When given lemons, make lemonade!
Spruce decline epidemic benefits wildlife, reduces fire hazards, and salvages merchantable forest products.
(Contributed by Mark Theisen, Forest Silviculturist, 715-362-1346)
Photo 1: A Spruce Decline area in the Forest
Photo 2: Black-backed woodpecker in a small reserve area
Between 2003 and 2004, employees on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest noticed that some white spruce plantations were looking unhealthy. Upon further investigation, it was determined that thousands of acres of white spruce on the Forest had substantial mortality or had very poor crown conditions. During the summer of 2004, field visits with forest health specialists from the State and Private branch of the Forest Service and from the University of Wisconsin, along with collaboration with State, County, Town and Tribal governments, confirmed we were dealing with an epidemic. The epidemic was called Spruce Decline which is caused by a combination of drought, insects and disease. The dead and dying spruce created a loss of habitat for Regional Forester Sensitive Species spruce grouse, a loss of productive forestland, and a huge hazardous fuel build-up. It also provided an opportunity to salvage a large volume of merchantable product.
In order to commercially salvage the spruce, the Forest needed to complete NEPA analysis and issue a decision in short order as they was deteriorating rapidly. These circumstances were ripe to test a new tool in the NEPA toolbox. Passed in December, 2003, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA) provided the opportunity to expedite the salvage of this dead and dying resource. As the District staffs continued to do a rapid health assessment of their white spruce plantations, the Forest formed a NEPA team with the assignment of completing the analysis as quickly as possible, using the new HFRA authority.
Within 6 months, the Forest had gathered the site conditions on four districts, completed the analysis and signed the 2004 Spruce Decline decision. The decision called for approximately 4,500 acres of immediate salvage. However, the decision also called for over 3,100 acres of unhealthy spruce to be monitored. This adaptive decision allowed these monitored acres to be treated if they met damage thresholds established in the decision. This proved very useful as nearly all of the monitored acres did eventually meet the damage thresholds and were treated. Within the next year, another EA (Spruce Decline II) and decision was produced which called for another 1,500 acres of immediate treatment and another 5,700 acres of monitoring. We will continue to monitor these acres. In total, nearly one half of the white spruce acres on the Forest have been impacted. The Spruce Decline epidemic has slowed down as we have not had to treat all of monitored acres from the second EA.
The black-backed woodpecker, another Regional Forester Sensitive Species, actually benefits from these types of disturbances. They feed and nest in dead and dying conifer. The two decisions took this into account and left over 2,000 acres of dying spruce standing. This provided excellent habitat for the black-backed woodpeckers and other species dependent on dead and dying material. In addition to these un-salvaged stands, small reserve areas were left within stands that received treatment. These reserve areas also proved to be beneficial to black-backed woodpeckers.
As a result of the treatment, hazardous fuels have been reduced on approximately 11,000 acres. Of these, 3,500 were located in wildland urban interface areas. Spruce grouse habitat has been or will be restored on more than 1,700 acres. Healthy forest conditions have been restored on 11,000 acres. The commercial salvage operation generated approximately 120 million board feet of timber.
While the situation was something the Forest would have preferred to avoid, the Forest is proud of the lemonade it produced from the lemons it was handed.