CONSERVATION ALERT--Richland Creek--Bearcat Hollow Phase II

[Fish]

One thing you won't see in an EA: "no timber will be sold." Or "wild area is perfect just like it is."

Said the guy who lives in a house made of wood...

- Fish

[Jim Krueger]

Prophet,

The term 'release' may have other meanings, I would have to defer to our foresters and others who know more about it than myself. However, from my study of, and use of chemicals in the landscape business, I ran across several
woody herbicides labeled for use as 'Pine plantation release'.
International Paper Co. owns thousands of acres of land near my farm in East Clark County, most all of it clear-cut and set out in new Pine plantations over time. At least in the initial years of growth, before the Pines gain enough height and girth to out-compete the oak sprouts, weeds, and brush, I think they have made these herbicide applications to release the Pines. I've certainly seen many aircraft sorties as they were flying over my place to various IP lands.

Best Regards
Jim

[prophet]

Prophet,

The term 'release' may have other meanings, I would have to defer to our foresters and others who know more about it than myself. However, from my study of, and use of chemicals in the landscape business, I ran across several
woody herbicides labeled for use as 'Pine plantation release'.
International Paper Co. owns thousands of acres of land near my farm in East Clark County, most all of it clear-cut and set out in new Pine plantations over time. At least in the initial years of growth, before the Pines gain enough height and girth to out-compete the oak sprouts, weeds, and brush, I think they have made these herbicide applications to release the Pines. I've certainly seen many aircraft sorties as they were flying over my place to various IP lands.

Best Regards
Jim

i agree, "release" doesnt mean just cutting competing trees as herbicide is easier. i think its done by hand on Nat. Forest lands though

[bmartin]

I am glad we have someone like Debo that dedicates so much time to making sure our forests and streams are managed well. Thank You.

I have some experience as a forest land owner and there are different kinds of releases depending on the forest objectives. You can release with fire or chemicals and in the document it appears some of the chemical releases are to eliminate non-native invasive species the most recognized being privet and mimosa. The others are to release certain kinds of wood species and it appears most will be backpack sprayed or injected which moderates the environmental impact compared to aerial applications.

I generally support the prescribed burns and selective thinning. That area of the forest had a lot of tree top damage with the ice storms 3 years back and there have been some planting failures resulting in unhealthy stands. A good prescribed burn and selective thinning can really green the forest and reduce the chances of catastrophic fires and tree pathogens. I lost a good part of a tree stand to pathogens largely because I did not thin soon enough and in dry stressful conditions you can loose every tree growing in an area if there is not adequeate spacing.

Anytime you log there are going to be some ugly side effects: loading docks (pretty sure that is what you are looking at in pic in previous post), ruts from skidders, bruised trees, road damage and to increase the chances this will have a net benefit, it will take some vigilence to make sure they are minimizing those impacts and getting it cleaned up after the harvesting is finished.

[Zen B.]

Something interesting from the Bearcat II Proposal comes from a study cited as supporting material within the EA.

The paper, titled Historic fire regime dynamics and forcing factors in the Boston Mountains, Arkansas, USA, shows no record of fire at the Falling Water study site before the early 1800s. The tree history dates through the early 1700s and the location appears to be the EA's only officially available study site within the vicinity of the Bearcat Hollow project area.

Using fire scar surveys on trees dating from the early to mid 1700s, the study shows no evidence of fire at the Falling Water site until a period starting in the early 1800s when U.S. Government-forced Native American migration begins across the territory. Frequent fires at the site are recorded throughout the Trail of Tears period, and as Native Americans are forced by broken treaties from Arkansas into Oklahoma.

The heavy fire history continues throughout Euro-American settlement of the region, peaking during the period of about 1830 to about 1920. After this the fire frequency reduces at the Falling Water site, possibly as a result of early efforts of the U.S. Forest Service (the USFS was created in the early 1900s to deal with impacts of over-logging and resultant fires).

