entire books have been written about the impacts of roads, but for short overviews see Foreman and Alexander 1998 and Trumbulak and Frissell 2000)

Removal of dead and/or live trees can affect forest biomass, which in turn may affect things like watershed integrity and aquatic ecosystems. Disturbance of soils can increase the release of carbon. Logging fragments wildlife habitat. And we should not forget the carbon used in transporting trees to biomass converters or sawmills is yet another release of carbon.

In addition, foresters have no idea which trees will be best suited genetically for survival under changing climatic conditions. It’s possible that the very trees that foresters will choose to remove are those that are best able to cope with ecosystem and climatic variability. Letting nature “choose” which trees live or die is the only way to ensure the long term health and resiliency of the forest ecosystem.
Despite self interested assurances from the timber industry, logging is not an ecological analogue for wildfire (See G. Wuerthner 2004 Logging and Wildfire Ecological Differences) and substantially alters forest ecosystem function and ecological processes.

REDUCING HOUSING FLAMMABILITY FAR MORE COST EFFECTIVE
Restricting construction of homes in fire prone areas is a key way to address human safety and fire-fighting costs. But for those homes already in fire prone landscapes, by far the most cost-effective way to reduce losses to wildfire is by reducing the flammability of homes. Removal of flammable materials for 100-200 feet from homes is all that is required to vastly improve the chances that any structure will survive a major wildfire. Jack Cohen at the Missoula fire lab has written a lot about this topic (Cohen 2000). But mandatory metal roofs and a few other modifications to homes can go a long ways towards reducing vulnerability to wildfires at far less cost than attempting to protect communities by widespread logging/thinning fuel treatments.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND SOLUTIONS
There are a number of major points worth reiterating here. First, beetle and wildfire events are desirable and important ecological processes that sustain, not destroy, forest ecosystems. As a society, we should be striving to find ways to maintain these important processes. Rather than viewing such events as a “negative” , we need to find ways to “live” with such natural and ecologically important processes.

Second, the scientific evidence that actually shows fuel treatments can prevent large insect and wildfires is inconclusive. It appears that under severe climatic/weather conditions, these natural processes (beetles and wildfire) are not significantly influenced by treatments. Plus even under less than severe conditions, fuel treatment effectiveness declines rapidly and may even increase fire hazard. In any event, since the large wildfires and insect events are the only ones that we are concerned about, this raises important questions about the wisdom of applying fuel treatments across the landscape.

Third, forest management is not benign. We should limit forest manipulation to as small an area as possible.

Fourth, the majority of fire hazard is located on private lands (see Schoennagel, T. 2009) for a review on this. Any fuel treatments should be focused on the private lands where it will do the greatest good. Furthermore, by focusing strategic attention to these lands where existing roads create easy access for treatment as well as follow up maintenance, the cost-benefits are maximized.

Fifth, keeping people from building homes in vulnerable locations is another key factor. Just as we discourage people from building homes in the flood plain of a river, we ought to discourage people from constructing homes in the “fire plain”. We are not hapless victims.

REFERENCES:
Berg and Anderson. 2006. Fire history of white and Lutz spruce forests on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, over the last two millennia as determined from soil charcoal www.elsev Forest Ecology and Management 227 (2006) 275–283
Bebi, P., D. Kulakowski, and T.T. Veblen. 2003. Interactions between fire and spruce beetles in a subalpine Rocky Mountain forest landscape. Ecology. 84 (2): 362-371.
Bigler, C., D. Kulakowski, and T.T. Veblen. 2005. Multiple disturbance interactions and drought influence fire severity in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests. Ecology. 86 (11): 3018-3029.
Brown, P. and R. Wu. 2005. CLIMATE AND DISTURBANCE FORCING OF EPISODIC TREE RECRUITMENT IN A SOUTHWESTERN PONDEROSA PINE LANDSCAPE. Ecology: Vol. 86, No. 11, pp. 3030-3038.
Bunting, S. et al. 1983. Seasonal Variation in the Ignition Time of Redberry Juniper in West Texas Journal of Range Management, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Mar., 1983), pp. 169-171

Cohen, Jack D. 2000. Preventing disaster: home ignitability in the wildland-urban interface. Journal of Forestry 98(3): 15-21.
Forman, R.T., & L.E. Alexander. 1998. Roads and their major ecological effects. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 29: 207-231+C2.
Gelbard, J., & J. Belnap. 2003. Roads as conduits for exotic plant invasions in a semiarid landscape. Conservation Biology 17(2): 420-432.
Heyerdahl,E. et al. 2008. Climate drivers of regionally synchronous fires in the inland Northwest (1651-1900), International Journal of Wildland Fire
Hutto, R. L. 2006. Are current snag management guidelines appropriate for post-fire salvage logging in severely burned forests? Conservation Biology 20
Lynch et al. 2006. Insect–Fire Interactions in Yellowstone National Park: The Influence of Historical Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) Activity on the Spatial Pattern of the 1988 Yellowstone Fires. Ecosystems 9: 1318-1327.
Meyer, G.A., and Pierce, J.L., 2003, Climatic controls on fire-induced sediment pulses in Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho: a long-term perspective: Forest Ecology and Management, v. 178, p. 89-104
Pollet, J. and P. N. Omi. 2002. Effect of thinning and prescribed burning on wildfire severity in ponderosa pine forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire 11: 1-10.
Perry, D. 1995. Forest Ecosystems page 110
Rocca, M. and W. H Romme. 2009. Beetle-infested forests are not “destroyed”. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 71-72.
Schoennagel, T., T. Velben, and W. Romme. 2004. The interaction of fires, fuels, and climate across Rocky Mountain forests. BioScience 54(7): 661-76.
Muller et al. 2008. The European spruce bark beetle Ips typographus in a national park: from pest to keystone species.

Romme, W. et al. 2006 Recent Forest Insect Outbreaks and Fire Risk in Colorado Forests available on line http://www.cfri.colostate.edu/docs/cfri_insect.pdf
Schoennagel, T. 2009 Implementation of National Fire Plan treatments near the wildland–urban interface in the western United States. www.pnas.org
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Wuerthner, G. 2004. Logging and Wildfire—Ecological Differences and the Need to Preserve Large Blazes. In: Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy, Island Press, G. Wuerthner Ed.
Youngblood, A. , J.B. Grace, J. D. McIver (2009) Delayed conifer mortality after fuel reduction treatments: interactive effects of fuel, fire intensity, and bark beetles. Ecological Applications: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 321-337.