Measure V forum

By: Mike A'Dair Willits Weekly May 5, 2016 Of the 13 people who attended an April 26 forum in Willits on Measure V, nine were involved in reporting on, producing, or promoting the event in some way. And three of the remaining four were there because their businesses use tan oak wood. Tan oaks are one of the main trees targeted by the hack-and-squirt forestry technique that uses herbicides to kill standing trees competing with more commercially valuable redwood and Douglas fir in the county's logged over timberlands. Measure V would declare dead trees left standing upright in the forest for more than 90 days a public nuisance, when those trees are within 1,000 meters of critical infrastructure, such as public or private roads, driveways, fire lanes, telecommunications, or electrical infrastructure. The measures also applies to dead and standing trees within 1,000 meters of a structure, or when they are within a CalFire state responsibility area. The measure would make any party responsible for leaving a dead tree standing in the forest for more than 90 days liable for any resulting damages. The initiative will appear on the June 7th ballot. According to Albion-Little River Fire District Chief Ted Williams, the evening was supposed to be a debate, with Williams and former CalFire pilot Kirk van Patten speaking in support of Measure V, and a Mendocino Redwood Company representative refuting the proposal. However, no MRC or anti-measure V speakers were in attendance. Contacted by the Willits Weekly, MRC Director of Forest Practices John Anderson said he had been asked by Els Cooperrider of the group Citizens for Fire Safe Forests, proponents of Measure V, to attend the town meeting in Willits, but he had declined. "We have gone to some of them, three or four," Anderson said. "But they were stacking up. And besides, MRC isn't the only group that is doing this (hack-and-squirt practice). So I gave Els a list of other people she could call. I guess either she didn't want to call them, or she called them and no one could make the Willits meeting." Anderson said other companies, agencies, or groups using hack and squirt include The Conservation Fund, Camp Mendocino (Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco), Jackson Demonstration State Forest, Lyme Timber Company (the company that now owns lands formerly owned by the Campbell-Hawthorne Timber Company), and private ranchers throughout the county. "I wanted to get some other voices out there, other than MRC," Anderson said. Fire Chief Williams told the small audience he supported Measure V because it would protect the environment, fire fighters, and the local economy. The environment would benefit because MRC would be unable to practice hack and squirt near human habitations thus reducing the risk of uncontrolled fires that could threaten communities. It will protect firefighters, Williams said, because the hack-and-squirt method creates roughly a million standing dead trees per year, and those trees can topple during a fire, posing a danger to firefighters. Those trees can drop limbs without warning, Williams added, which could kill people. "They call those limbs widow-makers, and they call them that for a reason," Williams said. If passed Measure V would benefit the economy, he argued, because timber companies like MRC will be more likely to hire workers and remove unwanted tan oaks by hand. Bot Williams and Van Patten challenged MRCs claims that trees killed by the hack and squirt method usually fall over in five years. Williams claims studies have found that hack and squirt leaves a legacy that lasts for at least 15 years. Referring to a binder containing printed information, Williams said there is an increased risk of fire after one to two years following hack-and-squirt treatment. After two to four years, there is an increased risk of a tree falling. And after four to eight years, there is an increased risk of "deep fuels", fuels lying on the ground that can spread a low-lying fire up into the canopy. The added risk from the hack-and-squirt practice does not become negligible until 15 years out, Williams said. But he did not cite the source of his information, or return multiple calls from the Willits Weekly, attempting to source the information. Do dead trees increase the risk of fire? In a January 2016 report, Mendocino County Forest Advisor Greg Giusti reviewed professional literature on the relationship between standing dead trees and fire, quoting two experts who opined standing dead trees did not increase the risk of fire. Giusti quoted a study by S.J. Hart (2015), in which the author assessed whether tree mortality from bark beetle attacks increased the incidence of fire. Hart wrote, "Contrary to the expectation that a [bark beetle] outbreak increases fire risk, spatial overlay analysis shows no effect of outbreaks on subsequent area burned during years of extreme burning across the west... Our results demonstrate that the annual are burned in the western United States has not increased in direct response to bark beetle activity... These results refute the assumption that increased bark beetle activity has increased the burn area." Giusti also quoted M.L. Bond (2009), who wrote about the effect of tree mortality from Sudden Oak Death on forest fires. "We found no evidence that pre-fire mortality influenced fire severity," Bond wrote. Giusti said a complex relationship exists between standing dead trees and forest fires. "Herbicide treatment, like tree diseases, increases surface fuels over time, and a positive relationship exists between dead tan oak basal area and surface fuels," he said in his report. "Dead trees affect flammability, but do not necessarily affect fire behavior across the entire forest matrix. Dead stands need to be evaluated spatially to determine risk in the context of the forest matrix." Van Patten was asked how it was possible Rainforest Alliance could have concluded the hack-and-squirt practice does not increase the risk of fire severity of forest fires, a claim Rainforest Alliance auditors made in the August 2015 recertification of MRC. "Typically, a pre-European forest doesn't burn as aggressively as a second-growth redwood forest," Van Patten said. "So their argument is, that they are making the forest into more of an old-growth, pre-European type forest, one that will resist fire. So what's they're saying is hack-and-squirt is a necessary step towards a better forest." "But it's a risk." he added. "They say it's a three-to-five year risk, they would have to take, and that you have to pay for. But I think it's much more than that." Williams said high-ranking MRC administrative personnel have told him the company pays about $300 an acre to use the hack-and-squirt method of tan oak removal, rather than the $600 an acre it would cost to remove the trees manually. When asked how the additional cost would affect the company's price of lumber, Williams conceded he didn't know, but thought it would be very small, especially if the tan oaks were removed at the same time they were logged. "Running all the equipment for a couple of extra days would be a very small cost. They could afford it, but it's just not their business model," Williams said. Els Cooperrider, a proponent of Measure V, who was in the audience, said the company could easily afford it. "One redwood tree per acre would pay for the cost of getting all these tan oaks out of the same acre," Cooperrider said. "If measure V passes," Van Patten said, "and they lose that tool (i.e. hack-and-squirt) then they'll have to start looking at some of these other options."