So a proposal to return the area to a state beginning 200 years ago (about 1812) is not a proposal to return the area to pre-settlement conditions. The writers of the EA never formally make this distinction.

[cpresoz]

So a proposal to return the area to a state beginning 200 years ago (about 1812) is not a proposal to return the area to pre-settlement conditions. The writers of the EA never formally make this distinction.

Either the writers were unaware of the true fire history, or, as is more likely, even obstensibly scientific studies and reports tend to acquire an agenda and tends to reinforce that which was desired to be found as fact.

[Half Ton]

Come to think of it, this won't be the first time that the agreements protecting the Ozark Highlands Trail from such activities as proposed in Phase II will seemingly be dis-regarded.

[Ozarkwaterpal]

I’m new to this list, but have been engaged in environmental protection of public forests for many years. I’m an active member of the Newton County Wildlife Association, the Ozark Society, and the Sierra Club, all of which are actively opposed to this project.

First, it needs to be made clear that prescribed burning as conducted by the USFS does not mimic anything historical at all, except mans arrogance and foolishness. Native Americans never burned forest with the scale and frequency currently being practiced. And the primary reason for the increased undergrowth over the last few decades is directly caused by the USFS (and others) overcutting the forest, allowing flushes of seedlings and brush to fill the landscape once dominated by climax forests of pine and mixed hardwoods.

Secondly, these forests evolved to their climax condition prior to human intervention, and without fire. Again, the Ozarks do not contain fire dependent forests, and only a few glades have prehistoric burn evidence which rarely spread outside of the perimeter of the glade. “Fuel Buildup” is a convenient but false excuse for burning the forest. In fact, wildfire is extremely rare in the Ozarks because the amount of rainfall we typically receive causes deadfall to rot, thus creating soil.

Now to Debo’s assertion that “this area of forest needs to be restored”. Anyone who has visited areas where phase 1 of the project is underway will immediately recognize that this is not restoration, but forest destruction on a massive scale.
Why one might ask? There is a huge amount of timber being sold at bargain basement prices.. and thousands of acres to burn, which the USFS actually profits handsomely from. But why turn the forest into pasture?

Enter Western Rocky Mountain Elk. In a series of unpublicized meetings starting in 2001, the USFS and AGFC began planning for a project to enlarge the elk herd and range. Unfortunately, the track proposed by the AGFC and the USFS for expanding the herd runs straight up Richland Creek and onto the Ozark National Forest. But wait! Doesn’t this require an Environmental Impact Statement? Apparently not in Arkansas. What about broad public support for managing the National Forest for introduced elk? When you have as much power as the USFS, and as much money as the AGFC, you can actually pretend the public supports the expansion, because no objective survey will ever take place. Any information countering the expansion is buried in a barrage of advertisements and elk propaganda, compliments of AGFC and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. And that burned over, scraped over, poisoned and over cut project called Bearcat Hollow? That, my friend, is 38,000 acres of “woodland management” for “a variety of wildlife”.

When and where will it end? According to the USFS, it won’t. The 2005 forest plan calls for an ever-expanding herd on the Ozark National Forest. Science be damned. There’s a buck to be made, or rather lifted from the public purse. Welcome to Jurassic Park, Ozark style

[Roger]

Time for all those state independent agencies that operate without legislative oversight need to be reined in through the legal process. But then putting the legislature in an oversight capacity opens up another can of worms.

Either way, I think the average citizen is TOOl.

[Fish]

Science be damned.

Indeed, junk science is used to justify all sorts of profit making ventures, and serious science is often swept under the rug when inconvenient. But how can you tell the difference? First step is to not trust the news or politicians to be able to tell the difference themselves - they usually can't or they have a vested interest in misleading you. The hallmark of serious, real science are theories that are subjected to extensive peer review and confirmation by experimentation and analysis over many years to build a consensus in the scientific community. Junk science consists of "theories" that are propagated by dollars, religious fervor, political agendas, etc. while not being even close to consensus in the scientific community (but they often have consensus in certain political, business, or religious groups).

