Redwood Reader

Redwood Reader applauds the wonderful gift of $6,000 in mapping equipment given by Pacific Lumber to Fortuna High in today’s Times-Standard. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3561739 This is a great learning opportunity for students and is much needed in a time of pushing for more engineers, mathematicians, and scientists. It is a skill set with wide application and growing, and so a great advantage for the school., the students and the community, which students will be able to assist with now.
I’d also point out this would allow them to make detailed maps of their progress in the Fortuna Creeks Program over the years, as GIS is an important part of watershed management. Thanks to them for providing training as well, which is also a cost to them and great for our students and staff.
Elsewhere locally we see TMDL’s coming for the lower Klamath in Klamath Water Quality Focus Getting Sharper. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3561753 Total Maximum Daily Loads are being worked out for all watercourses to return our water sources to health. They were pretty scary sounding coming to the Mattole a few years back, but in the end they didn’t cover legacy damage, and sediment was our only problem. Sediment is controlled by vegetation and good practices on the ground, whether logging, grazing or even building. Nutrients are either excess fertilizer or animal waste although phosphorus loading from detergent was an issue on Long Island in my youth. The other two problems, temperature and oxygen, will improve with more regrowth, which contributes cool water in the dry season in the lower reaches. If you look at shade as a cooling factor nad how do we replace it, we start seeing the problem inside out. How do you prevent the river taking out the trees in high water? You slow down the amount reaching the river right after the event causing a smaller more controlled flow. You can also be sure tributaries are in good condition and manage the lands for maximum water production, especially in area with impacted flows. All of which is to say that in order to provide suitable habitat below the dams it is important to use all available land management tools. We suggest looking at BMP’s for water production in arid areas that may provide better flow regimes in the impacted stretches of river, a change in perspective on ground disturbances cost to late summer flows, and easements or something to guarantee long term rotations and minimal soil disturbance in harvest, preservation by purchase in critical areas of orographic influence to ensure maximum precipitation collection
These techniques will improve the situation above the dams as well but that will have less impact on salmon habitat. Both the state and federal governments are charged with capturing water resources as needed but they have mainly chosen to drain the landscape into reservoirs.
Several articles today show us global warming is occurring now, with potential for major losses. One article is reporting on shrinking ice sheets in Antartica, another about Mt. Kilamanjros shrinking glaciers, and another concerning increasingly ferocious storms in Europe. Power generators are named as the critical cause in tyhese European reports. However, the effect on Canadas western forests is documented in the Washington Posts Doug Struck ‘Rapiid Warming’ Spreads Havoc in Canada’s Forests http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801772_pf.html . This article is specifically about pine beetles and lodge pole pine but we know all four Alaskan major species are under attack from other insects taking advantage of warmer winters. One earlier story also mentioned that insects that usually hatch once a year were hatching two and three broods a year, greatly increasing the numbers, and also not being controlled by the killing cold.
The article goes on to describe the massive salvage logging industry that has built up to process the wood before it rots too much. From our point of view, this is only setting the stage for further degradation. An entire landscape no longer supporting the subsoil communities raises the likelihood of land sliding from loss of the precipitation interface and soil glue deposited to hold it together, and converts much needed water into soil cutting runoff, which is exacerbated by soil disturbance like skidding and road building.
Ironically, this is a boom market and has been a problem with trade for a while- too much cheap Canadian lumber. It is quite possible the entire North could wind up in similar condition in the not too distant future providing a steady stream of cull lumber for decades.. It could also get really cold one year…
They say it takes seventy years to regrow the pine forest, as we know, that does not allow the mature forest to do its task of cleaning the air and depositing glomalin, which in turn holds the soil together and allows water storage. Many studies have shown there will be extensive surface coverage reestablished in ten years and in flatter areas there will be diminishing erosion. Steeper areas will be more slide prone in heavy storms and it will take less rain to saturate the ground and begin running and carrying sediment.
As far as global warming goes, this is a vast area to lose production from (storing carbon from the air in wood and soil), as well as from the soil itself. The flip side of that is that global warming and higher CO2 concentrations multiply plant productivity several times. This is why we hope that general forest productivity does not decline across many species due to sudden oak death.
Catastrophic dieoff in the forests in occurring now and we should be prepared for events of this type, as Sudden Oak Death may begin a need for disposing of large amounts of vegetation. As we have stated earlier there should be local generating plants to take in green waste from vegetation control projects as well as chips. This could help pay for woodland improvement and provide income and jobs while securing a local supply of material for conversion.
The need for paid land managers to manage woodlands for growing big trees couldn’t be clearer. Conversion into energy and payment for carbon storage should be the heart of our efforts for sustainability in the forests. Paying for tree removal needs to be bested by compensation for other priorities. It also allows for all types of native trees as all have some role in the ecology. Lack of good wood or standard form is not an issue. The result is a forest that provides clean water and wildlife habitat by accident, is protected to some extent from fire through vegetation management and lowered risk factors.