Dealing with Catastrophic Events

Originally published in Trout Mountain Forestry’s Spring/Summer 2019 newsletter

We now understand that climate change means we can expect more severe weather, be it in the form of wind, rain, snow, ice, or drought. This February a “100-year storm” dropped 2 feet or more of heavy wet snow in parts of Lane and Douglas Counties that toppled extensive swaths of timber. Many forest management plans went right out the window, that is unless the owners had given thought ahead of time to how they might address catastrophic events.

A “Natural” Disturbance?

When your timber is damaged by wind, snow, or fire how will you respond? Western forests are adapted to all types of weather, and native forests have in fact been shaped by what foresters call natural disturbance regimes — the characteristic natural forces that shape stand structure. Think frequent low-intensity fire in the intermountain west, or gap creation from high wind gusts at the Coast. We can anticipate that certain natural forces are a regular part of any particular forest region. However, extreme events of any sort can wreak havoc, and chances are such damage will be rapid, unpredicted, and widespread — you will not be the only one considering salvage. 

To Salvage or Not to Salvage?

When a natural disaster strikes loggers will immediately be in high demand, log prices may drop, and timber quality may quickly deteriorate —time is of the essence! You have only a few years before down trees dry out, crack, and become infested with insects or decay. Value quickly declines and logs become unmarketable. With Douglas-fir, this takes 2-3 years, less for true firs, alder, and young trees. Logging costs for salvage are higher than for a typical harvest and may exceed the value of the down timber. A rule of thumb is that 100 MBF is needed for salvage to be economical — or a truck-load of sawlogs per acre or more over 20 acres. Smaller sawlogs and pulpwood are often not economical to recover. The higher costs of cable yarding make the economics even more difficult on steep ground. Industrial timber owners will often choose to cut their losses (no pun intended) and clearcut and regenerate any significantly damaged stands. Recognize that loggers may not be available for small or complicated projects. 

Balancing Values

Weather damage can amount to “nature’s thinning”, improving growing space, creating snags, and contributing down wood and other biological values. Timber value lost may be balanced by habitat gains received for free. Of course, too much down wood may increase fire hazards, lead to damaging insect activity, and contribute to erosion by blocking ditches or culverts. The amount, distribution, location, and species of damaged timber all need to be factored into the equation. 

Preventative Measures

It’s rarely possible to anticipate extreme weather events, but there are things you can do to build resilience into your forest. Encourage more drought-tolerant species on marginal sites. Thin stands early to maintain tree vigor, build stable tree form, and create wind-firm stands over time. Maintain a variety of age classes of trees to help to reduce the risk that your entire property is impacted by any particular disturbance.

Funding Assistance

Federal or State agencies may offer emergency assistance, but in most cases, these are unlikely to be of much help for your forest. However, there may be assistance for repairs to critical infrastructure like roads and livestock fencing, or for fire risk abatement. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) provide Federal cost-share programs, targeting local needs at the county level. Check with your county offices to see what programs are available in your area.

It is too early to tell what the “new normal” in regional weather will be – new occurrences of extreme weather seem to occur every year. But it’s not too soon to start planning for how to you might respond to future catastrophic events.

Addition 2/18/2021 - Storm Damage information from the Oregon State University Extension office’s “Tree Topics” blog

Tethered Logging: A Steep Slope Option

We’ve been hearing a lot about tethered logging systems at Trout Mountain Forestry, so we decided it was time to check out an operation. Brent Klumph, Timber Manager for Oregon State University’s forest management program was kind enough to invite us out for a tour of an active harvest that is utilizing this type of technology on OSU’s McDonald Dunn Forest outside of Corvallis.

Tethered logging systems are not new, having been utilized in New Zealand on the steep (and similar) terrain there. The systems themselves aren’t utilizing any dramatically new technology either. In tethered systems, a winch has been fitted to the back of a piece of equipment such as a harvester or a forwarder. The winch then allows that piece of equipment to access 40%+ slopes by tying itself off to an anchor point and lowering itself down or climbing up a hillside. If a slope “breaks away” in a different direction from the original descent line, the operator would then anchor off to a 2nd anchor point to be able to lower themselves down the new slope’s fall line.

Like a more traditional ground-based harvest, protection of skid trails and corridors from compaction remains a potential concern and can even be amplified on steeper slopes. Depending upon the time of year and the type of logging (whole tree vs. cut-to-length for example), there may not be enough slash available to place in the corridors for the machines to travel upon.

Economics are a big consideration, of course, especially in thinning work. The stand must be at a certain age and condition to make the harvest viable, and these systems aren’t cheap. That said, the ability to thin on steep ground had been limited to more conventional cable thinning in the past, which comes with its own set of constraints (logging crew size needed, increased exposure for the ground crew, associated cost of a larger crew, etc.). When OSU ran the numbers on the harvest that we visited, they found that they were saving money over using a cable thinning operation, and actually had better utilization of their wood. Due to the added flexibility and maneuverability of the tethered logging system, they were even able to retain more trees than they would have through a cable thinning.

A big drawback right now is that there is currently only one operator with this type of equipment in the state. Although that operator has thirteen “sides” (thirteen harvester/forester combos), they are in high demand and are difficult to schedule less than a few years out, especially during fire season. This could perhaps change if other operators decide to invest in this style of equipment. Though tethered logging systems may not be a silver bullet for steep slope harvesting, we do see the potential for this technology to expand our management options in rugged terrain. In that sense, it is exciting to have another “arrow in the quiver” to help us accomplish our clients’ forest management objectives.