ACC has fought on a few fronts where junk science was used to justify political and business goals. Pine Mountain Dam is a prime example - real science literally be damned where the River Valley Water Authority was concerned! USFS projects are often based on a mix of real and junk science. The best example of the later is perhaps the "historical restoration" justification. I've been in meetings where USFS scientists argued that since 150 years ago the Ozark forest was more than 30% pine, that cutting down hardwoods and planting pines was restoring it to a more natural state. When I and others pointed out that, 150 years ago, the forest wasn't a big pine farm over here and some hardwoods over there with a stark line separating the two groups (which was what the plan was doing), the scientists went even further back and argued that "scientifically" many hundreds of years ago there were even more pine trees (in the area we were standing). My reply was that in the Paleocene about 75 million years ago, where we were standing was the bottom of a shallow sea, so science indicates we should flood the entire area with 50 feet of salt water to make it more natural, right? They didn't seem amused.

As I said before, I understand the political and business reasons that USFS sells timber and burns land in pretty much all of their projects. There are legitimate reasons. (A favorite quote of mine is that the difference between a developer and an environmentalist is that a developer wants to build houses in the woods. An environmentalist already has a house there). But pseudo-science justifications for these projects wear our my patience real fast. If we're gonna cut public trees for sale to subsidize timber companies, fine. If clear cuts are the most practical way for that subsidy to happen, I may not like it, but I can understand the reasoning. But just tell it like it is. Don't insult my intelligence trying to put lipstick on that pig.

And don't even get me started on the "science" that backs up big bio-fuel subsidies for corn farmers. Thank god congress seems to finally seems to be starting to recognize that they've been dancing with a cosmetically enhanced pig on that one!

- Fish

[Ozarkwaterpal]

The science is damned for certain when the agencies involved fail to DO the science. Case in point.. bring an invasive large game animal to a distinctly different ecosystem from where it originated. Manage the land to increase the herd.. spread it throughout the region.. and after 30 years, fail to do any scientific analysis of the animals' impacts on the ecosystem. I repeat. There has never been any study of the impacts of western elk on Ozarks native species. Nor has there been any objective survey of area residents interest (or lack thereof) in seeing the herd expanded.

[hollohead]

I know Eastern Elk were indiginous to the area, how much differant could the environmental impact of a Western Elk be? Not that I agree with anything the usfs does or says, just wondering what the objections to Elk are, other than bein g used as smokescreen for usfs's other agenda.

[Ozarkwaterpal]

From the years of research i've done on the issue, there are a couple of factors to be considered. One is that the ecosystem here in the Arkansas Ozarks does not provide adequate protein in the native forages and grasses to support western elk, so land managers like the AGFC and the USFS must first transform the native forest to a productive field of edibles, most of which are also not native forbes. To this end, several hundred acres are being farmed on the newly acquired AGFC property on lower Richland Creek, along with other large purchases of feed stocks and pasture leases.. thus far costing taxpayers millions of dollars to keep the program afloat.
The other factor absent from most discussions is the fact that the archeological record reveals only 16% of faunal remains uncovered in Ozark excavations have elk bone fragments, as opposed to 96% for white tail deer (Cleland, et al). Objective biologists familiar with the subject speculate that eastern elk herds typically ranged along the larger river bottoms (Arkansas and White Rivers in this area) where forage was more abundant. Elk in the upper reaches of a stream like the Buffalo or Richland Creek would have been rare if they occurred at all. Concentrations like those now seen in Boxley would never have occurred here under natural conditions.
Until we have a detailed assessment of biological impacts from western elk, we have more questions than answers. The fact remains, the western elks' dependence on high grade pasture raises a number of questions as to why land managers are so intent on bringing the elk into a National Forest that is historically wooded.

[hollohead]

Thanks, this is some very interesting info.

[MasonEckhart]

I do tire of the so called "prescribed" burning in Ozark forests.