Redwood Reader

224. Global warming

2007-03-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

The current focus on global warming in the last few months still overlooks the ability of soil fungi to act as powerful partners in reducing CO2. There is of course a need to reduce the amount we are putting into the atmosphere but solutions for taking it out aren't even to the science fiction stage yet. Meanwhile the beneficial effects of aerial Co2 fertilization continue to pile up at the CO2 Science site even as Al gore testifies in front of Congress. Major scientific discoveries are being ignored and their potential would have great benefits for the people.
Glomalin was discovered in 1996 by crop scientists working with corn. Work on forest trees in the PNW showed mycorhizzae to be critical to tree health, even survival. Many species of these symbiotic fungi may be found in seedlings. Dan Wheeler wrote:
"

While identification of mycorrhizae by root formation is still in its infancy,
data published on the Internet has found 7 fungal species colonizing _the same_
.5 cm rootlet! A typical seedling tree has hundreds of sites. A healthy,
100-year-old tree may have several million of those sites.
This was posted in the Agroforestry newsgroup several years ago and included here in #38 with the entire post. Each of these sites is receiving photosynthetic product from their host trees, up to 40% of annual output. Here we see the need for adult trees to work through their productive lifetimes, measured by output rather than mass of wood, and puts to rest the myth of planting seedlings being more productive than allowing trees to grow through late seral stages. Mattias Rillig of the University of Montana showed more glomalin deposited at the deeper levels in the soil in his 2005 DOE study also showing the need for longer rotations if soil building and watershed restoration are going to be considered as an antidote to global warming.
I have seen no real news on any of these topics in a while. On group is going off about glomalin, but claiming charcoal is needed in the soil for the fungi to. This may be true of decomposers, which may be a large percentage of soil fungi in worked lands, but living forests suppress many of these and the carbon comes from photosynthesis, removing CO2 from the atmosphere. There is huge potential here for plant developers of many kinds and an obvious need to reduce harmful practices from emissions to mowing. Increased CO2 can improve nutritional value of crops. No till farming is helping sequester tons of CO2 to farmers economic benefit. An interesting post by Dan said:

In tree nurseries seedlings typically become inoculated with
Hebelomacrustuliniformis. However, according to work done in New Zealand, this
fungusis insufficient to grow trees rapidly. Until it is replaced, Douglas
firseldom grows more than a few inches a year.In 1986-89 I did several
inoculation experiments at a Douglas fir Christmastree farm near Oregon City,
Clackamas County, Oregon. One of the first inoculations was with Rhizopogon
vinicolor, R. parksii, R. villosullus, andR. villescens, Suillus sps, Laccaria
laccata, Laccariaamethystina-occidentalis, Boletus zelleri, Boletus
chrysenteron, and othermycorrhizal fungi. Within 2 years of this multiple
inoculation, most of thetrees were growing 3-8 feet per year! And where a
13-foot Douglas firChristmas tree was removed in Nov., 1990 and replaced by a
22-inch tall4-year-old Douglas fir seedling (where Tuber gibbosum (Oregon White
truffle)was known to be fruiting) that seedling grew between February and
October of1991 at least 9.5 feet. That nearly allowed the tree to reach the
height ofnearby trees. The following year it grew an additional 6 feet, and is
now(1998) nearly equal to its 40-60 foot tall neighbors.Makes you kind of wonder
how much tree cultivation is actually done, doesn't it?

Deja News, Google Redwood Reader #39
With vast new acreages becoming suitable for forest trees in the north and in the mountains we are actually seeing how nature regulates the fluctuations throughout time. It has always been our way to to try to improve on natures work to our benefit. It is time we partnered with nature to tackle this problem before it becomes a geopolitical firestorm.

223. Upwelling, GLobal warming actions

2007-02-21T14:10:00.000-08:00

BBC reporter Jonathan Fildes ran a story on February 17 (http://news.bbc.co.uk.2/hi/science/nature/6370905.stm, "Winds Devastate Ocean Life" about shifts in the winds that cause upwelling, which stirs up nutrients from the deep into the food chain for all marine animals. For the last five years the annual cycle has acted erratically, providing no food when it is needed and too much when it is not. The excess food decays and uses all available oxygen in the water causing death to all who cannot flee. Dead zones have also been found off Chile, Namibia and South Africa.
U.S. scientists on the West Coast think the timing and intensity of the upwelling are being disrupted. A late season in 2005 meant there was no food for migrating salmon. A massive but late bloom in 2006 triggered a dead zone from decomposition of unused nutrients. There were massive bird die offs from lack of food in some areas.
On February 20 John Driscoll of the Times-Standard wrote "When Come the Winds" (http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_5264766). He provided more local information, explaining we need northwest winds in March and April, which have come in July the last two years, mentioned that Cassins auklet and rockfish have been seriously depleted by the variations from the norm. Fog and redwood trees are also mentioned as an effect of upwelling by Troy Nicolini of the National Weather Service in Eureka. A result of this has been the coming together of different scientific disicplines learning to forecast these events and make predictions about abundance, similar to the way agriculture does it now.
Al Gore seems to have convinced people global warming has arrived. Many people are now trying to battle the problem on every level from giant corporations to local town meetings. Still no mention of restoring the soil by using fungi to store carbon dioxide in the soil, or to recognize the importance of large trees as the true absorbers of carbon dioxide, or that it is a resource that should be hoarded by landowners. In fact failed carbon credit schemes and calls for short rotation logging show a deep ignorance of the basic workings of the landscape, as does mowing grass instead of growing woody perrenials. W3e would like to see more emphasis on restoring the landscape and creating natural. It will take a big load off the need for technological solutions, as called for by Richard Bransons 25 million dollar prize, and contribute to a profitable and stable landscape as well. "Branson Launches $25 million Climate Bid". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6345557.stm). The prize is for capturing at least one billion tons of CO2 per year. While several schemes for capturing and storing CO2 are mentioned there is no mention of capture for further use, either.

222. Lions, Murrlets and the Lost Coast

2007-02-06T16:10:00.000-08:00

The horrific cougar attack on Jim Hamm and the heroic life saving defense by his wife in Redwood National and State Parks last week brought lots of attention to cougars and the Park. An excellent piece on cougars there by John Driscoll of the Times-Standard on Sunday, February 4, 2007 (http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_5157265) includes a Park video well worth watching for anyone interested in these large cats and their behavior. They seem much less bothered by humans than usually reported. It must be noted that the attacking cat was a first year female, who seem to be the problem in the majority of the human attacks. There hasn't been a killing of a human by a lion in Humboldt since 1890. All the usual steps to avoid confrontation and stave off attacks were well reported on TV and the local papers and even in the national press.
While the lions are increasing in numbers, the marbled murrlet seems to be diminishing rapidly in the parts of its range thought to be safe for them, beyond logging. No explanation is currently available for the precipitous drop off in numbers in the Aleutians or Alaska other than major changes in ocean nutrient cyclingor possibly predation by ravens and/or bald eagles are a possibility, the ravens presence directly the result of development encroaching on old growth forests. The USGS was doing the survey for the administration which is tryting to ease logging restrictions imposed by the decline of the birds in the mainland US in the early nineties. Jeff Barnard, AP environmental writer via Yahoo, February 6, 2007. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070206/ap_on_sc/sea_bird_decline;_ylt=Au1EMnI3gquSPiNlgUsUCg3MWM0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-.
Bennett Barthalemy wrote a nice three part article for the Northcoast Journal(one part every two weeks January 4, Mattole to Spanish Flat, Jan 18 Spanish Flat to shelter Cove, Feb 1Sinkyone State Park) about hiking the Lost Coast. It gives a good feel for the area and plenty of useful information for those seeking a good hike. It describes the beauty of our region as a wilderness and hikers destination. We hope to see Humboldt redwoods state Park and Gilham Butte eventually tied in as the Redwoods to Sea. (www.northcoastjournal.com)

221. Greening of North America and Humboldt County

2007-01-31T22:51:00.000-08:00

CO2 Science (co2science.org) magazine had a new summary for research illustrating the greening effects of carbon dioxide enrichment on the overall vegetative response. Several methods and trails of observation are included which show continued heightened plant growth to higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere, including increased alkalinity in the Mississippi Basin.
Satellite studies show plant response across North America. Although dates did not vary for trees with experimental and normal amounts of CO2, rates of growth were much higher in enriched atmospheres. Satellite photo comparisons are revealing that tundra shrubs are covering new ground in northern Alaska.
Another study in fairly remote regions show increased radial growth of ponderosa pine since 1950, just the kind of result we are looking for. the researchers also found the best response in the poorest years and most stressed environments. Spruce trees in aburned over environment were compared for a similar time span but with older trees growing in a 299ppm atmosphere while young trees grew in a 346 ppm ambience. The trees grown in the more recent atmosphere grew much faster and had a much faster response to drought.
We agree with CO2 Sciences conclusions but we await the recognition of the role of mycorhizzia and other mycelium in fixing carbon in the soil, and how that leads to rebuilding the water holding capacity of the landscape and eventually to the health of rivers in the arid and seasonal precipitation regions. We hope our readers will support their ongoing efforts.
Meanwhile voluntary carbon trading and a shift in focus continue to lead to more groups thinking in terms if carbon forestry, which sounds good but still doesn't include the thirty to forty percent productivity being deposited by fungi in the soil.
AP reported through Capar Star-Tribune (http://casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/01/31/news/regional/84e5cd3383b109f58725727100267b4b.txt) last week that the Nez Perce had planted 5000 acres of trees on land converted to agriculture but deemed marginal. The tribe found tree planting a better idea, and if they can be paid for carbon storage it will certainly help them. We see our idea slowly becoming a reality and some are saying it will be the largest commodity market in the country in a few years. Prices are still low- four dollars a ton, and they are talking of new plantations above ground only. The tribe hopes to get twelve dollars a ton and is reluctant to sign long term agreements too soon.
Our studies show large old trees sequester far more carbon far quicker than new plantations, just by sheer number of molecular transactions, and deposition in the soil still unaccounted for. The science needs fixing, that is clear. And yet people are beginning to find potential profit even in the flawed models. Just think when you add watershed restoration and improvement, let alone the precipitation interface and flood control.
In Humboldt County, much to no ones surprise, Pacific Lumber and its associates defaulted on a 26 million dollar interest only payment to bondholders, sending the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy court. The company filed the papers in Corpus Christi, near Maxxams corporate headquarters. The company owes most of what it was purchased for, while millions and maybe billions in assets have been sold off. They have eighteen months to figure it out and a lot of little guys get to twist in the wind.
Federal agencies repeated their demand that Pacificcorps include fish ladders in their plans for relicensing the four Klamath dams up for renewal. Advocates are hoping dam removal may become a reality, and the power production picked up by a new generating plant to replace lost capacity. The agencies, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service also indicated the company proposal to trap fish and truck them around dams was not viable for several reasons, including disease from handling and gearing for fall chinook only. We would reiterate, however, there is hope for restoring Klmamath fish stocks to previous decades while there was a viable fishery after the dams were built, and that all eggs shouldn't be in one basket.Times-Standard John Driscoll 1/31/2007 http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_5124609

220.NC Land Trust, salamanders, NEC and PL bankruptcy

2007-01-19T22:07:00.000-08:00

North Coast regional Land trust recently made an agreement with the Nature Conservancy that will help it preserve more North Coast operating lands of a rural nature. They said it would help with expertise and resources and help develop a plan to protect other environmentally key properties. While the Nature Conservancy may add some clout, they were investigated for allowing some members to trade up for better parcels several years ago, in a series printed in the Washington Post. Further confusing the issue is the Times-Standards reporting of conservation easements by owners not to develop property. This is actually agricultural set asides where landowners are paid not to develop or sell to developers, fairly common back east and south of here. Conservation easements are set up by the landowners as decisions not to harm property in specific ways and an endowment is necessary for someone to guarantee compliance. Both types of measures are attached to the Title of the property and are supposed to stat in place into the future. One problem conservation easements have had is not having partners to hold the easement that survive in perpetuity. Agricultural set asides are government deals and so long term compliance is more of a sure thing. But even then, when they saved the remaining truck farms in Suffolk County by paying to keep the land as ag land, farmers sold out to vineyards and horse breeders, defeating at least part of the original intention. Open space was still preserved.
Land Trust Teams Up With The Nature Conservancy, Times-Standard, Jan 12, 2007
http://times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_4999739
Then the Land Trust applied for funding for studies and planning from federal funds available for non-County purchases for four purchases worth several millions of dollars. JIll Geist said she'd like the Planning Commission involved while government was named as the reason for higher prices in the first place by Roger Rodoni. Part of the money was to be used for easement costs, which should not exist in straight forward purchases, so something isn't clear here, unless they are talking about utility and right of way easements.
Conservation Funding Approved By the County Times-Standard, Jan 17, 2007
http://times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_5029540
It looks like the Northcoast Environmental Center's Board has made an astute selection choosing Greg King to pick up the pieces after Tim McKay's unexpected demise. He was a very advocate of seeing the need to protect Headwaters Forestand has founded two non-profits, Smith River Project and Siskyou Land Conservancy, and has written for the Bohemian and Lake County Record Bee. He seems to have the skills needed to reinvigorate Tims dream. Good luck to him.
Environmental Center Names New Chief Times-Standard Jan 19, 2007
http://times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_5029548
An interesting scientific issue was in the news as a decision to list a salamander closely related to another was issued.The ruling said DFG could not delist one species just because a close relative is seemingly abundant. The real issue here is how far genetics will be applied in creating new species as happens often in the plant kingdom. Few plants have the same protections as listed animals and genetic testing could result in many species of small populations with slightly different characterisitics coming out of existing species, raising major problems for policy makers.
Salamander Dilemma:Split or Lump Times-Standard Jan 18, 2007
http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_5036802
Last but not least, Pacific Lumber and its subsidaries filed for bankruptcy in federal bankruptcy court in Corpus Christie, Texas, siting the State of California as not living up to its obligations under the Headwaters Agreement to allow it to log enough to pay its debts. The company claims that regulatory agencies have made it impossible to meet their financial obligations and has sued the State of California in December 2006. The state claims non-signatory agencies rulings are relevant and must be abided by.
Palco, Subsidaries File For Bankruptcy Eureka Reporter Jan 19, 2007
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=19580
Palco Bankruptce Follows FIling of December Lawsuit Eureka Reporter Jan 19, 2007
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=19581

Earlier in the year, Humboldt County District Attornet Paul Gallegos appealed a ruling in a fraud suit against Pacific Lumber for the same agreement.

219. Humboldt Forests' Changing Face

2007-01-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

We have stayed away from most of the stories that seem to illustrate global warming in the news, glaciers melting, Arctic sea ice disappearing, comparisons to other geologic ages, changing seasons and plant and animal apparent responses. Our issue has been the discovery of a mechanism that nature has used for as long as life has existed to regulate climate so that it will support life. This knowledge may give us an opportunity to correct a serious situation before it explodes out of control and we find ourselves in real trouble as a species, let alone the economy. It is difficult to believe such well researched and publicly available knowledge is barely trickling into the discussion. It must be a sign of the times to ignore the science and stay the course, while the munincipalities struggle with local environmental issues rather than establishing a national deterrance for a probably man made problem. More evidence of the soils ability to store carbon comes from the current issue of CO2 Science Magazine (www.co2science.org).
Meanwhile, in Humboldt, the face of the timber industry is changing. Palco closed most of its facilities and sold off some of their lands. They sued the State over the right of the Water Quality Boards to regulate operations agreed to in the Headwaters deal, claiming the Water Boards have no authority since they were not signatories to it. The State says the company was not exempted from any regulations. The Water Quality Boards are restricting the amount of harvest in Elk River and Freshwater Creeks, and Palco has said it needs those rates to continue profitable operations.
Meanwhile, final issues are being settled as the Eel River sawmills Employee Stock Option Plan case was resolved with a relatively small payout for the ex-employees. Both companies blame difficulties in getting logs and a lack of demand for timber products due to softness in the housing industry.
Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos, surprisingly, filed an appeal of the judges decision regarding the fraud suit concerning timber harvest rates in the Jordan Creek area, which he claims were made purposely misleading to allow higher rates of cut in unstable drainages. In this area, too, Palco claimed the need for higher harvest rates to stay economically viable.
Meanwhile, Green Diamond, Simpsons land use division, released their HCP for 400,000 acres of California lands and had it published in the federal register. They seem to be taking the current trends into consideration by tackling resource issues from the start. I recommend browsing their website at www.greendiamond.com.
Sudden Oak Death has arrived in Southern Humboldt. Several eradication projects were completed this year. We doubt they "got it all"and that this is just the beginning. We fear the loss of good usable wood, especially black oak, may instigate a cut to get it before it rots on the stump, as in the case of the chestnut blight earlier last century.
The first carbon credits I know of were bought by the top pollution control officer and her deputy to offset traveling to Nairobi, Kenya for a conference on the Kyoto Protocol..(http://times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_4837797) It amounted to $140 dollars. A San Francisco based outfit called Pacific Forest Trust (www.urbanforestrysouth.org) manages the 2100 acre Fred M. van Eck Forest Foundation through an easement agreement dating to 2001. They just began selling the credits in November but it promises to bring long term income to well managed forests well into the future.
Finally, an article about the tallest redwoods and two guys, Michael Taylor and Chris Atkins, who are measuring them appeared in Yahoo on January 4, 2007. They are in the process of finding the correct heights of all the tall trees, which tells us there aren't many left. Their descriptions of good locales are helpful to people looking for good redwood growing lands. They count 36 redwoods over 360 feet and four over 370 feet. Unfortunatly, their laser range finder only came available in 1995, after most of what was left had been cut or included in harvest plans. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_sc/tall_tree_hunters

218. Stamens again

2007-01-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

The two articles in the Sentient TImes covering Paul Stamens new book Mycelium Running both advance our arguments while falling short of total understanding. Heis statements about carbon export do not explain the process of that export, which is what we have been calling glomalin destruction. He suggests, for example, innoculated wood chips to restart the massive fungal networks destroyed by logging and agriculture. He seems to think much of the carbon is harvested and burnt off. Our studies show much of it remains in the soil after these processes but is subsequently lost in erosion that follows these activities. However, either glomalin is a component of All mycelium rather than just mycorhizzia or we are looking at decomposers and missing the essential carbon storage process in glomalin formation and deposition. The descriptions of the massive amounts of fungi in the soil are very good.
His descriptions of spongy water bearing soil are right on and the catastrophic loss of higher mammals as carbon export continues. He also includes sequestration of heavy metals in the soil as the are absorbed into the fungi. The ability of these to improve our biosphere is clear to him but the exact mechanism is still just out of sight. For this reason I recommend his book although I have not read it yet. I have read his earlier works and can see the evoltion in thinking. And it gives ideas on the nature of mycelium networks but lacks the insight of the role of mycorhizzia in the formation of glomalin and its deposition. He hints at a Gaia but fails to see how the fungi actually create the needed environment that allows the great diversity in fungi and plant life.
His realization of the trouble in Singapore is similar to my own recognition of the loss to ecosystems of mowing grass short instead of allowing plants to restore the atmospheric carbon balance with the ability to replenish soils simply by aiding the plant half of the mycorhizzia symbiosis. Where to start is exactly where nature will start when man is gone- by leaving things alone to allow plants and fungi to process earths' elements as they have always done.
This should all be good reading for Al Gore, and I hope he will continue to learn as well as educate the people on these vital subjects that allow for action instead of simply an overwhelming sense of impending disaster.

217. Bukeyes, Sentient Times and BBC

2006-12-17T22:55:00.000-08:00

The Eureka Reporter reported that the Buckeye Conservancy opened nominations for their Stewardship Award for exemplary stewardship. Nominations can only be made by members although any individual, family business or organization can be nominated for the award is eligible to be nominated.
The Buckeye Conservancy was established in 2004 to promote good land management for owners and resource managers. The Buckeye Conservancy, P.O. Box 5607, Eureka, CA, 95501. 707-786-9662. http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=18465 Meanwhile the debate over carbon trading continues as to the value of tree planting. We are pleased California has initiated trading as it is clear many studies are reported without understanding how much carbon is being stored underground as the mycelial residue glomalin. Redwood Reader has had a good number of California readers, who seem willing to pick up where the British are realizing carbon trading, without knowledge of glomalin, is a zero sum game. "Care Needed With Carbon Offsets" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6184577.stm, "Forests Only "Temporary Carbon Absorbers" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1643156.stm. It seems ignorance has a way of maintaining its own interests.
Meanwhile two articles in the December 2006 issue of Sentient Times discuss the role of fungi in restoring the earth. Paul Stamens of Fungi Perfecti explains the importance of carbon to soil and fungi's role in creating soil. He recognizes the vast amounts of carbon returned to the atmospheere by development and agriculture. Harnessing the power of fungi to restore the soils while reducing greenhouse gases is just over the horizon of his vision. His comments about trees falling over is partly about soil conditioning but also about how well restoration is occuring underground with many factors like root depth, percentage of soil glue, crowding, root grafting and soil moisture capacity and alerts us to some of the many things that can go wrong in the best intentioned plan. Nevertheless, plants and fungi will continue with their useful relationship conditioning their environment far into the future.
Stamens has studied mushroom cultivation for years but many of the mycorhizzia fruit insignificantly, and they are primary feeders from photosynthetic production and thus difficult to cultivate. Some work has been done innoculating seedlings by people like Dan Wheeler of Oregon White Mushrooms. Our culture has reduced the production and storage to a mininum. Areas of sustainable yield are often operating at a tiny fraction of capacity. Fungi will do this works if given the tools (plants) and opportunity to do so. This opportunity lies in strict competition with other economic land use choices and so must be a viable income for managers and owners and so the need for carbon credits.
The second article deals with reducing the waste stream by reduction with fungi. It includes sequestration of heavy metals and reduction of toxic chemicals. In these cases they are talking about using fungi that procure their own nutritional needs by foraging rather than symbiotic partnership.
http://www.sentienttimes.com/.

216. Carbon Credits become Real in Humboldt County

2006-12-14T20:51:00.000-08:00

Muck and Mystery, the Gary Jones blog, ran a repeat search for "Glomalin Critics" on October 24, 2006. http://www.garyjones.org/mt/archives/000401.html. He found no critics again but was surprised by new to him info from Sara Wright, including the importance of mycorhizzia in sustainable and no-till crop rotations. What was surprising was a comment from a Cornell ecologist David W. Wolfe about "surface chauvinism", apparently in response to why subsoil activities are rarely mentioned in ag circles.
While forestry is a branch of agriculture, one can see the very issues studied so long here in the Redwood Sciences Lab in conjunction with degradation from logging. I have posited my ideas which are logical extensions of the fine work of Ms. Wright, Mattias Rillig and others who have brought glomalin and its properties to light. We point out even water retention in the landscape was reasoned out for Rilligs DOE grant but went unfunded for research money. As far as global warming, Jones at last grasps the huge emissions released by tillage and its implications, although he fails to go the next step to see glomalin as at least a partial solution for global warming, much more efficient than turning off light bulbs as Leo DiCaprio discusses on Yahoo's global warming answers column of December 13, 2006.
Meanwhile large restoration projects are coming online. Last week saw water flow in the Owens River for the first time since the 1913, an amazing accomplishment in view of the need for water in a booming western state. Sixty-two miles of dried river bed will have water and revegetation before the water is put back into the L.A. Aqueduct. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-owens7dec07,1,7528913.story?page=2&cset=true&ctrack=1&coll=la-news-environment In the north Humboldt County supervisors joined a growing chorus seeking removal of four dams on the Klamath River, for which the State of California has bond money and which are up for relicensing. Salt River in Ferndale is being studied for restoration by the Corps of Engineers, funding being added to the State Water Resources Control Board and Prop 50 funds from the state, administered by locally organized Humboldt County Resource Conservation District.
Seattle area businesses have begun identifying local agriculture products as "salmon safe" in an effort to restore runs. The theme is farms, dairies and vineyards in the region complying withy Salmon safe land use rules are so marked in the stores and shops that carry those products. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-salmon9dec09,1,4058966.story?coll=la-news-environment.
Carbon credit sales to forests are finally coming to at least one Humboldt forest, the The Fred M. van Eck Forest Foundation, through the Pacific Forest Trust. The forest has 2100 acres and is expected to handle 500,000 over 100 years, or about 5000 tons a year, 2.5 tons per acre, and retail the credits at 10 dollars a ton in 5 ton lots. The first purchaser was Californias Environmental Protection agency's chief, Linda Adams, to offset a trip to Nairobi to attend a conference. The trip was figured at 14 tons. This was in response to the state climate team decison in May. About 250,000 tons of credits are available at the van Eck forest.
http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_4837797

215. Mattole Newsletter

2006-08-29T11:03:00.001-07:00

The Summer/Fall issue of the Mattole Restoration Council's newsletter updates many of the issues I have written about here and has a few new things. At the same site the Gilham Butte Community Management Plan is also available for viewing. Past newletters are also available in the archives at the same site along with a wealth of other information.
The lead article concerns Sudden Oak Death reaching the Mattole watershed. A careful look at our prescriptions for glomalin enhancement to restore water storage and prevent landsliding also shows how seamlessly it fits into BMP's for disease control of this particular pest. We have advocated for the growing of large trees, particularly conifers, and reducing fuel loads and competetion through management practices. This is exactly the method being used in the State Park and other sites in southern Humboldt to control the disease, altouogh it appears to be spreading faster than previously identified. Chris Larson in his ED column reminds us as landowners we are still moving from restoration to active management.
Ali Freedllund's article on Palco's Watershed Analysis relates the opportuny given MRC by PALCO to visit and study their Mattole holdings,which had been off-limits for as long as I know. Ali is MRC's Forest Review leader and has commented on many THP's in the area, including all of PL's. She points out how well the larger stream buffers in the Habitat Conservation Plan look compaared to sites cut under California Forest Practice rules, although the history of thw watershed analysis is that they are used to reduce the buffers in future THP's. MRC has also hired a third party geologist to study landscape instability. Here is where a lack of understanding of the biological effects of glomalin on landscape stability will become apparent.
An article about the Good Roads Clean Creeks Project reiterates my earlier postings this year about the success of the work after a heavy winter. The damaged areas mentioned in the article are not in the area by our land and we were very pleased, and hope this project is not only completed throughout the Mattole, but is exported to other heavily impacted areas looking to diminish sediment influx into their streams and prevent landsliding.
Several items mention removal of invasive plants- Japanese knotweed and Scotch broom in particular. While these plants are a problem, the bigger problem is the land disturbance that allows them to thrive. Shade from trees and competition from subsoil microorganisms are known methods of reducing many invasive plants.
A very dood article on Madrone dieback is writtewn by a concerned landowner, Andy Chittick, and he gives good references for more information. This is apparently not a condition caused by the sudden oak death vector but has been here as a antive disease the trees have some resistance to, although the leaf dieback is a symptom in madrone.
Continuing in the "more you know" vein is Amanda Malachesky's article on learning to avoid avian alarm calls iwhile in the field, thus enhancing your opportunity to see more wildlife while disturbing them less. Valuable insight for fieldworkers and landowners.
This year the tree planters put out 47,000 mostly Douglas fir seedlings. Encountering all kinds of weather obstacles, including snow, they planted extensively in the upper Mattole, Middle Mattole and the Honeydew Creek burn area. Many trees were planted along roads put to bed and around restoration points from the Good Roads Clean Creek project.
JJ Hall writes about sweat insurance - fire insurance obtained by clearing land of fuel loads around dwellings. It only pays off in lack of destructive fire but is the best insurance a rural dwweller can have. It merges with our responsibilities on the land to improve conditions ooutlined by the ED's report.
A generouds donation of eighty acres of land along the Mattole Estuary was given to MRC by John Winzler and Ken Dunaway.It is good to see MRC in financial position to accept these types of gifts as they have not acted as a land trust before. They have the option to sell the land or manage it themselves. One of the factors in starting the Middle Mattole Conservancy was that there was no land trust in the middle or lower Mattole, apparently there is now. Congratulations to MRC on a very impressive year.

214. CO2 Science Glomalin Summary

2006-08-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am posting the entire article for my readers since thiis is some of the evidence we have been waiting for..
Glomalin -- Summary What's new in the world of belowground impacts of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content? How about the ever-increasing production of a protein that is created by fungi that live in symbiotic association with the roots of 80% of the planet's vascular plants, which is being released to almost every soil in the world in ever greater quantities with the passage of time, and that is working ever greater wonders with a variety of processes that benefit the biosphere? It certainly has our vote as something up there near the top of the list of highly-desired biological phenomena; so let us explain how and why it works.

In a multi-faceted research program carried out at experimental sites in northern and southern California, USA, Rillig et al. (1999) studied belowground ecosystem responses to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations over a period of several years, focusing their attention on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) that form symbiotic associations with plant roots. In addition, they measured soil concentrations of an AMF-produced glycoprotein called glomalin and evaluated its response to elevated CO2, after which they evaluated the impact of glomalin on the formation of small soil aggregates and their subsequent stability.

Rillig et al.'s reason for making these multiple measurements derives from the fact that the degree of soil aggregation and the stability of soil aggregates across many different soil types is closely related to the amount of glomalin in the soil; and they wanted to see if the aboveground benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment would trickle down, so to speak, from plant leaves to plant roots to symbiotic soil fungi to glomalin production to soil aggregate formation and, ultimately, to an enhanced stability of soil aggregates in the presence of water.

The researchers' plan paid off. The amount of fungal-produced glomalin in the soils of the CO2-enriched treatments in all three of the ecosystems they studied was greater than that observed in the soils of corresponding ambient CO2 treatments. They also observed increases in the mass of small soil aggregates in the treatments exposed to elevated CO2; and the stability of the small soil aggregates in the CO2-enriched treatments was greater than the stability of the aggregates in the ambient CO2 treatments. In addition, in one of their studies, where six CO2 concentrations ranging from 250 to 750 ppm were imposed as treatments, they found that "the proportion of soil mass in aggregates of 0.25-1 mm showed a linear increase along the CO2 gradient," and that "glomalin concentrations followed a pattern similar to that of the small aggregate size class," indicative of ever-increasing soil structure benefits with ever-increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2.

In a subsequent study conducted in New Zealand, Rillig et al. (2000) examined several characteristics of AMF associated with the roots of plants that had been growing for at least 20 years along a natural CO2 gradient near a CO2-emmitting spring. They found that the elevated CO2 significantly increased percent root colonization by AMF in a linear fashion - and by nearly 4-fold! - in going from 370 to 670 ppm. In addition, fungal hyphal length experienced a linear increase of over 3-fold along the same CO2 gradient, while total soil glomalin experienced a linear increase of approximately 5-fold.

What are the implications of these observations? First of all, just as more and longer roots help plants hold soil together and prevent its erosion, so too do more and longer fungal hyphae protect soil from disruption and dispersion. In addition, fungal-produced glomalin acts like a biological glue, helping to bind tiny particles of soil into small aggregates that are much more difficult to break down and blow or wash away. And to have soil glomalin concentrations increase by fully 5-fold as a consequence of less than a doubling of the air's CO2 content is a truly mind-boggling benefit.

These observations lead one to wonder if CO2-induced increases in soil-stabilizing fungal activities might lead to increases in soil carbon sequestration. A potential answer comes from another study conducted near a natural CO2 vent in New Zealand, where Ross et al. (2000) measured soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) contents in areas exposed to atmospheric CO2 concentrations on the order of 440 to 460 ppm and other areas exposed to concentrations on the order of 510 to 900 ppm.

In this study, it was determined that several decades of differential atmospheric CO2 exposure had increased soil organic C and total N contents by approximately 24% each, while it had increased microbial C and N contents by more than 100% each. Hence, in the words of the scientists who did the work, "storage of C and N can increase under prolonged exposure to elevated CO2." In addition, they concluded that increased storage of soil organic matter can occur "even when soil C concentrations are already high," as they were in the situation they investigated.

Consequently, as the air's CO2 content continues to rise over the years and decades ahead, the potential for soils to sequester carbon will likely prove much greater than what nearly everyone had previously anticipated. Not only will the capacity of soils to store carbon grow ever larger due to the ever-increasing aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment - which enhances plant growth and results in more carbon being transferred to the soil - it will also grow ever larger as increasingly active soil fungi help to keep ever greater portions of that carbon better preserved in increasingly more stable soils.

Yet augmented soil carbon sequestration is but the beginning of benefits that can be expected to be provided by CO2-enhanced AMF growth and glomalin production. In their report of a FACE study of sorghum conducted near Phoenix, Arizona, USA, for example, where it was found that an approximate 50% increase in the air's CO2 content increased fungal hyphae lengths by 120% and 240% in wet and dry irrigation treatments, respectively, with the mass of water-stable soil aggregates increasing by 40% and 20% in the same respective treatments, Rillig et al. (2001) noted that "soil structure and water-stable aggregation are crucial for facilitating water infiltration, soil-borne aspects of biogeochemical cycling processes, success of sustainable agriculture, and for providing resistance against erosional loss of soil (Oades, 1984; Elliott and Coleman, 1988; Van Veen and Kuikman, 1990; Bethlenfalvay and Lindermann, 1992; Daily, 1995; Arshad et al., 1996; Coleman, 1996; Jastrow and Miller, 1997; Young et al., 1998)."

In addition to these benefits, Gonzalez-Chavez et al. (2004) report that "glomalin participates in the sequestration of different PTEs [potentially toxic elements]," that "the glomalin pool in the soil may have a potential to sequestrate PTEs, not only by the colonized roots, but also by the hyphae and through deposition of glomalin in soil," and that "this glycoprotein may be stabilizing PTEs, reducing PTE availability and decreasing the toxicity risk to other soil microorganisms and plants." That these benefits have enormous significance is vouchsafed by the fact, to quote them again, that "glomalin is ... copiously produced by all AMF tested to date (Wright et al., 1996, 1998; Nichols, 2003)," that "AMF colonize 80% of vascular plant species (Trappe, 1987)," and that AMF "are found worldwide in almost every soil."

In light of these many observations, it should be evident that the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content must be ever so subtly having a tremendous positive impact on the biosphere via a suite of mechanisms linked to a fungal-produced protein that only a decade ago was largely unknown - even to most plant and soil scientists - and similarly unappreciated.

References
Arshad, M.A., Lowery, B. and Grossman, B. 1996. Physical tests for monitoring soil quality. In: Methods for Assessing Soil Quality, SSSA Special Publication 49. Soil Science Society of America, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, pp. 123-141.

Bethlenfalvay, G.J. and Linderman, R.G. 1992. Mycorrhizae in Sustainable Agriculture. ASA Special Publication 54. American Society of Agronomy, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

Coleman, D.C. 1996. Fundamentals of Soil Ecology. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.

Daily, G.C. 1995. Restoring value to the world's degraded lands. Science 269: 350-354.

Elliott, E.T. and Coleman, D.C. 1988. Let the soil work for us. Ecological Bulletin 39: 23-32.

Gonzalez-Chavez, M.C., Carrillo-Gonzalez, R., Wright, S.F. and Nichols, K.A. 2004. The role of glomalin, a protein produced by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, in sequestering potentially toxic elements. Environmental Pollution 130: 317-323.

Jastrow, J.D. and Miller, R.M. 1997. Soil aggregate stabilization and carbon sequestration: feedbacks through organomineral associations. In: Lal, R. et al., Eds. Soil Processes and the Carbon Cycle. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, pp. 207-223.

Nichols, K. 2003. Characterization of Glomalin - A Glycoprotein Produced by Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi. PhD Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA.

Oades, J.M. 1984. Soil organic matter and structural stability: mechanisms and implications for management. Plant and Soil 76: 319-337.

