Emerald ash borer sighted in Mass. for first time

The emerald ash borer is eating its way up the East Coast, leaving swaths of dead or dying ash trees in its wake. It has been spotted in Massachusetts for the first time, officials said yesterday, in Berkshire County in the hilly western part of the state. Ash trees are the main component of the state's northern hardwood forest.

State officials said they are working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to limit the beetle's impact on forests and the wood-products industry, Ros Krasny of Reuters reports. Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation commissioner Ed Lambert said officials "are not taking its presence lightly" and are defining a quarantine area to limit movement of certain wood products, and working with landowners to properly treat and dispose of infested timber.

The invasive Asian beetle has destroyed tens of millions of trees in the U.S. since being accidentally introduced here in the 1990s. It was first discovered in Michigan in 2002, and has been found in 17 other states since then. Its larvae feed on the inner bark of trees, cutting off their ability to take in water and nutrients. Infested ash trees die within a few years. (Read more)

Forest Service suspends 'burn out' policy in West; shift requires it to fight every fire

The U.S. Forest Service has temporarily suspended a long-standing policy of allowing small fires in the West to burn out, according to a memo from the agency's deputy chief of forestry. Nathanael Massey of Environment & Energy News reports that "while the memo acknowledges the necessity of employing fire as a tool of restoration, noting that suppression of all fires 'is not a desirable approach in the long-run,' it cites the need to protect life and personal property -- as well as budgetary concerns -- in its decision." The current elevated fire risk, he writes, is a result of higher-than-average temperatures and a profusion of fuel, the product of nearly a century of fire suppression policies. (Wildlandfire.com photo)

The decision, while not a direct reversal of policy, does represent a departure from that practice of natural restoration, said Jennifer Jones, a Forest Service spokeswoman. "We realize that we are making some trade-offs here," she told Massey. "We're working within short-term fiscal restraints, and that almost always requires making tough choices." The Forest Service's suppression budget was cut 6.3 percent this year, she added, while the country has experienced a rise in fire severity.

Rural Oregonians fear harmful effects of a timber herbicide that has been found in their bloodstreams

Rowan King, 11, tested positive for the
dangerous chemicals used in spraying
timber (CIR photo by Serene Fang)

Six years ago, Eron King, an artist and young mother, moved from the edge of Eugene, Ore., to a creekside plot of forest valley so her two boys could grow up raising hens and Toggenburg goats. She wasn’t naïve about rural life in the Coast Ranges, where she’d lived for nine years, writes Ingrid Lobet for the Center for Investigative Reporting, but she encountered the unexpected.

"The state’s western third is timber country. The tractor-trailer rigs hauling logs – some as thin as poles, others as fat as pier pilings – were no shock to her. 'I knew clear-cutting happened,' she said in a cadence that signals comfort with the realities of a life outdoors. But like many residents of the region, King was unaware that major timber companies – Weyerhaeuser, Roseburg Resources, Stimson Lumber, Seneca Jones and others – have been spraying millions of pounds of herbicide on their private forestland in Oregon. Some of it, she believes, is carried by the winds and lands on her property. Her worry about the spraying has turned into genuine alarm. King and her two children, along with their father and 37 other residents, last year submitted their urine for laboratory testing. The results were startling: Every person tested positive for the compound 2,4-D – made famous as an ingredient of Agent Orange – and for the chemical atrazine."

Lobet notes that while as many as 100,000 residents live near privately owned forests in rural Oregon, the herbicide is an essential tool for the timber industry. Without it, much forestland would not be profitable. Still, Terry Witt, who for 25 years was executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter, a trade group for the timber, agriculture and chemicals industries, said: “If there's data that shows that the practices need to be altered or changed, the industry is more than willing to look at what recommendations or change in practices could be employed.” But Witt added: “We believe that if it’s done responsibly and legally, it does not represent unreasonable harm.” Greg Miller of Weyerhaeuser said skilled personnel know how to take into account conditions such as temperature and wind. The applications are done according to the law, Miller claims. But those words have not placated the rural Oregon residents who are convinced -- with scientific proof in their hands and a federal forest system that stopped the spraying practice 20 years ago as precedent -- that the industry can do more to protect them. (Read more)

West's timber industry booming, mainly via exports

The timber industry is making a comeback in Western states, and boosting the economies of rural towns in the process. Demand for timber used in construction plummeted when the housing market crashed in 2009, and it's been slow to recover. But, as Justin Scheck of The Wall Street Journal reports, the "boom-trend" is "part of a West Coast logging rebound" driven mostly by exports.

