Last updated on 2012.04.16
I invite my friend Larry Kurtz, who has some remarkable perspectives on the Black Hills and pine beetles, and other environmentally sensitive readers to comment on Rep. Kristi Noem's effort to turn the current pine beetle infestation to her political advantage.
Noem has been urging citizens to write the White House and demand action on the pine beetle epidemic. Specifically, Noem wants the Obama Administration to lift environmental regulations and allow our "robust forest products industry" to solve this emergency. I've expressed support for such a pine beetle solution... but there is debate over whether logging does any good, or whether we just have to ride out the cycle and wait for a good cold winter.
Of course, we should remember that this "emergency" has been going on for over a decade. And it's just one in a long history of infestations:
Stress agents such as drought can lower the resistance of a stand and increase mountain pine beetle populations to highly destructive epidemic levels (Schmid and others 1991). Epidemics typically have an 11- to 20-year cycle (Lessard 1984; Pasek and Schaupp 1992) with an outbreak lasting from 2 to 14 years (McMillin and Allen 1999; Schmid and Mata 1992a). From 1895 to 1910, the mountain pine beetle was estimated to have killed trees containing up to 2 billion board feet of lumber in the Black Hills (Boldt and Van Deusen 1974). Outbreaks continued to plague the Black Hills throughout the 1930s, 1940s, 1960s, and 1970s (McMillin and Allen 1999). Tree mortality exceeded 250,000 trees per year for several years during the 1960s and 1970s (Thompson 1975). From 1988 to 1990, 50,000 trees on less than 11,000 acres (4,451 ha) were killed by mountain pine beetle (Pasek and Schaupp 1992). By the mid-1990s, tree mortality by mountain pine beetle was light and scattered throughout the Hills (McMillin and Allen 1999), but aerial surveys in the late 1990s indicated a sharp increase in mountain pine beetle populations with over 25,000 trees killed in 1999 (McMillin and Allen 1999) [Wayne D. Shepperd and Michael A. Battaglia, Ecology, Silviculture, and Management of Black Hills Ponderosa Pine, USDA Forest Service, September 2002, p. 17].
Kristi Noem served in the South Dakota Legislature for four years before going to Congress. She and her colleagues seem to have barely noticed the pine beetle problem and other long-standing ecological perils facing the Black Hills. Throughout her tenure in Pierre, the Legislature produced only one resolution, in 2010, urging the Forest Service to do something. (Noem was apparently too busy riding the abortion hobby horse and planning her House campaign to get her name on that resolution as a co-sponsor).
So I'm curious: if the solution to pine beetles didn't involve (a) lifting federal regulations or (b) giving a prime big-business donor a pass to do more business, would she be making as much noise over this issue as she is now? Shouting "emergency!" is a good way to convince people to throw regulatory caution to the wind, but the fact that Noem only recently discovered this "emergency" might make us wonder what she's really after.
Bonus Scientific Observation: Beetle-infested swaths of forest may actually be less likely to burn than healthy forest, says NASA.
Your data begins at the height of the Industrial Revolution as hardwoods in Europe were being turned into charcoal to make steel beginning anthropogenic climate change. Lodgepole pine (the tree in the cited needle study and a fire-dependent species as is aspen) has gone extinct in the Black Hills; the last stand near Nahant gave up the ghost because fire has been suppressed. Noem's initiative is about logging salvage and not forest health.
accelerating rather than beginning....
SDPB aired a 30 minute documentary earlier this year, which provides a good introduction to the pine beetle problem from a variety of perspectives. It's worth the time, if you have it.
http://watch.sdpb.org/video/1977593380/
It's a human problem: the bug is the solution. Watch a heavy rain or hailstorm move through a patch of bug-hit pine. Needles get driven to the floor of the forest where lightning can ignite ground fire that laps up the bark of adjacent trees killing the beetle.
If private enterprise won't come forward with companies that specialize in prescribed fire it becomes the job of government to execute forest health. The Forest Service is mired in red tape and has a morale problem as a result.
Rep. Noem: if you want to fix the Black Hills (likely already irretrievably broken) drive some legislation that holds private fire specialists harmless in the event something gets away from them.
the link to where Cory's is broken: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/wildfire_beetles.html
Ponderosa pine is a fuel-rich resource; it can be turned into diesel fuel that would power the equipment needed to log the vast numbers of acres affected and be made into charcoal or methanol right in the log landing using 'hog fuels.'