Rillig, M.C., Hernandez, G.Y. and Newton, P.C.D. 2000. Arbuscular mycorrhizae respond to elevated atmospheric CO2 after long-term exposure: evidence from a CO2 spring in New Zealand supports the resource balance model. Ecology Letters 3: 475-478.

Rillig, M.C., Wright, S.F., Allen, M.F. and Field, C.B. 1999. Rise in carbon dioxide changes soil structure. Nature 400: 628.

Ross, D.J., Tate, K.R., Newton, P.C.D., Wilde, R.H. and Clark, H. 2000. Carbon and nitrogen pools and mineralization in a grassland gley soil under elevated carbon dioxide at a natural CO2 spring. Global Change Biology 6: 779-790.

Trappe, J.M. 1987. Phylogenetic and ecological aspects of mycotrophy in the angiosperms from an evolutionary standpoint. In: Safir, G.R. (Ed.). Ecophysiology of VA Mycorrhizal Plants. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, pp. 5-25.

Van Veen, J.A. and Kuikman, P.J. 1990. Soil structural aspects of decomposition of organic matter by micro-organisms. Biogeochemistry 11: 213-233.

Wright, S.F., Franke-Snyder, M., Morton, J.B. and Upadhyaya, A. 1996. Time-course study and partial characterization of a protein on hyphae of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi during active colonization of roots. Plant and Soil 181: 193-203.

Wright, S.F., Upadhayaya, A. and Buyer, J.S. 1998. Comparison of N-linked oligosaccharides of glomalin from arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and soils by capillary electrophoresis. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 30: 1853-1857.

Young, I.M., Blanchart, E., Chenu C. et al. 1998. The interaction of soil biota and soil structure under global change. Global Change Biology 4: 703-712.
Last updated 25 January 2006

213. Fire and Water Issues

2006-08-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

In a general sense people are beginning to reverse thinking on many issues covered in this blog. This is part of a general trend and will have its ups and downs, and some hold onto old style thinking that made the country what is was before so many resources began petering out. mNo mention of glomalin or subsoils in any of these articles though-yet.
In fire control, a Times-Standard opinion piece points out the incredible destruction caused by the new style fire mmanagement that has come to the fore in recent decades. While probably appropriate for saving homes and development, the backfires and erosion from fire fighting and salvage logging are often considerably greater than if the fire had been left to burn out on its own. The writer has witnessed several large fires in back country, and they were all finally extinguished by fall weather rather than suppression efforts. THe modern method has created a bureaucracy that can be manipulated for pay, benefits and perks and it is no wonder so many fires are started by wildland firefighters. As a friend who did this work years ago told me, the work is hard but you have no bills-everything is provided, and the food is excellant.
The Real-and unexpected- Threat From Forest Fires Felice Pace, 8/20/06, http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/ci_4211130
The LA TImes reports on large desert fires in the Mojave, where fire is not part of the natural cycle. A skeptic claims fuel loading is caused by a wet winter causing an abundance of wildflowers. Further reading refers us to red brome and a well known culprit in other western deserts- cheatgrass. the loss of ancient woody perrenials is mentioned but the loss of water storage via the root systems and their partners is not. Most natives are very long lived and recovery will take centuries.
Desert Fires' Damage Will Last Janet Wilson 8/21/06 http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-desert21aug21,1,6604582,full.story?coll=la-news-environment
Another article reports on the Bohemian Clubs forest management. As usual, the accountants are paying off land maintenence by cutting the large old trees, and increasing the cut to keep up with growing expenses. This is being done in the name of fire control, althoough by now it is clear large old trees survive low intensity fire, and that brush and slash lead to hot fires in second growth which will kill the big old trees. This is one of the largest privately held redwood groves left. Brush and erosion complaints are fueling calls for a rollback. Here is where paying to preserve large trees could really have a big payoff, sequestering carbon, preserving water quality and preventing erosion.
Bohemian Club Has Ax To Wield Tim Reiterman 8/21/06 http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-bohemian21aug21,1,5305287.story?coll=la-news-environment
The San Jaquin River will benefit from a decsion in an 18 year old court case regarding the amount of water withdrawn. Once one of the biggest chinook runs in California, an irrigation project decades ago drained the river to a level unsurvivable for the fish.A 1949 regulation that ordered enough water for fish to survive was ignored. Agriculture flourished under the regime but that is being challenged in many areas now as hte decline of fish runs has activated many people. Agriculture mostly needs to improve its methods as vast amounts of open irrigated water are lost to contamination and evaporation.
Settlement Will Provide Water For Parched River Bettina Boxall 8/20/06 http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-sanjoaquin20aug20,1,599394.story?coll=la-news-environment
Finally, a little blurb in the Eureka papers about convening a suuden oak death council with a member from the Board of Supervisors gave tantalizing clues abouot the rapid spread of this pest in Humboldt County. The Council was abandonded in February for lack of action, but it seems the disease is widespread, moving quickly and infiltrating north where it was conjectured to have a rough time. We noted the excellant article in the Northcoast Journal a short while ago.
County May Reactivate Sudden Oak Death Coouncil 8/21/06 Times-Standard http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_4213468. Meanwhile, Janice Alexander, KAtie Palmieri and Susan Frankel at COMTF continue to turn relevant information at a monthly pace. They have recently updated the website to make it more user friendly. www.suddenoakdeath.org

212. More evidence of the impacts of development

2006-08-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

We can see the continuous struggle between the natural forces of life and our attempts to develop by our own standards in many areas. In the East people mow large lawns to create park like settings in every yard, and the rotations for tree cutting are very short. The area always bounces right back due in part to plentiful rainfall and ubiquitous plant-fungi communities. Another aspect is the need to keep hay and pastures free of woody growth especially when allowed to lie fallow. HIgh rainfall generally tends to grow trees. In all these cases we can be sure the glomalion producing regime is in effect but thar it is restricted in depth to the type of vegetation grown on it, thus lawn grasses won't be as deep as shrubs or trees. This implies water is being allowed to run off into the numerous sstreams and ponds rather than lie in the soil in the biological zone, which increases flooding in peak events, like last June. Meanwhile more land is cleared for development further lessening the landscapes ability to absorb and store water in the biological zone.
A recent article on TV reported Amazonian climax forest trees being much deeper rooted than thought, researchers found roots forty meters deep. A climatic history of the area showed five major droughts in the area killing off most vegetation except the surprisingly deep rooted trees, and they were the source of regeneration after rain returned. This is an important insight because in time we also will have droughts in the Eastern U.S. and it shows the need for large old trees. Many of these trees are ecosystems unto themselves, hosting thousands of species.
Road building and runoff appear to be the culprit behind a persistent algae bloom in the Florida keys. The nontoxic algae are threatening the ecosystem by clouding the waters making it difficult for sea grass to get enough sunlight. While some believe the problem will go away, others point to nearby areas that have not recovered after a decade. The bloom is affecting all kinds of marine life in areas usually regarded as nurseries for fish and other sealife, and is worst in areas directly adjacent to widening U.S. 1, the main highway connecting the Keys and the mainland. Report Blames Keys Algae Bloom on Roads AP via www.Yahoo.com, Jennifer Kay, 7/18., 2006
A bill passed in the House providing more funding for conservation easements in agricultural areas to protect them from development. We hope this includes timberlands as we see conservation easements as one of the key tools for protecting rural lands and especially trees in the near future, until the need for them as carbon storers becomes a paying opportunity for land owners and managers.
www.times-standard.com. 8/19, 2006 Agricultural Coservation Measure Signed Into Law

211. Knowing What to Do

2006-08-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

211.
The importance of seeing the whole picture in land management can hardly be better recognized than in two articles in different papers on the same day. The first article tells of environmental groups buying timberland and trying to operate on a sustained yield in Mendocino. They have some heavy monetary obligations and will have to cut to meet them. Their main stated purpose was to improve the forest as habitat for endangered species, especially coho and Northern spotted owls. They are also seeking to limit development in the urban interdace, which degrades habitat.
Tree Huggers Embrace Ecofriendly Logging Tim Reiterman, August 6, 2996
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-ecologging6aug06,1,7107030.story?coll=la-news-environment
The second story concerns barred owls entry into spotted owl territory and appears to be a case of a better suited natural immigrant out hustling the diminishing native owls and pushing them to marginal areas. They just appear to be better suited to conditions. As they are larger, it is possible it is a matter of not enough old growth but they may just be bigger and better at what they do. Hunting the barred owls to save the spotted owls is mentioned but we have to wonder if replacement is something that is going to happen anyway, as the spotted owls are in decline even in their best habitats. Diminishing spotted owl numbers could put the entire Northwest Forest Agreement at risk, which cost many jobs and is still a contentious point to many. But the dimished logging has benefitted the forests in many ways, including rebuilding the glomalin base and improving water quality.
There Goes the Neighborhood
John Driscoll www.times-standard.com Aug 8, 2006
This is why a general knowledge of glomalins effect on general forest conditions is so critical, so people can make informed decisions. The environmental loggers are not protecting the essence of the forest and are protecting a vanishing species which could happen under the best circumstances. They are taking on financial risk without protecting the basis of sustainability, although they may improve water quality to some degree and so favor coho. While we agree preservation alone does not make great forests, managing for carbon storage is beneficial to all the natural systems and helps the general environment. Payment for carbon storage must become part of the economic picture in order to restore functional forests or we will be on the cycle of cut and cut again like the East Coast, without the advantage of summer rain.
Another Times-Standard article and an editorial earlier in the week told of new management at the owners of the Klamath dams, and their willingness to look at removal since Warren Buffet bought the outfit. Oregon is included in the plan and alternative power generation for 70,000 homes there is part of the package. California has already voted money and sampled some of the sediment for toxicity built up behind the dams. It is a long way from done but it good to see progress. The editorial says it could be the environmental showpiece of our time.
Positive Momentum John Dricoll August 3, 2006 www.times-standard.com
Dam removal could be a historic opportunity August 5, 2006 www.times-standard.com
Northcoast forests and rivers are recovering but still suffer from a million cuts. Development, lightning fires, sudden oak death and redwood poaching are all in the paper this week. Nature will find its own level and may not be what we hope for. And philosophers remind us only God has the power to change things and then change them back to what was before.

210. Moore For Brokaw

2006-07-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

210. More For Brokaw
Last night I watched Tom Brokaws two hour report on global warming- Global Warming: What You Need To Know on the Science Channel. It gave a good account of the observations that are currently occurring or being recovered out of the ice cores. It was in laymans terms and he didn't bother with too many graphss but it seems clear there is a problem. When we have looked at glomalin destruction with the advent of Western Civilization and add emissions from carbon sources long buried it seems obvious we need aggressively address this issue. Reducing energy use is the number one priority. The only other way to address the problem is to pump some of it back into the earth with drilling rigs.
Much was made of disappearing glaciers but no mention was ever made of revegetation in currently in low-0 or no vegetation will surely thrive in many places. The natural communities with strong survival qualities will gradually develop in lessened competition and adjustments for new realities. We can be sure the natural world will be adjusting many ways to this warming and CO2 rich atmosphere. Conditioning the environment for life is a living process basic to even the simplest creatures. Plant communities will form with the mycorhizzal associations and will thrive where conditions are good. Water is an essential for all life, and life will find it and try to ensure its supply, and it has a ready made method for much of the world. The destruction of the temperate forests and their ability to moderate the problem was never addressed.
The program sadly made little mention of the need to grow more forest, or increase glomalin production or protection, or maintaining large multispecies ecosystems-in-a-single-tree but did mention forest decline due to cutting in the Amazon. The ciritical difference is in how management can have an impact on global issues, and big problems need big solutions or we will be living in a chaotic world. Wildfire due to summer drought was well covered. Again, no mention was really made aboout the resilience of the forest depleted in its develpoment of water storage means, nor release of naturally stored carbon in disturbed or cutover lands. Less conditioned soil is holding less precipitation, there are fewer springs. As we have said earlier, this will be an opportunity for some people and that he who gathers the most CO2 will win- kidding, of course.
For the political and agricultural worlds it is pretty much either a matter of size or a crapshoot about your location and the effect on precipitation. Plants are naturally resilient but even so the world changes over time. The tools are in the soil to turn most any landscape into home for some form of life all the while absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.
I also watched a fasinating Animal Planet program-Leave It To The Real Beavers. This has been a great trip to observe them repeatedly and see some of the things they do, so the program was timely in my life. We see this is another ancient battle for land use between the tree communities which are cut and then drowned. Eventually the wetlands fill and go dry, ameadow comes in and the forest comes back. Nothing is said of the difference these ponds can have on locally available moisture moderation or carrying capacity of a mountain range in the summer. All in all, the beaver hurts us on trees but can provide water. This is more evidence that life moderates the environment for its own purposes.
As I drive down the country lane looking at pasture now I wonder how much CO2 could be processed a year if it was put back in trees. I wonder if flooding was a regular problem for Indians. I wonder how deep the native trees roots ran. I wonder if the mycorhizzal production is being impeded or aided by hotter summers and longer growing seasons.

209. Inconvenient Observations

2006-07-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Times-Standard reports Rep. Mike Thompsons bill to designate 273,000 acres of Northcoast lands as wilderness and 51,000 acres as a recreation area for mountainb bikes and off-highway vehicles. Five years in the making, it has already passed the Senate twice, where it returns for final consideration. It designates Mendocinos Black Butte River as a wild and scenic river and is the largest California designation in over a decade. A coalition of traditional foes is helping make it a reality.
http://www.times-standard.com/ci_4092435
Meanwhile, I continue my road trip looking at the effects of diminished glomalin at the root of an inconvienient truth. IN this area, hundreds of years of land use has resulted in lots of farm and pastureland and young forest. It seems generally obvious that the land is underperforming in carbon storage, since this was all forest and large trees abounded. One result of this is higher runoff rates that, together with paving and buildings, leads to flooding of streams and creeks and eventualloy the rivers. The rise and fall of these after a downpour is amazing and we have to wonder how many days of no precipitation it woould take to cause low flows and drought conditions.
We have viewed forest land visited by a tornado six years ago and find the damage flabbergasting, a huge swath ten miles long flattened. This was an extremely rare event here and we wonder about the power of trees to prevent or diminish these wind storms. We also note that where cleanup ncrews used heavy equipment the land is just starting to grow back while other areas are already covered with young trees and complete brushy cover.
The place we visited is a park. Several ponds provided water power and ice for 19th century industries which were left by the wayside with the advent of electrical power early in the twentieth century. After the industry left the remaining forest was clearcut. The state bought the land in the tweneties. CCC came in in the thirties and did some great building nad tree planting. Today there are many acres of even aged white pines, all similar in height and diameter. They exhibit all the characterisics of side pressure or maybe root zone limitations, and the largest are several more feet away from their neighbors than average, while the smaller ones are closer. I would say the average tree is sixty feet tall and ten to twelve inches in diameter, just about pole size. There appears to be less split trunks from insects killing the terminal shoot than just a little further East, where virtually every white pine has been damaged by this.
Hardwoods were allowed to grow naturally and some of them are pretty large although the majority appear younger than the pines. I cannot tell if the mix of mostly maple and ash with some cherry is anything like what was before but I tend to seriously doubt it. This leads to wondering about forest historians and if there is such a thing, since many other trees live or were present here a hundred years ago.
Earlier this month we reported on the extensive caterpillar damage we were seeing with whole hillsides denuded. I am glad to say that the caterpillars metamorphosized, stopped eating the leaves, and the trees have refoliated themselves so you wouldn't be able to tell anything was wrong at a glance. We suspect general forest health decline and a slower growth rate above and belowground as well as lowered resistance to future pest attacks.
Riding over hill and vale one can see how much more carbon could be stored in the landscape. No human activity in this area creates more glomalin than previously existed, virtually all development diminishes the amount and ability of the landscape to store carbon and it is clear huge amounts have left the ecosystem, a truly inconvienient truth.
The July 13 issue of the Northcoast Journal had a real good article on Sudden Oak Death called Tree By Tree. www.northcoastjournal.com While we disagree about ancient Douglas firs giving way to skinny tanoaks (we think Indians managed for tanoak acorns, tanbarkers took all the big tanoaks and Douglas fir benefitted from 80 years of conifer release as reported in early issues of this blog), the troubling spread of the disease and its consequences are well reported, including the difficulty in characterizing phytophthoras as a fungus or something else. The article ends with probable changes in forest makeup. Here again we will say that loss of glomalin production will have dire consequences in large rain events in devastated areas made up primarily of trees that die. Mixed areas of less affected trees will have less vigor but will fill in the holes in the woods with survivor species so there will be a window of real worry in tanoak rich regions as well as increased fiuel loading coupled with diminished ground water storage adding to the fire danger.
Finally we may be witnessing global warming in the form of less upwelling (www.sfgate.com) causing failure in the breeding season for seabirds, and possibly other marine animals too. record temperatures seem to be more evidence that the carbon that should be in the ground is heating up the atmosphere- truly inconvinient.

208. Two New studies Show Warming Threat

2006-07-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

Two articles today indicate the acceletrating problems caused by rising temperatures. As more scientific reports come in we get a picture of the constasnt threats caused by our castoff pollution on the natural world around us. Loss of amphibians does not affect most people the same way as increased fire risk in the West does, whether as a home owner or a taxpayer. Yet the need is clear for a comprehensive policy to combat theese and other problems that are clearly beginning to snowball.
Climate change link seen in surge of Western blazes
Study correlates warming trend with wildfires
Dennis O'Brien, Baltimore Sun
Friday, July 7, 2006

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/07/MNG7JJR8521.DTL A new study indicates the correlation of warmer temperatures and increasing forest fires in the West. Scripp Institute of Oceanography and the University of Arizone foound fires increasing in number and size since temperatures began rising in 1987 in 11 Western states after going over 34 years of fire records.
"The researchers examined U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service records of every forest fire that burned at least 1,000 acres from 1970 to 2003. They found that of 1,166 fires in that period, four-fifths of them, or about 900, occurred after 1987.
They also found that air temperatures from 1987 to 2003 were 1.6 degrees higher than during the previous 17 years; that 6.5 times more acreage burned during that warmer period; and that the firefighting season increased by 78 days, the study says. "
While they do not claim human caused global warming is the cause, it gives an indication of what can be expected if these trends continue. Warmer springs and legnthier dry seasons are increasing the fuel load. We'd also point out it adds to the number of days of high fire risk. Examing fires that burn over a thousand acres, the largest increase has been in the northern Rockies between six and eight thousand feet elevation where earlier melting of the snowpack is the predominate cause of fire risk.
The study clearly shows rising temperatures are putting more lands at risk for longer times and that the period 1987 to present was the warmest since record keeping began in 1895. Forestry officials have debated whether warming or managem,ent preactices were responsible for the increase, but some areas in the northern Rockies are little influenced by management practices such as clearing brush, while the drying from warmer temperatures is a general trend over all eleven states covered in the study.
EXTINCTION CRISIS FOR AMPHIBIANS
Frogs, toads and other species dying off -- new fungus magnifies environmental problems

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Friday, July 7, 2006
A virulent new fungal disease of amphibians is preading rapidly around the globe and adding an additional risk factor to already threatened amphibian populations around the world. First discovered in Panama and Australia only eight years ago it has been linked to to 122 extinctions in the last twenty-five years. Scientists from UC BErkely are now studying the disease in the Sierras, where the problem is killing yellow-legged frogs and Yosemite toads. 427 species are at critical risk around the worrld. The scientists say development and habitat loss are still the largest critical factors but the fungus is pushing the issue to extreme threats.
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, causes skin infections called chytrid disease in every amphibian species it attacks with absolute mortality rates of 100 percent. The disease is connected to warmer temperatures and is rampant throughout the Sierra Nevada Parks as well as around the world.
""The high virulence and large number of potential hosts of this emerging infectious disease threaten global amphibian diversity," Lipps reported this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The team found nearly one-third of all 5743 amphibian species are now threatened, 40 percent have had major population declines and 122 species have gone extinct in the last twenty-five years.
Locally, the Scoots Bar and Siskyou salamanders are at risk as the fungus ahs been found in their habitat, also threatened by logging in old growth forests. Environmental groups are pushing for protected status in U.S. Court, but the combined issues of rising temperatures and shrinking habitat pose a serious threat and the disease is rapid once it strikes.

207.Coastal Commission comes on Board for Klamath dam Removal

2006-07-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

The California Coastal Commission is taking on the "granddaddy of all restoration projects" as it approved studying decommisioning of the four Klamath River dams based in California. As we reported earlier, money was already approved for this ambitious project in a bond measure approved by voters in June. Pacific Powercorp has not made a decision yet but the Yurok tribe has presented its case to them, and they may well decide to take the money. Most agencies are on board, although the Bureau of Reclamation may still have their doubts.
The dam removal would open more than three hundred miles of spawning habitat the fish currently can not reach. I don't have access to my previous articles here now, but I recall this was about the same amount as the culvert project, although that covered many watersheds.
I have some problems with this type of reporting, however. For instance, the article states about 30.000 fish remain in the system, the same number reported as the absolute minimum for the fish to recover. But this is the low count after two massive fish kills effectively ruined this years run . Previous articles pointed out the ups and downs of salmon populations in the river well after the dams were built, ranging from twelve thousand to nearly 150,000. I believe the fishery will rebound to some number in detween on its own, and see some benefits in the lower region from the culvert and other projects as well as improved forestry and land use management. It would seem opening that many more miles of habitat should vastly improve the numbers over anything seen in decades. A perfect storm of restoration concern could make the runs better than anyone has seen in a lifetime.
State and Federal authorities are working out disaster mitigations for the affected fishermen. The Federal government only approved two million dollars so the state has stepped in to make life a little better for the fishermen. Studies are under way to determine the toxicity levels of sediment trapped behind the ams. There is little historical mining or industry in the areas and the main source may be relatively benign agricultural runoff. Then there is the sheer volume of sediment that would have to be removed and put somewhere. If it is clean it may even be an asset to someone.
Several years of improving runs in the Mattole indicate that better land use practices can slowly improve the runs without massive gains in spawning grounds as the existing habitat grows back into shape. Numbers in the mattole have gone from in the dozens to approximately one third of the historic average of ten thousand chinook (king) and five thousand coho (silver) salmon, about 3500 and 1500 respectively.
It is to be hoped we will see a difference in the Eel as well, but there we have the introduced predator in the Sacramento squawfish, or pike minnow. While there is a fishing derby for the fish in the lower Eel, there is a bounty on it in Oregon. Mendocino County also has some kind of program I will look into further for benefit of my readers. A good suggestion would be free fishing, a bounty, and shifting habitat away from thiiiiiie squawfishesd preferences and nack to salmonid- basically colder water via higher volumes and more shade. It aslso is interesting that the namesake river of the fish has had an outstanding year as has the Colombia where there are enough of them to warrant a bounty.
In the grand scheme of things, improved water quaslity is directly tied to the amount of carbon the landscape is taking in. Humboldt County demonstrates this because the Douglas fir regions have been in flux since the advent of tractor logging. Steepness and extreme weather combined with seasonal precipitation demands water storage in the biologically reachable parts of the watershed to maintain the kind of healthy fisheries found here. Regular precipitation and humdreds of years of land use in the East have altered the perception of native habitats with the most serious consequence being regular flooding, which few tie to lack of sufficient vegetation. Rising summer temperatures and coastal flooding herald global warming as well. Nevertheless the widespread damage this week indicates all is not well in many watersheds with runoff wreaking havoc along every creek and river. The need for big trees is clear as is mitigations for slowing runoff. Another idea is to sell it to Vegas. They pipe everything else around. Similar to the water bag project, it should be on a contingency basis rather than a contract basis, that is. sell it when you have enough to sell without making promises that can't be kept in dry times.
This blog is pointing to the future and we are happy people are at least beginning to think inthese terms. Our initial premise stated in article four, Our Shrinking Watersheds has been greatly clarified by two years of reading and writing on these possibilities, and we are seeing great progress on some fronts and complete failure to understand on others. The direct connection between carbon dioxide storage and fisheries still seems beyond the reach of many, yet it is an issue whose time has come.

206. An Extreme eather Event

2006-06-28T09:16:00.001-07:00

Well, it only took one visit to the East to see the effects of glomalin destruction during a peak event. Most of the East is underwater after an incredible amount of rain fell over an area from North Carolina to central New York State. Today the Susquahana River will crest at 17 feet above flood stage. Interstates are closed and many local roads are closed and communities stranded.
While the region has excellant drainage carved by Ice Age glaciation, most of the high water events are at least partially from snow runoff. Not this time. It is late June, and a stalled low along the Appalachians has caused warm moist air from the ocean off North Carolina to stream northward along the front duymping heavy rain as it went. There was little or no wind with this storm, just a steady heavy rain for a couple of days.
The land absorbed most of the initial rainfall with forest and pasture doing their work. But once saturation was reached it was clear pastures were flooded while forest only flooded in the low spots. Towns and highways suffered the worst and many are still closed as I write this. Landslides are not usually an issue here but one did take out an Interstate. Without wind, most of the utilities were not interupted and we could watch events develop. It only took several hours for surface runoff to disappear after the rain ceased, at least where I was, but the towns are hurting and the main rivers are still rising. Locals cut big trees for lumber and firewood so the deep rooting large trees are just not present in numbers.
Just before this we had some heat, not like the Northwest but enough to play havoc on family members with Alzheimers and MS. The muggy heat makes it comparable to higher heats with lower humidity in the West. The Supreme Court, after its divided decision on water is now tackling global warming in answer to challenges to state regulatory laws over emissions. We can only say that as long as money drives the decisions the climate will continue to become more hostile.
Wind events seem to becoming more of a problem as well. This is to be expected when the pressure extremes widen. Last winter in Cal we had some winds clocked above the recommended average for shake or shingle roofing. It basically came in the form of extreme gusts during rather routine storm events. Here locals report similar events over the last five years with tornados in an area not known for them for over two hundred years. The signs that global warming are effecting the climate are beginning to reach a chorus.

205. Mattole Salmon Recovering

2006-06-25T16:54:00.000-07:00

A nice article in the Eureka Reporter today on the success of salmon restoration efforts in the Mattole River Watershed. While "record" may be a stretch, there is definitely a major improvement in the runs. Redwood Reader has covered this story and it is great to see the work paying off in terms of fish. Kudos to our friends working diligently on these projects.
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=12459Mattole River salmon restoration efforts seeing record returns by Nathan Rushton, 6/25/2006
Al Gore was on David Letterman the other night pitching his book/movie, "An Inconvenient Truth". While we applaud his continuing educating of the public, there is no mention of glomalin or growing vegetation in sufficient amounts to impact the problem. In the east it is clear the factors involved in Shrinking Watersheds have been at work for centuries. Lawns and farms have replaced forests so that the amount of absorbed precipitation is a fraction of its capacity. Meanwhile there is firewood everywhere with the implication that a tree is still worth its wood and little else. Since it rains every couple of days little is said of drought or fire conditions.
Our old newspaper reported 150 foot chestnut and walnut trees,( the same paper told of 6 foot lobsters, which I have not seen, and oysters a foot long at the hinge, one of which was reported in the Eureka Reporter this week.) A quick scan of the hillsides reveals very few trees anywhere near that large. One issue that is clear is regular flooding, which improved management will certainly reduce.
Even the Supreme Court is starting to show concern, with the court split 5-4 on watershed protection issues for two Michigan developers this week. In this computer age, we have been enabled to count everything. Do we protect every rain drop and its rill? This is the very heart of the development issue- how far do we let money decide environmental issues we depend on for our basic living condiitions. We are only guessing at the consequences of global warming in terms of cutting refugees loose in flooded coastal cities or in the paths of more severe tropical storms and shifting rainfall patterns.
In our travels we have seen desert, timberline and the verdant East. All demonstrate the precipitation interface and water storage issues outlined in this blog. It is clear the Mattole was a perfect study site, in a flux and its seasonal patterns helped expose the workings of vegetation, fungi, soil and human impacts on these systems with catastrophic results for higher life forms downstream.
More good news from BLM in the region as well, as they and the Wilderness Conservation Society purchased a ten acre inholding in the King Range National Conservation Area which was right on the beach. Our friends in the planning depaartment have another task on their desk, and they have been really busy the last several years. We are anticipating release of the Gilham Butte Cooperative Management Plan this fall but there have been a string of acquisitions by groups turning land over to them in recent years. Last week there were car and bicycle tours of the Mill Creek purchase by Save the Redwoods- that alone is a major planning effort.
Another report concerning BLM was vandalism at several gates in the Headwaters Preserve. This is the very scenario I placed in my comment about the plan advocating electronic surveillance at gates and parking lots. As it is, there is no idea who did it or exactly when. This should be easy to make work with off the shelf parts and should be in place in areas of national treasures, like old growth redwood.
A major article on Humboldt Redwoods State Park ran a short while back in one of the Northcoast papaers. Locals described their reasons why Humboldt Redwoods State Park was THE place to enjoy the redwood experience. This is the inland side of the Redwoods to the Sea Wildlife Corridor, which will eventually be a reality in terms of ownership for public agencies.The surrounding private land is also rural and not conducive to major development, and already logged off, so that restoration of the watershed is occurring both in the Eel and Mattole sides of the drainage.

204. Coho, Palco land sale, BLM & SOD

2006-06-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

I have been traveling the last several weeks and have seen quite a few interesting tidbits that continue to support our theory of glomalin destruction and recovery. Really interesting examples of natural disturbance abound at timberline in avalache country. We have also seen mosquito, mormon cricket and caterpillar outbreaks. The caterpillars are deleafing large tracts of woodland but are not expeected to last much more than a few more weeks before they go on to the next life cycle stage.
Back home, California courts ruled again that coho were endangered between San francisco and Punta Gorda and threatened in the north to the Oregon border. The ruling ended a challenge to previous rulings by the California Forestry Association and Eureka Chamber of Commerce that said the state rules were duplicative of federal law, and should apply to populations ooooorather than species. Judge Gail Ohanesian ruled the state was within its right since federal law did not prevent further declines in coho populations. It seems that the numbers should start to show some recovery as a result of all the restoration projects like the culvert project relatively soon. Thihs would include the Klamath fishery, since this is a case of a failed spawning year. If enough water stays in the river, the fish should return. Sometimes we just need to wait.
State Court Backs Coho Protection Rules, John Driscoll, 6/14/06
http://www.times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_3935360
Palco apparently has made a deal to sell off some of its lands mentioned earlier this year in order to make Julys interest payment. A Colorado resource investment group, Resource Land Holdings of Colorado Springs, is listed on the document transfer tax document and mentions a purchase in California on its website.. The buyers invest in timber, agriculture and mining. The 7.95 million dollar purchase probably represents about 3600 acres. The land is in Kneeland, Miranda, Mad River, Rio Dell and Fortuna.
Palco sells off properties to Colorado Group.
http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3940259, John Driscoll, 6/15/06.
The California Oak Mortality Task Force newsletter, the best source for information on the ongoing investigation into the invasive disease, written by Janice Alexander with assistance from Katie Palmeri and Susan Frankel. New findings of P. Europa in Eastern and Central United States as a result of investigations caused by the lack of information about subsoil denizens in the forests there. Each month covers new ly found infestations, regulations, abstracts from studies, nursery management and other relevant topics. This month our good friends at the Arcata Field Office of BLM were Kudoed for involving local schools in Phytophthora baiting in the King Range Natiuonal Conservation area, where stream baiting in the Mattole has been going on for two years. BLM has also offered to have students visit an infestation site later in the year, but that seems to imply SOD has foound its way there. We expressed concern BLM was not part of the HRSP eradication earlier this year but they are right on it. The project is being carried out in cooperation with the Humboldt County Agriculture Department and the University of California Cooperative Extension. For more information, contact Jeanne McFarland, BLM, at: (707) 825-2332 or jeanne_mcfarland@ca.blm.gov. One other important tidbit in this packed newsletter is that the gisease is found in the wood itself, forcing rewriting of rules that allowed wood stripped of its bark to be moved out of quarantined areas.
COMTF newsletter: http://nature.berkeley.edu/comtf/html/current_newsletter.htmlWebsite: www.suddenoakdeath.org

203. Arcata studies carbon markets, EPA allows corporate fixes to locals dismay

2006-06-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Arcata has started looking into carbon credits as part of their Community Forest options. John Driscoll does a fine job of explaining the current proposal and the risks city planners face in the uncertainties of an emerging market. The fact that PG&E is interested in potentially buying carbon credits is helpful as well, and the City has been asked to look into it for other landowners, exactly as we had hoped would happen on a larger scale.
Once again, the main problem is that we do not have a measurable way of knowing the amount of carbon sequestered in the ground by fungi in their relationship with the trees. Another problem is the overwhelming temptation to evaluate the timber without subtracting the biological assets that come from growing big trees, from habitat to water to weather modification and recreational opportunities. Several recent studies have shown greater benefit from forest assets than is recoverable from timber.
We believe Arcata finds itself in the same situation as the European markets after Kyoto in that, as Bush said, the science on carbon sequestering is incomplete, and we have pointed out why. We have also suggested HSU take a leading role in this as they are well equipped to take advantage of the natural resource investigations needed for marketable solutions. We applaud the City for taking a look into this as a landowner and possibly helping other landowners find a way to grow large trees that are too valuable to cut. We also point out that much air pollution comes from foreign countries and that air filtration and cleansing are not just a local problem, but forest management is a local solution to a growing global problem. Community Carbon, Times Standard, May 30 2006, John Driscoll.
http://www.times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_3879903
In two cases from opposite sides of the country, EPA is backing off its mandates to protect clean water in settlements with large corporate players. The first case involves a Canadian mining and smelting operation polluting the Colombia River on the Canadian side but flowing into the U.S. The ruling asserts EPA will allow polluters to do their own studies and cleanups of polluted waters, outside of normal regulation of states and tribes. While the principals are happy with their solution, EPA has backtracked on its responsibility to protect natural resources and prevent the spread of pollution through the established procedure. The company, Teck Cominco Ltd, will pay an initial 20 million dollars to study heavy metal pollution in the Colombia. The study is expected to cost 30 million eventually. No estimate on the cost of cleanup is yet proposed. The company originally claimed EPA had no jurisdiction over foreign activities, but lost in a court ruling brought by the State of Washington and the Confederated Colville tribes of Eastern Washington. The judge in that suit said EPA was mandated to deal with pollution in the U.S. regardless of its source. The federal government claims to be circumventing a lengthy litigation in making the deal with the company, but the plaintiffs say the deal undermines federal law and state and tribal concerns.
Zinc Firm to Pay for Colombia River Studies, John Heilprin, AP 6/02/06. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-epa-columbia-zinc,1,4110751.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines The second case involves operators in Florida who are contaminating Lake Okeechobee with waste water from their operations. Despite warnings to pregnant women not to even breathe water vapor while showering, EPA will not require pollution discharge permits simply to transfer water regardless of pollution. The Florida Wildlife Federation, Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe have taken the case to court suing to prevent further damage to the lake. Local water district officials claim they are managing the water in a manner commonly used and are reducing pollution through filtration marshes, but that it needs to be able to pump polluted water into the lake to prevent catastrophic flooding. Thursday EPA said such transfers were common in irrigation, flood control, hydroelectric power and environmental restoration activities. There is a 45 day public comment period on the plan. Interestingly, no address was given for the comments in the article. EPA Rule Would Go With Polluted Flow
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-lake2jun02,1,5457105.story?coll=la-news-environment, credited to David Fleshler, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 2, 2006.

