(C) South Dakota Searchlight This story was originally published by South Dakota Searchlight and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . We know what the timber industry needs, but what can the Black Hills provide? • South Dakota Searchlight [1] ['Dave Mertz', 'More From Author', 'March'] Date: 2024-03-08 The traditional way logging happens in the Black Hills National Forest is through timber sales. The U.S. Forest Service designates areas available for logging, and companies bid for the right to purchase and harvest the timber. On Saturday in Spearfish, there was a forestry roundtable discussion about the reduced levels of timber sales in recent years. U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, invited two of his fellow congressmen, Doug LaMalfa, R-California, and Austin Scott, R-Georgia. Johnson also invited two Forest Service officials, Regional Forester Frank Beum and Black Hills National Forest Forest Supervisor Shawn Cochran. The panel was rounded out with timber industry representatives and the South Dakota state forester. After introductions, the panel quickly turned to grilling the two Forest Service officials. I am familiar with LaMalfa from watching him in congressional hearings. He can come across as combative, and he was all of that. Scott was also aggressive. It is not clear to me why these two were on this panel. They have absolutely no familiarity with the Black Hills. It appeared that they were there to browbeat the Forest Service. Johnson participated in these tactics as well. At issue was why the Black Hills National Forest plans to sell only 63,000 CCF (1 CCF equals 100 cubic feet) of timber this fiscal year. The timber industry representatives said they need 120,000 CCF to survive as they exist today. Beum said that with budget limitations and 76 employee vacancies, 63,000 CCF is all the Forest Service can do. He also stated that to get to 120,000 CCF, the forest would need an additional $20 million of funding. Much of the hour and a half revolved around blaming the Forest Service for not selling more timber and for being ineffective. This came from three members of Congress, which doesn’t exactly have a stellar record of getting things done. When will they pass a budget? Repeatedly, panelists stated what the timber industry needs. Never was there any concern for what level of timber harvesting the forest needs. Only toward the end did the elephant in the room finally get discussed — that there are no longer enough sawtimber-size trees left on the forest to support the capacity of the timber industry as it exists today. (A tree big enough to qualify as sawtimber is one that’s at least 9 inches in diameter when measured at a point 4.5 feet above the ground.) Large wildfires in the early 2000s, the mountain pine beetle epidemic and the associated aggressive timber harvesting to address it all led to a major reduction in sawtimber-sized trees across the forest. This has impacted how many trees can now be sustainably logged on an annual basis, and this will continue for a good while into the future. Acceptance of that is the key to finding solutions. Beum explained that the Forest Service is conducting an inventory of the forest at a cost of $2 million with LiDAR, an aerial survey method that uses pulses of laser light to determine the presence, shape and distance of objects in great detail. Never before has this been done on an entire national forest. This will provide a 3D map of the forest down to individual trees, and give a very clear picture on how many sawtimber-size trees remain on the forest. This issue has been in dispute, because the timber industry discounts the numerous studies that show there is a problem. At one point, Johnson thought the timber sustainability issue could be resolved with simple math. He asked Ben Wudtke, of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association, a timber industry group, about the growth rate of the forest. Wudtke said it’s 2.5%. Johnson did some rough math and declared that there is no problem with the timber inventory or sustainability. He failed to take into account the long-term average mortality (rate of tree death) of 1%, and also that the whole forest is not available for timber harvesting for a variety of reasons — including the presence of non-forested areas such as meadows, terrain that’s too steep and rugged, restrictive land designations such as wilderness and recreation areas, access problems, etc. He should actually read the Forest Service’s General Technical Report, which goes into great detail on these issues. Beum said the Forest Service is subsidizing the rail transport of logs from California and Oregon to the Spearfish and Hulett, Wyoming, mills. Something like this has never occurred before. There was no appreciation expressed. Scott asked about the revenues generated by timber sales, and Cochran had to explain that since the Forest Service is now primarily using service stewardship contracts to help the timber industry find places to work, the Forest Service is not making any money. In fact, the Forest Service is paying private loggers to harvest timber in an area where the cost of logging exceeds the value of the timber. For example, the Topaz Timber Sale is costing the Forest Service $3.5 million to log 550 acres on steep ground that otherwise wouldn’t get logged south of Sturgis. The timber operator gets the logs at no cost, in return for some service work. Clearly, the Forest Service is doing some extraordinary things to assist the timber industry. Instead of seeking solutions, it appeared that this roundtable was more of an ambush. The two Forest Service participants showed up in good faith only to be interrogated. What was the point of all this other than some people enjoying seeing the Forest Service get beat up? No solutions were found that I could tell. [END] --- [1] Url: https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2024/03/08/we-know-what-the-timber-industry-needs-but-what-can-the-black-hills-provide/ Published and (C) by South Dakota Searchlight Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/sdsearchlight/