The Sad

The Sad, the Bad and the Blue (Stain)
Forestry statistics for Libby South Fire Kill Salvage Sale
(click here to return to the salvage logging page)

by George Wooten
Field Representative
Kettle Range Conservation Group
February, 2002

General:

The size of the proposed cut is 418 acres.
The site index (from the Okanogan County Soil Survey) is 70. This agrees with Williams and Lillybridge (Forested Plant Associations of the Okanogan National Forest, 1982) who calculate a site index of 77 and 39, respectively, for the fir and ponderosa pine in a Douglas fir / pinegrass stand, such as those in this timber sale.

Pre-fire conditions
A team of botanists from the Trust for Habitat Conservation did a botanical survey of Grouse Hollow before the fire. Grouse Hollow is about a mile south of the Libby South Sale, and has the same habitats, althought they are predominantly south facing. Grouse Hollow also burned during the fire - twice (including an earlier spring burn). The following 3 photographs of Grouse Hollow are representative of the conditions at Libby South.

Ancient pines occupy the openings.
(click to enlarge)

Slopes are steep and easily damaged.
(click to enlarge)

Bitterbrush - arrowleaf balsamroot - bluebunch wheatgrass (Purshia tridentata / Balsamorhiza sagitata - Agropyron spicatum) is the dominant vegetation type, here seen in April of 1997 of before the plants gained height.
(click to enlarge)

The vegetation at Grouse Hollow included the following (*'d items are introduced species)

Trees:
Pseudotsuga menziesii
Pinus ponderosa

Shrubs:
Purshia tridentata
Prunus virginiana

Forbs:
Balsamorhiza sagitata, Dodecatheon pulchellum, Mertensia longiflora, Lithophrogma bulbifera, Lomatium ambiguum, Erigeron linearis, Collomia tenella, Microsteris gracilis, Collinsia parviflora, *Centaurea diffusa, Melica bulbosa, Calochortus macrocarpus, Calochortus lyallii, Allium acuminatum, Artemisia dracunculus, Achillea millefolium, Hydrophyllum capitatum, Draba verna, Dntennaria dimorpha, Delphinium nuttallianum, Fritillaria pudica, Senecio integerrimus.

Graminoids:
Agropyron spicatum, Festuca idahoensis, Poa secunda,

Because of steep cliffs along its eastern edge, Grouse Hollow was never heavily grazed. Grouse Hollow was perhaps the highest quality shrub-steppe habitat ever visited by the botanists on the team. The diffuse knapweed was thick on Gold Creek below, but practically nonexistent in the upper part of the valley.

Unmodified sale particulars:

(Click for an aerial view depicting the proposed Libby South timber sale layout).

The original volume was 2.931 mmbf original with negligible leave trees, i.e., it is a liquidation.

At 4,000 bf / truckload, this would be equivalent of 2,931,000 / 4,000 = 732 truckloads.

The unmodified volume would be 2.931 mmbf / 12 =244,250 cf.

Adjusting for kerf and slab of 4.75 / 12 (39.58%), the cubic volume converts to 244,250 / 0.3958 = 617,105 bf.

For Libby S. this is 617,105 bf / 418 ac = 1,476 cf per acre. Over a 100 year rotation which is the nominal rotation period for this Douglas fir of site index 70, this equates to 14.76 cf / ac / yr.

The Okanogan National Forest, and most of the USDA, classify land producing less than 20 cubic feet per year as non-commercial, i.e., unable to pay for the cost of logging and fire-fighting. Yield tables published by USDA Tech. Bulletin 201 were also consulted. No yields are given for site indices less than 80, again, because this low of a site index is considered off-base to timber harvest. However, if the site index was 80, the yield at 100 years of 12”-plus fir trees is given as 2,410 cf, or about 24 cf / ac / yr.

If timber mining were legal, yield tables based on actual productivity for mixed conifer for a Douglas fir site index of 71, are suggested as being somewhere near 29 cf / ac / yr. by Randall O’Toole of Cascade Holistic Economic Consultants, in Review of the Okanogan National Forest Plan, Nov. 1982, which is based on moderate thinning to maintain the stand at a higher yield, albeit at an economic cost which can seldom be justified on noncommercial forests. For comparison,

According to the State of Washington Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee’s Report 96-5, “Forest Board Transfer Lands”, in 1993, Washington state forest lands generated $69 per acre, the highest of any state. In 1995, DNR spent approximately $30 per acre to manage around 600,000 acres of forest board lands. In this document, DNR indicates that the state-wide yield per acre at harvest for a 100-year rotation for is 74,950 bf (p. 43), or about 749.5 bf / ac / yr. With a slab & kerf factor of 0.5, this works out to 749.5 / (12 * 0.5) = 125 cf / ac / yr. Thus, compared to the state average, the yield per acre at Libby S. is 14.75 / 125 = a return to the trust of only 12% of the state average, or about 6% of an acre of commercial west-side forest like that of Weyerhauser.

Libby South 100-year old stick sale:

View from north edge of sale toward south edge on ridge at center of photo:

Question: Why is Libby S. so low in timber productivity (12% of the state average), when it should be higher to account for the standing old growth pine on the site?

Answer: Because this area receives only 15 inches of rain a year, trees naturally grow about one-tenth of the rate of a productive west-side forest. It took over 200 years for some of the large ponderosas on this site to reach their present size. In addition, most of the trees are overstocked and unhealthy, because of a lack of thinning, whether silvicultural, or natural (as would normally happen during historical underburns in the original stand).

