More non-enforcement of PA GC timber contract

What is the Game Commission doing on that land behind us!?

On the blocks that were harvested recently on our neighboring game lands, over 800 trees were to be spared from harvesting, according to the harvest contract. These trees were marked with red paint at eye level on the up and downhill side of the tree, and at the base. In the contract, these trees are called "reserved trees."

However, as you can see just by driving by some of these harvested blocks, there is NOT any number close to 800 trees left on these blocks. On the two blocks that follow Pinch Road, there are supposed to be 360 of these reserved trees. What do you think there really is there now?

In case you would like to check this for yourself, I have included a map of the blocks for this harvest, and the numbers of reserved trees that should be still standing. I broke the numbers down by block.

Block 1 should have 114 reserved trees, marked with red paint. That is the block right behind us that has all the large woody debris left behind.

Block 2 should have 153 reserved trees, marked with red paint.

Block 3 --197

Block 4--144 This block is across from the smashed port-a-potty on Pinch Road.

Block 5--215 This block is the next harvested block on Pinch Road, and abuts Block 4.

Let me end this post with the reminder that the PA GC holds those lands in public trust FOR US and in the pursuit of its assigned responsibility: providing game and wildlife habitat.

If anyone wants a copy of the contracts for this harvest, just email me at viragogretna@gmail.com. Also, I will be walking the blocks to take an inventory this week. Let me know if you would like to join me-I would love the company.

It also appears as if our neighbor Weaber, Inc. was the contracted harvester for this mess. Also, I have visited some other game lands recently harvested by other contractors, and they look like the contractor actually did use forestry's best practice standards and complied with the terms of the contract.

forestry's "best practices"

At the recent Chautauqua annual meeting, Mount Gretna Borough's Chuck Alwein responded to members' concerns about the seemingly abundant amount of wood "fuel" (or "slash") left behind by the Pennsylvannia Game Land's timber harvester. He assured us that they used "best practices."

So, I did a little research of forestry best practices. Here is what I found.

"Best Management Practices for Pennsylvania Forests" (by Chinko and Wolf)
BMP #6, on page 29 states:

"6. Use as much of the harvested wood as possible to minimize debris."

and BMP #5 on page 20:

"5. Consider the effects of planned activities on surrounding properties."

Then I went to the bible of silvicultural practices, David M. Smith's "The Practice of Silviculture" ["Silviculture" is the term for the art of producing and tending a forest.]

On page 222, Mr. Smith emphasizes that site-preparation may be the most crucial consideration given the type of regeneration planned. Here, in Mount Gretna, the PA Game Commission has repeatedly stated that it is going to replant thousands of trees. For this plan, Mr. Smith states "slash disposal is very often done to reduce the physical impediments to hand or machine planting." page 224

It seems fairly obvious that, given the size and amount of slash left behind our little village, that physically moving through the area to plant anything is near impossible, as well as dangerous. Further, the egregious amount of slash left behind also suggests that site-prep activities have really not be conducted--how could they be? Perhaps there was no plan for site prep. Perhaps the harvester is not done yet...

More importantly, on page 223, Smith states

"most slash disposal is still applied primarily to reduce the potential fuel for forest fires"

(citing Brown and Davis, 1973, Chandler et al, 1983, andPyne, 1984). He further states

"Slash is a fire hazard because it represents an unusually large volume of fuel; it is often so distributed that it dangerously impedes construction of fire lines...

Mr. Alwhein further comforted us by alleging that our fire risk is lower now that a fire can't spread from tree top to tree top behind our little village. Here is what Mr. Smith has to say about that:

"Fires on cutover areas almost invariably start and spread in the litter of the old forest floor."...Page 224, and:

"the greatest menace exists during the ...period in which the foliage and small branchlets remain on the slash; they are readliy ignited and burn rapidly....[W]hen conditions are favorable to very hot fires, the size of [large] units of fuel is no longer a factor limiting the rate at which a fire will spread....[F]ires can burn rapidly in large concentrations of slash and may 'blow up' into well-nigh uncontrollable conflagrations." page 223


Well, given that lightening is known to favor striking right where all this slash is piled up, that there are plenty of humans out there every day--some of them even smoking, and that there is plenty of duff and "small branchlets" up there drying out in the unfettered sunshine, whose take on things should we err towards?