WolfeNotes.com

After 9 Months Of Deliberation, Public Given Just 4 Days Over The Weekend Before Christmas To Review And Comment

16 Recommendations Are Vague, Equivocal, And A Formula For the DEP Status Quo

Climate And Proforestation Reform Policies Are Buried

Almost a year since it was established in February, Senator Smith’s Forestry Task Force issued their “Framework Recommendations” document today.

The public was given just 4 days, counting the weekend before Christmas, to review and comment on the document (by December 20). Comments must be submitted as either “support” or “dissent” from the document as a whole.

Take it or leave it. This is high school bullshit.

Like George Bush said: you’re either with us or against us!

If you were expecting a bold document that set out a detailed set of recommendations to establish an over-riding priority on climate policies that preserve what’s left of NJ’s forest and dramatically change DEP’s current pro-logging and hunting forestry policies, you will be sorely disappointed.

Before I describe the document, in Part One, let me first set the context of forestry management, which can be gleaned by an overview and reading a few revealing excerpts of DEP’s Forest Action Plan.

Let’s start with this, which makes it very clear that DEP is not your friend. DEP foresters make it very clear how they and the DEP forestry program view “environmentalists”:

Disturbances associated with harvesting practices also decreased somewhat with the demise of the wood fueled industries of the Pinelands and rapidly declined with the rise of the environmental movement. …

Did you get that? Did you penetrate the euphemism? “Disturbances” are clearcuts. “Harvesting practices” are logging.  Note that DEP blames the “rapid decline” explicitly on the “rise of the environmental movement”.

Those quotes tells you all you really need to know about the NJ DEP forest management program.

And this is the stuff they feel safe in putting in writing in a public document – can you imagine what they say in private over a beer?

They have an overt hostility towards “the environmental movement” and perceive environmentalists as obstructionists and the cause of the decline of logging and the timber industry (“harvesting practices”), as well as the cause of what they view as the problem of “unhealthy” forests due to excessive density (yes, too many trees!).

Now lets look at how DEP views forests as “wood products” and seeks to retain and expand commercial logging and the wood products industry:

One of the most important considerations for the future of the primary wood-products industry in New Jersey is the ability to retain industrial roundwood processing facilities. The number of wood-processing mills has steadily been declining, making it harder for landowners to find markets for the timber harvested from sustainable management activities (Crocker et al., 2017). In New Jersey, there are only 20 active sawmills located throughout the state….

Several factors have led to negative impacts on the regional forest products industry from global economics, to changing cultural values and changing forest management policies and priorities. It is essential to convey the importance that forest resources have in the supplying of raw materials for the utilization and consumption of an ever-demanding population.  ~~~~ NJ DEP Forest Action Plan

So, it is not surprising that DEP creates multiple pretexts to justify logging.

I would think many people would be troubled by logging NJ forests for exports. DEP promotes that:

Consequentially, wood processing and the economy it creates is not limited by state boundaries. In fact, New Jersey hardwood logs provided through forest management activities commonly find their way to overseas markets to serve as veneer logs to European, Asian or Mediterranean markets.

I would also think that people would be disturbed by the fact that forestry is exempt from NJ State wetlands laws, which I’ve been writing about for years, but DEP now admits:

Specific forestry activities have been granted a conditional exemption from these requirements to obtain a wetlands permit.

I assume people would be troubled by the fact that the US military causes about one wildfire every week, and that DEP logs forests to enhance the military’s objectives, not forest health or the climate emergency:

In addition to the strategies outlined by the NJ Forest Service, the NJ Forest Fire Service has assisted with treatments for military installations across the state. These treatments have included initiating a mechanical hazard mitigation plan focusing on installation boundaries that have the greatest threat of wildfires leaving or coming onto the military installation.

As I recently wrote, in addition to promoting commercial logging and the wood products industry, DEP also seeks to monetize forest resources – but they curiously omit NJ’s greenhouse gas regulatory process known as RGGI, RGGI revenues and DEP’s development of a carbon credit trading program:

In more recent times, carbon stored in forests has become a commodity, taking on a monetary value through the California greenhouse gas regulatory process. This, along with carbon storage increases in the aboveground portion of live trees one inch in DBH or larger for New Jersey from 2007 to 2015 (FIA, 2015), illustrated in Figure 75, indicates new opportunities for other economic contributions of forests. However, prices per ton of carbon sequestered in this new market can fluctuate widely, from that in California to worldwide (Kossoy et al., 2015; The Climate Group, 2013).

