Question For Kat

[BigHornRam]

Is this technology acceptable to activist's like you? Should Montana pursue this kind of industry?

http://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...lanet-Bioenergy-Alliance-Network#.U1lDF-kU_IU

 

[roadhunter]

I also have a question. I notice that folks like yourself and Ben Lamb invest a large amount of time being involved with the politics of Montana. Is this something you do for free or are you paid to do this? If so by who?

 

[shoots-straight]

Is this technology acceptable to activist's like you? Should Montana pursue this kind of industry?

http://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...lanet-Bioenergy-Alliance-Network#.U1lDF-kU_IU

I can't answer for Kat, but the technology sounds interesting. I wonder what would happen after we were geared up to utilize all that biomass but the beetle infestation ceased.

 

[katqanna]

Just got back from running errands and seeing Nemonts reply on the bison meeting, I will have to take time to edit Septs audio and get it online, but, I am not quite sure what you mean by "activists like me"? I can only answer for myself.

As to the link, this looks interesting. I will have to look at their technology for the conversion process and the impact on the land. I am not a fan of the heavily subsidized corn biodiesel that uses more fossil fuels than it saves, as well as fresh water which will be in more demand due to climate change. I like the hemp biodiesel technology that is far more sustainable and uses less water than corn. I understand new technology is more expensive, but gets cheaper with time so initial subsidies assist the beginning stages, but if they remain heavily subsidized, deceptively presenting an unrealistic cost, that is another matter. I do like the fact that this would be non-food bioconversion, rather than using food sources, which are needed for humans and animals to provide the base material. I also like job growth in clean, sustainable energy markets.

This statement is interesting - "The process also generates value through biochar production, which can be returned to the soil, enabling fertilizer and water retention for increased crop productivity, and more robust plant health. The process can be carbon negative, removing 100+ percent of the carbon footprint for every gallon used, reversing the consequences of fossil fuels."

On another front, we are in a climate change cycle. I know from my archaeology research of ancient cultures and the interconnecting dendrochronology info, climate change affects forests (insect infestation) and they change over time, some evergreens to deciduous. So from my perspective, you cannot realistically fight nature, trying to preserve a forest exactly as it was prior to the major climate shifts, which means there will be die off of certain species. Nature is flexible on the large scale. We just dont always see the big picture from our short linear existence. So beneficially utilizing that given dieoff would be a help.

Roadhunter, cant speak for Ben, but I am a wee bit politically involved because politics has insinuated itself into wildlife and habitat management. I hate politics as a general rule. I do this for free because it needs doing and I have some skill sets that can be utilized. I do contract web and graphic design to pay my rent and such. I have a few ad spaces on the site for those that would like visibility, but the ad spaces are very inexpensive, it is more for networking. I am like a starving artist with conservation. I have recently been hired by a sportsmens group to help with public education materials and networking for their wildlife conservation. I am not a non-profit, nor a professional conservationist with ties in Helena and Washington, nor an environmentalist (in the dirty sense of the word), nor a neo-conservationist. I am simply a concerned member of the public, sometimes a freaked out member of the public, trying to protect our Public Trust and the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation with the tools I have available.

 

[roadhunter]

Kat,

Thanks for the answer and for all the time you spend helping. That is awfully generous of you.

As far as using pine beetle timber for fuel, why not. The local college here produces it's own power with wood chips. Surely we can find a better use for dead timber than letting it rot.

 

[BigHornRam]

Montana is looking into this technology. Whether Cool Planet invests here or not, depends on some access to dead trees on our National Forest lands. Is this acceptable to the anti-logging activists?

http://missoulian.com/news/local/um...cle_a8e32d20-6c43-11e3-8582-0019bb2963f4.html

 

[RobG]

When I've looked into this in the past the story has been that by the time you get the wood to the factory you have used more fuel than is gained. Thus it releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than it prevents. After all, it's almost a wash with corn.

 

[BigHornRam]

When I've looked into this in the past the story has been that by the time you get the wood to the factory you have used more fuel than is gained. Thus it releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than it prevents. After all, it's almost a wash with corn.

How much CO2 is released into the atmosphere when all these orange trees go up in smoke Rob?