After logging, contract fire professionals to come in and burn off the ground fuels.
Better yet: get the FS out of the Department of Agriculture and into the hands of the BIA where it can be defended against the earth haters!
All I see is another politician trying to get re-elected instead of doing her job: passing a budget.
A sidenote about the frustrating pine beatle problem is it's effect on wildlife. Locally, we are seing many more bears escape the forest into populated areas because they don't have their annual fall supply of pine nuts to beef up on before hibernation. Now they are looking for other sources of food such as garbage cans and Rv's. From what I understand, Grizzly Bears love used restuarant canola oil, which makes me nervous!
At least with two major fires we had locally in northwest Wyoming, both in the Absoraka NF, the fires were allowed to burn. This approach was very healthy for both nature and the taxpayers. Fire managers pride themselves on keeping the cost of suppression efforts as low as possible. They only amp the suppression efforts when life or property is in peril. It is also a natural way to combat the pine beatles.
The mail today brought some propaganda from some group with a fine-sounding name letting us know that Noem is trying to save we seniors from the devastation of Obamacare jacking up medicare costs. The clipped quote indicates this tremendous increase will be the result of price controls on drugs. Hmmm. Seems to be a disconnect there. The old dude in the pamphlet does appear to be under a "backbreaking" load already however.
PBS movie review show indiates "thumps up" is copyrighted. I do hope that an appropriate rating for Noem, "Two thumbs up yours" is not already under copy right.
I looked at the propaganda sheet again. It was actually in support of John Thune rather than Kristi Noem. Sorry if that caused any confusion.
[CAH: entirely off-topic, Doug, but I've read "The number of [Medicare] plan offerings for 2012 are stable and average prices are steady or falling slightly.]
Pine beetles are a problem. The problem is, people like Kristi and the governor as well as others from both sides of the isle make it sound like there is an easy cheap solution. They also make it sound like its a new problem. (Its not) I've talked to people who work in the forest department and they say that unless you want to spray the 1.5 million acres that make up the BH forest (1.3 which are in South Dakota). On the cheap side by plane expect $20 an acre and I'm guessing 3-4 times a year for 3-4 years to get it under control. And then you also have to deal with the private land; do they have to pay for their own? (over 300,000 acres of private land in and around the BH forest). As well as after you spray 10-15 times ontop of the trees (and people around them) what are the effects to them becoming resistant to the chemical and what are the affects on humans and other animals? There is a big catch 22 surrounding the forest, it needs to be looked at but when people throw out these quick fix and cheap ideas I get a little upset.
http://mtstandard.com/news/state-and-regional/wildfire-contractors-ask-governor-for-more-work/article_842cb0fb-4311-5438-8775-4229eb4701ec.html
Dead Man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n6aCMgy0ES4
The impression I have watching the Republicans like Thune and Noem flog this and other similar forest issues since the mid-1990s is that they don't really want a solution. In fact, they actually want a problem without a solution, like this one, so that they can flog it for eternity pulling campaign cash out of the beleaguered timber industry. It's been fifteen years, and people are beginning to figure out that Noem is proposing nothing new. This is just recycled nonsense meant to pull campaign checks.
The time to solve the pine beetle problem has long passed. Mother nature is the only one that has a big enough club to do the job now that they have spared as much as they have.
Mark O you are absolutely right about bears and oil. They like oil of every kind just as long as it isn't burnt to much. Some twenty years ago I spent two weeks in Alaska drilling water wells around Naknek, both the river and the town. It was during the big commercial strike when the canneries were trying to see how little they could pay the fishermen and still get them to sell fish. The fishermen would have big meetings where everyone got to voice their opinion of what should be done.
There were many different nationalities represented at those meetings. The Italians would cuss at everyone including each other. The French would cuss under their breath about how they were getting screwed. Those from the lower 48 like myself would set around with a dumb look on their faces trying to understand what the others were saying. And then there were the Russians. Those boys only had one thing on their mind, killing all the Japanese that they could catch. It didn’t matter if they were fishermen or not they just wanted to set an example. If it wouldn’t have been for the river eating away at its banks and washing the Russian orthodox cemetery away a few caskets at a time there wouldn’t have been anything other then the strike to talk about.
We were in between water wells and the strike had stopped fishing completely when a couple asked me if I wanted to go with them to check out their cabin. Who would pass up something like that?
