National Forest Homeowners
Cabins
NFH Facts
Homeowners and environmentalists cannot expect that their cherished views of tree-mantled mountains will remain forever without some action to reverse decades of ineffective forest management as well as to mitigate the effects of bringing urban life -- homes, roads, utilities -- to the wildlands. Forest scientists have told us what must be done now to preserve forest health. If we do not act, millions of trees will pay the price.
Loving Our Forests to Death
Sparing all the trees may doom the forest and our communities
Northern California's forests aren't immune from the problems The Chronicle detailed in its story on the San Bernardino Forest ("A thin chance of survival," Aug. 11). In the Plumas National Forest, an alarming number of trees are also dying.
For the last few weeks, I have been representing our Bucks Lake Homeowners Association in Bucks Lake (Plumas County) as the U.S. Forest Service conducts its annual inspections of our cabins, which are on Forest Service land in the Plumas National Forest. In all, there are about 130 cabins.
We are identifying and marking dead and dying trees during the inspections. What's scary is that some trees have cones on them, which means they died just as suddenly as a person with cardiac arrest. The Forest Service tells us that at least 30 percent of all the live trees now standing will die in the next five years.
It does not take an expert to see that the forest is not healthy. It is overgrown with immature trees that will never make it to maturity, and also with many post-mature firs that are 200 years old or older. I know that those trees are the environmentalists' poster children, and I love to look at them, but they are like elderly humans, vulnerable to whatever bugs are moving through the population.
PG&E is also concerned about the rapidly developing situation. Their power lines are vulnerable to falling trees and branches, and they are now sending their own foresters up every 30 days to identify the trees that have died in the interim. From them I have learned that the fir bark beetle is killing the red and white firs, while the turpentine beetle is killing our magnificent old sugar pines, which are the forest royalty.
This is a real situation. It is happening now, and needs intervention right now. Remember the fire in the El Dorado National Forest eight years ago near Highway 50? That intense blaze burned until winter storms put it out, and it destroyed the forest floor to a depth of at least 12 inches; then Highway 50 was closed by mudslides for the next few winters.
That is the blueprint for the future in much of the Sierra if we do not begin to intervene in our forests, "disturbing" them with benevolent, loving care: burning, thinning or logging, as the circumstances dictate. Homeowners and environmentalists cannot expect that their cherished views of tree-mantled mountains will remain forever without some action to reverse decades of ineffective forest management as well as to mitigate the effects of bringing urban life -- homes, roads, utilities -- to the wildlands. Forest scientists have told us what must be done now to preserve forest health. If we do not act, millions of trees will pay the price.
In Quincy, a cogeneration plant happily accepts forest byproducts. That makes our situation quite different from the one in Southern California. The mess here can be dealt with in a way that returns forest health, and supplies electricity to California -- if we can get beyond the political warring and posturing and lawsuits that have characterized these efforts for the last two decades. If not, prepare for stories about absolutely devastating fires destroying the Sierra and terrorizing the mountain communities. We are living on borrowed time now.
Michael Hoover
Vice president of Bucks Lake Homeowners Association
More information is available on the web at www.landsense.us