Letter: USFS wrong to remove Camp Rich trees
To the community,
The U.S. Forest Service has begun implementing plans to “improve” the Camp Richardson area north of Highway 89. The purpose of this plan is to meet standards for water quality and universal access.
Campsites and roads are being reorganized. The campground will get a new entrance. The bike path that is now along the edge of the highway will be moved away from the road. These plans include the removal of 250 beautiful trees from the camp.
This article protests the removal of so many trees. People come to Tahoe to be closer to nature and to camp amongst the trees under a starry night sky. Tall Jeffries, Ponderosa’s and firs give Tahoe an identity that is different from the populated lowlands. It seems everywhere we are losing trees for one reason or another, to widen roads, to clear lots for housing, to reduce fire hazards, to disease and bugs, or they simply die from lack of water. The USFS should endeavor to improve the campground in a less destructive fashion by trying to accommodate as many trees as possible while achieving their goals. For instance they could make entertaining, little curvy camp roads that go around trees and also slow people down.
Deforestation is a global problem contributing to climate change happening not just in some far off place, but also at Tahoe. The USFS has already ruined many forests in the Tahoe basin with their excessive mandate of fuel reduction and reckless burning of slash. We need to protect and appreciate trees. A 100 year old tree is a marvel. No amount of money can buy it back once it is cut down. It will take 100 years to replace it. Climate change is a concern because it appears to be causing extremities in weather that makes life uncomfortable for people, such as extreme heat and drought, flooding and more severe storms. It will have a profound effect on agriculture. We need to help, preserve and plant trees.
There are many benefits to trees. They play an important role in the global carbon cycle. A tree can absorb 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year. This amounts to 1 ton in 40 years. One large tree can provide a supply of oxygen for 2 people. Trees provide shade, lower evaporation and reduce air conditioning needs around buildings. They reduce storm water runoff. They provide wildlife habitat and beautify our environment.
For the first time ever, the CO2 level in the atmosphere has reached 400 ppm (parts per million). Pre-industrial concentration around 1800 has been estimated at 260-270 ppm. According to the Department of Energy, the average American produces annually 17.2 tons of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production. Each gallon of gasoline burned produces 20 pounds of CO2. If we assume about half of human generated emissions are absorbed by the world’s oceans and other plant life, then 344 trees are needed by every American every day to offset his personal CO2 production.
The trees at Camp Richardson are to be be prized and treated with care. The destruction of so many trees in order to “improve” the campground is terribly disappointing. Camp Richardson is visited and loved by many people. The USFS could do much better to preserve the beauty and character of this special place while achieving their goals. They are leaving a legacy we will be living with for decades to come.
Liana Zambresky, South Lake Tahoe
Instead of the forest service removing the trees, let”s remove the forest service. They’re another government agency that has gone bad.
Sounds irresponsible, possibly they want to increase campsite revenue. Not necessarily job security, but revenue they want to have.
I agree 100 percent, No trees ,no LAKE TAHOE.
The Forest Circus is packed full of clowns hell bent on wrecking all they touch. Any time you have the government involved you can count on idiocy.
Its amazing to me the great variety of justifications the FS comes up with to cut down trees. I bet the loggers just love those old growth, easy-to-get-at trees down by the lake. I believe there is a new chief forester at the FS who has demonstrated in the past that cutting down the great old trees is no problem as long as some baloney-ridden excuse can be dreamed up. The raptor trees at Baldwin are next on the agenda.
For crying out loud leave the trees in the campgrounds, that’s a reason people go camping, to get away from the asphalt jungles and be among the trees, wildlife, and nature. The trees marked for removal around Camp Richardson look very healthy to me.
It’s already a done deal, they jumped on it a week ago. We now have a parking lot with some trees. No privacy camping, no wind block, and a lot less shade. Might as well pitch your tent in the Kmart parking lot.
250 trees on a campground that can’t be over a couple of acres is just bad management. Hate to see any healthy trees cut during a drought that will surely leave dead and dying trees in its wake for years to come that will need removal.
Apparently the FS doesn’t know anything about managing forests so they cut the trees to the point that the forests are now parks. The next section of forest they plan to destroy is on the right side of the Pope Beach entrance, take a look of all the healthy trees marked for removal, and of course the understory will be completely wiped out…..sad.
A long time ago I was on a USFS fuel reduction crew. Cutting down some trees actually creates much more biodiversity in the environment. There is a possibility that there are more trees in the human populated areas of Lake Tahoe than before it became a part of this country. I am personally not familiar with this project, but can remember in the past projects the forest looked much better after awhile and most likely much healthier.
Kinda akin to sticking to many people in a house, probably be excessively sick and less productive.