202. The Calculus of Glomalin

2006-05-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt we can use glomalin to measure ecosystem health. Yet such a system is in a continuous growing and declining state, just like any other population. Detecting the presence of a universal substance doesn’t give us much insight into the health or potential of the system. This is why we have pointed out the current methods of study give us only snapshots of activity rather than dynamic patterns usually associated with living systems.
That is to say, digging up the ground to a certain point will surely indicate the presence of some of this material, but what is the saturation point, how much is accumulated over time, how deep into the soil have the hyphae penetrated, and what is the water carrying capacity of the soil with and without varying amounts of deposited glomalin?
While we wait for scientists to begin looking at glomalin in forested settings, we do have some information to go on. The development of recording dynamic processes was well illustrated in some of James Burkes’ series Connections. In particular, the calculus of the flight of early artillery shells demonstrates recording of dynamic activity. At ant point along the flight, height, distance and time could be recorded, but it did not have much value until equations that compared many individual calculations was devised. Once the flight path was figured, many guns could be targeted the same way. Each time a gun was moved, new calculations were called for.
Now substitute trees for guns and we see why past methods of measuring forest health were often flawed. Rotations were based on tree growth, and the wild cut over lands did come back. Yet watershed health and associated problems continued to worsen. More runoff, less precipitation capture, less particulate or core forming gas emissions, less cooling of air by shade all impact the next level of forest health- habitat, biodiversity, water quality and the ability to clean the air of natural and manmade pollutants.
New models are called for. Mycologists are often amazed by the appearance and disappearance of certain mushrooms in a given location. A dynamic approach would see many fungi species living in an area, some of which produce mushrooms regularly, but the majority need specific conditions to fruit. Many fruit underground so there is no visible count. Other species are related to the growing conditions of their mycorhizzal associates such as age, side pressure or canopy closure. More species lie dormant as spores in the soil awaiting catastrophic landscape change. Climax forests have a seemingly lowered mycological biodiversity count but that is more a case of top level members controlling the other species, probably through pheromones. So we need much more thorough methods of accounting for soil fungi.
This, again, is easier to picture as a city of millions of inhabitants all of whom are working on the collective efforts in building and maintaining the city. All living members of this ecosystem are workers for the greater good, and all are taxed to improve infrastructure and living conditions. Each has their role and dominates in the process for a while, then settle into long term routines we recognize as normal conditions. Just like the barbarian invasions, the destructive activities in one area have repercussions throughout a much wider sphere of influence than the attackers realize. Removal of command and control and primary producers causes the workers to get busy rebuilding or suffer a dark ages where it is impossible to recreate the earlier conditions.
As the farmers have shown, glomalin is a dynamic attribute of healthy soils. The understanding allows us to harvest products we need as humans without depleting the natural systems or reducing productivity. The realization that this is a dynamic process will give us management tools for the future across the globe. Glomalin will be an essential part of teaching the water cycle and the basis for regulatory measures that protect the biological processes we depend on as a species. Its role mitigating problems with atmospheric, bioactive heavy metals and water quality issues will give us the tools we need for a sustainable future. Like the early artillerymen, a basic understanding will be the basis for mant improvements we do a have part in, in the same way the flight of a thrown stone would be a precursor to the flight of a cannonball, subject to continual improvement even today.

201. Stressed Ecosystems

2006-05-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

An unusual winter has led to more water being released into the Trinity River than at anytime in the last thirty years. The high cold water should be great for salmonids and clearing sediment from the lower reaches and keep the Klamath in good shape fro this year. Snowpack was reported as high as eleven feet just a few days ago. Rafters and recreation managers in the National Forests are warning of safety concerns all summer due to high water and strong flows, and rafting outfits are changing their runs for safety.
http://www.times-standard.com/ci_3859266
A shortened salmon season also may have fishermen taking extra risks, especially in small boats. Bad weather as well as rogue waves take a toll on sports fishermen regularly, the latest earlier this year when a small boat capsized in the surf zone and a rescue helicopter went down in the rescue effort. Two people on the boat died, the chopper crew all survived. The article is titled For Sake Of the Salmon, and it is obvious the writer was unfamiliar with the long established salmonid restoration group of the same name.
http://www.times-standard.com/driscollscolumn/ci_3824802
PL has appealed to the NCRWQCB for its permits so they can get to work, worried they will miss interest payments again. Apparently there is some concern over the submitting of applications because of reworking needed by earlier decisions. It was reported their logging season is now reduced to May to September in these watersheds, and they are wondering what is taking so long. Meanwhile it will be interesting to see how much business pressure the science can restrain over methods such as clearcuts, now that the culprit behind sedimentation has been identified.
http://www.times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_3836826
Yahoo reported a new study indicating wastewater pollutants at the waters edge are often lingering in the sand longer than in the ocean waters. This was a surprise finding as beach closures have been based on water contamination. The study also found 1000 times the contamination in sheltered beached compared to beaches facing the open ocean after spills. All of this calls for better reporting and safety measures to protect the population from infectious disease.

Another article in the L.A. Times (On a Clear Day, You Can't See the Pollution) repeated earlier findings that reduced particulates do not necessarily mean cleaner air. As mentioned earlier, reduced particulate size is having an unexpected effect on rainfall patterns. The National Park Service says most of the problem is drifting into the parks, although traffic has some part. It says that massive increases in drilling for oil and gas in the West are primarily to blame, and in some areas are hurting native plants as well as humans.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-parksmog23may23,1,6864392.story?coll=la-news-environment
Finally, a massive refiguring of public land use has been put on the table by Congress to allow pipe and powerline corridors throughout sensitive public lands including many of the same places listed in the previous ozone article. This measure will allow energy development at the expense of many protected lands, which is why the government owns them in the first place. Use your power of public comment to be heard on this critical issue for the future of our nation and its resources. There are better ways than despoiling pristine areas. (Power Lines and Pipelines Draw Closer to Parklands)
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-pipeline23may23,1,1752573.story?coll=la-news-environment
Most of our reporting so far has centered on mans impacts on natural systems or impacts of weather on mans constructions. However, ecosystems have their own problems and it is interesting to see some of these up close. High in the mountains one can see the results of avalanche, lightning strike, heavy runoff and a shortened growing season. The slopes are in various stages of regrowth that will continue indefinitely. The effects of various burrowing mammals are apparent everywhere. The locals have a list of edible fungi. The local university is just beginning a survey of glomalin in forestry but it will be several years before results are in. The school was involved in early glomalin studies and like many others is taking on the subject in earnest.
We note the many readers in Japan and the high number of European searches for glomalin, often with date attached (glomalin 2006). These are coming from Poland, France, Italy, Portugal and Sweden among others off the top of my head. Australia and India have also showed uo regularly as I check my site hits. Most U. S. hits are for topics in the blog but not the main idea- fungal modification of the biosphere for improving growing conditions for its partner plants. As we note, this is the heart of sustainability, the cause of erosion and declining habitats and the main reason development is so deadly to ecosystems. It gives us parameters to work within and methods of healing past mistakes, and will become a well known factor in elementary schools by the time mainstream researchers are finished. We only wish they would hurry up, and that this new science will not have to fight its way through business as usual to become implemented.
A hard copy of numbers 1-200 of The Redwood Reader will be available inthe near future. It is intended to stimulate interest and study in regional settings of natural biological activity.

200. Second anniversary

2006-05-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

My circumstances have changed so I will be a little less Humboldt oriented for a while. In the meantime, we can see steady improvement in the issues we covered while realizing continued development means more problems everywhere.
Lets start with the North Coast Regional Water quality Control Board's decision on Freshwater and Elk River. Two things are clear: the Board has had its power reaffirmed by the courts to have the final say in loggingt plans, able to override the Habitat Conservation Plan; and PL is doing everything it can to come into compliiance with Zero Discharge, not Zero Net Discharge. This means they have to protect the floor/glomalin or they will cut sediemnt loose. I have explained this and they appear to gat it. IF there is no new discharges then we can go instream for dredging etc. Residents must know their homes, driveways and roads have their own problems although once built the landscapes grow back in. Still, 390 nhomes is a preety big impact.
The world carbon trading market is crashing at least in part because of incomplete science. This needs to be fixed or there won't be any way to get people to grow big trees and all the problems outlined in theis blog will continue to get worse.
Save the Redwoods League is continuing to work on its hiking trail aspects of the Redwoods to the Sae Corridor with continuing purchases and investigations into possible campgrounds in the area.
Salmon season opened Monday in the Northcoast area. THe weather is beautiful. Good luck out there! To gat an idea of life on a crab boat, Discoverys new show "The Deadliest Catch" about King crab fishing in Alaska gives a great picture.
A new report about slackening trade winds, a necessary phenomenon to recirculate ocean nutrients into the higher parts of the water column. may affect fisheries all along the coast. The State of California is trying to get a handle on exploding marine mammal populations taking over docks and eating everything that swims. Fishermen have been complaining for years but it appears the situation has grown critical.
THis leads us into the Klamath situation, which will probably be alright this year due to heavy precipitation. Again, the NCRWQCB has insituted a TMDL regime for this river and it should show improvement below the dams. Dam removal on the California side would expand spawning territory. I don't think the Oregon dams are part of the relicensing and so will stay for now. OUR little model in the Mattole is ready for expansion.
I read about a pikeminnow bounty in Oregon. Looks like a great idea for the Eel. Articles 1-199 are being prepared for printing. We will post more info as it comes in.

199. Global Dimming

2006-04-19T23:54:00.000-07:00

Last night Nova (www.pbs.org) was about Global Dimming, the result of less sunlight reaching the ground. It tied in several threads I’ve been reading about for years, including the effects of contrails from aircraft, the albedo effect and the size of particles composing the core of the water drops.
A friend showed me a website some time ago concerned with contrails. They were convinced there was a conspiracy to save the industrialized areas of the world from high levels of UV radiation due to ozone loss from pollution. The story said planes flew over the cities in the northern hemisphere and that the exhaust created a shield that slowly floated back to the surface. They could make a permanent globe if they could cover the entire earth in a short period of time, but was an impossible task, so new shields were put in place regularly via contrail. The conspirators were the US, Canada, Russia, EU, China and Japan.
It was just another crazy story until Nova reported on people checking the three days after Sept 11 2001 when no planes flew at all over the U.S. The result was a quick drop in temperature range due to lack of clouds keeping the heat in at night, with higher day temperature and cooler nights. The change was so rapid as too seem impossible.
This matches up well with CO2 Science magazines’ (www.co2science.org) reports in the Subject Index on contrails as well as the albedo effect- the reflection of sunlight off clouds and radiating back away from earth. We begin to see that climate warming is being counteracted by less sunlight reaching the surface. In fact, temperatures are less than predicted for the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, global warming is not climate change, and there are plenty of problems with this man made protection too.
The most important of these is the effect on rainfall. Nova clearly illustrated normal raindrop formation with a natural nucleus. We can imagine this as some of the solid nucleus gases emitted by trees- large natural particles called aerosols. As the water condenses on the core it gains weight until it falls. The problem with man-made particulates is their size. The small cores collect water much more slowly and remain light, which can allow moisture to stay in the cloud cover far longer and bring uncertain rainfall, or cause it to fall far down wind of the normal pattern. The longer life of the clouds means even less sunlight is reaching the surface. An interesting note is that greenhouse gases really took off when we began to focus on particulates, solving one at the expense of the other.
Another effect is the rate of evaporation. Surprisingly, temperature has little to do with the rate of evaporation. Evaporation is caused by sunlight (photons) hitting the surface of the water and knocking water molecules free from the liquid environment. The wind also does this. Ice can and does evaporate. Thus evaporation is slowed whenever there is less light available. With something like 30% less light than a few decades ago, we should be seeing more clouds and cloudier days but less rainfall, or rainfall carried further before precipitating. This is climate change without warming.
CO2 Science also has several articles about the effects of long term CO2 on ecosystem nitrogen availability. Here we wish we could get the climate guys to read the plant physiokogists who have found increased CO2 leads to greater growth of nitrogen fixing bacteria, keeping higher than natural amounts of nitrogen available for extra growth. Hidden here is the fact that the protein part of glomalin requires nitrogen for sequestering carbon, and that glomalin production goes way up under increased CO2, and I haven’t heard of glomalin not forming from lack of nutrients. I have heard that fertilizing reduces the amount and effectiveness of mycorhizzia because there is no need to forage through the soil for life support.
Global dimming shows us all the data is not in yet regarding rising CO2 and global warming. We have to wonder if there is a productivity drop off due to less sunlight, and what effects that may have on agriculture and ecosystem health around the world.

198. Carbon counts still dont include glomalin

2006-04-16T00:32:00.000-07:00

Most protection of rural lands is based on species protection, recreation and landscape preservation. While these are important issues, larger issues demand our attention and response. This is true in the case of a warming climate that threatens modern society in several ways. Popular Science (www.popsci.com) ran an article last month on the technological fixes for sequestering carbon through an array of expensive and mostly unproven high tech methods. It was portrayed as too big an issue for individuals to take on- until new science showed us the way.
All through the nineties we were told that carbon from trees was all released back into the atmosphere once the tree was cut- eventually the slash, roots and lumber will all oxidize and return CO2 to the air, creating a no net gain situation concerning trees for storing carbon. This was at the heart of European and Commonwealth attempts to enter the carbon market and a major U.S. objection to it.
A fine example of why old trees are needed comes from Greenbelt Consulting website for restoration in Puget Sound. The article Hydraulic Distribution and Tree Roots http://www.greenbeltconsulting.com/ctp/hydraulicredistribute.html written as a letter from the Forest Service to the Plan writer goes into some picture of the need for deep (>2 meter) roots for maintaining daily intake throughput the dry season for western conifers. This is one of our core issues. A good question may be whether woody roots are mycorhizzia at depth, and how much glomalin is down there. Mykoweb (www.mykoweb.com) reports an average Douglas fir has about one million needles and just as many mycorhizzia. The crown covers about an acre of total coverage. Thus mature trees must generate a large amount of carbon products just to maintain the fungi. Total soil carbon is greater than anticipated and more dynamic than recognized. Second growth cannot match this capture and forests will experience steady decline until it becomes part of the institutional understanding.
The 1996 discovery of glomalin shows us trees and associated fungi do the same job with far more benefits than any of the other methods. This is because glomalin is the sequestered product of vegetative systems, is made mostly of CO2 and water with an iron containing protein, that sequesters metals, conditions soils to hold more water, and persists in the soil for decades after tree cutting, although not permanently.
A decade after the discovery we find Nature publishing a new article about the inability of plants to sequester carbon. They had plenty of variety in their set up and control but failed to measure total production because glomalin is not included in the final analysis, as reported in the Pioneer Press (http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/14326175.htm ) on April 12, 2006. There is lots of evidence fertilizing slows mycorhizzia activity since there is less need for foraging for minerals and thus would actually decrease total productivity. It is stunning so much time has elapsed and funding is available for studies that ignore recognition of new science. Last year I wrote Nature about the need for their editors to come up to speed on this simple discovery, yet they continue to publish far off the mark articles that keep people from thinking they can do something on global pollution issues. Even CO2 Science magazine (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N15/B2.jsp)in Four Decades of Russian Forest Growth is slow to pick up on this critical component, adding it to the Subject Index but not seeing it for its importance or how it allows us to approach several seemingly intractable problems or provide insight into new or ongoing studies.
Scientists are finding more difficult processes are performed by Nature with far less energy and hazards than their man-made counterparts. The study of this is called biometrics. In a sense glomalin activity in the soil is similar to baking without heat, in that pockets are created in solid material, and loose ingredients are consolidated into a continuum- in this case, the landscape. Reports of hillsides swelling in rain from Redwood Sciences Lab reports tells us the precipitation interface acts like bread absorbing water when rewetted to the point of the weight causing dissolution. We also can see Nature has a method of removing excess carbon from the air in a way that benefits all its denizens.
If we picture a mature forest as having deposited residue in the ground for many years, with many individuals contributing to a pool of the material, we can see why select cuts are far less damaging than clear cuts. We only have to look at the effects of a century of select cutting and compare them to clear cuts and their impact on fisheries. Select cuts allow other individuals to contribute to the pool. Clear cuts remove glomalin sources and decline begins in the woods. Mattias Rilligs work shows us higher percentages of glomalin are deposited through the deepest roots. Redwood Sciences lab tells us vegetative cover returns to full coverage within ten years. The big question was- why do we have landslides decades after tree felling even after the surface appears stabilized? The answer is that deeper layers of glomalin decay before the new roots can reach the depths of the old deposits, and they slowly decompose until no soil glue remains. When the soil glue is gone soil reverts to inorganic granules that are easily mobilized in wet weather or gravity.
This is the point of separation from restoration because we need to move into how we will manage those recovered lands. How do we encourage growing large trees that won’t be cut for timber? How do we protect the floor? What are we willing to sacrifice for economic opportunity?
Deposition of glomalin is the main function of individual trees in the forest. In their symbiotic relationship with fungi they enhance their environment and lay the foundation for all other forest processes and species. In and of itself this is a great beneficial advantage, but there is more to come. Dissolution of glomalin, a nearly global presence in vascular plants, has been the hallmark of the Industrial Revolution, particularly agriculture and development. While the causes of glomalin destruction are well known, no one has done a study on the cumulative effects of the impacts of tilling such a large percentage of the earths surface. Nevertheless we can now be proactive about global warming by taking local steps. And those steps enhance our local natural systems once thought to be a mystery of Nature.

Klamath recovery, Preservgation purchases

2006-04-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

While salmon fishermen await the final recommendation from the Pacific Fishery Management Council, to the NMFS that will probably cost most of the season, it is good to take a step back and think this through. A closed season interrupts many lifestyles, and as with farming, failure if you can’t make the payments. With good abundance in the Sacramento and Colombia systems the total closure appears extreme on one hand, and temporary on the other, temporary because there is finally consensus on an approach to recovery.
The Water Quality Control Boards implementation of Total Maximum Daily Loads directly targets low dissolved oxygen and water temperature, which will improve conditions in the river as is, probably with more sediment control. We have notified them of glomalin before and they may or may not include it in their thinking. This is why we call for an end to clear cutting, indiscriminate road building and salvage logging, especially on public lands, until the damage caused by land use is recognized, regulated and better methods implemented.
The Klamath is in relatively good shape compared to the Eel, and one or two years should see a buildup of numbers again without any effort other that making sure some are allowed to spawn and enough water flows for fish survival. Dam mitigation, whether ladders or removal, will boost the spawning territories in the interior. Improved conditions in the tributaries below the dams are also important as these contribute cold water late in the season. As we have shown here, the restoration of water stored in the ground for late season flows is a missing element in most recovery programs, although all count on revegetation to restore healthy conditions.
It would appear all the pieces are available for a strong return of Klamath runs. Of course fishermen are afraid of losing this years catch and history shows that controlling take allows conditions to improve while recovery takes place. Cyclic phases occur in many species. In this article commercial fishing is cited as a 150 million a year industry. Later there is a mention of $761 million for 327 Klamath fish.
In this day and age maybe we need haul insurance for fishermen like crop insurance, a program that makes the payments even in rough years. There is no doubt Klamath salmon will be back, and removal of obstacles to spawning should lead to larger returns than currently possible.
One way to insure a compromise is to inflict everyone with some of the pain. Fishermen are being punished for situations out of their control. The TMDL’s will improve ground conditions in the watershed and water quality will improve. Increased flows from the dams will ensure survival until the dams are removed or the ladders installed. A portion of the change should help farmers with off channel collection and storage of precipitation and less water intensive irrigation methods. Finally, planners must have an authoritative say in future development in the watershed and controlling sediment caused by construction, as we see in Erosion Control magazine. Renewable energy should be part of the solution since local generation will be critical in the future as the need for centralization is realized to be a mixed blessing at best. We’d like to see a model derived from these items that could be applied to other river systems.
Anglers Argue for Salmon Fishing
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-salmon5apr05,1,1760623.story?coll=la-news-environment
A fighting chance for the Klamath
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/02/MNGSHI24OD1.DTL
SF Chronicle writer Tom Stienestra reported a large stretch of the Sacramento River has come under BLM management, which has been excellent with Plans in the Arcata Field Office, and the land is already purchased but the attempt is to create the Sacramento River National recreation Area.
“A little-known piece of the California Wild Heritage Act of 2006, introduced in Congress in March by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, would create the Sacramento River National Recreation Area. It would span 10 miles along the prettiest section of river, roughly from Anderson to Red Bluff. The beauty of this is that in the past 20 years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has already bought 17,000 acres of land along this river corridor. So no new money to buy more land is needed. That means it is possible that the proposal to create this new National Recreation Area could be split out so it could bypass the Congressional Appropriations Committee. That's where bills go to die (when they need more money to get implemented). So this has a real chance to go through. The BLM could then provide parking, boating access, trails, picnic sites, law enforcement and maps that would allow people to connect to a beautiful area that will be managed in its wild state.”
After telling of threats from the current rush to sell off unimportant Forest Service and possibly BLM lands, and development of three thousand homes two miles away, he goes on to tell of another stretch of river. “Unless you have floated a boat down the entire river, you can't imagine what it looks like for more than 100 river miles from Colusa down to Sacramento. The Army Corps of Engineers has stripped all vegetation along the river and lined the banks with rocks and concrete blocks. In one four-hour stretch, we didn't see a single living creature. For miles at a time, you don't see a tree or bush, or any habitat wildlife and fish need to survive. In one 36-hour stretch, we paddled for 32 hours to get through this section of horrific river destruction, brought to you up close and personal by the feds and paid for by you and your tax dollars.”
The opportunity exists for interested parties to participate in all BLM land decisions through the planning process, which will include scoping, meetings, gathering and drafting a plan within the allowable scope of that parcel and a recommendation that will be one of several BLM chooses from. Public comment periods are another opportunity to be heard in the process. We approve of Congressional recognition of the Area as it adds a layer of protection.
Key span of Sacramento River needs protection
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/02/SPGL8I0VB01.DTL
Northcoast Journal reports Sierra Pacific wants to build a road to an in-holding they have in Underwood Roadless Area in Six Rivers National Forest in another area proposed for wilderness status by Sen. Boxer. Timber harvest plans are already approved but roads are a major issue for most conservationists. Of course we agree with the need for maintaining naturally functioning forest, just as a water quality issue. Scott Gracean of EPIC said “securing the integrity of the roadless area and proposed wilderness” was important. “We are strongly opposed to the proposed road, and we'll all get a chance to comment on that proposal when the Six Rivers releases the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the road project, expected out any day now. The good news is that the Wilderness Land Trust and other conservation-minded potential purchasers are very interested in working with SPI to get the parcel in question moved into public ownership. To their credit, SPI's managers have been willing to talk about a buyout, and have agreed to a meeting in mid-April."
HOLE IN SIX
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/040606/news0406.html

196. Life at Sea Approaching the Shoals, Klamath TMDL's

2006-04-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

The dire condition of the Klamath Chinook fishery is having impacts all along the California and Oregon coasts and threatening to close the third largest salmon fishery on the West Coast. The Pacific Fisheries Management Council held hearings last week in Seattle to make a recommendation about the salmon season, and the news is a season shortened from the usual 27 weeks to eleven or even completes closure. They will pass along their recommendation to the deciding agency. Fishermen of all stripes will feel the impact. Oregon’s governor ordered a study so the state will be able to help distressed fishing villages, businesses and families cope with the closure. Today U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong of Oakland ordered higher flows for fish in order to protect coho in dry years. She also told the National Marine Fisheries Council to develop a workable recovery plan, and the Bureau of Reclamation to implement what it has already been ordered to do. Both sides note this is not a problem now as it is a wet year and the flows are high. Environmentalists have already seen court victories go unfulfilled with catastrophic consequences.
We have followed this story from the beginning because it shows how glomalin can help us with these issues in a concrete and substantial manner. We believe there is a workable plan that calls for some sacrifice by all parties initially that will improve all sectors sustainably, in a few years. A few wet years could be all it takes with a little willingness not to accept the status quo as the beat possible solution.
Because we are comparing runs from just a few years ago, we can discount dam removal for the moment. That can only improve the situation but is not relevant to current conditions. More water in the river can be achieved from higher flows but the watershed as a whole needs repair for optimal flows. Dam removal also expands the spawning range. Farmers should be compensated by implementing federal BMP’s for rainwater harvest across the landscape, off channel ponds, large water tanks and switching to less water intensive types of irrigation.
Our studies show land use is a major component in river health. The lower Klamath has been logged heavily and the impacts are the same as we have been describing here throughout. In a high rainfall area the precipitation interface and fungal water storage systems are disrupted across a wide portion of the landscape. Roads, soil compaction and diverted drainage are causing sedimentation of the channels, widening of the river, removing shade, impacting water temperature and dissolved oxygen and degrading spawning grounds. A steady decline is assured if we do not take this into account. So the lower Klamath region should put a moratorium on clear cuts and road building, or at least restrict them, and try to leave large tracts to regrow the forest that are off limits after early thinning. Aggressive treatment will provide jobs and small wood and chip products. This actually fits in well with TMDLs that are coming to the Klamath (Water Quality Control Board website www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb1. ) because these are the very goals we are tackling in the Mattole, although we had little agricultural residue.
A Eureka Reporter article on the meeting revealed the problem. “We are trying to understand not only what water quality conditions are in the river, but what is causing those water quality conditions to be what they are,” said David Leland, senior water quality engineer for the water board on the project. “So we are looking for cause-and-effect relationships.”
Ultimately, Leland said the water board is looking to develop a tool that can be used to change what those inputs are and then look for a response in the watershed system.”
Most of our sediment came from poor roads and legacy damage. Sediment surveys identified the problem areas for repair, and alternative drainage was introduced restoring natural patterns. Once new sedimentation is prohibited and people understand how to work the forests while retaining its crucial properties the fish will be back and there will be sustainable income from stable landscapes. Agricultural runoff, whether fertilizer, waste or pesticide will be discussed. “McKinleyville resident and fish biologist Pat Higgins told the water board that the situation on the Klamath River was dire. Higgins said a large amount of nutrients being released into the river, primarily from agriculture practices upstream, were causing algal blooms and other toxic conditions for fish, as well as known and new fish diseases that were “piggybacking” on some of those conditions.” While higher flows will help alleviate algae, I recall the ladies telling us about this process from For Sake of the Salmon from the Petaluma River and Stempfl Creek describing how hard it was to gain consensus in an area with 12,000 landowners along the river with 138,000 in the watershed, all with rights. The larger community must decide this needs doing, which, in effect, is why there is a water quality board holding hearings on discharges and impacts on the river, as required by the Clean Water Act. “Although the battle to improve the main channel of the Klamath River may succeed, Higgins said the war to correct the watershed may be lost if the tributaries to the river weren’t addressed rapidly. ‘If these fish can’t get to well-distributed cold water areas en route and we lose a half dozen of these (tributaries) in the next 10 or 15 years before we fix the mainstream temperatures, we may not have salmon to recover,’ he said.”
So far the impacts are mostly to those living in the region. There are others who must understand what is at stake and how they contribute to the problem. One such group are the recreational users of public lands that demand their right to enjoy their horse, ATV, dirt bike, mountain bike most anywhere on public land. Stop. High rainfall forests are much more fragile than you imagine. Another category of public lands is needed, perhaps temporary, that deemphasizes recreation so essential areas have recovery opportunities as well to provide essential far into the future. We would also ban salvage logging in advance just so everyone is clear we are rebuilding the water system by way of cleaning the atmosphere through trees and fungi.
It may seem like a lot of sacrifice for a few fish in terms of dollars, but this story has wider implications. Rising Arctic temperatures and sea levels are causing more notice now and most solutions are technological fixes that are a drop in the bucket or unproven. Redwood Reader has advocated for paying forest owners to grow big trees through sale of carbon credits. It may soon be time to set aside large chunks of land for carbon filtering by vegetation. Glomalin storage does the job. Its just too tempting to cash a large tree out. The trees must be value enhanced for what they do. Consider a large Douglas fir has about one million needles that cover nearly an acre if laid out. There is about one mycorhizzae attached to the roots for every needle, according to web articles mentioned earlier. One early picture showed clover making a gram of glomalin in thirty days, so for the sake of argument lets say each mycorhizzae is making a gram of hyphae sheathing per growing season- one million grams, one thousand kilos, a ton. It may make several, there are no numbers yet and too many unknowns. All of this will be figured out in the next few decades and will be part of a simple mathematical modeling for natural resources since we are talking about a rate of natural occurrence, and its cumulative impacts in terms of collecting and storing water as well as carbon.
It was recently reported CO2 in the atmosphere had doubled since the Industrial Age began. While processes like steel making and lime have contributed lots of CO2, and various combustion processes by billions of people contribute, little is said of the vast amounts of carbon released from the soil through time, and the very few practices we employ that return it, mostly we count on earth to do what it does while allowing that capacity to be diminished daily while continuing to add to the problem. Once carbon dioxide is recognized as a resource the scramble will be on to collect the lions share and we will have entered a new reality.

Life at Sea Approaching the Shoals
March 26 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-salmon26mar26,1,6229690.story?page=2&coll=la-news-environment
This article includes a little background on the story of the Klamath since 2001, when drought caused upper river farmers to demand more water for irrigation.
Judge Rules for Fish in Klamath River Dispute
Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer March 28, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-klamath28mar28,1,6228547.story?coll=la-news-environment
Klamath River the focus of water board scoping meetingEureka Reporter
by Nathan Rushton, 3/2/2006 www.eurekareporter.com

Web site at www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb1.

195. A Solution for the KIlamath

2006-03-28T17:38:00.000-08:00

The dire condition of the Klamath Chinook fishery is having impacts all along the California and Oregon coasts and threatening to close the third largest salmon fishery on the West Coast. The Pacific Fisheries Management Council held hearings last week in Seattle to make a recommendation about the salmon season, and the news is a season shortened from the usual 27 weeks to eleven or even completes closure. They will pass along their recommendation to the deciding agency. Fishermen of all stripes will feel the impact. Oregon’s governor ordered a study so the state will be able to help distressed fishing villages, businesses and families cope with the closure. Today U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong of Oakland ordered higher flows for fish in order to protect coho in dry years. She also told the National Marine Fisheries Council to develop a workable recovery plan, and the Bureau of Reclamation to implement what it has already been ordered to do. Both sides note this is not a problem now as it is a wet year and the flows are high. Environmentalists have already seen court victories go unfulfilled with catastrophic consequences.
We have followed this story from the beginning because it shows how glomalin can help us with these issues in a concrete and substantial manner. We believe there is a workable plan that calls for some sacrifice by all parties initially that will improve all sectors sustainably, in a few years. A few wet years could be all it takes with a little willingness not to accept the status quo as the beat possible solution.
Because we are comparing runs from just a few years ago, we can discount dam removal for the moment. That can only improve the situation but is not relevant to current conditions. More water in the river can be achieved from higher flows but the watershed as a whole needs repair for optimal flows. Dam removal also expands the spawning range. Farmers should be compensated by implementing federal BMP’s for rainwater harvest across the landscape, off channel ponds, large water tanks and switching to less water intensive types of irrigation.
Our studies show land use is a major component in river health. The lower Klamath has been logged heavily and the impacts are the same as we have been describing here throughout. In a high rainfall area the precipitation interface and fungal water storage systems are disrupted across a wide portion of the landscape. Roads, soil compaction and diverted drainage are causing sedimentation of the channels, widening of the river, removing shade, impacting water temperature and dissolved oxygen and degrading spawning grounds. A steady decline is assured if we do not take this into account. So the lower Klamath region should put a moratorium on clear cuts and road building, or at least restrict them, and try to leave large tracts to regrow the forest that are off limits after early thinning. Aggressive treatment will provide jobs and small wood and chip products. This actually fits in well with TMDLs that are coming to the Klamath (Water Quality Control Board website www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb1. ) because these are the very goals we are tackling in the Mattole, although we had little agricultural residue.
A Eureka Reporter article on the meeting revealed the problem. “We are trying to understand not only what water quality conditions are in the river, but what is causing those water quality conditions to be what they are,” said David Leland, senior water quality engineer for the water board on the project. “So we are looking for cause-and-effect relationships.”
Ultimately, Leland said the water board is looking to develop a tool that can be used to change what those inputs are and then look for a response in the watershed system.”
Most of our sediment came from poor roads and legacy damage. Sediment surveys identified the problem areas for repair, and alternative drainage was introduced restoring natural patterns. Once new sedimentation is prohibited and people understand how to work the forests while retaining its crucial properties the fish will be back and there will be sustainable income from stable landscapes. Agricultural runoff, whether fertilizer, waste or pesticide will be discussed. “McKinleyville resident and fish biologist Pat Higgins told the water board that the situation on the Klamath River was dire. Higgins said a large amount of nutrients being released into the river, primarily from agriculture practices upstream, were causing algal blooms and other toxic conditions for fish, as well as known and new fish diseases that were “piggybacking” on some of those conditions.” While higher flows will help alleviate algae, I recall the ladies telling us about this process from For Sake of the Salmon from the Petaluma River and Stempfl Creek describing how hard it was to gain consensus in an area with 12,000 businesses along the river with 138000 people in the watershed, all with rights. The larger community must decide this needs doing, which, in effect, is why there is a water quality board holding hearings on discharges and impacts on the river, as required by the Clean Water Act. “Although the battle to improve the main channel of the Klamath River may succeed, Higgins said the war to correct the watershed may be lost if the tributaries to the river weren’t addressed rapidly. ‘If these fish can’t get to well-distributed cold water areas en route and we lose a half dozen of these (tributaries) in the next 10 or 15 years before we fix the mainstream temperatures, we may not have salmon to recover,’ he said.”
So far the impacts are mostly to those living in the region. There are others who must understand what is at stake and how they contribute to the problem. One such group are the recreational users of public lands that demand their right to enjoy their horse, ATV, dirt bike, mountain bike most anywhere on public land. Stop. High rainfall forests are much more fragile than you imagine. Another category of public lands is needed, perhaps temporary, that deemphasizes recreation so essential areas have recovery opportunities as well to provide essential far into the future. We would also ban salvage logging in advance just so everyone is clear we are rebuilding the water system by way of cleaning the atmosphere through trees and fungi.
It may seem like a lot of sacrifice for a few fish in terms of dollars, but this story has wider implications. Rising Arctic temperatures and sea levels are causing more notice now and most solutions are technological fixes that are a drop in the bucket or unproven. Redwood Reader has advocated for paying forest owners to grow big trees through sale of carbon credits. It may soon be time to set aside large chunks of land for carbon filtering by vegetation. Glomalin storage does the job. Its just too tempting to cash a large tree out. The trees must be value enhanced for what they do. Consider a large Douglas fir has about one million needles that cover nearly an acre if laid out. There is about one mycorhizzae attached to the roots for every needle, according to web articles mentioned earlier. One early picture showed clover making a gram of glomalin in thirty days, so for the sake of argument lets say each mycorhizzae is making a gram of hyphae sheathing per growing season- one million grams, one thousand kilos, a ton. It may make several, there are no numbers yet and too many unknowns. All of this will be figured out in the next few decades and will be part of a simple mathematical modeling for natural resources since we are talking about a rate of natural occurrence, and its cumulative impacts in terms of collecting and storing water as well as carbon.
It was recently reported CO2 in the atmosphere had doubled since the Industrial Age began. While processes like steel making and lime have contributed lots of CO2, and various combustion processes by billions of people contribute, little is said of the vast amounts of carbon released from the soil through time, and the very few practices we employ that return it, mostly we count on earth to do what it does while allowing that capacity to be diminished daily while continuing to add to the problem. Once carbnon dioxide is recognized as a resource the scramble will be on to collect the lions share and we will have entered a new reality.

Life at Sea Approaching the Shoals
March 26 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-salmon26mar26,1,6229690.story?page=2&coll=la-news-environment This article includes a little background on the story of the Klamath since 2001, when drought caused upper river farmers to demand more water for irrigation.
Judge Rules for Fish in Klamath River Dispute
Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer March 28, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-klamath28mar28,1,6228547.story?coll=la-news-environmentKlamath River the focus of water board scoping meetingEureka Reporter
by Nathan Rushton, 3/2/2006 www.eurekareporter.com
Web site for Klamath TMDL's at www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb1.