DEP promotes “thinning” (logging) as the solution to all problems, including – believe it or not –  increasing carbon storage and sequestration:

DEP claims that NJ’s forests lack age class diversity (solution: thinning to create “young forests”); that forests are unhealthy due to excessive tree density  (solution: reduce density via “thinning”); that forests are disease prone (solution: thinning to increase forest health); forests are wildfire hazards (solution: thinning to reduce fuel load and “ladder fuels); forests are vulnerable to drought and climate change (solution: thinning to reduce tree competition for water and consumption of water via evapotranspiration).

Thinning can not only reduce tree mortality from drought but may also reduce the chances or severity of drought. Forests of higher densities consume more water through transpiration. Therefore, it is also a strategy of the NJ Forest Service to lower forest densities where appropriate, to alleviate drought stress.

Cutting tress is the WORST possible strategy in light of climate change, wildfire, and drought.

Cutting tress DRIES OUT THE FOREST, INCREASES SUNLIGHT AND WIND PENETRATION, AND INCREASES TEMPERATURES, thereby exacerbating the conditions worsened by climate change!

DEP even recognizes this, yet still promotes logging!:

Wildfire and Climate Change

New Jersey is at the highest risk from wildfires in spring (March through May) when vegetation is at its driest but can also experience fires in the summer and fall or in any month of the year. How climate change will impact wildfires in New Jersey forests is uncertain based on existing literature and models, which there are few that focus on New Jersey specific conditions. Climate change is expected to cause increased temperatures and changes in extreme precipitation events and drought that make it uncertain when a drought, or drought-like conditions may occur. Wildfire seasons could be lengthened, and the frequency of large fires increased from the warmer springs and longer summer dry periods that are expected with climate change due to these conditions causing drier  soils and vegetation (Nolte et al. 2018).

So the above excerpts ought to provide a little insight into how broken the current DEP forestry program is.

In the next post, Part Two, we will summarize the Forestry Task Force recommendation.

Follow The Money

The Biggest Green Grift Ever

Mike Catania’s “Entrepreneurial Business Model” for the conservation community

Consider:

• 

  Carleton Montgomery, Director Pinelands Preservation Alliance (Source: PPA)

  Why would so called “preservation” and “conservation” groups PPA (and NJCF?) meet quietly behind closed doors to negotiate an unprecedented, un-necessary, and destructive DEP logging project in the ecologically precious Pinelands, a world recognized Biosphere Reserve? (The DEP’s plan was so bad, the Pinelands Commission refused to approve this plan for 15 years!)

• When the DEP plan was exposed publicly, why would they immediately close ranks, aggressively support and defend the plan, and attack critics? And why would they make such dubious arguments to do so?

• Why would the DEP launch an unprecedented public relations campaign in support of the plan, in coordination with PPA and NJCF  – which included “alarming” legislative testimony, field events, press releases, and press Zoom briefings – and even threats by the DEP Commissioner of an unprecedented lawsuit to get the plan approved by the Pinelands Commission?

A NJ political veteran once advised me that if a policy dispute didn’t make any sense, then there were two possible explanations: 1) incompetence; or 2) corruption.

He suggested that I always assume the latter.

Well, this headline pretty much sums up what the absurd “debate” in the Pinelands is really all about:

• Fight over strategy intensifies as wildfire funding grows

As the Biden administration doles out historic levels of wildfire mitigation funding, fights are breaking out on Capitol Hill about how to spend the money.

Lawmakers from both parties are backing measures that would speed up forest management projects that cut down on wildfire fuels, like brush and small trees, which they say leads to “megafires.” But environmentalists argue that the proposals would bypass environmental analysis and community input under the guise of wildfire mitigation and potentially open the door to excessive logging.

But NJ environmentalists are not OPPOSING these logging plans, they are SUPPORTING them.

They are Green Grifters. Mike Catania’s business model rules. (I try to explain how it devolved to this point  in this post).

This federal forestry funding – plus tens of millions of dollars of NJ State funding under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) for carbon sequestration and the prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding from carbon credit trading schemes currently under development by DEP  – will be the largest green grift ever.

DEP bureaucrats and their corrupt conservation cheerleaders are obviously salivating over all this money.

Already, the Pinelands Preservation Alliance just received a huge grant from DEP. The money is for work outside the boundaries of the Pinelands – in the Highlands – and for a water quality restoration project that is way beyond the scope of PPA’s historical program focus and staff experience and capabilities. (NJ DEP Press release:

Pinelands Preservation Alliance: $581,500
The project calls for installing 80 green stormwater infrastructure projects surrounding 10 public lakes, five in the Highlands and five in the Pinelands. Converting 130,000 square feet of drainage area to green stormwater infrastructure will improve the functionality of the lakes, which suffer from pollutant overloading and limit recreational uses.