Whip, I have to disagree strongly to your statement about that stand of trees along 89 on the Pope Beach side. They are a perfect example of an UNHEALTHY forest configuration in an arid Sierra forest. That overcrowding creates more competition for water and sunlight thereby making those trees FAR more susceptible to disease and invasive arthropod infestation. AND that situation stunts the actual undergrowth from growing naturally.
how bout the forest service-contracted clown who continues to feng shui the trails off gardner mountain?
@ Biggerpicture, I repeat, I hate to see large, healthy trees cut during a drought when we’ll be losing a lot of trees that will NEED to be cut.
You stated “They are a perfect example of an UNHEALTHY forest configuration” Well that unhealthy forest configuration was created by the FS. This whole section from Pope Beach to the beginning of the bike path was heavily logged and thinned due to the mid-seventies drought. The result is what your looking at.
Why not leave the large healthy trees, and thin (some) of the small and medium size understory trees.
The never ending issue of forest management that is the job of the US Forest Service(dept. Of Agriculture). What to do and how to do it. There are no easy answers because they are damned if they do and damned if they dont. In the court of public opinion the USFS should manage these lands for everyones benefit and everyone has an opinion. Its sorta like how to fix(or not) Meyers.
I worked for the USFS for years and it NEVER changed. The mandate the USFS has to follow includes looking at a multi use forest. There are areas set aside for recreation (a commodity) and with that in mind a developed campground has to provide specific uses. They are DEVELOPED campgrounds and that means they are maintained in a manner specific to development. I personally hate seeing any big old healthy trees cut for any reason. I also choose to not go camping in a DEVELOPED campground because I want a different experience when im out in the woods which includes solitude and privacy. You arent gonna find that at a camp richardson campground in the summer.
so if cutting out trees from a developed campground pisses you off, definately let the forest service know. It is possible to insist on them stopping these kinds of actions but you have to be there at the beginning of the scoping process and stick with all the planning process(this could be years in the making).
Its obvious how a majority of locals feel about the severity of forest thinning but–just watch–the FS will not respond to or modify their practices in any way. “Nature” points out that concerned citizens need to be involved from the beginning of the scoping process and, of course, he has a point. However, i have been involved in these things and I can’t see that my involvement EVER changed a thing the FS planned to do. Even when they have given the impression that they will modify something, they go right ahead and implement their original plan. When called on this, they frequently will point to the fact that a big, old tree must have been damaged by the felling of an adjacent tree or that the manager on site must have seen a good reason to remove a certain tree or group of trees. Their arrogance is appalling–even when furnished with current scientific research about forest practice (logging in burn areas for example) they march onward with the good old days methods.
After the thinning and “improvement” projects are completed, there won’t be any more trees to argue about.
Hikerchick, you are right about the process and it is absolutly disheartening when you see a public agency that dosent listen to the public. The fact that they think as professionals they know best is sometimes not the case. They, too, are driven to optomise their output as they are an agency of commodities, not necessarily protection. Sometimes people think that as soon as they drive into the forest they are in the land of National Parks. These two agencies have very different mandates and goals. I spent 20 years working at day managing back country campgrounds and access to Wilderness in the National Forest system and it was at the descression of the area managers to remove trees deemed hazardous in campgrounds or on trails. You probably wouldnt be surprised at the opinion of the foresters as to which trees were “hazardous”, or which trees needed to be left in place. At night id go home and help environmental groups write appeals because the on ground management didnt reflect the actual plan. Sometimes we won, sometimes we didnt.
Logging in Tahoe. Call it what you want. The USFS is great at this. “Thinning the trees for a healthy forest”, “diversity”, or playing on people’s fears, “reducing fuel load to prevent wildfires”.
Call it what you want, but it’s still logging for a profit.
Are they logging in residential areas where a bunch of old homes are surrounded by trees?? During a drought? Nah, it’s easier to cut in forested places like the edge of meadows where the high dollar trees are easily cut down, with roads graded for heavy equipment and the trees sold off for the big bucks.
Nothing like living in an older home with pine trees on all sides with high fire danger while the USFS hires out of town loggers to cut down trees that are easily brought down by the chainsaw and then hauled away for sale to the highest bidder.
Will anything change? Doubtful. The USFS does whatever it wants with very little if any oversight.
10,000 acres logged on So. Shore with more coming around the lake. Take care, Old Long Trees
So true that “on the ground management doesn’t always reflect the actual plan”. I have been told that the devil is in the C Section of logging contracts (not exactly sure if this is the right designation) that gives loggers pretty much the discretion to do whatever they want. Its so disheartening to work to save some trees, think you’ve got it nailed down and then see the area flattened and denuded.