194. Debating data or using it

2006-03-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

Several articles in CO2 Science (www.co2science.org ) magazine this week argue that while greenhouse emissions are at an all time high, global temperatures are not. Particularly worrisome is the notion that man made climate oscillations are insignificant compared to the scale of change naturally occurring repeatedly even in the last million years. They suggest glaciations and changing sea levels of catastrophic scale will and have recurred regardless of greenhouse gas levels. Looking at obvious effects in Canada and Alaska and the Arctic Ocean (Earths Past Points to Warming Future http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/03/23/polar.icemelt.ap/index.html CNN #/23/06) including melting glaciers and earthquakes caused by melting ice, we wonder what other mechanisms or oscillations could be in play, like shifting magnetic poles or magma plumes. Nonetheless, the gas concentrations for methane and CO2 are higher now than at any time in the last 6650000 years according to Greenland and Antarctic ice cores. But it looks pretty clear that even if global temperatures are not rising, Arctic temperatures are .
Science always adapts to new information. Recently the connection of Solutrean points and Clovis points, made the same way but more refined, opened the door for main stream scientists to distinguish this culture from Asia, where embedded microchips were used for large killing point, an altogether different technology absent from the Americas. This changes our thinking to European immigration in times until recently thought to be devoid of humans. One big surprise was that many Clovis digs had stopped at the agreed time of 11500, or had continued but not included older findings in their reports for fear of being ridiculed by their peers. We hope some of these digs will be re-examined in light of the new thinking.
Americas Stone Age Hunters (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3116_stoneage.html) exposed mans adaptability and what we call gravity flow, or ease of lifestyle. A pre-Clovis site at Gault, Texas revealed a settled area near with hunting grounds nearby but only one large point. It seems these folks were eating birds and turtles. There is little evidence of megafauna among the remains. But a picture emerged of a very capable culture from before the accepted date, with various lines of investigation converging to form the new picture.
We have discovered several dozen stone tools on our private property. Most are arrowheads but we have found a large appear point, obsidian scraper from the east part of the state, a small perfectly shaped flake with a hook we used for cutting very tough iris leaves, used for thread and rope, and on rabbit skins. It worked better than steel. As time passed we eventually returned these items to areas near where they were found. This is an area of nearly current stone tool use and it is fascinating to see ancient people craft all they needed out of chert, flint and obsidian.
Man is adaptable to whatever conditions he realizes. The problem is not recognizing problems or waiting too long. So the new points took out most all of American large animals in a few hundred years. So it is with rising sea levels. It is happening. It happened in the past. What is most at risk is our infrastructure along the coasts and valleys. It would seem to be time for some serious planning or the next generations will be forced into react mode rather than prepare mode. By the same token steps that can reduce this impact are known to be available but we see little concern in this regard.
China, on the other hand, seems to see what lies ahead and is not afraid to use its government to steer growth in environmentally friendly directions. Keith Bradsheer of the New York Times reports on new taxes on large cars, chopsticks and a range of other fuel and forest friendly measures to lessen the impacts of its massive growth in China Raises Taxes to Curb Use of Energy and Timber (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/business/worldbusiness/23yuan.html?ex=1300770000&en=0f3ade0218b51b71&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss . They are taking some lessons into account and it is very interesting to see them modernize with an awareness of what that implies. They are sharing with all the people in the sense that while several hundred million are now in a Western type economy, cell phones have brought coverage to the entire nation without the infrastructure of phone lines, and satellite computer and television are available in every village. This means everyone is able to use these services at least to some extent.
This is in strong contrast to Gale Norton advocating more road building on Federal lands on her way out of office, as reported in Grist today (grist@grist.org ). Interesting to see the two papers it names as sources are from Utah and Alaska, where the issue of vehicles on public lands has created quite a stir. This blog has shown what is lost in road building and destruction of subsoil landscape components, and California also has a strong off road lobby. In fact, these lobbies all insist on the right to burn gas to destroy natural systems that we, as biological creatures, depend upon. It has amazed us that for all the talk no one complains about the amount of fuel used in racing at all levels, the amount of exhaust or any of the development parameters like the golf course opponents list, from land prices to pesticides. We need better ways to prevent ecological destruction in the name of fun, promoted by oil and auto conglomerates or we are contributing to undermining our own infrastructure and quality of life.

193. Salmon season

2006-03-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

It is clear there is a need to get this information out to land managers. Glomalin has given us a clear picture of landscape dissolution, and shows us how to prevent it. Redwood Reader has been writing for two years that current regulations are on one hand inadequate and on the other stifling at best, that is, more restrictions are not preventing new damage. While we support growing big trees no financial mechanism is in place for landowners to do that, and so many continue to rely on traditional incomes. Nothing wrong with that except it keeps the depth of deposition of glomalin in the top layers of the soil, roots not extending into the subsoil. As we have stated before, this will maintain a steady glomalin level as deep as the roots go, and that will be not as deep as big old trees root systems. The important thing here is that the vegetation is doing its job but the amount of water available in late summer will be less than maximum capacity. Good managers are moving their animals around and preventing surface degradation and riparian impacts. Same with second and third growth- we can’t expect those roots to reach as far or mycelium to saturate the soil with glomalin as effectively. Maintaining water capacity has two aspects- handling peak precipitation events and maintaining late season flows. By understanding this concept all parties should be able to hammer out better regulations that allow more efficient and less destructive activities.
We have honored the Cattlemen last year and so it was sad to read the latest story about their annual meeting. I have contacted a few of the involved people and all involved agencies. I wrote many times to PL, who could have made a huge difference in getting this done but has chosen to sell off “unprofitable Douglas fir and ranch lands.” They have decided not to arrange multi party studies that would put everyone on the same page, or use their political clout or business influence to bring carbon trading to the NorthCoast or new science to Sacramento in search of regulatory relief. So they can squawk all they want about regulations but they have opted out of participating in learning something new that could alter all resource and development regulations and potentially bring in millions of dollars for resource managers and landowners. Someone did pickup part of the ball with HSU receiving money to Chair a Ecology of the Redwood Forest position, but the direction is not going to save other forest types and or illuminate managers and regulators to a basic principle of vegetations role in the ecology, and the proposition is in academia and out of the on-the-ground loop.
Cattlemen say feds are putting squeeze on them
http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3572035
PL bailing on Doug fir lands is not the only disappointing story we saw this week. The Hoopa tribe is accepting money to study small hydro generators on the tributaries of the Trinity. This is incomprehensible to me as it directly impacts spawning habitat, the Klamath system as a whole is in trouble, their subsidence fishery is closed and biomass and wind are available at no threat to the fish. The whole concept is baffling since the program covered Native Americans and renewable energy, you’d think they’d choose to study something less detrimental to their own tribal health. On the other hand, power plants earn far more money than fishing and lead to improved economic conditions in many ways. So it is a decision whether to further degrade an imperiled system for economic incentive.
In another light, white men lured Indians onto the reservation with shiny objects, the last Indian shed a tear for loss of the natural world. The Indians adapted and learned to lure white to the reservation with shiny casinos. Now the white men are standing in the parking lot shedding a tear for the lost habitat.
One of the leading lights on glomalin, Mattias Rillig of the University of Montana, worked under DOE rather than USDA grants for several years, and we have noted this important work before. This bore out our contention glomalin was a structural component and thus widespread throughout the fungi, and many species contribute to the soil storage building effort.
Our main contention about watershed health is not quite proven but we have filled in most of the pieces, especially where sediment, carbon sequestration and revegetation are concerned. What is needed is the overview study that demonstrates the biological influence upon landscape water capacity. This is shown in the forest model including glomalin. The samples can only be a snapshot in time. No note was made of the last floor disturbance, the age of the trees, the distance from them, the number of fungi and their place in succession or abundance or the rate of accumulation under various conditions. We also need to know more about the mechanics of foraging mycelium and its seasonal and successional interactions with other species. And we have to decide how much reduction in carrying capacity is acceptable for land use activities, from none to complete urbanization.
Hoopa tribe gets $103,000 for river hydropower studyhttp://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=8987 We get to say one more time that the whole system is broken as we read About Pacific Fisheries Management Council upcoming talks in Seattle possibly shutting down the entire commercial salmon season for the region known as the Klamath fishery, about seven hundred miles from Carmel, California to the north Oregon coast. Clearly we are looking at a piece of a broken system. The emphasis on the juvenile salmon die off is only a symptom, of course, and is subject to repetition because it is the result of the effect of a decision about managing a natural system, water. Negotiations about removal of some or all of the Klamath dams are going forward, with no assurances. But no effort is being made to restore the lower watersheds health, or to improve stream flow on a systematic basis by reshaping roads, capturing rain fall or taking close care of any soil disturbances. Intensive precipitation management below dams may be a worthwhile tradeoff for power generators, at least leaving some part of the system healthy. There is also danger that natural events like SOD may cause a degree of forest decline that lowers the ability of the forest to regenerate itself. Like the pine beetles and spruce budworm, vast acreages of trees that remove CO2 from the atmosphere are losing their ability while people continue to burn the tropical forests. We are damaging the very tools we need to use to address problems like increasing CO2 levels and declining water availability.
Salmon Fishing Ban ConsideredDwindling runs on the Klamath prompt a proposal to put 700 miles of coast off limits.
By Eric Bailey, LA Times Staff Writer March 4, 2006

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-salmon4mar04,1,1301866.story?coll=la-news-environment

192. PL Gifts FUHS, Klamath, pine beetles

2006-03-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

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.

191. Whose science is it anyway?

2006-02-28T14:45:00.000-08:00

One apparent pattern of the current administration is the gutting of federal oversight agencies like the GAO, FEMA, the mine safety people and so forth. Add this to disregarding the best available science, even discredit the scientist, and you get a scenario similar to the Bay Area sturgeon count. DFG reported a 90% decrease in white sturgeon. Tom Stienstra (www.sfgate.com) then reported that fishermen were upset that DFG had sampled the wrong section of the Bay and that there were far more fish than thought.
Generally we are witnessing more poor science where it is still paid lip service to, and more instances where it is simply ignored, or set up in a way to get desired results, more attacks on the scientists themselves and reshaping or ignoring their reports from farm chemicals to global warming to fisheries, and the confusion of conflicting results often obtained merely to obfuscate unwanted results. We also note funding continues for studies that are clearly based on past knowledge since discredited yet providing convenient results for partisan announcements, like the repeated forest carbon studies that don’t measure soil carbon and then announce trees can’t help with global warming or increased greenhouse gases.
So it is with the forest fungi. President Bush announced this week a proposal to use some kind of super fungi to create a gasoline substitute from cellulose. We know folks have been working on this for a while but it came out of the blue and had very little supporting information. We probably don’t care too much if the fuel at the pump is from a new source if we can drive away.
Similarly, reading the Peaceful Valley Farm Supply spring catalogs, which I haven’t done in years, reveals many “new” organic pest controls, a few new drip options (compared to a decade ago), some fungi inoculants but little else really different. One thing they did carry was Paul Stamens new book. Paul is probably one of the leading lights on growing fungi and bringing new species into cultivation. However, most of his work deals with the commercial aspects of growing decomposer fungi. Mycorhizzia is difficult to grow because of its nutritional regime. In our own thinking we have learned a great deal from Paul as well as David Aurora’s Mushrooms Demystified, and more generalized readings following them. They point out the amazing diversity and abilities of forest fungi, like standing on a ridge and pointing out an entire unknown valley spread out before them.
This is the point where commercial thinkers start to see some potential for new products or medicines in individual species. Reductionism has done much to provide new products from life forms but has not done as well adapting natural systems, the problem being that reduction leads away from seeing interconnectedness and evolving parameters and interactions over time, such as succession, repression and opportunism. Yet the biome rests on these basic principles, and we can see the same mechanisms at work in any forest, field farm or lawn, and since the dawn of life on earth.
For these reasons we are very disappointed in the direction of research at PNW (Pacific Northwest Reaseach station of the Forest Service in Corvallis. This is the area so much great info has come from, including luminaries like James Trapp. The station itself seems to be dedicated to understanding cultivation of forest mushrooms for economic gain, mainly as food. The scope of the thinking is so misdirected that it is stunning. All we can provide is lumber and a few edible mushrooms? What about all the industrially significant enzymes created by fungi? What about the mycelium pulsating to the seasonal beat and depositing glomalin to ensure water supplies? How does a diminishing supply affect macro issues like forestry, fish, landsliding and wildfire? We have shown that glomalin can illustrate exactly what is lost from natural systems when development occurs. We have shown the critical importance of glomalin in soil stability, and how to prevent or minimize future problems, and that this issue goes a long way toward cleaning up our heavily sedimented rivers.
After almost two years of writing no better solution than paying for carbon storage seems available. We need to pay people to grow big trees and keep them growing. Since most North Coast restoration money is coming from oil wells in the Santa Barbara wetlands it would seem industry should take this next step, providing more rural money for restoring the natural infrastructure of our nation. Carbon dioxide capture is what built the value into the landscape when the whites arrived. We have been on an ignorant path of unraveling the scheme in many ways and are only beginning to figure it out after all these years. Yet we find plenty of occurrences where natural instinct, rule of thumb and common sense have noted the limlts and stayed within the basic rules of sustainability. In the twentieth century we have lost a lot of that, yet we know beaver trappers were not concerned with aquifer health, or loss of glomalin in the Eastern forest where water storage is not as critical issue as in the West, so there is a lot of built in cultural ignorance.
Now we know what works and what is hurting us, and we can put these together for a positive solution time tested by nature. The large amounts of greenhouse gases are there for the taking. We must consider this something that will not recur regularly once the causes are understood and controls go into place. Everything we have learned about accelerated growth rates is temporary based on fluctuations. If we control the amount of emissions, rethink land use and BMP’s to reduce the amount of glomalin destruction, and harness natures growing ability to provide clean air and water as well as food, then the CO2 concentrations will fall Good examples are in China, where deserts are shrinking due to massive tree planting schemes, and the Sahel region where similar projects have been ongoing for years. We note in both cases invading deserts have been contained, showing these areas get enough rainfall but had lost their ability to store it in the biological zone. Tree planting means restoring the glomalin and the longer it can be left to its own devices the better the outcome.
Make no mistake, this is enough to do for an entire century. Forest improvement stands ready to take advantage of new practices and some are awaiting enough interest to actually happen. One example is inoculation of seedlings by many varieties of mycorhizzia, which has reportedly led to spectacular above ground results in tree growth. Soil moisture must be understood a property of glomalin deposition and accumulation, sedimentation as its unraveling and destruction.
Glomalin is not the only issue demanding attention. Sudden Oak Death threatens several species with heavy damage, but has been found as a minor pest in many other species, including Doug fir, redwood, California bay, madrone and many others. So far there is little discussion on overall forest health. Yet it would appear nearly every species is experiencing leaf spots and other signs of low level infection. The question is how much will this slow overall forest productivity? Will this loss lead to slower recovery of glomalin deposits? That is to say, are we about to witness a decline in the forests ability to regrow itself?

190. Water

2006-02-24T14:15:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court has taken up a challenge to the Clean Water Act of 1972 brought by Michigan developers who say the law overextends its authority, and denying them the rights to develop in areas designated wetlands. Justices to Study Scope of '72 Clean Water Act
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-scotus21feb21,1,3144888.story?coll=la-news-environment
In an article written by their staff writer David G. Savage on February 21 the LA Times illustrates developers and industry’s continued attempts to roll back progressive legislation for protecting the environment. The cases involve filling in wetlands for development, and the key to these arguments is the extent of navigable rivers and who has authority in those areas far from rivers big enough for boats. No where in the article is any of the fill considered non=point pollution, the heart of TMDL (total maximum daily load) regulations. As we have seen over and over, it is not what happens on a nice day that matters, it is what happens in large weather events. We can be sure large events will move fill out of wetland areas and into streams as that is the nature of sediment transport. We also know wetlands are wetlands because flow in the area exists as surface water, which will probably be converted into runoff through land management and roofing and paving. This is why we support the concept of builders taking care of runoff from heavy events in the planning. Storm water systems just deliver contaminated runoff into naturally healthy environments. Sand vaults and percolation zones should be part of altered drainages.
Now it is a known fact that every inch of land is in one watershed or another and we must sacrifice some natural environment for development. That doesn’t mean every situation should be a challenge to or from developers. It also means developers are learning to live within the rules as laid down. Rules prevent us from damaging our ecosystem and impinging on our neighbors. If developers could cause no net harm they may find less opposition.
These arte closely watched cases due to the arrival of new Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito and is their first environmental test. One week in and already they have abortion and development cases that will probably be an indication of what is to come. We don’t expect rollbacks of state rules under this lawsuit but we can be sure challenges will continue.

Long time onsite retention champion Jim Marple has kindly posted a list of references for Best Management Practices for collecting and storing rainfall on the Waterforum Newsgroup, run by Rockware, a storm water management company and publisher also of Erosion Control magazine. He has argued our water systems are hugely inefficient and that we have created a huge bureaucracy and infrastructure to do something that should be far less capital intensive and only benefits operators and beneficiaries while putting simple solutions far out of reach. He has taken lots of flak over the years and tirelessly crusades against complicated solutions to a simple problem- how do we manage precipitation?
To complete our examination of this issue this week we look at CO2 Science magazine’s article on Soil Moisture (Climate Model Inadequacies (Soil Moisture) – Summary) http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/subject/m/summaries/inadeqsoil.jsp . After several years of writing them we couldn’t be more disappointed, not in the study but much more in the Editors Summary, since they are critiquing soil moisture experiments and no one even mentions glomalin. The article is riddled with unknowns that make the authors appear not to have read glomalin articles listed on their own site. Attributing an increase in available water to stomata closures from increasing CO2 would seem less important of an issue than how much volume of moist soil is available to for the dry season. The research done appears to be legacy thinking in an area where new ideas are as abundant as fungi in the forest, and the clear picture provided is still out of focus without bringing all possible light to bear. This is where HSU needs to start, not in identifying species or getting snapshot counts or single reading glomalin studies. We need long-term experiments that can handle many species to get an idea of soil conditioning by living systems and their waste products.
In the same they recover a bit issue River Runoff: The Effect of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N8/EDIT.jsp and illustrate why there should be more fresh water available but again miss the long term picture of the vegetation conditioning the soil to absorb water. River flows are meaningless without historic land use (glomalin destruction) patterns and the duration and cover species on site (glomalin deposition). These forces are constantly at odds in today’s world yet they are responsible for all connected water issues.

189. Logging in the Third World

2006-02-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

Five articles about logging in AFP/Yahoo today, starting with another mountain collapse from deforestation, in the Philippines again The next article covers farmers invading burnt forest land faster than the government can control. The landslide potential is enormous, the loss of tropical forest harsh for water and air quality, the lifestyle marginal. The third article tells of the huge Asian market for tropical woods and the immense trade in illegal timber. Then after a discussion of Vietnams situation the fourth article again explains the worthlessness of timber tagged sustainable. In the fifth article, we may perhaps see a glimmer of hope that some companies are willing to cooperate in establishing guidelines in the Third World. I could end this with links to the several articles about Greenland’s glaciers melting at an accelerated rate, as a cause and effect item, or continued drought in southwestern Europe and East Africa. As far as the Greenland articles go, they are concerned with rising sea levels. Nature this week has an article about higher delivery of fresh water from rivers than previously recorded. I believe this would be from glomalin destruction from land use shrinking the soils capacity to retain precipitation. Taken together we could be seeing a change in salinity and circulation in the ocean, which could conceivably bring about the kind of climate event that changes the course of history.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060217/wl_asia_afp/philippineslandslide_060217222927Landslide engulfs Philippine village, up to 1,700 feared dead
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060217/sc_afp/environmenttimber_060217162619;_ylt=AgQs.m7xzXly7ETS7XwF2dbPOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--Forest destruction leaves Indonesian farmers facing landslide risk
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060217/sc_afp/environmenttimbertrade_060217173245;_ylt=ApauQBT.VIx2igXlLv8SDbXPOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
Saving tropical forests: will Europe's "Jack" fell Asia's "giant"?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060217/sc_afp/environmenttimbervietnam_060217172654;_ylt=Anw30n_TrdEkhXl1rmCVdbTPOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--Timber industry looks farther afield after ravaging Vietnam
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060217/sc_afp/environmenttimber_060217172925;_ylt=Ai.Mv1jrr.JyjnYrRZ_W9AjPOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
China out to polish woodwork in Central Africa

188. Opportunity Cost

2006-02-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

The Mattole Salmon Group is celebrating tis 25th anniversary this weekend with a meal and music at the Mattole Grange Saturday night, $15 a meal or $5 for music only. Anyone who has never been to one of these local fundraisers would be amazed at the importance of these little parties in a small isolated community. The young people especially appreciate the chance to hear live music and have something to do. Generally there are older folks for the meal and busy people get a chance to meet and do before the entertainment gets underway. The Mattole Grange and the Community Center deserve special thanks for providing facilities over the years.
The Mattole Salmon Group was founded to return salmon to the Mattole River. When it became clear upland conditions were part of the cause of salmon decline, Freeman House split and formed the Mattole Restoration Council to improve up slope conditions as a necessary prerequisite to stable in stream conditions. While the Salmon Group stayed focused on fish the Restoration Council began tree planting, seed gathering, industrial timber monitoring, road closures and eventually Good Roads Clean Creeks in order to reduce sedimentation.
Now we are beginning to see returns on our work. Last year it was reported that the run was about one third of the historical salmon runs, 3500 chinook and 1500 coho. No steelhead numbers were given but I believe our fishery is about to stand on its own two feet again. This is significant because the Klamath run is likely to be very poor this year, probably from a multitude of factors including dams, low water, poor regeneration several years ago, too few spawners the last two years, minimal upwelling by last years spring winds making poor food chain conditions in the sea offshore. Of course, all these are also subject to natural cycles in fish populations still poorly understood. The Colombia is having its worst runs ever while the Sacramento is having a run of historic proportions.
Redwood Reader has repeatedly stated that forest regeneration is the key both to late summer low flows and reduction of sediment in streams, and that fish will return when these conditions are met. SO it is with relief we see Pacific Lumber has decided Douglas fir lands do not meet its business model and cannot be profitably harvested. There is a good reason Douglas fir land is about a thousand per acre, while redwood lands are about 10,000 an acre, comparable to grape land. This, if it covers the Mattole holdings, and there is plenty of reason to believe it does, eliminates the last industrial threat to the Mattole. We have earlier asked BLM and MRC to weigh in on THP’s that would deliver sediment to the overburdened estuary. I have also presented the facts of glomalin to PL during their Mattole Watershed Analysis, and it would seem to be the basis of their decision, coupled with reaffirmed authority of the Water Quality Control Board to exercise its power over logging. With a huge chunk protected for stream buffers and steepness, terrible soil and climate conditions for road building and maintenance, limited value of the lumber itself, about half the value of redwood, the planning and permit processes and a bunch of negative publicity, PL has done the right thing by any business standard. Unfortunately, that is result of not developing a better business plan.
I don’t like to pretend I know what they are up to, but 60, 000 acres at 1000 per is about 60 million dollars, a little more than two interest payments. Perhaps the amount to pay off will go down a bit if the land is sold. The other 160,000 acres of redwood are valued at up to 10,000 an acre, about 1.6 billion dollars, and the fir is about 3.6% of the value of the timberlands. For this reason we had hoped PL would see the need for new markets for forest management, use their scientific expertise to draw out operational facts and move into the 21st Century with an income and a plan for marginal forest lands, and their political capital to power through new regulations that not only provide lasting habitat and water supplies, but annual income for carbon farming. Instead, they have bailed, and like the Forest Service are paying annual costs by selling capital assets.
We feel this would have been the time to negotiate for carbon sequestration at a time when the Governor has launched his million home solar initiative along with other measures to reduce greenhouse emissions. It is imperative we come up with a plan to clean the atmosphere, acknowledge that our problems on the ground can be mitigated by taking action on the atmosphere, that millions of dollars in restoration and preservation are a hindrance to the economy, that wild lands need income to remain in healthy conditions, and that the private market for carbon sequestering should pay for all of it, and that government and big business are needed to make it happen, and that this is a rare opportunity to rectify damage from past practices. We can make use of the aerial fertilization effect on a grand scale and hopefully we would see a reduction in atmospheric gases as regulators cap industrial emissions and on the ground practices restore the landscape while there is an abundance. We will also have an abundance of understanding when it comes to the environmental cost of development.
For this reason we are disappointed yet ecstatic to see the new chair at HSU dedicated to redwood forestry. With the amount of material in this blog alone we could keep people busy for fifty years without doing the reductionist thing species by species and organ by organ. We need the picture of a forest as a system, a community of different individuals with jobs, families and a building pattern that makes the environment a healthier place for its residents. We also point out the need to understand subsoil communication via pheromones, succession, suppression in the different life stages, manipulation of systems, individual modifications into more useful products and quantification of carbon and water storage. A lot of work is being done and HSU needs to come up to speed if it wants to be on the cutting edge studying its own local resources.
The opportunity cost is the melting of the Artic sea ice and glaciers around the world, continued habitat loss, heightened fire danger, less water availability and less air cleansing, and failure to provide jobs and income in rural areas that don’t degrade the environment while not getting our own house in order.

187. Palco, USFS lands go on market

2006-02-12T01:36:00.000-08:00

Pacific Lumber offers to sell 60,000 acres
Environmental groups may bid for forest land
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/11/BUGCOH6SVN1.DTL
PALCO reacts to allegations of liquidation by Kara D. Machado, 2/10/2006
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=8352
Two important land sale issues popped up Friday. The first is the report of Pacific Lumber selling about a quarter of their timber holdings. They characterize the lands as ranchland and comparatively unproductive Douglas fir lands, retaining the core redwood lands. Douglas fir lands are worth maybe a thousand an acre, while redwood commands grape like prices in the range of ten thousand an acre. Redwood is worth roughly double Douglas fir per board foot per thousand. Douglas fir has the additional expense of replanting for best recovery, although blocks are cut for natural reseeding. And it is Douglas fir growing in the steep wet coastal valleys most susceptible to road failure and mass wasting that results in road building costing 34000 dollars per mile.
These Douglas fir lands are the very heart of my experiences in restoration studies concerning the fungal by product glomalin and its role in landscape stability. Douglas fir is the best suited vegetative cover in the high rainfall areas outside the redwood zone, especially to the west of the redwoods. With a large percentage of acres off limits due to streamside buffers and steepness rules, why should PL pay taxes on or maintain these lands? Unfortunately these lands will lose the trained oversight now provided by the company to multiple owners with varying agendas. Some will hopefully go to environmentally minded concerns.
This taken together with the gloomy report in Northcoast Journal about our economic woes just points up the need for more serious planning. We have repeatedly called for an easy way for local landowners to be paid for set asides for carbon sequestration. Prior plans did not account for ground storage of fungal by products, which can be up to forty percent of annual photosynthetic production, and is not necessarily all lost once a tree is cut. Sixty thousand acres at 100 dollars per year would be six million in income. A hundred dollars an acre per year could be enough to do TSI an fire safety and do the maintenance and improvements that would be part of an ongoing concern, a long term ag project using trees to clean the air, now that global warming is upon us. Like bandwidth, carbon storage is an invisible asset that should be creating its own opportunities in the open market and returns for forest land owners.
For the same reason we see the Forest Service proposal to sell timberlands to meet road and school money issues as the worst way to make sure no child is left behind. The school will be the only thing left in their town. And selling capital assets to meet annual expenses is just bad business. The people deserve better than this on every level. We would lose the professional oversight America has invested in. We would lose our opportunity to do something about taking some carbon out of the air for the benefit of water and wildlife concerns, a win-win-win situation. Again, selling off those carbon storage rights could pay this bill every year while requiring no new effort at all, only guarantees against clear cuts and unnecessary road building. We also point out that management for carbon storage does not gain as much by having contiguous parcels and the worry about that becomes less of an issue.
Timber is not dead but timbering rugged wild lands is too costly to continue. Another source of revenue must open up or these lands will fall further into decline. A program of paying for carbon storage will see a return of streams and fisheries, more wildlife habitat, less dangerous runoff, more late summer water, and jobs that can not be exported. Out of the area money will pay for the right to manage these lands properly and the pressure will come off the trees to justify owning TPZ lands.
A tax could be placed on this income to cover lost timber tax revenue. As a withholding tax it might never be missed as the entire check is a bonus to the landowner anyway and will generate income tax as well. This would be collected every year on every acre in the program, rather than just those harvested that year. That would be a lot more stable for schools and roads.
We have laid out a relatively cheap and easy screening program in our earlier Carbon Credits article that could give a sense of the scale of opportunity here. Public agencies should be able to take advantage of these opportunities as well and gain some non-budget discretionary funds for local improvements.
Humboldt County has the scientific clout to quantify the actual amount of carbon stored using the formula that includes glomalin. While we can be sure of what is occurring, there is plentry of science left to do concerning accumulation, depth of deposition, the effect of soil glue at varying degrees of slope and so forth. Since I started this blog two years ago the number of hits for glomalin has gone from 12 to over 14,000. USDA, starting with just a couple of press releases, lists 826 papers that mention glomalin and Mattias Rillig at the University of Montana (invited visitor school of HSU Forestry Club several years ago) is publishing something new almost every month, much of it concerning glomalin and other causes of aggregation in soils, including forests. This is a huge amount of research money that directly affects us and no one even seems aware of the lost opportunity.
Humboldt County needs to get its economic footing back, and the heart of wealth is land. Timber, even heavily regulated, is still going to out pay carbon storage in prime locations and these will remain productive for the foreseeable future. But the rest of us can greatly benefit from using our understanding of our natural setting and applying it to some really difficult problems we face as a community, a nation and globally.

186. Redwoods and Fungi

2006-02-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

This blog was named Redwood Reader because I drive through the redwoods on the way to my experimental site, which is just over the hill from Rockefeller Forest. However, most of my writing has been about Douglas fir, as the main constituent of the properties. When I realized Douglas fir and redwood had many common properties, I stuck with generalities. However, I have collected a mountain of material on soils and other components of redwood forest that are often searched for when folks find Redwood Reader.
Soil Ecology and the Redwoods, Dr Paul Zinke, 1964, gives a fine account of the limitations of the redwood zone focusing on soils and water. He explains the role of fog but an even more important point is comparison of late summer soil moisture to spring levels. He also points out the likelihood of Douglas fir to invade poorer sites, which may be an indicator of mycorhizzia influence on the landscape.
Searching for more information I found the Las Pilatas Nursery's on-line encyclopedia articles on soils, hardpan, compaction, native ecosystem restoration and mycorhizzia helpful. I gave a local flavor to the articles posted by Zelnick and Sons at www.chesco/treeman.com. It also matched up well with data from OSU about the role of mycorhizzia fungi in forest ecosystems and food webs. I could see dozens of species of fungi on the ground, let alone go digging for those fruiting underground, which is an amazingly busy place as it is.
The role of fog is an issue that also needs better quantification. After giving fog high marks for acting like summer rain, it occurred to me that the ground is often wet beneath certain Doug fir trees, the tall ones, and that not much of it seemed to penetrate the ground either. While I don't live in the South Fork of the Eel River, sixty inches of fog drip across the whole landscape is just way too high an estimate. Also, it does seem to be a regular feature, and in this way maybe we can make sense of the fact that shallow roots on thin soils may count on capturing more fog because it doesn't go as deep as other tree species. As a member of a community, lateral rooting over large areas together with soil li8mitations give rise to an alternate dry season strategy, perhaps older than the deeper penetration of various other species. I would put Douglas fir in a middle category, with an eye toward the percentage that seem to have large roots that grow downward almost like a tap root- maybe ten percent. Douglas fir is a newer species in the scale of time and seems to have taken advantage of many different ways of adapting and enhancing its environment.
A good idea of the state of mycological research in ectomycorhizzia forest systems can be found at http://www.mykoweb.com/ in the series of articles Mycorrhizas. by Steve Trudell. All five articles give a lot of clues about where new research might look, for example, dual fungi mycorhizzias, snow plant suppression of certain species, possibly showing suppressant or pheromonal response below ground to species, and the fact that most forest systems have not yet been studied. It is clear there is a mountain of work to do, some essential and some just there to be done. He concludes with a statement that extra radical expression of the fungi in the environment is the next step.
We can say for certain this would include glomalin, and hopefully reveal its nature as a soil component, its role along with bacteria and other soil organisms in the creation of aggregates which have the effect of available water storage and soil stability. Glomalin surveys will not tell us what species are current but shows the amount of biodeposited material contained in the soil. We now know its universal presence but in question are the depth of deposits and the rate of decay. Seven to ten years are sufficient to regrow ground cover and provide at least a surface glomalin layer. Rilligs' research is showing higher rates of deposition at the deeper soil levels. This would seem to support my contention that deeper layers of glomalin in the soil do not get replenished by the new growth, leaving Douglas fir region clear-cuts prone to slides decades after the ground has been recovered by greenery. This in particular is why I avoided redwoods, as stump sprouting further complicates the picture, with diminished capacity for feeding subsoil food webs. We see this touched on tangentially in Part Five, about the mechanisms that drive fruiting. Finally, glomalin may be seen as a biofilm created by a community of organisms for the benefit of all
The Scottish forest modellers also included ergosterol in their study. This is interesting. Ergosterol, a precursor of Vitamin D, plays a similar role to cholesterols in animal cells, forming the cell walls in fungi. By quantifying ergosterol in the soil the researchers are able to get a snapshot of recent fungal activity, varying in the study by the month. Glomalin, a residual product sloughed off and durable in the soil, shows fungal activity over time. A steady 3 mg/l were found, in the range of the initial field crops reports and way below the 15 mg/l in the wild borders of the fields, or the 100 mg/l found in volcanic soils in Hawaii. but then the story breaks down because no soil profile delimits the depth of deposition, no depth of sample or age of area under study are given. We need long term observations and at varying depths to find the optimal point at which we can begin thinking about sustainable harvests and exportable water.
The health of a forest ecosystem is also dependant on the number and nature of the individuals that make it up. We see that several species of native phytophthera do not aggressively attack oak and tanoak stands like p.ramorum. Is the new species the problem, or is it taking advantage of a relatively new scheme of things in the coastal forests? It is not possible to state the nature of infected sites but there is a good chance not much remains in the way of the original relationships between plants. It seems quite likely Sudden Oak Death would have more trouble in old growth, like so many other invasive species taking advantage of sudden changes in conditions. Then again chestnut and potato blight spread with ease. Many of these will run rampant until some normal limiting factor kicks in- a cold summer, drought, flooding, shade, salt water, fresh water, a return of naturally suppressant species. The one factor limiting SOD I have read is that none appears in areas that have burned in the last fifty years or so, certainly questionable and a good place to start in the field of ideas. I am searching for my list of mycorhizzia associated with redwood.