We started upstream on the Naknek passed King Salmon and went another fifteen miles or so until we came on their cabin. It set about a hundred yards from the river bank and you could just make out the metal roof through the foliage. The very first thing we noticed was what looked like forest green paint sprayed all over the place. Then when we got to the cabin itself we could see that the door had been torn off its hinges and there wasn’t anything left inside but a mess. From what we could tell a brown bear had broke in and wrecked the place. He had taken their pantry, planks with cement blocks, more planks and so on and pulled it over.
There were all kinds of canned goods on the floor some broken and some smashed. We could tell where the paint had come from because there was a five gallon can that had been knocked over into the rest of the stuff. The bear had eaten most of the paint before it either got tired of paint or got full. from the tracks it looked like the bear had decided to leave the cabin for a couple of hours and then came back for another snack. The next time he came back he ate the peanut butter out of a gallon can. In that peanut butter was what was left of a lb. of black pepper that had also fallen from the pantry. That is were the green paint came from that was outside. Every time the bear would sneeze he would fart, and every time he would fart he would spray green paint on everything that was behind him.
From that time until today I cant think of anything else whenever someone says something about bears and pepper spray.
Folks nature is about the only thing that can fix nature. Lets face it man has been a poor substitute when it comes to things like that.
The Blindman
Cory, your timing is outstanding. From today's Federal Register: "The Forest Service will prepare an environmental impact statement on a proposal to use multiple vegetation treatments focused on reducing the threat to ecosystem components including forest resources from an existing insect and disease epidemic (mountain pine beetle), creating a landscape condition more adapted to fire and that reduces potential for high severity wildfire near at-risk communities and in the wildland-urban interface. The proposal is being planned for the 31,772 acre Calumet Project Area that includes about 27,617 acres of National Forest System land and about 4,155 acres of interspersed private land. The project area lies approximately six miles southwest of Rapid City, SD. Sheridan Lake is also located within the project area. "
The Forest Service has asked the public for comments about the scope of the project, due in 30 days. There will be a public meeting on Nov. 3. More info in the Federal Register notice: http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/10/24/2011-27404/black-hills-national-forest-mystic-ranger-district-south-dakota-calumet-project-area
Reading... learning...
Larry, can those lodgepole pines be reintroduced? (and sorry about that broken NASA link—it's fixed!)
Wish i knew the answer, Cory.
If you look at the old photos of the Hills, Lodgepole pine seemed to be recovering after the fires of the mid 1800's but was high graded for mine timbers along with all the other species. The Boles Canyon Road is a good assay of how the last trees were taken. Some of the old ones, aspen and oak among them, still defy the humans from their craggy ridges.
Every day after my morning swim, I drive up highway 85 from Deadwood to Lead. Along the way, looking off to the left, I can see some of the areas that were devastated by fire several years ago.
Bright yellow and some crimson colors have begun to appear on the slopes that looked like tundra when all was green in the summer. Deciduous trees have taken over in great numbers, a fact that the onset of autumn has revealed.
Nature will solve the pine beetle problem one way or another. My hunch, although I wouldn't dare to claim it as fact, is that Gaia does not see fit to replace vulnerable pine with more vulnerable pine, particularly in light of global warming (which I believe is taking place, belief is of course not hard science).
In a couple of hundred years these hills will, methinks, look totally different. So will the whole world, but that's a topic for another blant.
Larry, I want very much to see the Hills with your eyes. The old ones, indeed!
Blindman, I envy the history your eyes have seen and your ability to tell it... but bears farting paint? Come on, now you're telling tall tales, aren't you? :-)
Joel, I have the SDPB video cued up; I'll watch this week when I get time!
So back when the forest was naturally thinner thanks to wildfire, did the bears have fewer nuts to harvest than they do now in the thick but beetled forest? Did the bears roam the plains as much back then, but cause minimal harm because guys like Mark weren't out here frying a thousand burgers a day and stockpiling used canola oil?
Stan, I caught the archived local TV news video of that 2002 fire. Genuinely scary! Your comment about that burn area and nature solving the problem one way or the other remind me that "solving" and "problem" are terms very relative to our human perspective. The beetles are as natural as the leaves and pine needles; we just don't think pine beetles are pretty... and we don't have entrepreneurs waiting to harvest beetles and turn a profit.
I'm hearing from folks here a lot of "Let nature take its course." Is that the proper direction? Is there no cost-effective human intervention that produces a better ecological situation?
Harney Peak is NOT the highest point east of the Rockies...Guadalupe Peak in Texas is.
Dang it!