Overseas wood shipments more than doubled from 2008 to 2011, according to RISI International Wood Markets Group, a timber research group, and U.S. Forest Service data shows log exports increasing by 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2012, Scheck reports. The increase has reopened some sawmills, raising employment in rural areas and causing "an uptick in local spending and new stores," Scheck reports. (Read more)

GAO suggests more clarity, oversight in use of funds sent to counties with federal lands

In rural counties with federal lands, a share of the revenues from the sale or use of the natural resources on that land came back to the counties. So when Western counties dependent on federal timber revenue steeply declined in the 1990s, Congress passed a law to provide for roads and schools in rural counties. In 2008 it allowed those counties to use the funds to protect themselves from the threat of catastrophic wildfire and provide emergency services on federal lands.

Now the Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, has found that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service have provided little oversight of that program, and the counties, given vague guidelines on how to use the money, have used it on projects that appear inconsistent with federal law and failed to properly disclose their spending to the public. The GAO contacted 44 counties in 22 states across the nation.

The Secure Rural Schools Act, which was recently reauthorized for one year as part of the transportation bill passed in late June, is now under review to be renewed for another five years. In a letter to New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the GAO reported that since 2008 the law has provided more than $2 billion in federal assistance, with more than 350 counties receiving $108 million for fiscal 2008 through fiscal 2011, with individual counties receiving anywhere from $3,600 to more than $2 million a year.

The GAO's recommendations to Bingaman and to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources included regulations and clearer guidance so counties can make better funding decisions. In addition, Congress should consider revising the law to clarify whst types of projects are allowable under the act. (Read the GAO report)

Congress continues federal timber payments

Federal payments to counties with national forest land will be extended after Congress voted to approve a transportation bill last week, that will also prevent student loan rates from doubling and save 2.8 million jobs by funding road and bridge projects across the country. The $100 million extension of timber payments will be a boon to rural counties that contain a high percentage of federal forest land and property, the leading example being Oregon.

The timing of the passage was "critical" for Oregon counties that have relied on timber payments, Charles Pope of The Oregonian reports, because most counties' fiscal year ends June 30. Without the extension, they would have been forced to close jails, schools, law off police officers and teachers and cut back essential services, including EMS, Pope writes. Lawmakers will use the year to discuss possible alternatives for the payments, which can be costly. (Read more)

High court to decide whether EPA should regulate water runoff from logging like factories

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a federal appeals court ruling on regulation of water runoff from logging roads. The ruling states that logging-road runoff should be regulated the same as water discharges from factories, which changes the practice of treating it like runoff from farm fields. The ruling in Oregon could apply to roads on state, private and national forest land in the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers most of the West.

Scientists have found that sediment in salmon streams, which has been clogging areas where the fish lay eggs, is coming from industrial logging roads, and is a leading cause of habitat loss, reports Jeff Barnard of The Associated Press. The Northwest Environmental Defense Center in Portland, Ore., brought the case against the state Department of Forestry. The appeals court ruled in 2010 that muddy water from logging roads requires a Clean Water Act permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Supreme Court was asked to take up the case from Oregon and 25 other states.

The EPA proposed revised storm-water regulations that would not require logging roads to get the same permits as factories, and regulate them under a less strict system known as "Best Management Practices," in which guidelines for design and maintenance of roads would be set up by the states. The agency has started review of these practices, and plans to issue new rules for logging roads in September. (Read more)