185. Glomalin in Forest Software, Kenneth Fisher Chair created at HSU

2006-02-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

Modelling an Untended Scottish Forest Ecosystem
Utilising Standard and Customised Softwarehttp://www.iemss.org/iemss2002/proceedings/pdf/volume%20tre/411_krivtsov.pdf.
Modelling an Untended Scottish Forest Ecosystem
Utilising Standard and Customised Software
Two important developments in our efforts to educate the public in a new way of seeing forests and land use in general came to our attention this week. As has been our aim to convince people a key component, glomalin, has been missing in discussions over land use, especially as relates to erosion control, and in the carbon and water cycles. We have tracked this story since 2002 and written nearly two years about incorp0orating this important discovery into natural resource and land management issues. It also is a key factor in climate change issue but offers solutions and opportunities at nearly every step.
The first is the first report I have seen incorporating glomalin as simply a parameter in a forested setting, just as we’d hoped. Of course we can talk about a wide variety of approaches to the mountains of unknowns to the countables, as soil fungi surveys show. Glomalin is included in the computer modeling. This is an important advance as land managers of different stripes learn from each other. The researchers have included various sampling soil markers,:
Their golas were to collect forest ecosystem data, using customizable software to observe
quantifiable interactions, and create a dynamic model capable of representing different aspects of the ecosystem.
This shows the need for technical expertise, as glomalin extraction alone is a difficult laboratory process, several other procedures are called for, data needs entry into meaningful equations and the results need to be at least intellectually and scientifically useful.
At the same time, trained professionals are often too close to their own specialty to see larger systems, and we often see research that wouldn’t occur if some of this knowledge were already widely known. We see need for solutions and for clear understanding of what is at stake in land, forest, fish, wildlife, and air-and water-quality issues. So we keep on plugging. Many thanks to www.blogspot.com for hosting this site, our only contribution.
Modelling an Untended Scottish Forest Ecosystem
Utilising Standard and Customised Software
S.J.J. Walkera, R. Watlingb, H.J. Stainesa, A.Garsidea, D. Knottb, J.W. Palfreymana and V. Krivtsova
“• Estimation of total microbial biomass through differences in Abs 280nm levels between fumigated and control samples.
• Estimation of fungal biomass utilising the biomarkers Glomalin and Ergosterol.
• Estimation of bacteria numbers.
• pH of soil.
• Soil and surface litter composition.
• Leaf decomposition (using mesh bags).
• Patterns of fungal succession from sporome observations.
Among the systems under investigation is estimation of fungal biomass utilising the fungal biomarkers, Ergosterol and Glomalin. By modelling the Glomalin subsystem, it may be possible to predict the extent of soil aggregation in different forests based on their tree and under story composition.”
The importance and presence of fungi and bacteria are clear from the outset of the study. Solid background data will need collection, and I would say depth of glomalin would be an essential component. It may be detectable through ground radar or other water moisure models, or simply coring a wide number of sites. Fungal identification may not be as important as overall abundance for various reasons depending on goals, but understanding succession and seasonality will require a lot of detective work, lots of it already collected and awaiting interpretation. We expect major improvements in forest growth once mycorhizzia inoculation becomes a serious area of research. The authors end: It is our feeling that Scottish forests should be managed in a more natural way, to improve conservation and attract rare species of fungi. The attraction of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to areas of clear felling and grassland may reduce soil erosion and improve conditions for sustainable crop growth.
In general, the results of this study will enhance our understanding of forest ecosystem dynamics and hopefully improve management practices to reduce human impact on the environment. Timber production in Scotland will double over the next 15 years to nearly 8 million m3 per year [Forestry Commission, statistics published on the internet]. With some adaptation, the models may be applied to those forest areas where intense management is practiced. With further adaptaion, the models may also be applied to temperate forests in general.
And then, the announcement of biology professor Stephen Stillet as the new Kenneth L. Fisher Chair position at HSU to study Redwood Forest Ecology!
A Chariman Among the Treetops http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3476331
The Times-Standard 02/04/06 HSU forestry alumnus Kenneth L. Fisher, founder and CEO of Fisher Investments, donated an investment fund of 3.2 million dollars in order to earn $90,000 a year for the position, for at least two years. He did this because he feels there is a lot to learn yet about the redwood forest. It allows one professor to do research as well as hire several graduate students. We are certain that our information, a dedicated team and that kind of money will get results worth writing home about. We of course, would like to see a bunch of folks take this opportunity to open discussion and start funding projects, and seeing the possibilities of technology transfer that are opening up in supplying necessary microbes for optimal growth in good conditions and competitive advantage in stressful situations, like drought, and glomalins critical role at the crux of the soil, atmosphere and precipitation regimes. We point out that much of the research so far started with USDA money, and Rillig worked under DOE contracts for several years. The number of hits on glomalin now exceeds 14,000 (we started at twelve) and there is plenty of private interests, like Save-the-Redwoods, that fund studies. An immense amount of work is waiting interest, including cataloguing the observations listed collections like the Humboldt Mycological Society’s proceedings in the HSU libraries. We have said before this discovery may well yield research, departments and industries.

184.Storm damage, Style, Water Board Authority

2006-02-03T23:50:00.000-08:00

(I apologize for losing the formatting tools. I'll figure it out sooner or later.)
While our little experiment in one portion of the Mattole River drainage may not be huge, the lessons provided are there for all to see. So it is with the roads in Hoopa, subject of a story in the Times-Standard this week. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3467995 . There was so much damage from the New Years storm they have not even been able to assess conditions off the main roads. Pictures of failed roads along rivers indicate vast new influxes of sediment into an already distressed river. This bodes ill for warm water season, as storms of that magnitude should be scouring sediment out to sea and improving in stream conditions. The new influx will not only fill in any pool building already occurring but will bleed sediment for some time until repairs and healing can take effect. The tribe would do well to look at the rolling dip model of road maintenance rather than level grading, which necessitates in board ditches, culverts and necessitates seasonal scraping adding to the up-slope destabilized sediment in the watershed. A little knowledge can go a long way, and times of big damage are times to reassess.
Storm damage in the Arcata Community Forest came from blow-down. Interestingly, it is the model used by Forest Planners in the first place and so wasn't a total surprise, although Nature has a way of letting us be right even when we are wrong. So the damage came from an unexpected direction and was limited to a specific elevation range. This was similar to a storm about ten years ago that took out most of the large black oaks on the north facing side of the hill. An unusually warm fall, heavy rain, sudden freeze and then a wind storm, and the damage was done before the storm concluded with snow. These trees all turned up their roots so we also lost their ability to stump sprout. We applaud the managers for careful planning and good decisions, and recognizing dollars are not the primary function of forests. http://www.times-standard.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=3464203
Climate Prediction Center reported Thursday water temperatures in the North Eastern Pacific were cool and indicating a La Nina in the coming months. La Nina is the opposite of El Nino and usually indicates cool wet weather in the Northwest and drier than normal conditions in the Southland. We are basically on the edge and could go either way. I am not sure how this affects upwelling but I am sure they are related. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3472222
We continue to be depressed over the style used in global warming issues. The unrelenting headlines tell us no amount of land management can influence the issue. The english, especially, make some pronouncement about once a month repeating this, as if to say we are only causing problems with industrial emissions. Last month the argument was that trees emit methane as they grow. The tree is entirely composed of material gathered from the atmosphere and the emission is a tiny fraction of the biomass. Yet they multiplied the methane by the size of standing forest, took no account of subsoil activity inside their gas collection apparatus and as usual, took pains to be clear that this was a problem with no solution. We couldn't disagree any more. This is similar to a blurb in the Advocate showing marijuana users are in twice as many accidents. All the way at the end and not in the release was the statement that alcohol users are six times more likely to be involved in traffic accidents, and we applaud the Advocate for reminding us of the power of spin and misdirection.
This leads us to George Clarks rant on Harvesting Humboldt’s lifestyle, a personal issue of longstanding interest, and goes directly to Arcata’s attempts to challenge corporate personhood. It is hard to say where America would be without the durability, financing and teamwork. We could argue whether we'd be better off. But a whole mountain of protection and privilege have gone to the corporate players at the expense of everything else. Every item along the way that impedes a corporations’ path is challenged, often with local support. We see Confusion HiIl and S.R. 299 closed again- is it in any large corporate interest to see these roads opened quickly, or to spend the money to permanently fix these problems. There will be if they find gold or some other valuable in sufficient quantity. And the gold could even be a market starved for certain commodities. In the meantime, we are a backwater with a nasty attitude and so capital rich outfits are really not interested. For many of us, that means our lifestyle options that brought us here remain intact.
Mr. Clarks piece is one of the new blogs that are currently the rage around town. The Times-Standard and the Northcoast Journal both seemed to discover local blogs a week or two ago. Also, Redwood Reader doesn't come up in a search of Humboldt in blog titles, although it appears in the description box. We hope someone will run a natural resources blog in a larger outlet locally. My most dedicated readers are in Japan, especially readers using the Western Red Cedar and Good Deck ISPs. Translating the ISPs home page shows how bad Internet translations can be, along with a high potential for humor. (TS Blogs)
We came here believing we could restore cutover and flood damaged lands to a stable and profitable landscape. It started with getting fish back in the stream and has led to many fields of activity and interest. However, we are dependant on climatic and ocean conditions for the fish themselves, and by all reports, bad things are occurring in the Pacific. Blamed mainly on lack of steady winds, the upwelling natural to the area has not been anywhere near normal. Upwelling circulates nutrients from the ocean floor back into the growth zone, where plankton feed and create the base of the food chain. No upwelling, less plankton, and all the following reports: Starving orcas in Puget Sound because the 100,000 normal salmon didn't arrive, thousands of dead cormorants and murres along the Washington/Oregon coast, glaucus seagulls hatching less than 100 birds, starving auks not mating in the Farallones, and hatched chicks being killed by their parents, a 90% decline in white sturgeon in the San Joaquin/Sacramento system in the last five years (from DFG reported on KTVU SF), delayed crab season in the North (interesting because in early December the TV report said Eureka crab were in good shape but with Crescent City included the crabs did not have enough meat. I am not sure but it looks like including the entire North Coast hurt Eureka crab fishermen disproportionately since the crab was good right from the beginning.)
Reading Frank Keating’s’ Hunting and Fishing column in the old Long Island Press throughout my youth taught me many marine species cycle through population boom and busts, and we saw several scares where species were disappearing and made strong comebacks, some by human interference and some by natural rhythms. So size restrictions on striped bass were put in place, but the fishery in NY recovered after PCBs were found to be the cause of the crash and restrictions put in place. Disappearance of blue claw crabs put an end to my crabbing days but when we visited in the early nineties there was a bumper crop. A hot debate was brewing over whether to return egg laden females to preserve the fishery with one side contending the bumper crop happened on its own and so there was no need for regulation. Good guys returned the females but where was the science? It is also likely the bumper crop had more to do with conditions in other parts of the coast further south.
We applaud the State Supreme Court ruling giving the Water Quality Control Board jurisdiction over projects that impair water quality throughout the State. We note that PL has complied with this order voluntarily in contested regions. PL claimed they were within all legal guidelines by following CDF. The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed that argument because the Forest Practice Act doesn't limit another state agency’s jurisdictions. http://www.northcoastjournal.com/020206/news0202.html

183. Rain Damage Assessment, Four MIle

2006-01-30T13:07:00.000-08:00

I have a report of a new crack in the ground on our land. Related by a relative new person, it was described as running downhill between two small tributaries. This in an area where our major problem have been scarping, which occurs parallel to the creek. This new crack is described as perpendicular to the creek, so I suspect we are talking about a new “mystery” gulley probably the result of drainage changes higher up the hill. This is to be expected to some extent after this summers road work and probably new building above us as well.
The side creek crossings have held up very well. The two major creek crossings are also in good shape and a testimony to careful rock armoring, all done by hand. A new batch of boulders had to be shoved out of the way once the water receded, some years we repeat that activity all wet season. All in all the new work is handling a medium heavy winter in fine style.
Public notices in the paper report Bob and Val Stansbury have completed an agreement with Save-the Redwoods and BLM. The Stansburys have been operating on the land since the thirties. Bob has an encyclopedic knowledge of local landscapes. They had some concerns about the Redwoods to the Sea Wildlife Corridor, which was always accessible to them before it became public property. Negotiations have been ongoing for quite a while. Bob had concerns over his access and water rights for his cattle. SRL was trying to make sense of the scattered parcels acquired from Eel River Sawmills. Sections of the Community Management Plan restrict activities they have always enjoyed, and we are grateful they see the public good in the project. According to the notice, thirty acres are going to BLM, and there will be no net loss of agricultural grazing lands. I hired Bob several years ago for Cat work, and he put me on to Scott Downey of DFG. Scott had habitat typed Middle Creek. I asked him to visit and for recommendations. He suggested a sediment inventory. I carried this back to Freeman House, Executive Director of Mattole Restoration Council, and Good Roads Clean Creeks developed from there. Salute to all!
On the same subject we see a completely different picture across the state line where BLM has a mandate for supporting local community interests. I have mentioned before the extent of the Eugene region plan from 1998 and the vast amount of topics they must be responsible for as well as responsive to the needs of the community. There isn’t much call for protections under those conditions. Nevertheless, the report on damage to the landscape after salvage logging the Biscuit Fire calls for better protections on the ground, not of cash flow. Particularly galling was the accidental cutting of live old growth inside a biological preserve. We know that the ground is fragile in the first place, and burned ground is far more fragile since its water retention properties are being destroyed.
Reed of the Mattole Salmon Group returned the family water-monitoring device. I was getting edgy about it and a little pressure from my brother to be sure it was being cared for. Libby of MRC was with him. They caught me between loads moving a trailer and I didn’t get to visit as I would have liked but I did ask about operations this year. The rescue rearing had gone well and was completed in October. This involves raising fish from waters that will go dry, mostly Bear Creek as I recall. The other big issue was to test declining flows in the Upper Mattole. Reed was the person on it, but there was more water in the streams this year. IN fact, water where none had been for fifteen years prompted a temporary stoppage and an incompletion (I think) on the lower crossing. A boulder dam forcing water into the old channel was agreed upon but I think they didn’t quite finish. Coulda been l money or other reasoning but all in all I am happy. And of course, one good project points up the need for others, as well as presenting opportunities.
Driving through HRSP last week I noticed how bad the sides of Bull Creek had been washed, with bare ground and piles of alder trees on the right side between the redwoods and the rangers’ house. I also noticed a little further upstream, in the area of the plunge pool project; this did not seem to be the case at all. Perhaps it is the extent of the project, or perhaps Cuneo Creek caused it to jump the banks. This little experiment may just prove a major insight into benefits of restoration activity. I personally feel that it does little good to restrict corrective activities or to preserve damaged lands and streams, and that more aggressive activity early leads to a more stable and profitable landscape sooner, as well as less need for work in the future. This is why I say restoration is not sustainable. We have learned the lessons of the last century and I suspect we will not see anything like the flood of 1964 simply because it is not possible to lay so many acres bare anymore. We will probably never see those conditions again. Plenty of other things can still go wrong but overbuilding forest roads will never occur on the same scale again. On the other hand, massive building in the floodplains behind failing levees in the Delta are almost certain to cause problems at some point, as is roofing and paving thousands of acres in areas prone to the occasional severe rain event. It wou8ld be good to figure out capture techniques for storage, underground or in tanks or bags. The demand for water is huge, we have more than enough, how can we make it work?

182. SOD eradication in Humboldt, Millenium Ecosystem Assessment

2006-01-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

California Oak Mortality Task Force sent a press release about imminent containment and eradication procedures for Sudden Oak Death in Southern Humboldt. This collaborative effort is a large scale experimental forest treatment centering on Humboldt Redwoods State Park lands just north of Miranda.
Collaborators include California State Parks, University of California Cooperative Extension, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council, and the USDA Forest Service.
The press release can be found at www.suddenoakdeath.org. It gives a summary of the situation explaining the critical importance of finding forest scale remedies for this problem. We note the possibility of undergrowth burning as a control, and remember the comment that there seemed to be less phytophthora in areas burnt less than fifty years ago. Fire maps may give some idea of likelihood of spread.
This project is in the Redwood to the Sea Wildlife corridor region. It has been a great year for the streams, many running all year that haven’t in years, or seemed to be drying up recently. But the very abundance of water and the rhododendron leave stream testing tell us the disease has probably gotten around a bit this winter. I have noted the critical importance of the canyon live oak in holding the landscape together. It is now under attack just over the hill. Also susceptible to death are tanoak and black oak, important wildlife foods, landscape community members and hosts to mycorhizzia fungi. Many native species are hosts or carriers with varying degree of damage to them short of death, including redwood, Douglas fir, madrone and most importantly California bay.
For more information about this project, contact Susan Doniger, District Interpretive Specialist with California State Parks at (707) 445-6547 x20; or Jay Harris, Senior State Park Resource Ecologist with California State Parks at (707) 445-7547 x 19; or Katie Palmieri, Public Information Officer for the California Oak Mortality Task Force (COMTF) at (510) 847-5482. For more information about Sudden Oak Death and Phytophthora ramorum, visit the COMTF website at www.suddenoakdeath.org.
Roadwork under Good Roads Clean Creeks held up very well throughout the storms so far. I stand corrected on responsible party for the road section through State Park lands- it is the County and not the Parks. I am not so certain about the stretch of road by the Rim Road. Anyway, the County is the level of governance we need to convince this new roadwork is a better solution for poor dirt roads where feasible because it doesn’t need scraping every year, which releases large amounts of sediment destined to wind up in the stream at some point. Annual scraping causes annual discharge. Also, level graded roads deteriorate from standing water causing potholes. Potholes don’t occur nearly as often on outsloped and dipped roads. This allows the streams to push clogging sediment downstream and for vegetative cover to establish a deep and durable soil community. We are aware of the needs for moving large loads, such as log trucks. These could be level graded at the start of a job and reshaped after the season or job, pretty much as they are required to do. The difference in putting the road back into rolling dips is the sediment savings from so much less scraping and elimination of berms, ditches, culverts and potholes.
The LA Times reported on the ‘Millenium Ecosystem Assessment prepared as a guide to the future. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-fg-future20jan20,0,1203827.story?coll=la-home-science. Commissioned by the United Nations, the work is a four-year effort by 1,300 scientists from 95 countries. They begin with ascenario without controls and suggest ways to improve the various aspects of a growing population through green technology and building. One stunning point was that as many buildings will be built this century as had been built in all of human history. We see calls for changes in agriculture but still no mention of improving soils, forest health, air- or water quality by growing large trees.
Another recent paper showed the positive effect of CO2 on ozone in the troposphere. While it is known CO2 enriched air allows plants to respond to deadly increases in ozone, this article showed that some ozone is changed into beneficial products in the atmosphere itself. That is to say, nature has the ability to correct imbalances of materials familiar to it. In order to provide for the expanding population we have to harness nature rather than trying to replace it. A recent article showing growing trees releasing methane may have found some. The picture seemed to be in the snow, of a little tree. The entire plant is a result of atmospheric gas capture, yet they are interested in the tiny amount emitted as methane. IT may well have been created in the soil in the wet season. This is part of the regular drumbeat of misinformation about the importance of forests to clean our air and provide the precipitation interface all life depends on.

!81.Jeep Trails and Weather

2006-01-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

We are awaiting the arrival of another front as I write this. In the period since my last post we experienced near and minor flooding and a high wind event with a 90 mph gust recorded in Eureka. More than two foot of rain has fallen in the last couple of weeks and the rivers reached flood stage. Of course this has played havoc on our landscape with the potential of severe damage to timber, roads and creeks. On the other hand, high wind cleans the forest and thins the weaker trees, puts high energy water into fluvial systems to push sediment downstream and cause pool building if and when the destabilized sediment delivered into the system is less than the amount the stream will move. Winter storms rejuvenate our watersheds and replenish them for the dry season ahead.
This week I drove out to Larrabee Buttes. Here the storm appeared to be just another winter event. I walked over a large chunk of land and found only a few toppled trees, most with the rootball attached and intact. They were mostly tanoak and a few Douglas fir. The only problem on the access road was at a spot on BLM lands that has been slipping for years ever since a private owner decided to cut a driveway in directly above a spring in an area already destabilized by deck building and high lead cable logging. This 100 foot stretch of road has fallen every year since and has fallen at least as foot since mid-November.
We have earlier established that Larrabee is in ggod condition compared to Middle Creek. There is no scarping, deeply cut stream beds or massive surface erosion. Here excess water pops out of the ground as piping in big events. That kind of water moves soil in Middle Creek, but the much less damaged landscape here handles as much water without the traumatic results. Not that we haven’t had erosion from plugged culverts and too much water in the road, but the regarding of the road to rolling dips has been a long term improvement at far less than the 34,000 dollars a mile PL spends building winterized roads. That figure must include engineering studies and rock surfacing and armoring. I also point out that the GRCC rolling dips are less vehicle friendly than those done by Angelini. The big difference being in the far side of the dip where long stretches of graded road flow back to the dip, whereas the GRCC dips are very high directly on the backside of the dip, preventing water from rolling back to the dip within its swale. These high dips are also the main complaint about the job, and we are dealing directly with this as we try to take some firewood out and are learning exactly what the neighbors are complaining about.
I have been informed a fairly substantial slide has occurred on the project road, but in the State Park lands near the beginning of the road. I already reported the two stretches of road in the Park were the only places water continues to run down the road, and that berms and inside ditches had been left in place as the Park opted out of GRCC and also refused to partake or let us operate in these stretches doing fuel reduction for the Fire Safe Council. This is not being a good neighbor. There are also complaints of Park personnel on private land at night.
Humboldt County has paid dearly for the ability to drive through its rugged and fragile landscape. What we are calling roads here are actually marked Jeep Trails on the maps. My experience is that about 90% of my four wheel drive time is on these roads. Most of the rest is just off these roads and associated with land management practices like wood cutting and gathering rock. Much of the year these roads are accessible to two wheel drive vehicles as well. However, there are few more destructive forces than a poor driver and vehicle on a jeep trail. So here are several pointers many of you are aware of. When you begin being responsible for your local road you will want everyone to behave in a manner friendly to making your expensive work last longer. Also, the people that cause the damage are not usually those most affected by it.
While it may be impossible to always make these trips in four wheel drive, it is essential the wheels are not spun. This digs holes in the road surface, a water collection point, a trail for water on the road surface, and destabilizes the roadbed if there is one. A few moments of wheel spinning can close a road and cost hundreds or more to repair. A knowing driver of even one wheel vehicles will choose his times for trips with a weather eye. He will drive slowly in a low gear. If there is a steep climb that cannot be crawled, he will put the car in a higher gear and floor it to get up the grade. One attempt will tell you if you will make it, or need to manage the road by building the spot up, adding traction, or digging, adding weight to the vehicle or abandoning the effort. Repeated attempts only cause more damage and often make extraction more difficult. Usually the stuck party has no interest in repairing the damage they cause.
Use Mud and Snow type tires for better traction. Many folks keep two sets of wheels for easy on easy off between summer driving and winter driving. We have had some success with chains in the mud, only to lose them a little further on due to rock surfaces. Standing water is a problem similar to paved roadways except you are not likely to drown. You cannot judge the depth or solidity of the bottom though, and we have seen many cars stuck in puddles with slick bottoms. Even walking on thick mud may give a false impression of how much weight it will hold.
Lots of folks are used to being the only ones one their road at certain times of the day. As an occasional visitor I keep my headlights on since there are many blind and vegetated corners and bends, and giving the oncoming traffic every chance to see you early is part of Watching Out For the Other Guy. I wish Mobile would update that series of commercials.
For now we are stuck with wheeled transportation. I sometimes wonder about the utility of a mini halftrack, or the 1908 decision to build roads rather than off road vehicles, allowing Henry Ford to produce five hundred dollar vehicles for the masses.
When driving roads like this, public or private, paved or not, your vehicle becomes a rolling repair crew and should be equipped as such. Downed trees are a big part of the story. Bow or pruning saws make excellent alternatives to chainsaws for those uncomfortable with them. Having a saw and a shovel in the vehicle covers most road emergencies. A length of chain will let you saw most of the way through a tree, and drag it out of the way with minimal effort and time. A few other things might be flashlights, rain gear, emergency food and water, and blankets or dry (warm) clothing.

180.Good Roads Clean Creeks Project Reviewed

2005-12-26T14:41:00.000-08:00

This summer Mattole Restoration Council implemented their Good Road Clean Creeks Project in our neighborhood. This is to address sediment delivery to Mattole tributaries primarily by improving subdivision roads and drainages and a small component of in stream rehabilitation- shifting Middle Creek away from the soil bluffs it undercuts and into the old channel away from the banks.
I drove in in a down pour over a very wet weekend. The road was in very good shape. All the water had been drained via large rolling dips. They may actually be a little high for large vehicles or trailers. The road is fairly steep for several miles and there is often no room for the back of tyhe dip to drain more than a few feet down the road before it is running the other way. A small section of road had minor water running down it near the Park, who may have opted out rather than have dips installed, I am not sure. The road is as good as it has been in years, but usually the level grading is gone by winters end and needs more work in one or two years. The rolling dips and out sloping should be good for quite a while.
Seeing the creeks in the Park were up I stopped at the top and hiked in, as there is no hope of crossing the creeks after big rain. I looked down from the bend in the road and was delighted to see the creek roaring in its new/old bed. The old bed still had water entering from the upper stream but was much reduced in volume and cutting power. Before, the soil bluffs were the left hand bank and the right hand banks was revegetating. Now both banks have established trees.
I moved down to the ford by the Magic Pool. The creek was high and ripping. You feel the power being right next to it. But here as in the section viewed before, the creek was in its channel. I doubled back up the hill and dropped down the other side, crossing the Upper Creek that now forms the waterfall. Much smaller than the creek it was still too wide to jump and the banks were steep and wet. The cat cut trail was extremely slippery and the Back Creek was also too wide to safely cross. We are talking about a lot of water.
I am still on the left side of the Creek but now I am downstream of the area I saw from above. Here looking downstream I see the creek has stayed in its channel, which is not usually the case. Vegetation grows along both banks to the waters edge and nothing even looks amiss. Some planted firs there are twenty-five years old. Redwoods are starting to appear in the brush. This area appears to be recovering nicely but it is part of the stretch that goes dry each year. There is also several side creeks entering the main stem here and the area has repeatedly blown out from large events uphill or upstream.
Moving back upstream to the soil banks themselves I am kind of frustrated another rocck wall wasn't built. The channel was dug except the last four feet and would have removed the cutting force from the bottom of the bluffs. Here I believe we are a victim of our own success, as this was the first year that section of creek has run all year since the mid eighties. There are little fish in there and it probably was a whole different permitting issue to dewater rather than working in a dry stream bed.
Nevertheless the creek will work its way into the back channel eventually.
NOw that we are moving along new project ideas make themselves known. One example would be to put the second section of Middle Creek back in its old bed. A second on, putting a culvert in the Upper Creek, restoring the flow to its old channel and dewatering the waterfall. It would then be possible to backfill the entire bowl with the soil bluffs, putting in a road that eliminates the Middle Creek fords and bringing the land to a plantable slope of repose.
Kudos and thanks to all the people involved over the years. The implementation came after years of planning and field visits, finding the connections between sediment, roads and creek conditions, several years collection of baseline data with Mattole Salmon Group
It was an amazing day for mushrooms, some areas literally littered with little brown and/or white mushrooms. We found several perfect boletes and a patch of white coral mushrooms. There were bright yellow ones, gold and black ones and pink ones. We didn't look too hard or too long but it seemed like numbers were up but variety was down.
I grabbed one redwood about four inches in diameter and was surprised how spongy the wet bark felt, much different from most other bark. I could see a lot of water is being reserved in the bark. Again we see the individual trees doing their bit to moderate climate for the good of the community, here by extending the time water remains in the biological zone rather than simply running off.
Coyote brush is blooming now and available from covering large amounts of grou7nd simply by shaking the seeds free. This was very effective for us years ago here and I still recommend it for and open ground like Big Hill above Cuneo or any burnt sections above fish bearing streams. Alder cones are also ready. These are simply dropped in the creek and allowed to sprout wherever they end up.
Once established they make plenty of seed every year and there is no need to repeat the process. We have had some success scattering seed on bare slopes in washouts high above the creek. Some have hit springs but we cannot account for several success stories in unlikely situations. We also note that several alder snags we have seen are over thirty-six inches in diameter.
We have been working with groups for a long while, and generally things are successful. However, removal of several items that probably seemed innocent enough have left some bad feelings in their wake. One was an old bent circular sawmill blade leaned against a stump along our road and belonging to my neighbor. This disappeared during the sediment inventory. Another was a large boar skull removed during tree planting several years ago and belonging to an absentee landowner. Both of these items come up now and then. Both of these items had sentimental value and belonged to other people. We have had restoration people on the land for many days and am thankful for all they accomplish.

179. Geology, Gaia, and Glomalin

2005-12-15T02:20:00.000-08:00

“I had the right to remain silent, but I didn’t have the ability.” Tater Salad, aka Ron White.
I was watching an older geology show on Annenberg(KEET 8). More relevant topics came up that augment our understanding.
One item were strolatomites, I think they were called, that are composed by the accretion of sediment by a sticky substance given off by blue-green algae. Other geologic looking structures formed the same way were literally being eaten by creatures with magnetite teeth, which scraped alogae and stone off rock at the waterline, undercutting small islands until they looked like Dr. Suess landscapes.
Satellite photos from the eighties revealed Amazon cloud formation and showers occurred daily with no input from the ocean, as confirmed by the deuterium study reported last year. Yet deuterium determination and satellite imagery are more twenty years old, so why was that anything new? With the loss of evapo-transpiration, particle forming gas emissions, and the entire precipitation interface from canopy to forest floor and the slow decay of the depth of water holding soils, diminished volumes of shade cooled air, we should expect less cloud formation and precipitation, and a drying of the ecosystem to some extent. As we have pointed out since the inception of this blog, the longer water remains in the biological zone the richer the biota. If it cycles through as surface runoff in an ever quickening pace the cycle will take unexpected turns with unknowable consequences.
The next interesting item concerned the life of carbon atoms. Each atom goes through a cycle starting as atmospheric carbon becoming vegetation, decaying through soil processes eventually reaching the ocean. The process continues as the carbon settles as sediment and becomes chemically transformed into rock. This rock is forced toward the margins of the oocean plate where it is subducted and dives back into the earth. Slowly the adds new land and magma is forces to the surface and the carbon re-enters the atmosphere through volcanism. This cycle is said to last about 100-150 million years and has happened about thirty times to every carbon atom on earth. This is a much grander carbon cycle than the usual given biological cycle.
This led to a discussion of nuclear winter, which we rarely hear about anymore, caused by smoke from wild lands burning. The major catastrophe of nuclear war has been overshadowed by the slow death of climate change. Man will have some ability to adapt to climate change. There is no cure for radiation pollution other than incredibly long decontamination rates in the hundreds of thousands of years, exceeding the entire existence spans of many species. Yet climate change can and has caused civil upheaval and temperature cycles are found to coincide with abundance and stability or famine and civil unrest throughout history.
Finally, the Gaia hypothesis was discussed. The Gaia hypothesis, so named by biophysicist James Lovelock, says that life moderates earth for the benefit of life. The example given was of dark and light daisies. Dark daisies proliferate and absorb sun light. As the temperature rises more white daisies bloom, reflecting energy back into space and downwardly regulating temperature. As the temperature falls, more dark daisies begin to appear, so that optimum temperature is maintained. Glomalin is very much a similar case of an ecosystem developing the means of assuring its continued existence by water regulation and communication by pheromones emitted by glomalin producing fungi. It is implied Gaia will deal with humans before they are allowed to exterminate the organism.
C-Span had a debate over forming a task force for implementing the recommendations from the Oceans report drafted for Congress last year. Fisheries and Resource only covers 7 out of 31 chapters in the study, other jurisdictions included Atmospheric, Agriculture, wind, drilling, coastal development, wetlands, shipping and on and on. This is probably a little bigger than glomalin but not by much, in terms of blurring agency boundaries.
We repeat the need for more synthesis and analysis of available information. A fine example was of a known weed killer. Looking at its written formula it looked like nothing special. When the model was represented n 3-D, its structural resemblance and properties made it immediately clear this molecule had potential as an anti-tumor medication. Something on hand that works, but only accidentally found through a different representation.
Several other items today. The continued research from the oceanic inventory has been putting chips in all kinds of sea creatures and tracking their movements. One result of note here is that salmon tagged in the PNW and Alaska from the same streams had the same oceanic migratory journeyts. That is to say, salmon from a certain river will spend their time in particular parts of the ocean. This would allow fishermen at sea to avoid fish from low population on shore locations.
The Pombo Bill to rewrite the 1872 Mining Law and open public lands for development was cut from the Budget Bill.
Patty Berg was honored by CDF for her work on rural firefighting and urban interface issues.
An earthen dam in Missourii failed and sent a wall of water down river. Three hurt, none dead.
Snowmobiles were found to not impact wildlife to a significant extent, a major argument against them in National Parks. What about the quiet?
The California Oak Mortality Task Force monthly report has an interesting item about field testing for the disease with portable PCR devices to be used in the field. Developed specifically to deal with the disease, the technology has a wide array of applications. Some interesting reading in the year end summaries. A report from Oregon on their attempts to keep the disease contained states using glyphosphate (Roundup) on stump sprouting species two weeks before stem removal, to be sure the roots won’t send up new shoots

178. Silence

2005-12-13T18:55:00.000-08:00

The Los Angeles Times ran these two articles last month. I almost missed them and then it took a while to get this down. But it goes to the core of our being, the very reason the Thought Preserve earned its title, on a good day. We do not agree only a few folks enjoy the benefits of quiet, since it is often high on the list for hunters, fishermen, hikers, campers and wildlife watchers as a reason for spending time outdoors.
All too often we are unaware of how we pollute our own environment, and chatter is one way, especially other peoples. I can’t possibly say how many times I’ve wished people would just be quiet. Usually it is an intrusion into their little world with all those unguessed consequences and often blown far out of proportion.
When you live close to the outdoors you learn to walk in silence because you are aware of things reacting to voices. You listen for voices in the distance. It is amazing how big a valley one chainsaw can fill, or one ORV or one gun, or how often a few working families drive the road each day for school, work and so forth. If you are fairly remote you may figure out the schedule of the jet liners high in the sky, but smaller planes are completely random. We had many visitors from the cities who could not handle the lack of background noise and couldn’t wait to leave, and kept up the noise for self reassurance throughout their waking hours.
Silence is a key element in meditation and solemn rituals. It shows our reverence but is not regarded as a health quality, only a quality of life issue. Yet the benefits of meditation and other practices of clear thinking give demonstrably healthy results. Many people live under constant barrages of background noise that make true relaxation difficult.
Yet it is a pre-requisite if our hearing is to operate in its natural role as our always-on defensive system. We trade it off for the advantages of communication, and have further traded acuity degradation in favor of labor savings and growth of the economy and population. Attenuation to Nature is a better term than silence, as both articles show. The opportunity for these experiences is seriously being degraded. Humboldt County has some good resources here, but I am sure one square inch probably won’t work here in the daytime in the summer. Winter is another story. Snow bound silence or the constant sound of water both may give you fifteen minutes of quiet in many places here. I think this may be a better measurement than viewscape and both should be considered in natural resource planning for wildlands.
It may be helpful for some groups to offer this kind of hike. But we can experience this by a estaglishing a few rules, and getting together with like minded others to experience some of Humboldts finest landscapes with a group respecting silence as the reason to be there.
I had a foreman when I was in construction who used to say,” I can hear you point better than I can see you yell.”
Selected quotes from the articles follow.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-os-quiet15nov15,1,2284895.story?coll=la-news-environment

A voice for silence
 One man, writes John Balzar, thinks quiet may be Earth's most endangered natural resource.
By John Balzar, Times Staff Writer
Hempton chose this place to make a stand.
If he can stir up a ruckus, maybe the right people will listen and the National Park Service will officially designate just one square inch of this park as a place of absolute quiet. One square inch of quiet, of course, means miles and miles of buffer — essentially securing the natural soundscape of the entire park.
A simple idea. Turn off the generators in those RVs, reroute the airline traffic going into Seattle, forbid private planes overhead, and plaster the visitor center with posters reaffirming the mission of our national parks: to preserve nature as it was, quiet included.
Inside the glass candy jar are messages. Visitors to One Square Inch are invited to write a short meditation regarding quiet. Only those willing to make the walk will read them.
Hempton will sit on his one square inch for an hour.
The serenity he restores in himself will last for days afterward.
"Quiet is like a vitamin. Vitamin quiet."
Hempton defines quiet this way: "Quiet places are where you can go and listen and not be distracted by human-caused noise."
By that definition, standing near a waterfall can be quiet, even though it is also loud.
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So how does one teach listening, or learn it?
It would be glib to say that a first step might be to stop talking. Accomplish that and there will likely be an awakening — at the least, a recognition of how many other people on the trail have lost the capacity to be quiet, let alone enjoy it and restore themselves.
Hempton's advice is practical: Put in foam earplugs for half an hour. Take them out and you'll immediately detect enriched sound.
Or walk with a young child as a guide. Before children are sent to school and made to "pay attention" — that is, filter out every sound except the teacher's voice — they are naturally attuned to their surroundings.
Statutory and regulatory law generally describes harmful noise as that which results in hearing loss. A more down-to-earth definition might define it as the aggregated clamor that deprives us of peace of mind.
Last night's rain drips slowly out of the moss. A raindrop falls many times in this forest: from the clouds to a treetop, from there to the moss of a branch, then down to another branch; finally, 10 hours later, it is released the last 100 feet to the crown of your hat, where the splat is so vivid as to give you a start.
More quiet. Here and there the flat splatter sound of weeping trees. A crackle of something moving. A long interval of soundlessness — so long that the faraway hiss of the Hoh finally enters your consciousness. The mighty woodpecker breaks the spell with another drumroll from the heavens.
A practiced listener, Hempton hears a symphony in this glen. As a novice, what you hear is not yet decipherable as music. But it is consuming, and unexpectedly suspenseful. In the silence, the whisper voice of nature speaks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-os-quiethike15nov15,1,886939,print.story?coll=la-news-environment

Want quiet? Then zip lips
On many remote trails, the most persistent noise pollution is the sound of hikers' own voices.
By Veronique de Turenne
Special to The Times
November 15, 2005
The staff at Franklin Canyon Park in Beverly Hills — a 605-acre swath considered the geographic center of Los Angeles — have a solution: silent night hikes. Starting at dusk on the first Saturday of every month, hikers eager to experience the sounds of silence gather at the park.
"It's a great way to relax in the safety and camaraderie of a group and yet have a solitary experience," says Michelle McAfee, one of the naturalists who lead the silent hikes.
The quiet hikes at Franklin Canyon begin with some communal deep breathing ("I tell them to breathe in the twilight and exhale the day," McAfee says) to help unify the group. Then, with daylight fading, hikers set out along a flat and wooded fire road.
The two-hour hike flies by. When the group reassembles, even though they haven't uttered more than a few words, they seem united by the experience.
"To be a part of the night and a part of nature, as opposed to just walking through it, for some people is deeply moving," McAfee says.
All you need for a quiet hike is a friend or two and a pact: No talking. Plan your route ahead of time. For safety, agree not to move out of each other's visual range. If you want to catch your companion's attention, you can clap your hands. Want to share the amazing thing you just saw? Point.
Hiking in quiet reveals a lot about even the noisiest outdoor spaces

177. Climate Talks, Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment and Ectomycorrhizal Infection of Red Pine Trees

2005-12-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

Sadly we watch the spectacle of climate talks agree only to have further talks, with the U.S. failing to agree to that. Sadly because the entire issue is emissions and control of emissions, in the light of economic impacts. Even then there is disagreement about the cost, as Clinton pointed out.
In our studies we are aware the carbon sources from the ground are a huge factor in greenhouse gases, especially CO2. We also know that heightened temperature causes vegetation to use more CO2 through increased production for the plants and their associated fungi.
One of the key findings in Rilligs’ DOE work was the concept that plant production was deposited in the deeper reaches of the soil. That is to say, deep roots and their mycorhizzia got a larger share of primary production than roots closer to the surface. This illustrates our riparian sponge concept in that the poorer soil is being given extra attention in order to increase the water holding capacity of the ecosystem.
This weeks CO2 Science Magazine has an article about a recently published paper in, Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment and Ectomycorrhizal Infection of Red Pine Trees. This is an important step into discovering the actual mechanisms of soil fungi response to increased CO2. Ectomycorrhizal fungi are the major form of mycorhizzia associated with temperate forest trees, and are locally abundant and essential to forest health. Once again there is no glomalin component to the work, but we are filling in the blanks at an ever increasing pace.

Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment and Ectomycorrhizal Infection of Red Pine Trees
Reference
Choi, D.S., Quoreshi, A.M., Maruyama, Y., Jin, H.O. and Koike, T. 2005. Effect of ectomycorrhizal infection on growth and photosynthetic characteristics of Pinus densiflora seedlings grown under elevated CO2 concentrations. Photosynthetica 43: 223-229.
What was done
Red pines (Pinus densiflora Sieb. et Zucc.) were grown from seed for 18 weeks in a sunlit phytotron at either ambient CO2 (AC = 360 ppm) or elevated CO2 (EC =720 ppm), with or without inoculation of their roots with the ectomycorrhizal fungus Pisolithus tinctorius (Pers.) Coker et Couch (Pt), while a variety of measurements were made of both the seedlings and the fungus.
What was learned
The authors report that "the infection rate of Pt in P. densiflora seedlings grown at EC was significantly higher than at AC," noting that "previous studies have also found that ecotmycorrhizal development in seedlings of several tree species at EC was greater than at AC (Seegmuller and Rennenberg, 1994; Ineichen et al., 1995; Rey and Jarvis, 1997; Runion et al., 1997, Rouhier and Read, 1998)."
What it means
The CO2-induced enhancement of Pt infection rate in P. densiflora and Pt's subsequent more robust development is very significant, for Choi et al. write that "ectomycorrhizal development enlarges the absorptive surface of the root, with widely ramified hyphae allowing the release of phosphatases, which enhance the availability of organic phosphate and exude organic acids," which interactions between host plant and ectomycorrhiza "increase the use efficiency of limited soluble phosphate and organic N in soil (Smith and Read, 1997; Lambers et al., 1998)." Consequently, they suggest that seedlings with better developed Pt, such as occurs in response to atmospheric CO2 enrichment, "have increased nutrient and water uptake, leading to improved plant nutritional status and giving rise to more vigorous physiological response, in particular photosynthetic activity, and that these responses delay down-regulation at EC."
References
Ineichen, K., Wiemken, V. and Wiemken, A. 1995. Shoots, roots and ectomycorrhizal formation of pine seedlings at elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide. Plant, Cell and Environment 18: 703-707.
Lambers, H., Chapin III, F.S. and Pons, T.L. 1998. Plant Physiological Ecology. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA.
Rey, A. and Jarvis, P.G. 1997. Growth response of young birch trees (Betula pendula Roth.) after four and a half years of CO2 exposure. Annals of Botany 80: 809-816.
Rouhier, H. and Read, D.J. 1998. Plant and fungal responses to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide in mycorrhizal seedlings of Pinus sylvestris. Environmental and Experimental Botany 40: 237-246.
Runion, G.B., Mitchell, R.J., Rogers, H.H., Prior, S.A. and Counts, T.K. 1997. Effects of nitrogen and water limitation and elevated atmospheric CO2 on ectomycorrhiza of longleaf pine. New Phytologist 137: 681-689.
Seegmuller, S. and Rennenberg, H. 1994. Interactive effects of mycorrhization and elevated carbon dioxide on growth of young pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) trees. Plant and Soil 167: 325-329.
Smith, S.E. and Read, D.J. 1997. Mycorrhizal Symbiosis. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.
Reviewed 7 December 2005 http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V8/N49/B2.jsp

Between all the articles we have reviewed it is clear we have a sound hypothesis. In almost two years I have nothing that disagrees with the premise, and found all kinds of supporting data. What we don’t have yet is quantification of glomalin deposits, a simple explanation of water delayed in the biological zone as part of the basic water cycle, or public awareness that we are living in a time of great opportunity for all forces dependant on carbon dioxide, such as natural resources and agriculture. The critical link to water supply is not being studied anywhere, yet loss of glaciers means rethinking water supply throughout the West and many other parts of the world dependant on snow pack runoff in the dry season. We will be forced to think in terms of rainwater harvesting. Failure to recognize the natural order results in rainwater harvest in terms of cisterns in developed areas, rather than landscape BMPs that direct precipitation into underground storage.
I am not sure greenhouse gases are the only cause of warming anyway. Nova had an article about the poles shifting in response to heat plumes from the molten iron core of the earth. Todays paper has an article about the North Pole (magnetic) moving from Canada to the Siberian side. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4520982.stm
What is the impact of lighting? Radioactive materials concentrated then vaporized in testing or as depleted uranium? Body heat of the human biomass? Urban heat sinks? The vast amount of rotting garbage in the world? Whatever the cause, we are but a flash of geologic time that we can certainly shorten but probably can extend only in the face of gradual change, leading to what comes next for us. Some go theological but what will fill the environmental niches left behind?

176. Outdoor Education

2005-12-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

Several recent articles remind us the outdoors is always waiting for our attention. To say we are too far removed is exemplified by the Tines-Standards Natural Resource writer John Driscolls’ current article about scorpions. This is the very type of article and information I am seeking to make available in one place. As you can see, plenty of information is available somewhere for most all resource questions, if you call scorpions’ resources.
I have seen plenty of scorpions in Humboldt County. Several have been found on peoples clothes or seats, so they seem to move. I don’t know anyone ever stung, and had heard these were not capable killers. We had a lot of them building near an old slash pile/log deck. A visitor familiar with desert scorpions suggested chickens, his old family cure for them.
The chickens were full of lessons themselves. They followed me around the yard. Every time I flipped a log, rock or piece of fir bark the chickens immediately ate everything they saw- bugs, eggs, whatever. When that part of the job was done they would go to rotten logs, and dig with their feet into the rotten wood. Then they stuck their head in the hole and listened. If they heard something they attacked the log in that direction until they found the source- and ate it.
Now, these chickens were survivors who had escaped a chicken massacre when apparently a weasel got into the pen and killed them without eating them. These chickens hadn’t come in for the food and spent the evening s in fir trees, safe from predation.
http://www.times-standard.com/driscollscolumn/ci_3280240 Tom Stienstra of the San Francisco Chronicle Outdoors section talked about the life long memories stemming from wildlife sightings, although certainly landscapes must be included as effects of nature upon people. He writes the best ssightings are unplanned and had plenty of e=mails relating just those kind of experiences.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/04/SPG9IG2QRF1.DTL Meanwhile down south the problem is not being able to find non-wildlife- cattle actually, in rugged Park .lands .Six of the escaped cattle were lured in with bait but the other nine are adapting quickly. We read early Humjboldt explorers found plentiful wild cattle from Spanish escapees. One report said forty grizzlies trailed a thousand cattle. The author notes escaped pigs on Mt. Tamalpais but treats it as a one time incident, rather than a statewide issue going on for decades. Even more amazing to me were the stories from the Mattole of feral sheep, unshorn for years, roaming around until the early eighties. My neighbor said the dogs got them eventually, but you never can tell what you might see when you are in the field.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/outdoors/la-os-cows06dec06,0,2691683.story?coll=la-home-outdoors
The L. A. Times also ran an article about various restoration and preservation efforts in the Southland to restore nat6ural systems in places past their industrial prime or too raw to have been useful. Guess what? They all have tremendous value as part of naturally functioning ecosystems, and the lands respond to any effort- even leaving them alone. As we have stated in the past, restoration is just a step in the process of allowing natural processes to operate. Meanwhile folks are learning how green belts, streams and wildlife corridors make nature available to urban and suburban youth.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/outdoors/la-os-intro6dec06,0,969407.story?coll=la-home-outdoors
The critical role of outdoor education is not mentioned anywhere in the No Child Left Behind Act. Yet any child that gets their entire outdoor education in a classroom has been left behind. Our education system needs to build on our knowledge of the natural world rather than replace it. This is how we learn we are part of the world and not a special exemption free from laws that constrain all life. The younger people become aware of this the better they can focus education and lifestyles for the betterment of everyone. Two local programs I saw in action when I worked in the schools was Jeff Selfs steelhead hatchery at Washington ele3mentary, and Pam Halsteads Fortuna Creeks Program at Fortuna High. I am sure many other teachers are getting their kids involved and you see and read about these things regularly. They cannot be made less important because there are no questions on the standardized tests about the creek down the street. Students are then able to seesome of our problems first hand and begin thinking about them at an early age. Outdoor education also means being prepared for field work both in skills and before implementation, bringing major planning into the equation. The needs and opportunities for trained people will make itself clear to those deciding on a course for their future.

175. The Pombo Mining Bill, CO2 and Glomalin

2005-11-26T16:41:00.000-08:00

175. The Pombo Mining Bill, CO2 and Glomalin
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/11/22/news_pf/Opinion/Land_grab_trifecta.shtml
This article in the St. Petersburg (Fla) Times shows the threat of development in even our most nearly “saved” landscapes. For example, BLM assured us that King Range was liable to claims under the old Mining Law but it was suspended and that no valuable minerals were to be found there anyway. Under this bill it would seem you could build a hotel there. Many of these properties have severe restrictions on surface activities seemingly meaningless in event of mining or development. Between this and the removal of federal oversight of ESA on private lands there is no landscape not subject to threat once more.
We note the term “sustainable economic development” as a misleading use of words, since sustainability is based on preservation and renewal of natural resources. On the other hand, cities show enduring economic sustainability through trade. Since we know development impacts landscape wide issues such as runoff, habitat loss, urban interface fire zones and loss of tree cover, we cannot call development sustainable in our usual context.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ice25nov25,0,7703728,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Last week ice core results were reported that showed the highest levels of CO2 in 650,000 years. There is urgent need to adapt to this condition by taking positive action across the landscape. Industry will slow emissions to some extent but growth must be balanced by mitigating measures like no-till farming and open spaces or we run the risk of calamity. In forestry, it has to be understood that the soil-carbon is disrupted by surface activity, contributing to the problem and undoing natural attenuation.
We also point out methane is at an even higher rate, and this too is our footprint. Methane rich water is being spewed out of dams where it originated in flooded vegetation and soils in concentrations 20 times greater than normal. Another source is livestock. Ozone is also implicated. Ozone and methane are mitigated in plants by CO2, although at a penalty in productivity, as shown in reports at CO2 Science.
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V8/N47/EDIT.jsp The simplest answer for rising CO2 is glomalin accumulation. Vegetation will modify climate, and we should expect explosive growth from the conditions we have helped create. As this article demonstrates, productivity goes up as temperatures rise, meaning sequestration will occur at an accelerated rate. While far away set asides may benefit the situation, directed growth in optimal landscapes can have major positive impacts, providing some timber, water, climate modification, regulated precipitation and distribution, erosion control, habitat, fish and jobs while providing recreation. This is why we call for a carbon credit scheme based on glomalin accumulation in which landowners are paid not to cut large trees in exchange for annual payments at per ton per acre rate for long term contracts written into deeds like conservation easements that transcend individual ownership but that would make worthy investments. At the same time we call for planners to recognize the continual loss of glomalin rich landscape (as CO2) and removal from the land base available for subsurface carbon storage and water retention.
In the end rolling back protections on our fraction of functioning glomalin producing areas is counterproductive in many ways. We also fail to allow time to heal the landscape and see the return of the conditions that make this place wonderful.

Land-grab trifecta
A congressman who wants to drill in the gulf and weaken the Endangered Species Act offers another bill that puts treasured land at risk of development.
A Times Editorial, St. Petersburg Times
Published November 22, 2005
It could be the biggest land scam ever and the perpetrator is a member of Congress. A bill by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would allow anyone to claim ownership of public land for as little as $1,000 an acre under the guise of mining it. Instead of digging for gold, however, the owner could develop the land.
Millions of acres are at risk, often near the nation's most treasured natural areas. Not only would taxpayers lose the use of their land, they would also subsidize the purchase.
The House has already approved the measure - which alters an antiquated mining law - even though some representatives probably didn't know what they were voting on because it was hidden in a budget bill. For Pombo, this completes his land-grab trifecta. He is also pushing to open Florida's Gulf Coast to offshore drilling and to allow private land protected under the Endangered Species Act to be developed with little federal interference.
While the mining law has been used to rip off taxpayers for more than a century, Pombo's version would make it even worse.
Since 1872, mining interests could claim ownership of public land for the purpose of extracting minerals at little cost. It led to abuses such as the mining company that extracted $10-billion worth of gold from a stretch of Nevada desert that cost a mere $10,000. Embarrassed by that giveaway, Congress put a moratorium on the practice in 1994. Pombo's bill would not only end the moratorium, but make it easier to claim land with no intention to mine.
Under the bill's language, anyone could acquire public land for as little as $1,000 per acre and use it for "sustainable economic development." Opponents of the bill say that could be defined as condominiums, ski resorts or casinos.
Pombo says his motive is to help reduce the deficit with the proceeds, but that is a ruse. If Congress wanted to raise tax dollars on mining operations, they would impose a royalty, as they do on oil and coal production. In fact, a modest 8 percent mining royalty would raise twice as much as this garage sale of public land.
Several million acres, mostly in the West, already have mining claims, and nearly half of that is in or near national parks and forests, according to the Environmental Working Group. Millions of acres more could also be at risk. "To our knowledge, it represents the largest land giveaway in modern American history," said Dusty Horwitt, an analyst with the group.
Bill supporters say those seeking to exploit public land by claiming a bogus mining interest would be stopped by federal regulators. That's hardly reassuring. In the Bush administration, the exploiters are now the regulators.
With no companion legislation in the Senate, a final compromise would be worked out in a conference committee that meets in private. Nearly everyone agrees that as a stand-alone bill, the land giveaway would fail. Senate negotiators shouldn't let Pombo do his dirty work under the cover of darkness.
© Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved

174. Glomalin Missing In Climate Models

2005-11-23T15:21:00.000-08:00

Global Primary Productivity and Climate Change
CO2 Science Magazine contains this fine article this week. We thank them for making the science understandable and pointing out there ideas along the way. Like me, they are building a scientific basis for better understanding of natural processes. Our point of view concerns the newly discovered glomalin, and we find plenty of evidence to support our theory in here as well. Inclusion in the models may very well give some surprising results. If productivity is higher and emissions and releases reduced, we will see CO2 concentrations fall. It would seem something to be monitoring for crops.
Glomalin destruction, that is, large-scale release of CO2 from the soil occurs as a result of disturbance to the soil, is not currently figured in the carbon budget. Since the Industrial Age started we have seen mass agriculture, logging and development, turning centuries of glomalin back into the atmosphere. Glomalin decays at a rate that would seem to be the soil respiration rate, and thus would only be a fraction of releases from glomalin destruction.
As for temperature, besides adaptability, competition will favor those best suited to conditions as they are. Thus one species-troubling environment is another’s opportunity to take advantage of resources at hand. This may not help agriculture or political boundaries, though. It looks as though temperature will not be a limiting factor locally, with productivity rising with CO2 AND temperature, and that mycorhizzia will be stimulated to produce large amounts of glomalin searching for water, a more likely growth inhibitor. As a community, the very search constructs the storage mechanism insuring less trouble in the future.
Man may be causing other problems here, as the best-suited plants for carbon storage have large economic value. This is where the opportunity lay- in capture and storage of CO2 in the long run by forests, restoring wildlife, fish and water resources while improving air and soil quality and modifying the climate. We must learn to see them for what they are doing and allow them to operate or face deteriorating ecological conditions seemingly beyond our influence.
Finally in the last paragraph we dare to name the mechanism of the negative feedback as glomalin itself, pulled out of the atmosphere and stored in the ground, a necessary component of terrestrial ecosystems and conservator of water throughout the biological zone.
Global Primary Productivity and Climate Change
Volume 8, Number 47: 23 November 2005

Matthews et al. (2005) note that "coupled climate-carbon cycle model simulations have identified an important positive feedback between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate, whereby future carbon uptake declines under anthropogenic climate warming." Just how powerful is this positive feedback that leads to a decline in carbon uptake? The Canadian researchers say that the first simulation to address this question, that of Cox et al. (2000), suggested that carbon uptake by the terrestrial biosphere would likely decline by over 500 GtC (gigatonnes of carbon = 1015 grams C) as a result of greenhouse gas-induced climate changes, such that the terrestrial biosphere as a whole would likely switch from being a net carbon sink to being a net carbon source around the year 2050.
As time has passed, however, and as the models have been refined, Matthews et al. report that "subsequent simulations forced by a variety of emissions scenarios" have resulted in "widely ranging feedback magnitudes." By the year 2100, for example, the increase in atmospheric CO2 attributable to the carbon cycle-climate feedback has been projected to range from 50 ppm (Govindasamy et al., 2005) to 250 ppm (Cox et al., 2000). The latter of these two numbers represents a CO2 concentration increase that is fully two-and-a-half times greater than what has been experienced since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution ... which is a truly whopping positive feedback at the end of a truly whopping positive feedback range. Moreover, Matthews et al. report that "it has not been possible to reconcile the range of model results," which lingering problem represents, in their words, "one of the most important uncertainties in current simulations of future climate change."
From whence does the highly-uncertain feedback originate? Matthews et al. say that "analysis of model results has shown that most of the additional carbon in the atmosphere comes from the soil carbon pool, suggesting that the acceleration of soil carbon decomposition under climate warming is a key component of the feedback." Hence, as they continue, "attempts to explain the large range of model results have focused on uncertainties in the behavior of heterotrophic soil respiration under future climate change." The genius of their contribution is that they show this assumption to be wrong, demonstrating that "the response of vegetation primary productivity to climate change may in fact be more important than the behavior of soil respiration in determining the magnitude of simulated positive carbon cycle-climate feedbacks." It is the source of their downfall, however, that they continue to assume that the feedback in question is positive, when it more likely is negative.
In moving towards this significantly different view of ours on the matter, we still find much of Matthews et al.'s work to be helpful. They note from the outset, for example - and quite correctly - that "the simulated feedback is highly sensitive to the temperature dependence of photosynthesis, which is currently very poorly represented in global carbon cycle models." They also correctly report that "as temperature increases in the model, plants are increasingly required to photosynthesize at higher temperatures," but they errantly conclude that this requirement leads to "a stronger temperature suppression [our italics] of photosynthesis under climate warming," which likely is not true.
Interestingly, Matthews et al. actually mention certain important facts that should have led them to question their assumption on this point. First, they note that "plants exhibit considerable adaptation to local temperatures," a fact we discuss in some detail in Section II A (The Adaptability of Plants to Rising Temperature) in our Major Report The Specter of Species Extinction: Will Global Warming Decimate Earth's Biosphere? Second, they say that "the temperature response curve is further affected by CO2 concentration," a fact that we discuss in Section II B (The Extra Help Provided by Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations) in the same report. Specifically, we review the evidence for the oft-reported observation that the optimum temperature for plant growth, i.e., the temperature at which plants photosynthesize and grow best, generally rises with as the air's CO2 content rises. In fact, we note that for a 300 ppm increase in the air's CO2 concentration, the mean increase in optimum temperature for a sizable group of plants has been determined to lie between 3.4 and 5.8°C.
Simultaneously, the aerial fertilization effect provided by rising levels of atmospheric CO2 tends to increase plant photosynthetic rates at all temperatures, and progressively more so at higher temperatures, which additionally enables plants to survive at higher temperatures than they can tolerate under current atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Acting together, these several related phenomena lead to ever-increasing levels of plant primary productivity as the air's CO2 content and temperature rise together. In the case of the plants mentioned above, for example, the photosynthetic rates they experience at their CO2-induced higher optimum temperatures are typically much greater than those they experience at their ambient-CO2 optimum temperatures, in some cases almost twice as great (Idso, 1995).
Returning to the paper of Matthews et al. armed with this knowledge, we note they correctly state that "the parameterization of temperature constraints on photosynthesis strongly affects results from climate-carbon cycle models." We also note that the large uncertainties related to the presumed warming-induced reductions in rates of plant photosynthesis that they discuss lead to increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration at the year 2100 that range from 50 to 250 ppm, revealing the tremendous power of modest changes in plant photosynthetic prowess to affect the whole climate-change process. In light of these observations, it should be clear that the currently-ignored positive response of plant photosynthesis to simultaneous increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature should actually lead to a significant decrease in predicted atmospheric CO2 concentration at the year 2100, which implies the existence of a powerful negative feedback between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate that tends to fortify the planet against the possibility of significant CO2-induced climate change.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso
References
Cox, P.M., Betts, R.A., Jones, C.D., Spall, S.A. and Totterdell, I.J. 2000. Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model. Nature 408: 184-187.
Govindasamy, B., Thompson, S., Mirin, A., Wickett, M., Caldeira, K., Delire, C. and Duffy, P.B. 2005. Increase of carbon cycle feedback with climate sensitivity: Results from a coupled climate and carbon cycle model. Tellus Series B 57: 153-163.
Idso, S.B. 1995. CO2 and the Biosphere: The Incredible Legacy of the Industrial Revolution. Department of Soil, Water & Climate, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.
Matthews, H.D., Eby, M., Weaver, A.J. and Hawkins, B.J. 2005. Primary productivity control of simulated carbon cycle-climate feedbacks. Geophysical Research Letters 32: 10.1029/2005GL022941.

173. Rilligs Report on Glomalin

2005-11-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

This is Mattias Rilligs Final Report to the Department of Energy concerning his studies on glomalin. This is a short downloadable document in .PDF format summarizing about a dozen peer reviewed studies all centered around glomalin. He works out of the University of Montana in collaboration with many folks.
For our studies almost all the glomalin work is concentrated either here or in USDA SAR releases. I have said it is a relatively easy concept to grasp, and faithful readers will see many of my claims are based on peer reviewed science, especially concerning soil carbon storage as a key component of soil stability.
It is unfortunate that the decomposition issue was not funded because that is where we can converge with Redwood Sciences Labs studies that showed the actual swelling of the ground after rain events, which ability would be lost as the glomalin decomposes creating the very conditions they are studying. If we picture glomalin as a glue or biofilm then 5% of soil carbon could be seen as a serious soil stabilizer in steep wet conditions with poor soil cohesion, which becomes sediment when mobilized into watercourses.
The work here ties into the PNW Forest Mycology teams work as to species and abundance of fungi in forests. We need the final documentation that ectomycorhizzia produce this structural component like arbuscular mycorhizzia, as reported by Dan Wheeler from Dr. James Trappe, a contributor to the team. We should be able to establish production rates and find management practices that retain this ability. Surface water storage is likely to become more important as temperatures rise and snowmelt will be less available later in the year. We need a method to determine general abundance, like ground radar or correlation with vegetation maps and/or photos, this documents carbon storage and water capacity for planning and even markets.
We can also see the critical importance of temperate forests as carbon sinks, since the turnover rate increases with soil temperature. This has many implications for land use as well. The importance of shade in controlling soil temperature is overlooked in many management schemes, yet we see higher degradation rates in warmer soils. This means even under perfect conditions net storage will also be affected by surface temperature. Yet warmer temperatures are pushing the green line north and a vast new area is starting to capture carbon at an elevated rate, possibly offsetting higher decomposition rates in lower latitiudes. Nevertheless, many of the ideas in this blog are being proven and published. Great thanks to Mr. Rillig for his insight and persistence.
Glomalin as a hyphal residue rather than exudates helps us get a clearer picture of abundance across species lines and distribution in all terrestrial vegetative systems and spread of biologically conditioned soils in a recovering landscape. As a basic component of fungal structure it stretches across all continents, ecosystems and back in time 400 million years. Another point is differing deposition rates associated with differing plants. This just implies community to me, with many more questions to settle. Do some plants make one type of glomalin? Do they have fewer associated species, or rates of abundance, of fungi? We have postulated a community pool with a percentage of glomalin decaying, and newer specialist species filling spaces opportunistically but all contributing to the ecosystems overall health through glomalin deposition. We would suspect late stage species dominate the landscape through pheromones that control the spores of the many fungi associated with the initial stages of seedling growth. When this is disturbed the more numerous species associated with younger trees emerge to restore prime conditions in the soil and the canopy. Once the trees start to shade the ground subsoil deposition and soil conditioning by mycorhizzia begins in earnest to restore ground water storage. The nature of glomalin shows it creates space for the water but does not absorb or bind it, thus making it available in the biological zones but also subject to gravity. The longer an area is allowed to grow the better developed its water storage capacity in the root zone.
While the affinity for glomalin with natural areas is established clearly in the article, implications to us are paramount. Even without decomposition studies it is clear sediment is mobilized rapidly when exposed to running water or direct sunlight. A recent PBS show about the Scablands in Eastern Wahingrton were proven to be carved in a single massive event when a lake broke out a wall of an ice dam flooding the entire region below, leaving a carved landscape previously believed slowly carved by wind and water. We see the same patterns of particle removal in tiny little eroding rills as in entire watersheds.
Nature uses scale in many ways. On the same show scour was discussed and I stand corrected. As the Scopac commenter wrote, dcour is caused by high water. I said my experience is that rain fills pools in. The explanation lies in the exact nature of scour. Explained as the result of increased water rushing over obstacles causeds bubbles to form and create a tail from the obstacle downstream. The force of the flow causes the bubbles to a spiral, while the bubbles themselves are collapsing with tremendous energy. Once the vortex of bubbles is established it can break free of its source, turning upright to the streambed and digging holes in the bed with the energy of the collapsing bubbles and the debris being carried downstream. This insight also gives us insight and we can see why instream techniques create habitat, and that banks are probably more stripped than scoured.

2005-11-16T14:10:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of science in the news lately relevant to our studies. Yahoo today has articles on French emission reductions, an Australian geothermal project, a report on sequestering CO2 in old oil fields to increase recoverable material using CO2 from coal gasification, grizzlies coming off the endangered species list around Yellowstone, the role of marine mammals in the large carcass diet of condors, male fish with eggs in sewage off California, and another funding hit for North Coast restoration projects.
The French government is looking beyond the 2012 Kyoto deadline and implementing Phase II. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051115/sc_nm/energy_france_environment_dc;_ylt=Am6p_8V_U0jSu0xjSdZaJPghANEA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl Their 15% already renewable seems pretty high compared to U.S. numbers, and they expect another 6% rise by 2010. France is also a leading nuclear energy consumer. Their concept of paying solar electrical producers more would seem a great way for California to implement its million solar home idea; same with a rise in tax credits for solar hot water. This puts France in a good position to focus on vehicle emissions, 60% of CO2 emissions for that nation.
The US, Australia, China and India are not signatories of the Kyoto protocol. The US and Australia claim economic hardship related to emissions reductions, Developing nations are exempt. With this in mind the article on Hot Dry Rock geothermal energy is a window into the future. Geothermal is already a known energy source but current designs all work with naturally produced steam. The new technology starts with dry heat and adds the water, to increase fracture and capacity, then moves the water to heat low boiling point liquids to drive turbines. Such a plant could supply a 1000 Mw. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051115/sc_nm/energy_australia_dc;_ylt=Ah3YcwE9EM1XW3JTBAKGdVohANEA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
The U. S. Department of Energy is highly pleased with results from the testing of the Weybum project, in which CO2 emissions from coal gasification are pumped into the ground in oil fields helping force more oil and gas into production zones and trapping tons of CO2 below the ground. It appears the pumping in has worked like expected. The issue I know of is: there is no guarantee the CO2 will stay there. I know extending the oil fields life helps, but I am boggled a gasification plant is emitting those levels of CO2 has been permitted in the first place. There are other uses for CO2 as well, like dry ice. But it seems silly to pay to capture back what was questionable in the first place, since 200 million cars worth of emissions puts a very real face on industrial emissions rather than transportation. This looks like an oil project with a plan for its own emissions.
De-listing Yellowstone area grizzlies outside the Park has become a political hot potato. We are pleased to see good recovery of a small population of a far ranging species, and surprised to learn of four other populations in the Lower 48. I wrote several years ago an article about the goals of restoration- “surely we are not talking about returning grizzlies to California” but secretly I always hoped they would reappear. The reports of poor effect of the ESA is another issue altogether and obviously the situation will get worse before better as critical habitat designations are rolled back.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051116/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/grizzly_protection;_ylt=AuiwG5mdnWZGeRKSYqXwCLkPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA-- California DFG has completed a report assessing endangered species as background work for receiving Federal wildlife grants. It states California has over 800 species, 481 of them Californiua only, at risk from a wide variety of causes from habitat destruction to corvids and invasive species. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051115/ap_on_sc/california_wildlife;_ylt=ArZTfETB_xDT25ROYS056N94hMgF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA-- A local angle on this in the Times-Standard http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3222660. reports 74 North coast/Klamath region species, maily fish and birds, with 11 of them appearing only in this region. The DFG report can be found at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/habitats/wdp/index.html
Another article says whales off the coast are threatened.
The other day an article ran about the diet of California condors including the growing marine mammal populations. It seems they were recorded even by Lewis and Clark seen eating a dead whale at the mouth of the Colombia. Two major shifts in diet over 11000 years aere found by sampling condors from museums and prey from various localities to identify iostopically food sources. I only wonder about the loss of megafauna even though there are masses of buffalo up to modern times. Available food for the large birds is a problem and they are fed carcasses. Protections of sea mammals have caused a boom in their populations and they may create a good amount of scavengable food for the big birds. This seems to make the coast as good or better a habitat than more inland sites. This may make King Range more likely to eventually host a few of the great wanderers. The reporet was done by Stanford and the article I saw was in Science Daily, at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051114112536.htm More bad news for the State, though, as sewage pumped directly into the ocean has resulted in the first known cases of male marine fish with ovary tissue in their testes, the first examples found in salt water, and probably at minute concentrations of pollutants. The fish are bottom feeders, which may be of some reassurance. We know frogs and freshwater fish are showing sexual confusion from environmental estrogens from agricultural products, and Atrazine in implicated in frog deformities.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051116/ap_on_sc/intersex_fish;_ylt=AkLiZ9GFNwCALY4EAa.RrmRxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM- The Audobon Society has sued US Fish and Wildlife because no recovery plan was ever presented for the Northern Spotted Owl, one of the most contentious listings that reduced timber operations on millions of acres of federal or federally supervised lands. USF&W has promised the report in six months, and the Society is willing to accept that if it gets it in writing. Still, you would think we’/d have heard about it one way or another-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051108/ap_on_re_us/spotted_owl;_ylt=AlAfVZV5mpeZnAoqQiOLOGd4hMgF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA-- Finally, more proof that environmentalism is a peace time dividend with slashed budgets on the federal level and the state matching funds unapproved. Schwarzenegger has already shown he is no environmentalist and expecting the governor to fix this seems unlikely. Senator Chesbro has made sure North Coast fisheries recovery is not neglected and so there is hope yet. Nevertheless, with funding still subject to partisan attacks, especially from folks outside the area and its industries, the annual tribulations seem petty. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3217678

171. Faith In Conservation

2005-11-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, has an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/opinion/12dalai.html?oref=login in which he reminds us of the importance of ethics in science and its critical importance for the future, and demonstrates yet another instance where ancient knowledge is born out by advancing science. He also points out the narrow field of vision of reduction science and notes a lack of analysis from a wider perspective in much that we do, losing sight of the wider purpose. This is a week after the Pope also stressed the importance of science for the future of mankind. American Forest magazine (www.americanforests.org ) this month has an article about Faith in Conservation.
We also have noted the trouble good information has in becoming accepted and put into policy. While some areas push new items onto the market before fully understanding them, other possible solutions lie around unused for centuries despite plenty of visible evidence. Many people are convinced a lot of business is bad for natural systems, and people are looking for definitive answers for the economy and maintaining natural systems. Others put peoples needs at the top of the list. The bottom line seems to get results. Earlier this year I received a CD of a removal project on the Kennebec called Edwards Dam, it had been in for 170 years. There has been a lot of discussion about sediment loads and toxicity of spoils but I didn’t find much in the CD that helped with that.
So it is with FERC’s ruling on PacificCorp’s Klamath dams. In a time of environmental awareness a fifty-year license is being renewed. Past documentation about the past abundance of salmon above the dams gives us a good idea how impaired the system is, especially in terms of cut off spawning beds and temperature fluctuations at critical times of year. Expert analyses by the most current models support the obvious- the dams should be removed for the restoration of the third largest west Coast salmon run. The power companies challenge the rivers ability to provide as much habitat as environmentalist models would indicate. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3209502 , “Salmon Above The Dams’, Eureka Times-Standard Nov 12, and the editorial piece “Honesty Crucial In Klamath Dam Process” the same day.
For those of us relying on science to light the way it is troubling our own government does not accept its own work. Of course, tradeoffs are inevitable with our growing population, but new technology should be brought online faster. We think centralization and economies of scale have driven the permit process to periods of months and years when small decentralized systems could go up in a much shorter time frame and have much less environmental impact., as in solar homes or micro wind generators, locally produced biofuel rather than transported petroleum.
When new info is put to use, we applaud, such as the Redwood National and State Parks project thinning Douglas fir hoping to accelerate return to late seral conditions. This is very similar to BLM’s approach and we support the concept. WE do have some points to raise in light of our work. First, the self- thinning rule proposed by Dr. Shigo in “Trouble in the Rhizosphere” claims each tree is adding to the overall carbon capture of the recovering forest area, not just the trees. If we add glomalin here, we see Douglas fir has established a life process for re-colonization that allows many individuals condition a small amount of soil. As the trees grow and conditions improve some trees begin to decline, which accelerates exudations. The trees are very crowded and responding to side pressure, encountering neighbors root systems and foraging for minerals and water. All members contribute duff, glomalin, shade, woody products and water storage to the system, regardless of how long lived. So it is important to allow some of these functions to occur. At the same time much of this evolved without constant fire threat forests face today, and some controls must be found to reduce risk while maintaining function. We also note this project would be typical of risk reduction for carbon sequestration projects, and that we need more uses for the resulting slash. “Park thinning Project Gets Started” http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3211609 The Mushroom Fair is set for Sunday November 20th from 11AM to 4 PM at Redwood Acres in Eureka, put on by the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3213409

167. Damage of Select Cut Showing in Amazon

2005-11-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

Michael Hopkins reports in Nature that improved analysis of Landsat photos can reveal some of the effects of select cutting by recognizing slash from satellite photos. The new analysis reveals almost twice the amount of deforestation previously reported because the older analysis only noted clear cut areas.
Some of the problems associated with removal of larger trees are discussed, but much of the carbon debate is inadequate because no account is made of symbiotic creatures or soil carbon storage by fungi and bacteria. As our investigation has shown, reducing vegetative cover decreases a forests ability to respond to natural events like fire, storms, insects and flooding, store water for extended periods, or influence weather by cooling and creation of aerosols that aid in water vapor condensation. For all of these reasons it is important to allow functioning systems to work and damaged or dysfunctional systems allowed to grow out of their problems. Somehow we have to recognize the critical importance of operating natural systems in terms other than resources and dollars. Science, as usual, will arrive in time to regret what was lost, but give us hope for the future.
“Removing trees decreases the forest's ability to suck up carbon from the atmosphere, and whether those trees are taken singly or in a large swath doesn't matter. In fact, selective loggers tend to harvest the trees with the highest wood density, which pack more carbon than less dense trees.”
The large old trees are the very trees operating at peak production. A percentage of this production is going into the soil communities and supporting various food webs. The large canopies break the effect of precipitation, wind and sun. The remains of the fungi aggregate soil particles and create pore space for water, air, and growing root tips. Water vapor is transpired into the air while aerosols are released causing it to form droplets. In addition, many of these old trees support entire food webs and dozens of species.