Kat post a thread titled "Covert fast tracking of our Forest's" where two well known Missoula anti-logging activists were whining to the press about not have a seat at the table. Either Kat is an anti-logging activist, or is easily swayed by their rhetoric. I'm trying to pin her down on exactly where she's coming from.

How about you Rob? Where do you stand on forest management?

 

[BigHornRam]

I can't answer for Kat, but the technology sounds interesting. I wonder what would happen after we were geared up to utilize all that biomass but the beetle infestation ceased.

Tree's are a renewable resource Shoot's. They grow back.

 

[Ben Lamb]

How much CO2 is released into the atmosphere when all these orange trees go up in smoke Rob?

Kat post a thread titled "Covert taking of our Forest's" where two well known Missoula anti-logging activists were whining to the press about not have a seat at the table. Either Kat is an anti-logging activist, or is easily swayed by their rhetoric. I'm trying to pin her down on exactly where she's coming from.

How about you Rob? Where do you stand on forest management?

The science surrounding beetle kill timber is showing that high intensity fires are not as likely in forests that have had big die offs after the needles fall. "Red & Dead" present an issue related to crowning fires, but the threat dissipates once the needles fall off the tree.

As far as the timber "just rotting," again, the science shows that returning that biomass to the ground helps ensure good soil quality which in turns produces better grasses & forbs which means better opportunity to grow critters like elk, graze livestock, etc.

https://www.hcn.org/issues/44.8/bark-beetle-kill-leads-to-bigger-fires-right-well-maybe/print_view

http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu...s-still-out-on-pine-beetle-kill-fire-effects/

 

[katqanna]

How much CO2 is released into the atmosphere when all these orange trees go up in smoke Rob?

Kat post a thread titled "Covert fast tracking of our Forest's" where two well known Missoula anti-logging activists were whining to the press about not have a seat at the table. Either Kat is an anti-logging activist, or is easily swayed by their rhetoric. I'm trying to pin her down on exactly where she's coming from.

How about you Rob? Where do you stand on forest management?

BHR, I am not anti-logging. There is more to that story than presented. I had to leave town for three days and have not had time to follow up on that thread since I got back, show the Farm Bill language, the map showing all the areas proposed (more than the two mentioned in the article) and the fact that this program has a categorical exclusion that means they dont have to do the environmental study. I have a sportsmens brain trust (prompted by a comment Ben Lamb wrote) that is coming here for a meeting for several hours. As soon as that is done, I will go in that post and link the documents I found based on a heads up from two retired forest service guys.

 

[BigHornRam]

The science surrounding beetle kill timber is showing that high intensity fires are not as likely in forests that have had big die offs after the needles fall. "Red & Dead" present an issue related to crowning fires, but the threat dissipates once the needles fall off the tree.

As far as the timber "just rotting," again, the science shows that returning that biomass to the ground helps ensure good soil quality which in turns produces better grasses & forbs which means better opportunity to grow critters like elk, graze livestock, etc.

https://www.hcn.org/issues/44.8/bark-beetle-kill-leads-to-bigger-fires-right-well-maybe/print_view

http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu...s-still-out-on-pine-beetle-kill-fire-effects/

Your generalized comments are not exactly correct, Ben.
Some of the recent fires in the Bitterroot are re-burning through standing dead timber from past fires. The result is extremely hot burning fires that are very damaging to the soils. Watershed quality after a burn is also a concern.

Trees are mostly made up cellulose and lignin. Rotting wood biomass does very little to build good quality soil. Grass and forbs build good quality soil. Just look at the difference between grassland soils and forest soils. No comparison.

And how many jobs are created by the just let the wood rot in the woods management style, Ben?

 

[Ben Lamb]

Don't hurt yourself jumping to all those conclusions, BHR.

I have no problem cutting trees. I do have a problem ignoring the science that shows simply cutting down beetle kill does little to reduce fire risk. Bullock did a good job in nominating the 5.1 million acres. The Farm Bill provision is a good thing.

 

[RobG]

How much CO2 is released into the atmosphere when all these orange trees go up in smoke Rob?

