Sierra forest plan debated

Environmentalists say a forest plan that took a decade to develop and provided protections for old-growth trees has been gutted by revisions approved by the U.S. Forest Service.

The Forest Service, however, says the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan - adopted in 2001 and meant to direct work on 11 million acres - was too complex to use and did not adequately reduce fire danger.

In January, Jack Blackwell, a regional forester for the Forest Service, approved an amendment to the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan that allows removal of trees up to 30 inches in diameter. The old rules allowed removal of trees up to 20 inches wide.

Allowing timber companies to remove some larger trees should provide enough profit to cover the expense of removing smaller trees and brush, which act can act as ladder fuels in a wildfire, the Forest Service says.

"We can't afford to do the amount of thinning that needs to be done with appropriations from Congress," said Matt Mathes, Forest Service spokesman. "The new decision basically gives us a way to finance the work."

Environmentalist groups have appealed the decision to amend the forest plan, but the 11 national forests in the Sierra have already begun to use the new rules in planning for project his spring and summer.

The Forest Service says timber companies will not be given a free pass to cut trees.

"We must make our forest fire-safe," Blackwell said. "Large, old trees will not be cut. They are not the problem. We need big trees for habitat and other values. Relatively few trees between 20 and 30 inches in diameter will be thinned. The emphasis will be on unnaturally dense stands of smaller trees and brush."

Groups such as the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign don't trust the Forest Service and predict the agency will allow timber companies to mow down what little remains of old growth in the Sierra.

"We need to treat surface fuels and ladder fuels," said Craig Thomas, director of the campaign, which is a coalition of about 80 environmental groups. "This is a political decision to line pockets of the timber industry that goes against all fire science out there today.

"Logging in old growth under the guise of fire protection not a good thing. That's misleading. We are real tired of the Forest Service having to damage to our forest in order to do good."

Will the amendment affect the unique forest that is the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit? Not much.

There are very few old growth trees in the basin because it was clear cut in the 1860s to feed the operation of silver mines in Virginia City. And Lake Tahoe, because it is a national treasure, isn't as strapped for cash as other national forests in California.

Money started to flow to the Forest Service after President Clinton participated in an environmental summit at Zephyr Cove in 1997. At the summit, local, state and federal officials promised nearly $1 billion to restore Lake Tahoe's environment in an effort to protect the clarity of the lake.

"That gave us the means to accomplish some fuels-hazard reduction projects without having to package projects in timber sales," said Mark Johnson, a fuels specialist for the Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. "As I see it, (the forest plan amendment) is not going to lead us to cut a bunch of 30-inch trees because of all the environmental regulations in the basin and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's standards and guidelines. Large tree cutting is not necessary to promote fire hazard reduction."

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act, signed into law by President Bush late last year, is expected to have an impact on the basin because it reduces the amount of planning and paperwork that needs to be done by law before forest projects begin.

"We expect the number of alternatives required to be reduced," Johnson said. "That could speed up the time it takes to complete requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act."

The end goal for the Tahoe basin, forest experts say, is to thin the forest to create diverse stands of old trees where controlled fire can be used to keep the danger of a catastrophic wildfire in check.

"A universal carpet of green forest is basically what have now," said Rex Norman, public affairs officer for the Forest Service. "What you want is a mixture of trees - different sizes, ages and diameters."

- Gregory Crofton can be reached at (530) 542-8045 or by e-mail at gcrofton@tahoedailytribune.com