170. Major SOD Infestation in HRSP

2005-11-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

www.suddenoakdeath.org
California Oak Mortality Task Force”s November nerwsletter contained this small article causing great concern for me. This is our neighborhood, and I have been writing about SOD since 2000. We note how fortunate there are trained people that recognize the problem in the field.

“A new Phytophthora ramorum-infested site in Humboldt County has been confirmed 6 miles north of the Garberville/Redway area on Humboldt Redwoods State Park property along the Avenue of the Giants. The site features a moderately steep hillside dissected by ephemeral drainages running directly into the South Fork Eel River. Old-growth redwood, in places with an understory of nearly pure California bay laurel, grows on the site’s lower slopes; the stand grades into a Douglas-fir/tanoak and madrone mix on upper slopes. Symptoms are found in both forest types.
A tree inspector for Western Environmental Consultants International (WECI - a contractor to PG&E’s vegetation management program) identified the presence of bleeding cankers on numerous tanoak trees and notified University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE), Humboldt County staff, who sampled tanoak shoots and bark as well as California bay laurel leaves from the site. All three kinds of samples yielded P. ramorum at the UC Davis Rizzo lab. Numerous symptomatic hosts, including California black oak, madrone, and Douglas-fir, have since been observed on the site and sampled; results are pending. UCCE Humboldt County and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) have proposed to California State Parks that an adaptive management trial designed to reduce P. ramorum inoculum and slow pathogen spread to adjacent sites be implemented. State Parks has begun the review process for the project.”

Other SOD news includes the stream sampling with rhododendron, which gives a presence indicator in watersheds. The 2005 National P. ramorum Survey of Forest Environments debriefing in Atlanta summarizing forest field work in 39 states; the extent of spread in the U.K., including chestnut and witch hazel among others, a discussion of nursery epidemiology including overhead vs. drip watering to control spread in nursery conditions, Forest Service models of risk assessment for the nation and other timely information including links and a calendar of events.
In Cherokee Country, Reviving a Tree's Deep Roots
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1107_051108_cherokee_2.html This article is from the National Geographic newsletter concerning restoring butternut to its home range with river cane, an associated species important for Eastern Cherokee cultural uses. This story has it all, a historical site of importance, Native Americans purchasing ancestral homelands, 95% dead trees and only 2% river cane left, trying to restore a tree crop ravaged by an imported fungus disease, natural suppression of competitors by the butternuts with river cane able to take advantage, traditional uses of the plants, ecological restoration and tree improvement and a commitment to educate the young in traditional culture all rolled into one. Great Stuff.

169. Habitat, Fish, Deer, Tech Innovators

2005-11-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-frog4nov04,1,1774205,full.story?coll=la-headlines-california
Habitats May Shrink by Leaps, Bounds
Officials want to reduce sanctuaries for frogs and other species by 150 million acres.
By Janet Wilson Times Staff Writer November 4, 2005
Several articles this week expose our government’s priorities in ecological matters. This first article describes the current administrations rollback of protections for critical habitat for many species, especially in areas contested for development of corporate activities. The House of Representatives has passed a bill rolling back designations on thousands of acres of undeveloped public and private land, and the bill will go to the Senate soon.
One big issue is the economic benefits of preserving natural habitat, which apparently is not included even though we see evidence 5-15% premiums are paid on houses bordering undeveloped land. That is a backwards way of thinking anyway. When the Forest Service did put a value on non-timber activities a lot of money was spent disproving the point as overgenerous in its estimates.
The reduced funding has led to more reliance on volunteer groups for habitat improvement and monitoring. A short article in the LA times on November 8 of groups you can join to help fish restoration efforts.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-os-troutbar8nov08,1,5330697.story?coll=la-news-environment.Here are the web addresses listed in the article for four excellent organizations. All could use volunteer assistance.
The Adopt-A-Stream Foundation; http://www.streamkeeper.orgFisheries Resource Volunteer Corps http://www.frvc.org Angeles and San Bernardino Nat Forest Fly Fishers
California Trout (Cal Trout) Http://caltrout.org 5300 California member4s
Trout Unlimited: http://www.tucalifornia.org !35,000 members
The same day they ran a story about steelhead counters in the Southland looking for fish in recovering areas. They find suitable habitat without enough water or any fish. They seem much more concerned about the return of the fish than the DFG guys calling steelhead “Kool-Aid Fish” because you only need to add water for them to appear.
My experience tells me to say the fish will be there, and that you must look to the uplands to understand the amount of water available in the heat. My experience also tells me several small steelies may wait several years for the weather to provide the opportunity for ocean migrators and spawners returning. In fact I have had years where several steelhead lived throughout dry periods only to disappear in the wet years, and slowly become bigger and more numerous. In the nearly thirty years we have been there we have never seen more than one big fish in any given year, but they must be there.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-os-steelhead8nov08,1,3695723.story?page=3&coll=la-news-environment Meanwhile spike top fences designed to keep deer away have become a bone of contention in the San Gabriels because leaping animals impale themselves trying to get over the fences and into yards. Five cities have banned new spiky fences and two of them are considering retrofit programs. This would involve some expenses and so some form of loan or relief is being asked for. An important note here is that the fences are helping with bear problems. As the Mayor of Duarte points out, it is traumatic for people to see wildlife in that condition. Nothing will turn folks out faster to protest, especially in these better off subdivisions. It would seem the ornamental iron guys get a lot of work keeping nature at bay. Our experience was that six foot fences were insufficient to keep deer out, you need to go to eight. I used to wonder about those spikes fences around houses in NYC, but I was thinking about people, and I knew a couple of kids who were injured climbing these types of fences.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-fences8nov08,1,1044328.story?coll=la-news-environment Another article the same day carried a warning by Director Rodderick of DFG about attacks by adult male deer on humans and pets during the rut, or breeding season, when they are particularly aggressive. A buck killed a man, another attacked two dogs, killing one, and a third attacked a couple working in their garden. These are wild animals and should be regarded with caution, or avoided altogether. The buck that killed the dog was shown several nights on San Francisco news outlets.
The Bay Areas Tech Museum awarded five innovators for designs that help poor folks around the world with basic living. This years winners include a more friendly loom, MIT’s OpenCourseWare, where course are published online for all for free, solar powered homes and a vaccine program, and to me most importantly, a new twist on the composting toilet concept. Since water is a major issue together with homestead living, I have advocated for better toilets and new rules form county commissioners allowing composting toilets in Humboldt homes by code. As I understand it, the biggest holdup has been fear of non-compliance or failure to maintain. To me this seems minor compared to the water and infrastructure needed to deal with sewage, and that in precludes development where the infrastructure doesn’t exist. Drying out the sewage process would make a lot more water available for other uses, and probably slow the emergence of super bacteria resistant to current methods.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/10/BUG1QFLM981.DTL&type=printable

1268. Headwaters, Biomass, Pulp Mill

2005-10-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

Headwaters was given a report card this week by the Wilderness Society and the World Resources Institute as part of annual monitoring of the National Landscape Conservation System.. Middling poor grades were given mainly due to underfunding, understaffing, lack of a role in the agency’s state managers team, and a perceived slow rate of restoration projects. http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3160273 It seems the marks are more about the National Landscape Conservation System of which it is a part, and the fact that local BLM folks are not on the state level team. Seems like Arcata has done an outstanding job in the area. They are gaining donated land and smaller budgets at a rapid pace, and we probably don’t need too much of an annual report on these parcels beyond progress reports, as this distracts from the staffs ability to work on other projects, including King Range, Gilham Butte, Table Bluff, Mill Creek, the last three all relatively new purchases and all requiring management plans. We’d rather see the restoration get done before funding dries up, which consists primarily of putting roads to bed and stand management of second and third growth timber into a mature condition.
The article seemed to think there was very good but shorthanded staff, which has been my experience as well. All of our public lands could use more money and personnel at the local level. What we don’t need is knee jerk reactions like the recent closure of National Forests for ALL activities without an impact statement, including berry picking, Christmas trees and mushrooms. Luckily it didn’t last too long but suppose you were planning to go, then cancelled your season, and then it was back on again, it was part of your livelihood and had planned all year for it. We fear the harvest of mushrooms will accelerate before their true role in the forest becomes general knowledge, and conservationists will have to battle the economic impacts of restrictions again.
For an article describing one North Coast road closure project, go to www.erosioncontrol.org and see this months article about Humboldt Redwoods State Parks project in Bull Creek, and remember some of these areas have ten miles of old roads per square mile, which also gives some idea of planning and costs involved in removing the old roads, which are a leading cause of habitat degradation for our coastal streams.
More ideas for the Forest include fire risk reduction and the need for sustainable energy sources. Bhiomass power plants got a push this week. There are actually half the number of them compared to a few uears ago.In Beating the bushes for biomass http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3160246 John Driscoll of the Times-Standad talks with Steve Jolley of Wheelabrator, a biomass company. As a forester he sees the need for landscape wide management over the entire forested landscape in California. This is one of the big problems we are facing- what to do with all that explosive vegetative growth from increased CO2 and warmer wetter weather? Biomass can be an eager consumer of products such as thinning, timber stand improvement, fuel load reduction, “fire-safing” rural properties and payment for small amounts could make a big difference in the rural economy as well as encourage more work in the landscape. Hopefully a percentage or clients becomes efficient enough to use these methods on public lands, which we have said are in danger of overprotection from fire as well as deer and invasive species.
This kind of work could go on for nearly forever, and you can’t ship the jobs out. Combined with the current objectives of the Forest Service and other federal landowners with an understanding of the need to protect the glomalin based water system healthy is a promising future for people, the landscape, habitat and the wildlife
Another possible contender for this product could be the pulp mill. The Times_ Standard reported Evergreen Pulp Mill was granted an interim variance http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3164518 on their lime kiln. We hope the electrostatic precipitator (scrubber) can do the job but it sounds expensive and only maybe going to work. It would be a shame to see that mill fail to operate after all the improvements since 1990 and the effort put into the bleach free paper. Humboldt needs help reducing waste, fire risk and increasing rural incomes, and these projects could do it. We realize larger contracts are probably the rule of thumb, but we need less boom and bust and more focus on the long term on millions of acres of forestland. I imagine they are mainly chip buyers from the mills but chipped brush by the pickup full is worth what? Who gets the branches and leaves? How much oil can you press out of ceanothus? What other trees can provide biofuel as well as habitat?
Time will come for many new products to come from our forests. Each new cycle of human activity focuses around some aspect unrecognized in the past, then suddenly found to be very useful. Naative Americans use forest products far differently than we do. The people after us will as well. That’s why we have to leave it better than we found it.

166. Groundwater Recharge and Government publications

2005-10-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

This exchange was in the rainwaterharvesting group as well as waterforum. Mr. Marple gives a lot of useful sources here relevant to the discussion and indeed, useful for most anyone concerned with restoration and preservation of natural resource systems. He points out the loss of control from the expertise point and implies local control has us spending large amounts on unnecessary public works. HE links us to California and Texas state information as well. Water is a big issue and deserves better public input and oversight as well as new lines of thinking altogether. Lastly, I saw an article saying DOI had been ordered by a judge to remove its web presence. The BLM site says it is for security but I sure hope we are not removing valuable public information.
----- Original Message -----
From: WindstarPK@AOL.COM
Sent: 10/17/2005 10:38:59 PM
To: rainwaterharvesting@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [rainwaterharvesting] CAAM's book on RWH Success Story released
> How do you recharge a bore well?
> s yours,
> Pat Kultgen
> Texas
rainwaterharvesting@yahoogroups.com
From: ""
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:58:35 -0400
Subjec [rainwaterharvesting] rainwaterharvesting CAAM's book on RWH Success Story released
Search the Waterforum site with "onsite", "retention", "recharge", "berms", "spreading terrace", "replenish", "furrow dike", "microcatchment", "LID", "Phoenix", "Fresno".

The USDS-NRCS and the US Environmental Protection Agency have covered every aspect of groundwater recharge that will keep bore wells full. RWH is not limited to catching roof runoff as semi-competent of deliberately deceptive Professional Engineers commonly characterize it.
(False and misleading testimony from this profession dominates discussion of onsite retention in many state water plans, those of California and Texas are notable example.)

Many wells will require recharge from adjacent or remote properties. Comprehensive watershed management planning is advocated strongly by all competent planners and wise/conscientious politicians to achieve maximum groundwater replenishment while eliminating floods and pollution.
The Soil Conservation Service was created expressly for the purpose of minimizing erosion through onsite retention of rainwater with a multiplicity of detention-retention-infiltration enhancement techniques.

The US Congress of 1937 recognized that this simplest and least costly of basic technologies will accomplish the most publicly beneficial management of the public's water resource by mimicking natural conditions achieved by vegetation. (With the considerable contribution of 200 million beaver in North America.) For this reason they created the SCS. (This central branch of the US Department of Agriculture was renamed the NRCS by environmental extremist pressure during President Clinton in order to make it "disappear" from the public's radar screen)

In order to provide direct service to individuals from this federal agency, and through it all other federal agencies, the US Congress provided a model Resource Conservation District Plan that all states adopted in a variety of forms so that local residents had immediate control over a State agency that works directly through the Department of Agriculture to implement commonsense rainwater management that keeps bore wells full and streams flowing stably year-round so that reservoirs will not run dry.

Unfortunate for the American public, the apathy of most communities has allowed municipal and county governments to assume the functions of these Districts, even eliminating some of them. With this flagrant abuse of their powers bureaus were dominated by profiteers have prevented the RCDs from performing their primary function of creating Comprehensive Watershed Management Plans for every watercourse.
Additional Information:
Typical Recharge Well
Page 29/73 of volume21.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/classv/pdfs/volume21.pdf

Private Drinking Water Wells
url: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/privatewells/index2.html

EPA Search Result
http://search.epa.gov/s97is.vts?action==search&collection==all&filter==sample3filt.hts&resulttemplate==epafiles_default.hts&fld==ogwdw000&url_directory==&areaname==Private+Drinking+Water+Wells&areasearchurl==&button1==&button2==&querytext==recharging+well

Moderator
------------------------------------------------
Group url:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rainwaterharvesting/
Rainwater Harvesting and Purification System
http://www.harvestingwater.com/rainwatr.htm

165. California Resources under attack

2005-10-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

California continues to make decisions apparently based on poor understanding of mans interactions with nature. The article
California Landslide Part of Ancient Problem (http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20051020/sc_space/californialandslidepartofancientproblem&printer=1) points out the La Conchita for study, and came to the conclusion it was an ancient active slide area. These localities are generally known, and that brings us back into real estate versus natural phenomena discussions like the earthquake, tornado and hurricane population centers, amongst others. The article shows many slides are not man made, and suggests buying out homeowners and creating park and beach. Even more impressive is the description of the rock, very similar to our own, and the effects of water as precipitation and as springs.The fact that landslides are regularly occurring a year or more after very wet weather should be a source of interest to several fields of study.
Federal judges are showing their anger over the "accidental" cutting of 290 trees in a biological reserve near the Biscuit Fire salvage logging site in southern Oregon, failure of agencies to implement fisheries protections and water allocation for the Colombia and Klamath River salmonid populations. In the West we are now seeing judges rule in favor of the environment over and over by the very nature of the proposals and practices that caused all the legislation in the first place. And the conservatives rail against it but what are they conserving by allowing business to run amok with our resources?
The Governor vetoed three important North Coast issues last week deciding the North Coast Railroad Authority would not be able to make the train run profitably, and cut its funding by five and a half million dollars. By all accounts the Upper Eel River watershed is difficult, dangerous and fluid landscape to try to build a railroad on. We heard in the late eighties South Fork ridge was an old railroad right of way, and have always wondered about a possible route inland instead of coastal. It probably goes through some protected areas but a study of routing may make a public discussion a reality. There is little use of the railroad when it ran (last in 1997), mainly timber, and it is hard to see a lot of other uses, except maybe gravel or water which probably would be cheaper to barge. Humboldt could then join the I-5 corridor and ship and receive goods by rail much more regularly, and that would justify port expansion. (My cousin was one of the Coast Guard Sea Marshals who came up last year to prepare local law enforcement for possible hostage attacks against cruise ships coming to Humboldt Bay. We had a good visit afterwards, and they left. When the ship got here, it couldn’t find the mouth of the harbor and passed by on its way north. No ships have come in since then.)
Thursday Senator Wes Chesbro tried to address this new problem caused by the governor’s veto for the salmon restoration work. It is truly troubling that the tidelands lease money has been taken just when it is about to produce extra revenue. Anyone doing restoration work over the last two decades knows funding is an up and down item, and I am personally knowledgeable about projects being okayed and then not funded, or even having funding taken away after approval. We have always seen our private property as our purchased mess and know some parts of the job will be way too big for us, and probably for anyone trying to justify the expense of repair from ignorant and destructive practices. Sen. Chesbro has said he will present a bond issue to continue the programs in order to assist the fish and retain expertise in the restoration industry.
This is about the same thinking as on the railroad, with the concern not about making a profitable business but rather the fact that business use has to justify the expense or repair and maintenance of miles of railway in harsh conditions to keep the railroad from sliding into the river. As the senator said, the Northcoast Railroad is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
The Governor also vetoed salmonid restoration funding meant to replace lost revenue from tidal wetlands oil drilling in the deal that allowed it off southern California. The money had been instrumental as matching funds for a variety of restoration projects and was the basis of the so-called restoration industry. We believe restoration will always be massively under funded for the amount of work required, and that that funding is part of a peace dividend the nation cannot afford in time of war. For these reasons we think restoration is a limited opportunity to make the big corrections and map out essential work always realizing the plans may remain good ideas for long after any particular funding cycle ends. We have always done restoration as volunteers with a commitment to a piece of land and have only asked for professional insight, help with permitting since the state has restricted most of the activities that would allow landowners to fix stream habitat on their own, and at some point machine work. We have made homes for many trees, mainly our own but with an MRC planting. We believe if we label restoration as an industry it will make a tragic disappearance during tough funding cycles, and continuity of purpose is critical in an industry where often times doing nothing is a totally acceptable part of the process in many years, as the landscape heals itself.
Another veto would have regulated the number of crab pots any boat can manage. It is a compromise number intended to protect small boat owners and local fleets. Removal of the pot limits allows big boats to out compete smaller ones and deplete the resource faster. Like the Atlantic waste fish food surveys of the eighties, larger boats lead to collapse of many fisheries just by the size of the catch enabled by the larger newer boat design but by the size of the catch needed to pay for it.
All of these issues directly affect employment and revenue for Humboldt County. We do not see any suggestions or ideas forthcoming form Sacramento. We did get a significant boost from transportation projects recently awarded. With the decline of state and federal payment plans on many levels, the service sector will also see a hit.
It is time for new thinking in terms of resource management and land management. Paying for people to grow big trees, and selling this mechanism for carbon sequestration would alter the focus of many dedicated landowners. Another concept worth going back for a look is the water bag sales. Instead of contracting, just sell full bags if and when you have them. The concept needs work but water is a valuable commodity, and we generally have more than enough. Generally though- clients should not have any claim on any water not considered excess. The only truly sustainable industry is in intellectual property, where the forces of nature interact with the human intellect unleashing creativity in a myriad of ways.

164. Deforestation doesn't trigger floods-U.N. report

2005-10-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

164. Deforestation doesn't trigger floods-U.N. report By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Wed Oct 12, 8:02 PM ET
Reading this Reuters article on Yahoo gave the feeling of the fox guarding the henhouse. Some of these issues are discussed regularly here, and the raison d’etre in the first place.
"There is no scientific evidence linking large-scale flooding to deforestation," the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) said in a report Thursday. We can see the science is not up to date, for there is no mention of soil water storage or aggregation or those functions in relation to glomalin. that the cumulative impacts of tree removal, especially ancient trees, has significantly impaired the soils ability to store and hold some of that water. We also point out one of the precipitation interfaces job is merely to slow the waters path. Arguments about storm water storage in abundant rainfall areas center on urban runoff. I am sure there will always be floods but this one factor is overlooked everywhere- native vegetation will absorb most of a normal rainfall. Peak events sculpt landscapes. Minor events act like peak events when conditions permit, such as land clearing or new roads altering swale drainages.
Recent reports about percentages of trees in a given area digging for groundwater while neighboring trees of the same species were content with surface water is also an interesting concept. As in any biological community, it makes sense that different individuals have differing strategies for acquisition of necessary components for survival of the species. We already know some species root to bedrock or groundwater, however deep that may be. In many areas these species pin the landscape to the ground. Several of these trees per acre can be the difference between a stable hillside and a disaster waiting to happen.
The authors seem to want us to believe that things are going exactly as they always have. But I disagree. While the picture of a sponge may be true, the modern sponge has been sliced repeatedly by roads and diverted drainages. It is not a huge single piece of biologically connected landscape, it is thousands of bits and pieces, the areas between channeling water into cutting torrents, giving a usual amount of water far less opportunity to be absorbed and greater opportunity to wreak havoc downslope. There is also no scientific literature about the effects of glomalin on landslide activity or in relation to flooding or about glomalin decay and landslides. That is the purpose of this blog- to get the new science recognized for the useful perspective it gives us.
Heavy rain will cause runoff in many cases. The report fails to mention a difference between surface runoff, which cuts, and water running through the biological zone at an accelerated pace. Heavy canopy and duff still operate on the precipitation although it doesn’t get absorbed into the soil.
The authors also lump trees together but we know it takes decades to centuries to rebuild fungi populations and glomalin deposits. Young trees are barely reaching production will not have excess productivity to trade growth for soil conditioning, that would happen once the tree has reached adulthood and become a leading community contributor to the subsoil infrastructure of the ecosystem. Tree roots of little trees won’t do much but slide on down with the mud. Little trees snap off in high wind, or are easily uprooted.
We would like to know how the authors think streams run all year in areas with extended dry seasons if water is not stored or held or delayed in the biological zone. We also point out far more damage is done by development than loggers. Loggers despoil new areas but they can come back. Development finishes them as functional landscapes. Farmers are in the middle- most ag practices diminish the water storage capacity of a landscape by replacing deeper rooted natives with shallow rooted crops, slowly shrinking the glomalin conditioned zone to a narrower band nearer the surface.
It seems there should be tables that show what types of vegetation do what under differing precipitation events. We find these reports regularly thrown out there that seem like poor questions in the first place, and loudly publish doom and gloom debunking any theory that points out modern economic practices are causing socio-environmental problems.
In the end, we have to agree that practices are certainly making bigger messes with smaller storms, especially in the flood plains and populated areas. I do not agree there is evidence of massive landsliding in the geologic record and that it is not a manmade phenomenon.

163. Chronic Wasting Disease

2005-10-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

Tom Stienestra (San Francisco Chronicle, September 29, 2005 reported on the state monitoring efforts for Chronic Wasting Disease, a spongiform encephaly disease found in the U. S. in deer and elk herds. It is similar to so-called mad cow disease. This has been a growing problem, notably Wisconsin, for several years. Infected animals have been found in nine states so far, California not one of them.
The monitoring consists of urging hunters from Zones X (Northern California east of the Sierra Crest) and C (Northern California east of I-5) to bring their animals in for free testing at selected sites during hunting season several weeks ago. (October 1 and 2).
This is part of a national effort to control the disease. Wisconsin has ahd 471 positives out of 75,000 tested in the last three years. This year New York and West Virginia were added to the roll of states with infected animals.
The article finishes describing CWD as a neurological disease with unknown means of transmission. Deer lose weight “then deteriorate with tremors, disorientation and difficulty swallowing.” However, without really doing any extra work, we know from the PBS series Nova’s episode “The Brain Eater”, several very troubling threads are spun together here. One is the occurrence of spongiform encephaly across species barriers. Most diseases do not easily infect other species of animals with the same level of virulence but spongiform encephaly has epread it over seven hundred species in the mammals. This is the great danger of the avian flu, because humans, diseased birds and host vectors like bats and civets are all incubators of more virulent strains of these diseases.
Virulence can be multiplied by repeated thinning with antibiotics, each generation multiplying the number of surviving pathogens. Thus SIV, usually innocuous in man, was made far more powerful by repeated use of syringes during polio vaccinations in Africa until HIV resulted. As with avian flu and West Nile virus we see a majority of carriers unaware, a small percentage with minor symptoms and a very few with disastrous consequences.
The cause of the disease is a new vector called a prion, which is essentially a misfolded normal protein, which cause plaque lined holes in the brain, thus spongiform. Mad cow was shown to have originated in feed supplements for cattle, particularly bone meal. It was thought infected cows had been ground up and passed along. Now it turns out the source may have been human bones collected by fertilizer salesmen downstream of the Ganges, known for Hindu burials. This would turn the original source back to humans, as with the original East African disease Kuru, which was shown to be spread by ritual cannibalism.
As for the state monitoring efforts, we would think testing would be either mandatory or free, especially for deer which is usually hunted for the freezer, but that a better sampling might be made from roadkills, extending the season and the range of sampling.
California has had a lot of West Nile this year but nationally numbers are way down. Sometimes invasive species run into more trouble than first expected. Sometimes it takes native conditions several years to weed out threatening newcomers. Repeated drought will kill any plants not accustomed to it, for example, even if they thrive initially under favorable conditions, or before natives recognize a new food source. Still, as third largest biomass by species, humans can expect a lot of life forms to see us as food, and derive newer and better ways of getting at it.
The history of our species lies not only in our genes but in our immune system. Generations of resistance to specific diseases that protected the survivors of those diseases and epidemics have made an increasingly powerful human immunity to many microbes. There is evidence of epidemic that thinned the human population to perhaps a few hundred about 80,000 years ago. It was part of the Eve story, of a survivor memorialized in mitochondria DNA.
Further down in the article it is reported trapper Dick Seever and his crew had reduced the pig population at Henry Coe State Park. The stated reason is to allow oak seedlings to reach maturity to provide acorns as food for “hundreds of other species of wildlife and birds.” I think the number given of California wildlife as acorn dependant was about seventy in the Oaks and Folks publication of the Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program. I personally have been trying to figure out how and when white oaks regenerate- I haven’t seen a sapling on my place in twenty plus years, and I have no pigs or sign of deer browse. Smoke may be a critical germination factor for some species, as reported earlier in the year and noted in this blog. Even so, bigger predators keeping them moving may be a better answer than repeated thinning hunts.
California reservoirs are in good shape this year: “Lake Oroville, 45 percent full a year ago at this time, is 82 percent full. Others in great shape: Whiskeytown (99 percent full), Pardee (98 percent), Tulloch (92) and Englebright (92).
Other major lake numbers: Shasta (67 percent full, 108 percent of normal), Trinity (78 percent full, 110 percent of normal), Bullards Bar (74 percent full, 119 percent of normal), Folsom (68 percent full, 116 percent of normal), Camanche (74 percent full, 117 percent of normal) and New Melones (80 percent full, 147 percent of normal)” Some slight rain has come in already this fall, and my creek has had water in it all year for the first time since around 1987 or so. We hope others are seeing similar effects this year, and that a wetter pattern allows regeneration of the landscapes water storage system and accelerates the accumulation of glomalin.
One last California resource note in the article mentioned closure of the commercial cabezon season as limits have been reached. Then he tells us “cabezon is the one of the sweetest-tasting inshore coastal rockfish.”

162. Fungi

2005-10-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

162. Fungi
The role of fungi in forests has a long history of study. Fungi are essential for many of the processes involved in forests. The fruiting sporocarps of epigeous types, or those fruiting above the ground, is a better known aspect of fungi. This is what mushroom pickers seek. Some native types favored by hunters include chanyerelles, matasuke, or tanoak mushroom, morels, the boletes and black trumpets. Buyers pay a good price for these of several dollars a pound. Picking is by permit on most federal land managed by BLM and the Forest Service. Most recent management plans acknowledge epigeous mushroom pickers with a permit and season process. Buyers often set up along local roads or in motels, and you can learn a lot talking to them. One fer instance would be learning that there are many useable mushrooms with less culinary value that still bring some pay, like straw mushrooms.
Then there is aspect, association, temperature and time of year discussion. The majority of symbiotic forest fungi are ectomycorrhizia infecting root tissue between the cells. Fruiting occurs after the fall rains adnwhen temperature falls to a certain point in this region. The plant associations are relevant as the host trees can indicate a likely area to search. They produce hyphae and spores while seeking out nutrients in the environment. The short lived hyphae die back in several weeks leaving behind the structural component glomalin. Glomalin is essential to the forest community as tilth producing water retaining aggregator of soils, remaining there for decades. It changes from a structural component of the fungi to a part of the infrastructure of the forest as a whole.
Very little information is available about hypogeous fungi, or those that fruit belowground. Yet some of our most valuable species, such as truffles, are found there. Truffles are an essential part of the forest food web, providing 30-95% of small mammals food depending on time of year, in turn prey for old growth dependant predators, many of which are struggling with habitat loss- northern spotted owl, goshawk, marten, fisher. Truffle inoculation studies have been going on in Oregon for decades but they do not fruit every year, and cultivation has proved difficult, impossible in the lab without host trees.
Truffles indicate healthy subsoil communities, as they disappear after clear cuts as they are deprived of their nutrition source. Truffles are usually found in middle aged forests 30 to 200 years old. Mycology clubs often hold truffle hunts. They reappear after recovery has reached a certain point some time near canopy closure. They actually are part of a progression of types that assist the landscape and vegetation to recover from damage. Morels appear after ground disturbance damages mycelium or after hoist trees die.
Rhizopogons and generalists help seedlings survive hot dry summers. In clear cuts the number of seedlings can be amazing. When we think about the forest rebuilding its water system, we are less surprised. In that first year each seedling is conditioning a tiny circle of soil a couple of inches deep to hold water next wet season. All of them are hosting fungi that are producing glomalin. Any individual tree may be hosting dozens of species, all with slightly different characteristics but all contributing to the system as a whole.
Other fungi have different roles. Especially important are decomposers, again of an amazing variety. Here we find variety important because most fungi create one enzyme, which decomposes one component of plant litter into nutrition. Other species use other parts or other products created in the chain of digestion as fungi make new compounds available after obtaining their requirements.
Some straddle the fence, like armillaria, a decomposer of white oak and symbiotic.to Douglas fir. Natives valuing the white oak burnt the ground beneath them for several reasons, but primarily it was essential to prevent Douglas fir encroachment of managed Oregon white oak stands of improved acorns, an invaluable food source. The crowding of seedlings encourages some to die off, and needle drop begins almost right away. These create important opportunities for armillaria to colonize new space, and if there is a lot of downed wood and leaf litter the fungi will be drawn to the oaks. The highly active hyphae will begin attacking the oak, causing rot and eventual death even as the Douglas fir grows taller and shades the oak out, helping to hasten the process. Valuable groves were protected by regular burns, which also controlled certain insect pests and provided forest edge raw materials for native culture.
Reading the evidence for truffles it is not surprising that leave trees are recommended in all cutting blocks, allowing some subsoil processes to continue. Even so, we can expect diminished food supply to impact first users and in turn their predators, causing a general decline in wildlife populations, a slowing of the spread of spores into newly impacted areas and diminishing the number of types. We can be sure it will be a long time before the water storage capacity of the forest is repaired, and that strong storms will cause conditions to deteriorate before they are fully recovered.