Kat post a thread titled "Covert fast tracking of our Forest's" where two well known Missoula anti-logging activists were whining to the press about not have a seat at the table. Either Kat is an anti-logging activist, or is easily swayed by their rhetoric. I'm trying to pin her down on exactly where she's coming from.

How about you Rob? Where do you stand on forest management?

BHR... Much less CO2 will be released in a fire because the tree isn't completely consumed, nor do you have to use fossil fuels to get the tree to the processing plant. Even if they just rot I believe much of the carbon is returned to the soil, eventually to be picked up by other plants.

I grew up in NW Montana in a second growth forest so I have no problem with most logging, but I think we should be very careful about putting roads into areas where they don't exist now.

 

[shoots-straight]

Tree's are a renewable resource Shoot's. They grow back.

yes they do. However are we looking to grow biomass trees for chipping to burn in furnaces, or for building products? I know you can have too much of a good thing, and then it turns into chit.

Bonner mill at capacity was milling aprox. 1 million bd ft of timber a day. As a state we couldn't keep up with demands from that 1 mill alone.

I guess I'm just saying that you have to watch how much material a good thing can consume before the monster eats himself out of house and home.

 

[Nameless Range]

The science surrounding beetle kill timber is showing that high intensity fires are not as likely in forests that have had big die offs after the needles fall. "Red & Dead" present an issue related to crowning fires, but the threat dissipates once the needles fall off the tree.

This is important to recognize. But the acceptance of this doesn't jive with parts Bullock's proposal, as a significant portion of logging proposed in his plan along the divide will occurr in inventoried roadless areas where the beetle kill occurred in 2009-10. I guess I want to know if they will harvest that which has been dead for five years, or the few living trees that remain. I recognize that nothing is perfect, but some mountain ranges need to be spoken up for, and the unique country of the Boulder Batholith has such little protection already - Practically none.

I think looking at the infrared imagery so many have seen of forests along the Continental Divide of before and after the beetle kill can shock people. Literally hundreds of thousands of acres of lodgepole dead, and largely in one chunk.

But "wasted" is an incomplete way of looking at that timber. The forests along the Divide were thick before the beetle kill, and now they are even harder to traverse. Though not necessarily good for high numbers of ungulates, it is good for the age class of deer and elk. Where the wind and terrain favor it, the timber has piled up like a stack of toothpicks dumped into a bowl. Some basins are nearly impassible, yet the deer and elk maintain their highways into them.

Beetle kill has happened before and will happen again. The woods don't care. In some ways it has made the divide wilder. Most of this beetle kill in MT has occurred in the Boulder Mountain Range. A heavily roaded, seldom visited 1800 sq mile chunk of MT that carries the Divide for over 50 miles. From a vantage point on a windy day you can stand over the beetle kill and hear trees crashing to the ground every few seconds, like a bag of popcorn nearing its completion in the microwave.

It has also become a lot easier for me to find dead-standing firewood.

 

[RobG]

And how many jobs are created by the just let the wood rot in the woods management style, Ben?

If using trees for biofuel doesn't pay for itself (financially or environmentally) it is simply welfare.

 

[shoots-straight]

Your generalized comments are not exactly correct, Ben.
Some of the recent fires in the Bitterroot are re-burning through standing dead timber from past fires. The result is extremely hot burning fires that are very damaging to the soils. Watershed quality after a burn is also a concern.

I haven't seen the same things you claim. The only re burns I see are in the lower elevations were the cheat grass has come back strong. It's burns like hell in the summer.

In the other parts of the forest where we have had burns as old as 40 years they acted as a barrier. The Sleeping child fire burnt 30,000 + acres in 1961, when it was 39 years old, when the fires of 2000 blew up which basically stopped at the old boundary of the Sleeping child fires. The saddle MT fire occurred the same year as the Sleeping Child fire and those same fires slowed to a stop or moved around that fire area. They burn some in those areas but not much. The Bear fire in Rye Creek was prime for downed trees I think it was around 10 years old when the fires of 2000 moved into that area. The fire moved around it too. Never re burnt much at all. I could go on, but I see the old fires as buffers from the massive fires that happened in 200,000. The places that burnt the worst were the logged over areas. The fires blew through logged over areas in 2000. Roads didn't even come close to slowing that thing down.

