Education day kicks off logging conference

Speakers started educating the public at The Redwood Region Logging Conference on the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds at 9 a.m. on Saint Patrick’s Day. The RRLC is a trade show, with a lineup of heavy equipment, chainsaw-crafted sculptures, and booths presenting various points of view on things that happen in the forest. The Jere Melo Foundation had a display about trespass marijuana grows, and Women in Timber had one about women with careers in the timber industry. The first education station was CalFire, where firefighter Lezlie Elmer briefed a group of 4th-graders from Kelseyville Elementary on fire protocol. Many of the students had direct experience with last year’s blaze in Lake County, as does Elmer, who fought in the Valley Fire. But many of the students had not heard about the change in the recommended response if their clothes burst into flame. In the past few years, firefighters began educating people to “stop, cover your face, drop, and roll.” Elmer agreed that this instruction “doesn’t roll off your tongue” as easily as the old-fashioned “stop, drop, and roll;” but firefighters hope the new practice will protect burn victims’ airways. Also present was Hannah Bird, Community Educator at the Hopland Research and Extension Center. Bird ruefully noted that her wildlife activities were competing with several tons of heavy machinery, but said “it’s a great opportunity for me to engage with lots of kids.” She reported that one group had already participated in a “mystery bird activity” that involved a crash helmet and a hammer. This means that “I dress one of them up in a crash helmet and put some feathers around the beak,” she explained; “and they have a hammer for a beak. By this time, most of the kids are starting to get it, and they shout out the name of the bird they think it is, and it’s an acorn woodpecker. Obviously acorn woodpeckers need the oak woodlands to survive, so there’s a tie-in there…I could talk for hours about acorn woodpeckers,” she added; “but by that time, the kids are ready to move on.” Brian Vitorelo, a forester with Mendocino Redwood Company, addressed students from Riviera Elementary about the animal skulls and historical human litter he finds in the forest. He also explained how foresters communicate with loggers. “Foresters write the plans,” he explained; “and loggers do the extractions.” To indicate a timber boundary line, foresters use pink plastic tape, he told the children. He held up a roll of tape with the words, “timber boundary line” on it. To indicate a tree that is not to be cut, he held up another roll of tape that he described as “deviously similar, but slightly different,” displaying the words, “do not cut…it’s a good thing,” he concluded. On a day when the official color is green, he spoke of the importance of cutting redwoods low to the ground, so the young trees that sprout from the stump will have a chance to anchor themselves into the earth with their root systems. According to EPIC (the Environmental Protection Information Center), MRC does selection logging, which maintains multiple age classes of trees, “to a degree.” Representatives from the California Air Resources Board were there as well, with an array of fact sheets designed to assist logging fleets with their efforts to comply with air quality regulations. Michael Connelly, of the ARB, said that in 2007, the industry was put on notice that tighter emissions standards would come into effect in 2014. Air Resources Engineer Joseph Gormley added that “diesel is the most toxic air contaminant we know.” In 2012, the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that diesel exhaust is a known carcinogen. However, nitrogen oxide, or NOx, is also a common contaminant. Certain areas in California with the cleanest air, including most of the counties north of San Francisco, have an EPA exemption from regulations of NOx emissions. Last year, much of the eastern region of the state received the exemption as well. This does not mean that there is no regulation. There are a couple of delayed compliance schedules that the owners of logging trucks can follow in order to meet air-quality standards. One is installing PM (particulate matter) filters in a certain percentage of trucks in a fleet. According to material provided by the ARB, vehicles in NOx exempt zones “can meet PM filter requirements on a delayed schedule from 2015 to 2020 and do not need to be replaced after they are equipped with PM filters.” As of the 1st of this year, 40 per cent of trucks (excluding those that are low-use or funded) in a fleet within a NOx exempt zone must have PM filters. However, PM filters do not reduce NOx emissions, so there is a separate phase-in schedule for fleet owners who would rather replace older trucks with newer ones that do not pollute as much. In 2016, compliance with this schedule means that 30 percent of logging trucks must have engines from the year 2010 or later; 100 percent compliance will be the law in 2023. To return to the subject of funded vehicles, “I don’t know of any other state agency that has so much financial assistance,” Connelly remarked. He offered a fact sheet on the TIMBER program, which provides loggers with $10,000-$60,000 vouchers to help replace high-pollution trucks. However, off-road, self-propelled vehicles, or those with tracks instead of wheels, are considered part of the agricultural exemption from regulations. Asked why that was the case, Gormley explained that “the industry convinced us they needed that exemption.”