Forwarder on level ground

New Streamside Buffer Rules

Last month, a modification of the Oregon Forest Practices Act’s (FPA) stream buffer rules went into effect. Below is a brief discussion summarizing the new regulations, and how it may affect Trout Mountain Forestry clients.

The main change to the current FPA was the creation of a subset of fish-bearing streams. This subset is known as the Salmon, Steelhead, and Bull Trout (SSBT) category. This means that for any small or medium sized fish-bearing stream on a property (or in some cases adjacent to a property) that is known to have salmon, steelhead, or bull trout, the changes in the table above on the right-hand column will be applicable.

The new rules aim to better protect salmon, steelhead, and bull trout by increasing the riparian buffers, increasing the basal area to be retained, and requiring the “well-distributed” spacing of residual trees, among other things. Hardwoods can now be counted for residual trees as well. All of these steps are meant to put more shade on the stream, cooling the water for fish.

One potential problem comes with the north-side stream buffer option. In the new ruling, if an SSBT stream flows within ±30° of an easterly/westerly direction, and flows for at least 200’, the buffer on the north side of the stream may be reduced to 40’. This is because the trees on the north side of the stream are not providing shade to the stream. The problem of course comes with the concept of sinuosity, or the natural curves of a stream. In the northside buffer scenario, consider the following:

In the diagram above, which buffer takes precedence over the other? The 40’ or the 80’? At the time of the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) training, officials did not have an answer.

A concern for landowners and practitioners alike is the increased workload for the already understaffed stewardship foresters of ODF. Under the new ruling, the ODF forester will need to come out to each operation, measuring and recording the lengths of stream reaches impacted, the proposed residual basal area in the riparian zone, and the live tree count to insure compliance. Due to the seasonality of working in the woods here in Oregon, this process could create a bottleneck for getting projects approved and running before the rains return.

Several components of the new ruling are meant to provide flexibility. A relief clause for smaller landowners was worked into the new rules. In essence, if buffers created by the new ruling impact more than 8% of the landowner’s total forestland, that landowner is entitled to a reduced riparian buffer or reduced basal area targets and live tree requirements. Additionally, if a landowner or forester has an alternate prescription that meets or exceeds the protection of the resource in the opinion of the ODF stewardship forester, they may submit it in writing for approval.

In closing, it remains to be seen how practical implementation will be for landowners and operators, or if they will simply avoid managing the riparian zones altogether due to the increased red tape. While this discussion has been focused on the changes and challenges to implementation, it also remains to be seen if these improvements will actually benefit salmon, steelhead, and bull trout. For that, only time will tell.

For more information on the FPA, as well as additional resources, please refer to: http://www.oregon.gov/ODF/Working/Pages/FPA.aspx

Northwest forest study aims to examine various management treatments

A recent proposal filed jointly by the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the University of Washington (UW) announced a new forest management study set to occur on the Olympic Peninsula. The study aims to experiment with various forest management treatments within the 270,000-acre Olympic Experimental State Forest which is owned and managed by DNR. What is interesting about this study is the scale of it- covering approximately 21,000 acres of land over 16 watersheds. Criticism of ecologically-based forest management in the past has been in part due to issues of scale. This study, if approved, would attempt to provide relevant data illustrating just how profitable various silvicultural techniques may actually be when stacked side by side and considering ecological and social factors.

Besides helping gain a better understanding into the economics of various forest management approaches, the experiment may also be useful for state and federal land managers in the broader region. DNR is charged with managing forests for a variety of interests, notwithstanding endangered species and rural communities (the latter having been historical beneficiaries of timber tax revenue). Given the recent controversies here in Oregon swirling around the proposed sale of the Elliott State Forest and our O&C lands management, testing solutions that appease seemingly opposed groups of stakeholders may provide valuable insights.

The experiments themselves aim to test four different treatments which vary in intensity and spatial arrangement. Silvicultural treatments include different types of variable density harvests and thinnings, similar to those that Trout Mountain Forestry utilizes for our clients. The study plans to experiment with more alder interplanting and management, testing of wind firmness of residual trees, as well as utilizing hardwoods to increase nutrient loads to salmon-bearing streams (among other things).

While the first treatments may not occur until as early as 2018, the prospect of such a wide-reaching and relevant experiment to the work that we currently do here at Trout Mountain Forestry is exciting.

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Variable density harvest in a coastal hemlock forest, managed by Trout Mountain Forestry

Watershed Tour

Watershed Tour A Feast For Tree Lovers

Excerpt from  JAMES DAY Corvallis Gazette-Times

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Stop 1 included a new wrinkle for the tour, now in its ninth year. A short trail was carved off to the side of a rutted forest road to get participants closer to some of the forest’s older trees. The ground was crunchy and mulchy, with a fat slug perched on dead wood and black-and-yellow millipedes moseying about among the moss.

As the tour moved down the ridge Charlie Bruce of the watershed board spotted a bald eagle flying overhead. Mark Miller of Trout Mountain Forestry, which manages the watershed for the city, pointed in the direction of the bird’s nest … then talked some more about the forest.

“Our stewardship plan calls for three types of forests: middle-aged, plantation and old growth and older,” Miller said, while pointing toward a 180-year-old Douglas fir, the oldest tree in this stand.

“We have some trees that are 300 to 500 years old, but you only get one or two of those per acre.”

The city has been receiving drinking water from the area since 1906, but it wasn’t until after the start of the 21st century that the city put a plan in place to manage the forest. Miller notes that the first harvesting of trees took place in the 1920s and 1930s, “with the practices of the time: clear-cutting.”

“Our goal is forest health and resiliency from fire, wind, insects and disease,” Miller said. “Without a forest we don’t have good water quality. And a healthy forest needs timber harvests.”

Read the entire article at the Corvallis Gazette-Times