Once the needles fall from the dead beetle killed trees and mulch into the floor somewhat, there's not as great a fire danger as there was when the tree was green.

The fires aren't as hot. I'll look for a study when I get a chance.

 

[Ben Lamb]

This is important to recognize. But the acceptance of this doesn't jive with parts Bullock's proposal, as a significant portion of logging proposed in his plan along the divide will occurr in inventoried roadless areas where the beetle kill occurred in 2009-10. I guess I want to know if they will harvest that which has been dead for five years, or the few living trees that remain. I recognize that nothing is perfect, but some mountain ranges need to be spoken up for, and the unique country of the Boulder Batholith has such little protection already - Practically none.

I think looking at the infrared imagery so many have seen of forests along the Continental Divide of before and after the beetle kill can shock people. Literally hundreds of thousands of acres of lodgepole dead, and largely in one chunk.

But "wasted" is an incomplete way of looking at that timber. The forests along the Divide were thick before the beetle kill, and now they are even harder to traverse. Though not necessarily good for high numbers of ungulates, it is good for the age class of deer and elk. Where the wind and terrain favor it, the timber has piled up like a stack of toothpicks dumped into a bowl. Some basins are nearly impassible, yet the deer and elk maintain their highways into them.

Beetle kill has happened before and will happen again. The woods don't care. In some ways it has made the divide wilder. Most of this beetle kill in MT has occurred in the Boulder Mountain Range. A heavily roaded, seldom visited 1800 sq mile chunk of MT that carries the Divide for over 50 miles. From a vantage point on a windy day you can stand over the beetle kill and hear trees crashing to the ground every few seconds, like a bag of popcorn nearing its completion in the microwave.

It has also become a lot easier for me to find dead-standing firewood.

Good stuff Nameless. Thanks for lining it out better. My understanding is that is far from a done deal and any project within the nominated area will still be up for comment (per the Gov's instructions) regardless of CE. The 5.1 million nominated doesn't mean there will be logging in all of it, but that it represents the landscapes in which projects will come forward. Am I misreading this?

 

[Nameless Range]

Ben, I am certainly not that familiar with the Categorical Exclusion process. I do believe there will be a public comment period, I just worry that seldom visited country won't be spoken for and will slip through the cracks. I see no reason why Inventoried Roadless areas need to be involved in the "fast-track" process, especially in geographic regions where such little exists, like the Boulder Mountains.

Prior to the farm bill, in the NEPA language it said a CE should only be used in Roadless Areas under "Extraordinary Circumstances". It then goes on to define "Extraordinary Circumstances" as:

"Extraordinary circumstances are factors or circumstances in which a normally excluded action may have a significant environmental effect that then requires further analysis in an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement"

http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/ceq_regulations/NEPA_CE_Guidance_Nov232010.pdf

This is the new CE from the farm bill:

`(1) IN GENERAL- A project referred to in subsection (a) is a project to carry out forest restoration treatments that–
`(A) maximizes the retention of old-growth and large trees, as appropriate for the forest type, to the extent that the trees promote stands that are resilient to insects and disease;
`(B) considers the best available scientific information to maintain or restore the ecological integrity, including maintaining or restoring structure, function, composition, and connectivity; and
`(C) is developed and implemented through a collaborative process that–
`(i) includes multiple interested persons representing diverse interests; and
`(ii)(I) is transparent and nonexclusive; or
`(II) meets the requirements for a resource advisory committee under subsections (c) through (f) of section 205 of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (16 U.S.C. 7125).
`(2) INCLUSION- A project under this subsection may carry out part of a proposal that complies with the eligibility requirements of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program under section 4003(b) of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (16 U.S.C. 7303(b)).

Using this new CE, I'm sure a case can be made to harvest timber in Roadless Areas, so I am not claiming any legal faults.

I'm not overly opposed to streamlining the ability to harvest timber, and I do recognize that it can be a good thing. I also know there is a large difference between the requests of a governor, and actions on the ground when it comes to forest management. I understand this isn't a mandate, and a lot will change and a lot needs to happen when it comes to the development and implementation of the Gov's request.

I strongly believe though, that even though it is not wilderness, some country needs to be left alone.