April 8th 2016
By Zoe Yudice, reporter@mendocinobeacon.com, Last week, the League of Women Voters held a discussion of Measure V at the Caspar Community Center, which was drafted to deal with the threat to public safety posed by the hack-and-squirt practice of leaving dead trees standing. According to the measure “trees greater in height than 5 meters, intentionally killed and left standing for more than 90 days (except those created for the benefit of wildlife habitat) are a public nuisance and the party responsible shall be liable for any resulting damage” when they meet a set of criteria listed in the ordinance. In attendance were Albion Little River fire chief Ted Williams and Kirk Van Patten, retired air attack captain for CalFire, presenting arguments in favor of the measure, and John Anderson, director of forest policy for Mendocino Redwood Company and Bill Morrison- register professional forester, licensed pest control adviser and Coastal District Manger for Soper-Wheeler Company, and Laytonville fire chief Jim Little presenting arguments against the measure. Measure V has been drafted to address the issue of dead trees left standing after being poisoned by the hack-and-squirt process. Hack-and-squirt consists of cutting a chunk out of a tree and then injecting an herbicide into the cut poisoning the tree. This tactic is widely used on tanoak by timber companies, Mendocino Redwood Company being the biggest perpetrator within the county, in an effort, according to Anderson, to encourage conifer growth and. “When we came in and started putting fires out several decades ago that built up the forest, and then with repeated harvest that really just focused on the conifers, those tan oaks flourished, and they really took over the forest. So the challenge is how do we get the forest restored the way it was,” explained Anderson at the discussion. Hack-and-squirt makes it possible for timber companies to directly target tanoak, allowing conifers such as Douglas fir and redwood to flourish by reducing competition. According to Anderson, removing tanoak is not only beneficial from a timber and jobs perspective – Douglas Fir and redwood are valuable products to sell - but also from a wildlife habitat perspective – conifers are more fire resistant. Anderson used the 2008 Mendocino Lightning Complex fire in Alder Creek, which included treated tanoak areas, to argue there is no correlation between intense burning areas and areas with treated tanoak.
Van Patten, in response, referenced a UC Extension study that sought to understand the effects of Sudden Oak Death Syndrome — often using frill-treated sections of forest as a stand-in for SOD-struck forest - which concluded firefighters were at increased risk because of these treated dead standing trees. Williams followed up by saying, “As first responders, we are going to be on scene first. In a busy fire year when CalFire strips our county of resources since they are elsewhere, it will be the local firefighters who are on scene and it is important they can rapidly extinguish the fire while it is small. It creates a problem for me as fire chief to decide do we send our volunteers to crawl through a forest in a setting that is unknown, at night, possibly under snags that are lethal.” According to the opponents of the measure, the practice of hack-and-squirt is very methodical and heavily regulated to mitigate the risks of the practice for firefighters, residents, and wildlife. “Licensed pest control advisers and registered professional foresters when doing these applications are already considering and mitigating the treatment area for public safety. We will not treat along evacuation routes, we will not treat along county roads. We set up defensible fuel zones around communities at risk so firefighters have a place to stage and fight fires successfully from more strategic locations. I think consideration of public safety is already incorporated into the plans before we do the treatment” said Morrison. One question asked at the meeting was: is there an alternative that you would recommend to hack-and-squirt that would accomplish the same purpose? Anderson said they have explored possible uses for tanoak, such as wood flooring, but they have not been profitable. Also, he said, this method is preferred versus a cheaper method of removing all the tanoaks at once because he argues by keeping some tanoak standing they are restoring the forest for the long-term. In closing arguments, supporters of the measure highlighted the point that this is not a forest health issue, but a public safety issue. Williams said, “It is one thing to have these trees caused by nature and climate change. It’s another when we go out and manufacture hazards to save the bottom line expenses.” Opponents to the measure emphasized that they take fire safety into consideration when managing their forest, and they believe that the measure would take away a valuable tool from forest landowners, the county, and forest managers. Little added, “I see our forest at a real risk. If climate change is in fact a reality, one of the issues that could potentially impact us is the available soil moisture, and if we have this competition with a tremendous overstocking of our stands, they are all going to be stressed.” A number of attendees also asked questions about the health risks of herbicide use, but due to the fact that this measure solely addresses the nuisance of dead standing trees they were not discussed. - This article originally appeared in Fort-Bragg Advocate News, April 7th, 2016