Modified Libby S. sale particulars:

The modified volume of the Libby S. sale is 2.3 mmbf (78.5%) after modifying to leave 3 tpa plus 2 largest pine per acre, or about 0.6 mmbf less.

This works out to 2,300,000 / 418 = 5.5 mbf / acre.

The stumpage value of the 2.3 mmbf modified sale is $311,000, or $744 per acre, to which an additional $35,000 must be paid for road maintenance. This can be converted to volume: $744 / 5.5 mbf = $135 / mbf. For comparison, the normal stumpage value for area 7 distance haul zone 2, the stumpage is $276 / mbf for Douglas-fir of quality no. 1, or ponderosa pine of quality 2.

This means that an acre of Libby South ground is returning less than 3% to the trust compared to that of an acre of commercial timber land.

At 4,000 bf / truckload, the modified volume would be 2,300,000 mmbf / 4,000 = 575 truckloads.

These 575 truckloads of timber would cost the timber company $311,000 + $35,000 road maintenance deposit, plus the cost of building 2.77 miles of new road plus 17 new culverts. According to Jack Phelps, Alaska Forest Association, Information Services, “ Forest roads program not a subsidy to industry”, March, 1997 (http://www.akforest.org/roads.htm) road construction costs under the Purchaser Road Credit program averaged $25,900 per mile, compared with a cost of $60,200 per mile when built by general contractors with appropriated federal funds. Since the road at Libby South is to be built by the logging company, that is a guarantee that the lowest figure is more realistic, in which case road costs for 2.77 miles at Libby S. are estimated at 2.77 * $25,900 = $71,743.

Therefore the estimated cost per truckload is thus $311,000 + $35,000 + $71,743 / 575 = 417,743 / 575 = $727 per load, which is still low, considering miscellaneous administrative, bond, insurance, etc, wasn’t counted. And remember, this timber is damaged, riddled with bugs that the DNR entomologist aid would require “very careful marketing” to sell.

Photo of scorched, overstocked, trees at Libby S:

The question is, why is the DNR burning public money to liquidate this timber?

Answer: It is obvious from the squawking noises in the state capitol calling for an accelerated rate of liquidation of trust assets, and transfer of timber assets to county control, that the DNR is being pressured to act in an unsound manner uninformed politicians who do not understand the ecology of the ponderosa pine / sagebrush steppe ecosystem.

Photo of where the fire began and how - the patch of Noxious Weeds

where DNR drove its dilapidated rig:

click to enlarge

Close up of a future debris flow site

- weeds and erosion where the fire started.

click to enlarge

Bambi indicates the location of a proposed road in

logging unit, in a protected canyon where he lives

with friends owl, bear and woody woodpecker.

click to enlarge

Vegetation at Libby South:
On November 27, a group of citizens visited portions of the Libby South proposed Sale area. Vegetation was recorded at the site where the fire began, in a ravine with open shrub-steppe on one side and riparian forest on the other. observed was heavily infested with noxious weeds. A partial vegetation list follows (*'d items are introduced species):

*Centaurea diffusa, *Agropyron repens, *Cynoglossum officinale, Chaenactis nauseosus, *Sisymbrium loeselii, Rhus glabra, *Verbascum thapsus, *Cirsium vulgare, *Poa pratensis, Phalaris arundinacea, *Nepeta cataria, *Pyrus malus, *Poa bulbosa, Eriogonum niveum, Balsamorhiza sagittata, Purshia tridentata, *Bromus tectorum (80% cover in openings), Populus tremuloides, Alnus incana, Sambucus cerulea, Symphoricarpos albus, Betula occidentlis, Clematis ligusticifolia, Pinus ponderosa, Pseudotsuga menziesii.

It is noteworthy that in comparison with Grouse Hollow, this area has 11 non-native species compared to only 1 at Grouse Hollow. This is most likely due to livestock, although Grouse Hollow is completely roadless and has never been logged, so these other forms of disturbance may have brought in some of the invasive species.

Definitions:

ac, acre – 43,560 sq. ft. or 0.405 hectare

BAF – basal area factor; used to convert variable plot stem numbers to basal area; generally this should be 5 – 8 trees per sample point.

bf - board feet.

cf – cubic feet

cubic volume (of trees) – 1 cubic foot = 12 board feet X fraction of usable wood. The fraction of usable wood is the ratio of usable board ft per cubic ft / 12. the average ratio on the ONF, for trees of 13.75” dia, the ratio is 4.50 – 4.8 (.375 – 0.40).

CMAI – culmination of mean annual incremental growth of a tree.

dbh, diameter – diameter at breast height of a tree, given in inches.

ha. – hectare

MAI – mean annual increment; average annual growth of a tree, usually given in cf / ac / yr

mbf – thousand board feet

mmbf – million board feet

truckload – 29 tons or up to 4,000 board feet depending on defect

non-commercial land – any site not capable of producing 20 cubic feet per acre per year (Okanogan NF).

kerf – wood volume lost in processing as sawdust.

slab - wood volume lost in processing as round edges which do not contribute to lumber production.

productivity – the annual increase in stand volume, usually given in cubic feet per acre per year.

SDI – Stand Density Index; the number of trees per acre that a stand could be expected to have if its quadratic mean diameter were 10 inches. For the Okanogan National Forest, the SDI for Douglas fir or ponderosa pine is about 226 and 160, respectively

SEV (soil expectation value – land rent; bare land value; the sum of all the costs of managing an acre of bare land, discounted to the present, subtracted from all the benefits, discounted to the present.

Site index – height in feet of a tree at a given age, usually 100 or 50 years.

stand diameter - average diameter of a tree of mean basal area in a stand.

tpa – trees per acre.

yield – MAI

yr - year

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