161. Estuary, Road Closure, PL , Warming, Warning Shots

2005-09-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

SERIES: NORTH COAST: A Kayak Adventure
HEALING A WATERSHED
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/23/MNGCHES76R1.DTL
Paul McHugh SF Chronicle 9/23/05
Chris Larson, Freeman House, Joe Zanone and the Mattole Restoration Council were interviewed for the San Francisco Chronicle in part of a series about kayaking down the North Coast from Crescent City to the Bay Area. The Mattole article laid out the situation and improvement seen in fisheries the last few years. We know the massive amount of work needed without going into details, the main problems still revolve around sediment mostly mobilized by past land practices and heavy precipitation. Most of the back country in Northern California has been logged at some point and thousands of miles of skid trails and roads are funneling peak event runoff, which in turn carves or destabilizes the land down slope. Mattole Restoration Council has worked on road decommissioning for years with BLM in the King Range, And BLM put a road to bed on Larrabee Buttes, and selective sites are or will be at Headwaters, King Range, HRSP and Gilham Butte. We are glad to see some fish numbers, and a little discussion on the estuary. We got a number on per yard costs from the article below, about 2.50 a yard. Eighty million yards would be 200 million. Maybe its just that I’m getting so used to everything in billions that that doesn’t seem like a lot.
An excellent article about putting roads to bed in Humboldt Redwoods State Park’s Mill Creek in Weott in Erosion Control (http://www.erosioncontrol.com/) magazine this month. Written by Ethan Casaday, an engineering geologist with the North Coast Redwoods District, California State Parks, the article covers the setting, background, objective, entire process of planning, funding, preliminary studies, prescriptions, implementation and actions, a detailed post construction analysis of the project and the participants gives a clear idea of issues on the ground, and suggests ways to smooth out the process. This project is in keeping with the philosophy of working on entire sub-basin tributary watersheds at once. It cost $515,272 to close 20.4 miles of road, it cost around 2.50 a yard to mitigate road problems in this project. The setting accurately describes conditions throughout the area, although heavy precipitation is not mentioned. These are the same issues Good Roads Clean Creeks is attempting to fix, although damage is so extensive that only a percentage is likely to see the kind of money needed to return it all to natural contours. The Mattole reaches to ten miles of logging road per square mile.
IN the analysis a point is made about some problems in the wet season. We point out that this process would benefit from an inclusion of glomalin thinking, which needs to be grown back quickly, limiting the exposure to failure causing weather events. While mulching reduces impacts and creates seed catching areas, knocking down trees after the work seems like throwing away the accumulated soil stabilization factor of glomalin and root growth. Taking care not to bury functioning glomalin pockets is another consideration. Future stability of the slopes depends on revegetation and the land will slowly stabilize, with no sediment after ten years of regrowth as in studies by Redwood Sciences Lab. Still, landslides are still possible if soils are buried that were fed by trees removed in the process, the glomalin will decompose over several decades before all the soil glue is gone. Hopefully by then enough new material is being produced to keep the land glued together.
An interesting note in this regard was mentioned by the representative of the noteholders in negotiations with PL/ScoPac.( http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3071334; http://www.northcoastjournal.com/092905/news0929.html). They wish to separate Scopacs land holding from PL’s mills, as most other operations have done in the past twenty years, and reinvent themselves along with the current more sustainable views of institutional owners and environmental groups. They recognize the logged over land cannot support neither the debt nor the mills by themselves, and that PL needs to buy logs from more sources. They want new management plans for Scopac more in line with the current array of large landholders, which have switched from industrial owners, to institutional owners, many with no-commercial logging clauses in the title. This is a problem because it precludes development of commercial uses of thinning and fire protection materials and limiting possible uses to lop-and-scatter or pile burning or onsite chipping.
Finally,clear evidence of mankind causing warming is not keeping pace with the actual changes we are seeing. Revelations about the inability to know the effect of changes in the sun itself is throwing everything into question except the facts on the ground. The earthshine, or albedo, is poorly understood. Yet we can see massive change in land use in the last twenty five years, and bare ground stores heat and reflects light while vegetation absorbs light and cools through several mechanisms including transpiration, evaporation and shade. It appears something is happening to cause a ten to thirty percent increase in sun energy influencing climate. It must be remembered the geologists tell us the magnetic field of earth is in flux and that could happen quite rapidly. Finally, Ice Ages appear and disappear much more quickly than previously believed. Miss a couple of years of summer and the glaciers will be back. Wild fluctuations of average temperature in short time periods have occurred in the past, humans are extremely adaptable. The difference this time is infrastructure and political boundaries, centralized agriculture and the sheer size of the human population. An example this year is a thirty percent reduction in European plant net productivity due to drought. This in an area where drought has been going on for five or six years and large swaths of forest burn every year, and it is harder and harder to revegetate because there is not enough timely water. Could be desertification from local use but more likely a shift in weather patterns. We know now a large amount of rainwater is generated from evapo-transpiration over land, and this moisture travels the jet stream, creating rainfall continents away.
One thing nature has worked out is to take advantage of natural resources for environmental modification to take advantage of climatic conditions. The amount of land being devegetated is as much cause for concern as smoke in the atmosphere or vanishing species. More carbon is being added to the mix from glomalin destroying land practices. Not enough attention is being paid for the need to use this rising atmospheric fertilization to stabilize landscapes, provide water storage in the biological zone, increase forest production of gases that lead to particle formation and cloud formation. Destruction of wetlands also reduces our natural defenses against storms and flooding. Coral reefs play a part in mitigating storm surge. All are benefiting from increasing CO2, in many cases with added emphasis in warmer situations. But without it being recognized the process is constantly undermined by the results of our activities.

160. Science and the End Times

2005-09-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

160. Science and the End Times
Today as Rita churns across the Gulf we are counting on the accuracy of our science in the guise of meteorology to warn us about the looming threat. We can all see the pictures on NWS websites or TV. I often make my own weather predictions based on TV weather. We all see the pattern but the actual paths are guesswork, based on most likely outcomes. When it comes to life and death, or leaving everything behind to evacuate, it really becomes necessary to have full authority of science backing up legal concerns, because you are putting a lot of people and property at risk.
Governments set their agendas to scarce funding resources. Government officials who got their jobs because groups of people contributed funds owe allegiance to those who put them there. The people in power then act in ways compatible with their backers, which may or may not be in the general publics interest. Since the public is concerned with growing the economy, it is up to the government to find and set limits by funding and recognizing the contributions of science, the only way to predict and interpret results of our activities. So the people are counting on the government to protect them from themselves, knowing the species will maintain constant pressure on any resource found useful, legally or not.
Two years ago federal agencies were blasted for not sharing information or recognizing each others work. This was only a small example of what has been occurring over the last five years. A steady stream of poor studies erodes previous scientific evidence that was generally accepted. We have no problem with science changing as new information comes to light- this is the scientific process. It fails when it authors jump to conclusions radically different from the common knowledge based on poorly planned studies, peer reviewers are discounted, is tested against economic means, or is politically distasteful.
This debate is seen in today’s papers in a commentary article in the LA Times today titled Bush And The Mad Scientists by Chris Mooney of Seed magazine writing about the Plan B contraception failing to gain over the counter status, the new market based fisheries policy, the failure to recognize natural disasters as a large a threat as terrorism, the debate over carbon emissions and environmental change, control over the supply of food seed and its quality, relaxing the roadless rule and federal failure to continue to protect clean air and clean water or people in known risk areas. The current administration has challenged the scientific community in all of these areas, mostly on an economic basis. “Perfectly safe, absolutely harmless” for their products and concerns; unproven, too costly or wrong in the eyes of God in anything standing in the way. But they are counting on science to lead them back to the moon “on a shoestring.”
When I was growing up, the background threat of nuclear war was an important part of thinking. Science could make the world slightly better or very much worse. Science was out to prove itself with space exploration and cures for many of the infectious diseases in the world. Sometime in the sixties serious threat of nuclear war seemed to dissipate, and recognition of dwindling resources for a booming population came into view. Since we no longer feared devastation from a single source like a Soviet ICBM attack, we started being interested in life issues again, and the environment became an important focus of study.
Memories of air armada campaigns meant civil defense was an important component of readiness, and I remember the public announcements saying the yellow and black air raid shelter signs on many buildings with basements meant they were available for many kinds of disasters. I often wonder what became of civil defense. It might be a good idea to restore local networks of volunteers ready to react in any emergency, to do the things relief and emergency groups need time to organize. I would include planned shelter or distribution points so folks know where to go.
In the book Celtic Wisdom an old poet is questioned about the end times. The description is much scarier than Revelations could ever be, because it tells us we are the cause of the end times, and not the victims, and ego is a big part of the problem. The description is of every person having an equal voice, reason and insanity inseparable; fools, cynics and satirists are equal to statesmen and leaders, all utterances bear equal weight and the ability to discriminate lost. That’s enough to set the stage for any number of catastrophic events.
So it is I find myself with a possibly important discovery that lies outside the accepted norm. I only know about it from peer reviewed science published as articles in the popular press, but it ties together a lot of previously published information into an explanation of what I was seeing on the ground. Last week I wrote about the problems with the Soil Organic Carbon studies in England and Wales pointing out the loss as soil carbon due to glomalin destruction caused by machinery. CO2 Science magazine pointed out its failures in other ways. Similarly, the Scientific American article on forest soil carbon sequestration totally ignores glomalin deposition as a product of tree productivity, and is also ripped by CO2 Science for other weaknesses in the setup and the study. So I continue to concur with CO2 Science despite the fact they seem to be taking a long time recognizing the importance of glomalin in forest productivity studies. It must be included at the outset.
Somehow the country must be convinced science is not malleable to the wishes of industry or the economy or even the citizens. We cannot say science is absolute because it is based on a continuing inquiry that is in constant state of rediscovery. Nevertheless, it is possible to make an argument seem like good science when it fits the stated needs, and takes other scientists to poke holes in it. Throwing out good science because it contradicts our preplanned position is not in the best interests of our country, its resources or its people.

159. Geologists, West NIle, PL water Board hearings, Timber losses in Mississippi

2005-09-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Geology workshops give rangers lay of their lands
Parks' staff versed in explaining Earth's dynamics to visitors
Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer Monday, September 12, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/12/MNGBHEM56R1.DTL&type=sports
Geologists see the The National Park Service as a great opportunity to educate people about local geology. Most Park employees have biology backgrounds. Robert Lillie, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University in Corvallis, has written a book titled “Parks and Plates: The Geology of Our National Parks, Monuments and Seashores.” In it he says many of the nations’ 380 National Park sites are recognized because of unique geological features. He is on tour collaborating with Park Service rock specialists teaching rangers more about tectonic forces that shape their work. He started off with Golden Gate National Recreation Area and will visit Rocky Mountain National Park later this month. His team will visit forty-five parks in the next year. A lot of time in the article is spent explaining how cookies and decks of cards can be used to simulate geologic activity.
This has been my experience as well, that geological information is either hard to get or hard to understand, especially here on the North Coast. Even when you thin the possibilities of rock to one or two you then are left with soils to study, as shown for redwood with Dr. Paul J. Zinke, Associate Professor of Forestry, University of California, School of Forestry, Berkeley paper Soils and Ecology of the Redwoods. Even with soils a limiting factor we find redwood grows well over a much larger range than its home. It seems to me that soils must be very unfriendly to prevent growth. We do note the radical difference in plants growing in serpentine soils, home of many species of interest.
West Nile threatens magpie population
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-os-briefs13.1sep13,1,2767711.story?coll=la-news-environment
Joe Robinson reports in today’s L. A. Times article that West Nile virus threatens yellow-billed magpies, unique to California. UC Davis scientists have asked Fish and Game to arrange an inquiry board of scientists to study the situation. West Nile is particularly severe in corvids, the family composing jays, raven, crows and magpies. Two-thirds to three-quarters of crows in the East have already perished.
Walter Boyce, director of the Wildlife Health Center at UC Davis, said 88,000 dead birds with the disease have been found this year, and that is probably a fraction of all bird deaths due to the virus.
"There have been a large number of magpies observed dead this year," Boyce says, noting the yellow-billed magpie, unique to California, could go extinct. "Because the magpie is limited in distribution and highly susceptible to the virus, this could push it over the edge."
Like Sudden Oak Death, this new disease threatens to radically alter California ecosystems on a landscape level. A lot of discussion was focused on this family in the Headwaters management plan, as these birds take advantage of human activity in the forest to predate other species, or usurp their nests. I also read many years ago that due to market hunting of birds, only 10 percent of the 1900 bird population existed in 1950, and that had reduced to a similar fraction since then, leaving about one percent of the 1900 population. Market hunting in the late eighteen hundreds decimated many wildlife populations and was the cause for many of the beginning environmental laws, such as the Migratory Bird Act of 1918.
Water quality hearings on hold John Driscoll Eureka Times Standard 9/14/2005
http://www.times-standard.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=3028253
Meanwhile, North Coast Regional Water Quality hearings slated to begin yesterday in Ferndale for Freshwater and Elk River waste water discharges were temporarily shelved as Pacific Lumber got an after hours restraining order preventing the hearings. Due to PL’s claim that NCRWQCB staff could not have read all the comments and criticisms by the scheduled date. Katherine Kuhlman, Executive Director of the Board, said the Board does not simply respond to its staff critiques, and often overruled them in their decisions. She said she was unclear of the cause for the restraining order, which appears to cover a September 27 hearing as well. The case could cause PL to lose more than half of their permitted harvest, putting tremendous pressure on their ability to service their debt.
Katrina turned lush forests into wastelands
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2005-09-13-katrina-timber_x.htm
9/14/2005 Julie Schmit and Elliot Blair Smith, USA TODAY
USA Today reports more than 2.4 billion dollars in timber lost to Hurricane Katrina, according the the Mississippi Forestry Commission, damaging about 1.3 million acres, or nearly half of Mississippi’s timber. Timber is a major industry, the poorest state in the country. Sixty percent of the land is in forest, a lot of it in private hands with about 100 acres an average holding. While the salvage is ready to go, many problems including closed roads and lack of power are getting things off to a slow start. Another problem is the blue stain mold, which makes wood products less desirable but does not affect the soundness of the wood. Tom Harris, publisher of the Timber Mart-South price-reporting service, and a professor at University of Georgia, said overwhelming demand has not caused the bue stain timber to be used in the past. He says if the crushing need makes it acceptable to use it will be the first time. “Harris predicts that the glut of fallen timber will benefit mill owners at the timber ranchers' expense, depressing the raw materials' price. At the retail level, he says, the effect is "almost reverse. Huge demand for lumber and plywood will drive up (retail) prices."

158. Sudden Oak Death Spreading in Humboldt

2005-09-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

The inevitable spread of the invasive tree disease Sudden Oak Death is proceeding in Southern Humboldt. The isolated area around Redway where it was found has grown to about “at least 7 km x 7.8 km (54.6 km2, or 21 mi2) stretching from Sproul Creek in the south to Dean Creek in the northeast, near Briceland in the northwest, and Garberville on the east. Pathologists and foresters from the University of California, USDA Forest Service, and CDF recognize that the disease is operating at a scale that is much more difficult to manage than previously thought.”
After detecting the disease and an experimental treatment in February, 2004, to attempt to control the limited number of infected California bay laurel trees in Redway, survey began to identify the infested area and to test the feasibility of future control treatments using aerial detection, watershed monitoring, and a residential and wildland ground-based survey.
“Partners in this strategy included UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Humboldt/Del Norte County, the Humboldt County Department of Agriculture, the UC Davis Department of Plant Pathology Rizzo Lab, the UC Berkeley Garbelotto Lab, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the USDA Forest Service, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), Hoopa Tribal Forestry, Yurok Tribal Forestry, the Bureau of Land Management, and numerous private and public landowners who granted permission to survey their properties.”
“Pathologists and foresters from the University of California, USDA Forest Service, and CDF recognize that the disease is operating at a scale that is much more difficult to manage than previously thought.
Management of P. ramorum at a landscape scale has not been attempted before in California. The group recommends an adaptive management approach that attempts to contain the pathogen within the smallest geographic area possible, treating the area much like a wildfire containment area. Experimental treatments will be applied, where landowner permission and funding can be obtained, to the perimeter of the infected areas in the hope of containing the pathogen and preventing spread to other watersheds. Bay and tanoak, the primary hosts for the pathogen in the region, will be removed within this “ridgeline host reduction zone” as the highest priority for treatment. Any new infected areas outside the perimeter will be aggressively treated. Within the perimeter of the infested area, the cooperators hope to compare the success of various treatment approaches as well as reduce inoculum levels in the areas with the greatest apparent concentration of P. ramorum. A detailed report of findings and proposed treatment strategies will be made available soon. For a map of the 2005 Southern Humboldt P. ramorum Survey Status, click here. For more information on the survey or Humboldt’s P. ramorum program, contact UCCE Humboldt/Del Norte’s Yana Valachovic at: yvala@ucdavis.edu or Chris Lee at: cale@ucdavis.edu. “
We applaud the attempt to contain the disease in a geographic locality but doubt it will do much good. There are just too many transmission vectors and insufficient understanding of the movement of the organism. We note the publishing of a book covering nine years of research chronologically. We had noted Dr. Alex Shigo (he calls it California Oak Decline) predicted the existence of native relations to the disease that would hybridize and cause a new set of problems is borne out with one new US phytophthora species and several in Europe.
An earlier article noted lack of SOD in lands burned in the last fifty years. This could be a good management tool, but it raises the specter of stand replacement every fifty years, which would not allow for the full recovery of the soil water storage mechanism. Like harvesting small conifers via clearcut, it is a recipe for continual landscape desiccation, and lowered ability to resist soil movement.
Five new host plants have tested positive for P. Ramorum via pot culture. They are Oregon Ash, Redwood ivy, California nutmeg, maidenhair fern, and Sweet Ciciely.
Representative Pombo has asked the General Accounting Office to report on government responses to invasive species in our forests. They chose Emerald Ash borer, Asian Longhorned beetle and SOD. The first two are complete. GAO reps will be here in late September to gather “insight into how P. ramorum got into the US, what damage it has and could cause, how efforts have minimized its impact to the forests, what risk assessments have been done and used for allocating resources, and what lessons have been learned that will be used to improve this or future responses. The USDA’s APHIS and Forest Service, in cooperation with CDFA, the COMTF, CDF, Native Americans, County Agricultural Commissioners, nursery industry representatives, regulated states, and other stakeholders, are coordinating the compilation of information and site visits for the review.”
Another new species of phytophthora has been recognized in England, and one of its two oaks (Sessile oak, Quercus petraea)has been found infected, symptoms being bleeding trunk cankers.. Other new hosts come from China, Evergreen maple (Acer laevegatum), and Michelia doltsopa, used for landscaping in California.
We are surprised there are no warnings or restrictions coming out because the disease can even spread in cut wood, let alone bark. We would think maybe no wood should come out of the area or it will spread it around Humboldt. Not that it can’t spread in other ways. But we won’t be able to do that if the disease gets into Douglas fir and redwood in a big way or we will lose our timber industry. Fire may be able to contain the outbreak, but that is a large response with an iffy outcome. Fires like the Canoe Creek fire may actually be a better prescription but that remains to be seen.

157. Soil Carbon Studies

2005-09-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

Several articles this week bring us closer to the edge of our concerns about soil carbon in forest settings. We applaud the new work even as we see its blind spots. The first article is a summary of two studies done in England and Wales over twenty-five years in three thousand test plots monitored for that legnth of time. The studies measurted soil carbon in the first 15mm (6 inches) of soil, and found a steady loss over time. They attribute this to quickening pace of decay due to global warming, and that land user had little effect on the rate of of carbon loss.
New Scientist reported recently three quarters of published science is wrong. We often see results from research started before more information comes to light. Here is a fine example. This study started nearly twenty years before glomalin wass discovered. Since we believe starving glomalin can lie decaying at much greaster depths than this, we can even surmise why the ground appears to be sinking. I suggest first a history of previous land use for say fifty years, to be sure deeply deposited glomalin has all decayed. We would measure to a greater depth than 6 inches, as that is for row crop farmers and does not give a clear picture of soil carbon profiles in areas previously occupied by deeper rooted plants and trees. Lastly, measuring the top layer does not account for carbon being deposited at any greateerr depth. If your crop deposits glomalin to ten inches, and is replaced six inches every year, you will maintain fertility in the topsoil even as deeper deposits from previous land use decay. Like the U. S. FACE experiments, we would like to see this science repeated in forestlands to a much greaster depth, and with a historical land use analysis to know how much glomalin may be present at the site before measurements begin. It is also interesting to wonder about the surface water capacity of the sites and if that has changed over time. Ground radar may give a quick reading but a connection between water and glomalin needs to be quantified, preferrably as part of a wider study. We point out in response to the Guardian that richer soils often have less need for forasging mycorhizzia, and thus we expect lower production than in poorer soils.
“Warmer soils will have encouraged greater microbial activity so more rapid decay of organic matter in the soil, leading to greater discharges of gases.” Some of these are the very microbes fixing glomalin in the soil, a higher rate of activity will mean higher rates of carbon fixation. We will also find glomalin to greater depth annually of lands being reforested or rewilded. While the British scientists are worried their study shows little hope for controlling carbon dioxide, they contribute directly to our understanding, and pave the way for more focused studies based on a knowledge of glomalin. Three-quarters of the planet's soil carbon is trapped in the temperate zones, they note. Professor Kirk said: "It had been reckoned that the CO2 fertilisation effect was somehow offsetting about 25% of the direct human induced carbon dioxide emissions. It was reckoned that the soil temperature emission effect would catch up in maybe 10 to 50 years' time. We are showing that it seems to be happening rather faster than that."
In answer to that, we include CO2 Sciences article showing accelerated productivity over fifty years in the Amazon Basin, where carbon capture seems to be working better than expected. It is interesting how much we seem to depend on tropical forests for this when the soil isn’t very deep and the glomalin seems to turn over at an accelerated pace. If this is occurring at that rate, and temperate forests are not as quick to decay glomalin because they are cooler, then we can believe that three quarters of the earths soil carbon is in temperate zones. The problem is that it is clear no one is measuring carbon deposition and storage at tree root depths, water carrying capacity and the changes in soil as glomalin decays.
Finally, in reading archeological articles from Britain there is a lot of remorse over the use of tractors and bulldozers on the landscape after WWII. Several books have mentioned that WWII aerial photos revealed old depressions in the ground that often signaled ancient sites, even in areas farmed for hundreds of years. It all disappears under modern equipment, illustrating the extent of carnage on the ground due to those machines. Once again, we have no idea what we may have lost.

Nature
Editor's Summary
8 September 2005
Grounds for concern
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7056/edsumm/e050908-11.htmlThe possibility of a positive feedback between CO2 release from soils and global warming is one of the most contentious issues in climate research. The concern is that rising temperatures may be causing some of the massive reserves of carbon stored in the soil to be released into the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas CO2, resulting in a further increase in temperature and yet more CO2 release. So far what evidence there is for this feedback mechanism has come from small-scale laboratory and field experiments and mathematical modelling. Now a team from the UK National Soil Resources Institute and Rothamsted Research presents data from a long-term national-scale soil monitoring scheme that reveal extensive carbon losses during the past 25 years: land use has little effect on the rate of carbon loss suggesting a possible link to climate change.
News and Views: Environmental science: Carbon unlocked from soils
Changes in climate and land use are implicated as the main factors in the large-scale loss of carbon from soils in England and Wales over the past 25 years. The same picture is likely to apply much more broadly.
E. Detlef Schulze and Annette Freibauer
doi: 10.1038/437205a
Full Text | PDF (222K)
Letter: Carbon losses from all soils across England and Wales 1978−2003
Pat H. Bellamy, Peter J. Loveland, R. Ian Bradley, R. Murray Lark and Guy J. D. Kirk
doi: 10.1038/nature04038

Loss of soil carbon 'will speed global warming' http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1565049,00.htmlTim Radford, science editor
Thursday September 8, 2005
The Guardian
England's soils have been losing carbon at the rate of four million tonnes a year for the past 25 years - losses which will accelerate global warming and which have already offset all the cuts in Britain's industrial carbon emissions between 1990 and 2002, scientists warn today.
The research dashes hopes that more carbon dioxide emissions might mean more vegetation growth and therefore more carbon removed from the atmosphere.
The unexpected loss of carbon from the soils - consistently, everywhere in England and Wales and therefore probably everywhere in the temperate world - means more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which means even more global warming, and yet more carbon lost from the soil.
"All the consequences of global warming will occur more rapidly. That's the scary thing: the amount of time we have got to do something about it is smaller than we thought," Guy Kirk, of Cranfield University, told the British Association Festival of Science, in Dublin.
He and colleagues sampled the top 15cm (6in) of soil at almost 6,000 fixed points in England and Wales between 1978 and 2003, to measure the changes in living and decaying matter locked in pastures, croplands, forests, bogs, scrubland and heaths.
Their findings, published in Nature today, show that carbon was being lost from the soil at an average of 0.6% a year: the richer the soils, the higher the rate of loss. When the figures were extrapolated to include all of the UK, the annual loss was 13m tonnes.
There was no single factor other than global warming that could explain such changes in non-agricultural soils, they said. "These losses completely offset the past technological achievements in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, putting the UK's success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a different light," said Detlef Schulze and Annette Freibauer, of the Max Planck Institute, in Nature.
In the past 25 years the average temperature has increased by half a degree centigrade and the growing season of the northern hemisphere has been extended by almost 11 days. Warmer soils will have encouraged greater microbial activity so more rapid decay of organic matter in the soil, leading to greater discharges of gases.
For more than two decades, climate scientists have tried to calculate the planet's annual carbon flow. Some of the carbon is absorbed by the oceans, to be trapped as limestone; some is locked in soil as peat or stored in woodland. The latest research implies that in a warmer world much of this "lost" carbon will find its way back into the atmosphere more quickly.
The study confirms the value of long-term research: the national soil inventory was established in 1978 as a network of fixed points at intervals of three miles, and the scientists used went on using the same techniques to measure the changes in soil carbon over more than 20 years.
Three-quarters of the planet's soil carbon is trapped in the temperate zones, they note. Professor Kirk said: "It had been reckoned that the CO2 fertilisation effect was somehow offsetting about 25% of the direct human induced carbon dioxide emissions. It was reckoned that the soil temperature emission effect would catch up in maybe 10 to 50 years' time. We are showing that it seems to be happening rather faster than that."

Continued Accelerated Growth of Amazonian Forests CO2 Science Magazine Volume 8, Number 36: 7 September 2005
For most of the past century it was believed that old-growth forests, such as those of Amazonia, should be close to dynamic equilibrium. Just the opposite, however, has been repeatedly observed over the past two decades. In one of the first studies to illuminate this new reality, Phillips and Gentry (1994) analyzed the turnover rates - which are close correlates of net productivity (Weaver and Murphy, 1990) - of forty tropical forests from all around the world. They found that the growth rates of these already highly productive forests had been rising ever higher since at least 1960, and that they had experienced an apparent acceleration in growth rate sometime after 1980. Commenting on these findings, Pimm and Sugden (1994) reported that the consistency and simultaneity of the forest growth trends that Phillips and Gentry had documented on several continents led them to conclude that "enhanced productivity induced by increased CO2 is the most plausible candidate for the cause of the increased turnover."A few years later, Phillips et al. (1998) analyzed forest growth rate data for the period 1958 to 1996 for several hundred plots of mature tropical trees scattered around the world, finding that tropical forest biomass, as a whole, increased substantially over the period of record. In fact, the increase in the Neotropics was equivalent to approximately 40% of the missing terrestrial carbon sink of the entire globe. Consequently, they concluded that tropical forests "may be helping to buffer the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2, thereby reducing the impacts of global climate change." And, again, they identified the aerial fertilization effect of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content as one of the primary factors likely to be responsible for this phenomenon.More recently, Laurance et al. (2004a) reported accelerated growth in the 1990s relative to the 1980s for the large majority (87%) of tree genera in 18 one-hectare plots spanning an area of about 300 km2 in central Amazonia, while Laurance et al. (2004b) observed similarly accelerated tree community dynamics in the 1990s relative to the 1980s. And once again, it was suggested, in the words of Laurance et al. (2005), that these "pervasive changes in central Amazonian tree communities were most likely caused by global- or regional-scale drivers, such as increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Laurance et al., 2004a,b)."Expanding upon this theme, Laurance et al. (2005) say they "interpreted these changes as being consistent with an ecological 'signature' expected from increasing forest productivity (cf., Phillips and Gentry, 1994; Lewis et al. 2004a,b; Phillips et al., 2004)." They note, however, that they have been challenged in this conclusion by Nelson (2005), and they thus go on to consider his arguments in some detail, methodically dismantling them one by one.At the end of the day, it thus appears that a large body of scientists (see the references cited below) agrees that a wealth of scientific data confirms the reality of the ever-increasing productivity of earth's tropical forests, especially those of Amazonia; and they tend to agree that the concomitant rise in the air's CO2 content has had much to do with this phenomenon. We also agree, noting that an even greater wealth of laboratory and field data demonstrates that rising forest productivity is exactly what one would expect to observe in response to the stimulus provided by the ongoing rise in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration (see many of the Headings listed under Trees in our Subject Index).Sherwood, Keith and Craig IdsoReferencesLaurance, W.F., Nascimento, H.E.M., Laurance, S.G., Condit, R., D'Angelo, S. and Andrade, A. 2004b. Inferred longevity of Amazonian rainforest trees based on a long-term demographic study. Forest Ecology and Management 190: 131-143. Laurance, W.F., Oliveira, A.A., Laurance, S.G., Condit, R., Dick, C.W., Andrade, A., Nascimento, H.E.M., Lovejoy, T.E. and Ribeiro, J.E.L.S. 2005. Altered tree communities in undisturbed Amazonian forests: A consequence of global change? Biotropica 37: 160-162.Laurance, W.F., Oliveira, A.A., Laurance, S.G., Condit, R., Nascimento, H.E.M., Sanchez-Thorin, A.C., Lovejoy, T.E., Andrade, A., D'Angelo, S. and Dick, C. 2004a. Pervasive alteration of tree communities in undisturbed Amazonian forests. Nature 428: 171-175.Lewis, S.L., Malhi, Y. and Phillips, O.L. 2004a. Fingerprinting the impacts of global change on tropical forests. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences 359: 437-462.Lewis, S.L., Phillips, O.L., Baker, T.R., Lloyd, J., Malhi, Y., Almeida, S., Higuchi, N., Laurance, W.F., Neill, D.A., Silva, J.N.M., Terborgh, J., Lezama, A.T., Vásquez Martinez, R., Brown, S., Chave, J., Kuebler, C., Núñez Vargas, P. and Vinceti, B. 2004b. Concerted changes in tropical forest structure and dynamics: evidence from 50 South American long-term plots. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences 359: 421-436.Nelson, B.W. 2005. Pervasive alteration of tree communities in undisturbed Amazonian forests. Biotropica 37: 158-159.Phillips, O.L., Baker, T.R., Arroyo, L., Higuchi, N., Killeen, T.J., Laurance, W.F., Lewis, S.L., Lloyd, J., Malhi, Y., Monteagudo, A., Neill, D.A., Núñez Vargas, P., Silva, J.N.M., Terborgh, J., Vásquez Martínez, R., Alexiades, M., Almeida, S., Brown, S., Chave, J., Comiskey, J.A., Czimczik, C.I., Di Fiore, A., Erwin, T., Kuebler, C., Laurance, S.G., Nascimento, H.E.M., Olivier, J., Palacios, W., Patiño, S., Pitman, N.C.A., Quesada, C.A., Saldias, M., Torres Lezama, A., B. and Vinceti, B. 2004. Pattern and process in Amazon tree turnover: 1976-2001. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences 359: 381-407.Phillips, O.L. and Gentry, A.H. 1994. Increasing turnover through time in tropical forests. Science 263: 954-958.Phillips, O.L., Malhi, Y., Higuchi, N., Laurance, W.F., Nunez, P.V., Vasquez, R.M., Laurance, S.G., Ferreira, L.V., Stern, M., Brown, S. and Grace, J. 1998. Changes in the carbon balance of tropical forests: Evidence from long-term plots. Science 282: 439-442.Pimm, S.L. and Sugden, A.M. 1994. Tropical diversity and global change. Science 263: 933-934.Weaver, P.L. and Murphy, P.G. 1990. Forest structure and productivity in Puerto Rico's Luquillo Mountains. Biotropica 22: 69-82.

157. Katrina II Disaster Planning

2005-09-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

C-SPAN last night ran a rerun of a June 29 airing of the Subcommittee for Natural Disaster Preparedness hearing on readiness. New Orleans was widely discussed as unprepared, people not willing or able to evacuate were estimated at 125,000, the levees and flood walls were only built to category three standards and the city was below sea level. It was not if, but when. One Emergency Services director said Mother Nature fit the legal definition of a terrorist. (We can argue about intent.) He wanted to make sure the weather service got its funding so maybe it could get some Homeland Security dollars.
As a society, defense against nature is first and foremost. We act collectively to protect collective interests, health and safety among the priorities. It takes political will to spend money on prevention and readiness, yet like insurance it is necessary or the losses will be staggering. It is possible to engineer and build a safer structure, but how much can be spent to accomplish the task? What about not financing the recommended precautions called for as they are being implemented? Spending at the national and state levels should protect citizens and the productivity of the nation. Tax cuts that imperil large numbers of people should be criminal.
Growing up in the Cold War and within society’s clear recall of WWII, massive destruction and collective effort were a reality in peoples minds. Sure enough the nukes would fly one day and it would look like the London blitz or Berlin in ’45 or one of those Japanese cities we laid waste to. People built and stocked fallout shelters, something that would actually work in a tornado. And if the military sealed an area off and ordered everyone out, they made sure it was so.
One episode of Malcolm in the Middle had the grandmother, a European war survivor, telling Malcolm his education would be worth nothing when they came for him “with the trucks in the middle of the night.” As much as that rings of civil liberties lost, the trucks never came after an order of mandatory evacuation and forty-eight hours of lead time to remove 125,000 people without transportation. Where were the trucks for the frail, disabled, poor and otherwise recalcitrant? Americans have been led to believe the government would be there in a disaster.
After the horror of a weeks worth of television images amazingly free of public officials, the heroes that emerge, to me, are the care providers stuck in this mess and not willing to put their responsibility aside for their own interests, at the Superdome, the Convention center and probably in many of those submerged homes. Saturday there was a picture online of a dead woman in a wheelchair outside one of the complexes; it says unknown dead woman symbolizes the forgotten. But Thursday her grandson was beside himself in front of cameras saying they had wheeled her there as directed, only to go three days with no water. One fellow on the runway had flown with a large number of premature babies out of the pediatric unit. He was there by himself; no helicopter had gone back for the mothers and nurses.
It is incredibly unfortunate shoot to kill orders for looting were not issued with the mandatory evacuation before the hurricane. It is easily modified or unimplemented in dire needs, acts as a deterrent, points up the severity of the crises and the need to be mindful of mandatory duties. By the time it was called for rescuers had already paused whenever fired on, an unacceptable condition, and people were starving and dehydrating and should not be considered looters at that point. Then the troops arrive carrying their rifles as though they were in a combat zone. Their hands aren’t free to work, and they have no enemies in continental North America. They didn’t look friendly. Small groups of well armed law enforcement hunter teams are all that are needed to quell opportunists and provide security. This belittled the people- that the rescuers felt they were not safe from the people asking for help.
In many ways this administration echoes Germany of the thirties. One thing my dad said he fought for in Europe was not to need to show ID in order to travel. “Let me see your papers, please.” was an evil statement impinging on the right to travel freely and privately. The government was far above all else, especially the law. Informing on your neighbors was encouraged and rewarded. Ignoring or attacking lower classes was rampant. They invented modern propaganda methods using psychology as a basis. They attacked the churches to undermine the people’s stalwarts. However, we have not established the authority to make people act and have not acted in a way that creates trust among the neediest people. It is caring for the neediest that separates us from them, our disabled and infirm their “useless feeders.”
Katrina the natural event was not preventable. Katrina as an engineering disaster of underspending on a known problem will echo through time. Katrina as a tipping point in consideration of the fabric of our social safety net is a watershed event. No region in America is free of natural disaster threat. Preparedness for natural disasters prepares us for other scenarios like terrorist attacks, but screening luggage does not prepare us in any way for natural disasters. Any regional hub in America will eventually attract the sick, those in need of medical or social service, the frail, the poor. Disaster planning must account for the last person out of every neighborhood.