I have gone to some of the forest disservice planning meetings to express my opinion. They really don’t care what the public says or thinks. We are all idiots without degrees in forestry. Following the ‘treatment’ of the forests surrounding Fallen Leaf Lake, I met with 2 forest disservice personnel. We walked through the devastation where I once appreciated tall trees with occasional pileated woodpeckers and western tanagers. They didn’t seem to comprehend where I was coming from. They never made even one little concession, that perhaps they had overdone it. They were entirely justified by the results of a computer program! This area is very sad indeed now. They have totally ruined it for many decades. It’s a pity they are the highest authority for our national forests. They are another arrogant, pathetic government agency with more power than they deserve.
I am not always a fan of the USFS, but the topic of forest thinning is one place where they are on the side of logic. And no I am not talking out of my backside, and yes I did spend a bit of my late youth fighting fires in California. I know what it is like.
America, through the Forest service and other fire fighting agencies have been really good at wildfire control for a long time…so good that it is as if we began storing cans of gasoline in the forest by way of encouraging thick brush, and trees so close together you can practically touch one from another in many areas.
It is now well accepted by just about everyone that a thinner forest is a healthier forest, and far less likely to burn in the manner we read about every week it seems.
The early Tahoe forests were look alikes to the thinned areas we see now that so many people whine about.
If there is a more likely place for a wildfire to start than in a campground with tourists all burning open fires, I would like to hear about it.
Even when a fire does start in a thinned area, it is less likely to become a fast moving crown fire, and more likely to burn mostly understory vegetation as opposed to full sized trees.
Get over your ire about thinning and work on something more important,
Cranky Gerald,
Well stated.
Cranky, it is definately a wise thing to do, forest thinning, and has proved that it can be advantageous in a wildfire situation to keep the fire out of the tree tops. The thing that gets the goat for many is when they go into these developed areas that have been thinned and there are stumps from the big trees that were removed (trees that are strong and have survived many years of environmental changes)and there are still many little spindly trees all around that will never survive a campground setting (little jonny with his new hatchet needs practice and those little trees are the fodder for the learning). If it is left to the descression of the timber company than which trees would you cut? It happens all the time and will continue to be this way until all the big old trees are gone. Sad story indeed…
What the California settlers discovered in the Sierra Nevada was a forest at optimum health as a result of the natural fire cycle, as well as a little help from the Native American tribes that inhabited the region, says Mark McLaughlin, a local historian and author.
“When the first settlers came through the Tahoe Basin, they said it reminded them of a Midwestern or East Coast park. There were these large, stately trees that were widely spaced with no understory, no brush,” McLaughlin says.
“But that original Tahoe forest still had man’s influence because, if lightning strikes didn’t get the low-grade burns going—which are healthy for forests—the Indians would start fires, because it would negatively affect their hunting if they had all this stuff growing on the forest floor. That kind of just enhanced the natural burn cycle predicated on lightning strikes.”
http://tahoequarterly.com/Features/Story/how-healthy-are-the-sierra-nevadas-forests
I do not object to the thinning of forests. I do object to the relentless severity in which it has been done. Also that the USFS is arrogant and refuses to respond to any public opinion. They forget they are public servants and it is their job to respond. Given the fact that nature is under attack from all sides by the activity of humanity, the stewardship of our forests should be done with great care, especially at such a special place as Tahoe. Wildlife habitat should be a consideration. Following thinning at Fallen Leaf lake, there was hardly anywhere for a squirrel to go, let alone a bear to take a nap. What I see is that Tahoe forests have been nearly entirely destroyed by a ruinous mandate and shoddy execution. The 6th mass extinction on earth coupled with climate change is underway. Who is to blame?
OT. Yup, that about sums it up…
I think it is time for the FS to step up to the plate and address all of us who are aghast at what is being done to our forests and the habitat they provide. When I say this, I don’t mean “talk” to us in some phony forum or a walk through the cuts with a forester spouting from the “computer=modeled prescription” dialog. I mean really looking at the mess objectively and addressing what it has done to habitat and the theoretical human enjoyment of “nature”.
I went by the Camp Rich campground last night. Its worse even than Zambresky describes in her editorial.
There are few trees left–the campground is totally exposed to the highway and there are massive piles of dead trees everywhere. Nice job FS.
The Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture, NOT the Park Service. Big difference.
About 140 years ago, Camp Richardson was originally a timber harvesting business. The “destruction” of Lake Tahoe Forest’s started way before any of us were born.
“Wildlife habitat should be a consideration. ”
It is. Biodiversity increases after thinning. I used to think every tree was a good tree but enough time in the forest and research papers changed my perception.
“Get over your ire about thinning and work on something more important,”
Education is helpful but realistically people don’t have the time. You can give people links to all kinds of research papers and they won’t read them, but still take the time to be contrarian.
“with a forester spouting from the “computer=modeled prescription””
Yeah… that kind of thinking is the problem. Not even worth the time finding the url to the remote sensing fire ecology research. Scientists don’t record how you ‘feel’ about what you see as qualitative data. They map 20 million trees.