PPA is not going to bite the DEP hand that already feeds it and is dangling considerably more future funding.

Carleton is building his little Empire. He’s using Mike Catania’s entrepreneurial model. This is obvious.

Already, according to an 12/5/22 email from Emile DeVito that defended the DEP logging plan, the NJ Conservation Foundation “partners” with the DEP Forest Fire Service, who conduct controlled burns (we already knew that) and logging (we didn’t know that!) on NJCF lands:

Hi Bill. I have enclosed an aerial photo of the firebreak “thinning from the ground up” that NJFFS did for NJCF at the Franklin Parker Preserve.

Already, the NJCF “partners” with the Pentagon to manage wildfire risks in the Pinelands:

• NJ DEP & NJ Conservation Foundation Partner With Military To Burn NJ Forests – No Consideration of Climate Impacts

NJCF is not going to oppose logging practices they already engage in and get funded for.

The NJCF military partnership raises a whole other layer of corruption – recently confirmed by the Mayor of Bass River Township in a very detailed story written by veteran reporter Bill Bonvie in the Pine Barrens Tribune:

When Bass River Township Mayor Deborah Buzby-Cope was asked at a Dec. 5 township commission meeting about the tree-thinning plan, she responded there had been a lot of fires by the [US Air Force Warren Grove] bombing range and it was her understanding that “they want to have an area that is cleared out so they can stop it from coming this way.”

But when the mayor was then asked whether she was “OK with it,” she replied, “It’s not that we’re OK with it – they’re going to do it.”

So much for respecting local concerns.

I wrote about that possible military role recently, see:

• Is Military Money And Protection Of Warren Grove US Air Force Range Driving Insane DEP Pinelands Logging Plan?

Both PPA and NJCF have gross conflicts of interest and gross scientific bias in this debate and both organizations are corrupt. Their credibility is now shot. I hope it was worth it to them.

So, when things don’t make sense, as my friend said: assume graft and follow the money.

DEP Forestry Practices Poison The Well For Any Climate & Ecological Reforms

For years, environmentalists and local activists have strongly opposed DEP logging of Highlands forests under various pretexts, slogans, flawed science, and narrow objectives, particularly “active management” “Stewardship”, “young forests”, “thinning” and all sorts of “treatments”.

While former Murphy DEP Commissioner McCabe imposed a temporary “pause” to review those forestry policies and practices, the current Commissioner has ignored critics, abandoned that review, and expanded DEP’s misguided forestry approach.

Current DEP Commissioner LaTourette has expanded DEP’s controversial misguided and aggressive forestry practices geographically into the Pinelands. Programmatically, he has expanded the scope of DEP’s forestry program to include seriously flawed “carbon defense” and climate justifications.

With little public knowledge and legislative authorization, in defiance of critics, he has adopted a Statewide Forest Action Plan and developed a Working Public Lands program to further promote logging and misguided forestry practices.

DEP even recently floated an incredibly bad trial ballon to expand development, commercialization, and privatization of all Green Acres and State lands, including State Parks and Forests.

Arrogantly sticking his finger in the eye of critics, in a revolving door move he appointed ethically challenged John Cecil, the champion of the Highlands logging program – who spun the press and misled the public about the extent of logging – as Assistant Commissioner overseeing logging in State Parks and Forests.

These unilateral, arrogant, scientifically flawed and poor public policy decisions have deeply polarized the forestry and climate related forestry issues.

DEP’s recent arm twisting at the Pinelands Commission to secure approval of the wildfire forestry plan has shed public light on the controversies. It is also the straw that broke the camels back.

If Commissioner LaTourette proceeds with that plan, he makes necessary climate and ecological reforms under Senator Smith’s Forestry Task Force impossible.

Given DEP’s flawed and arrogant policies, which have destroyed any trust in DEP, any legislation would need to be extremely prescriptive and include many specific numeric standards, mandates and prohibitions. Such a bill is unlikely to secure passage, thus killing Smith’s reforms.

One way to avoid this train wreck would be for Commissioner LaTourette to make a good faith gesture to try to begin to restore trust and reduce the polarization – that’s why I wrote him to urge that he withdraw the Pinelands plan:

Dear Commissioner LaTourette:

I am writing to request that you voluntarily withdrawn the NJ Forest Service’s Forestry Plan recently approved by the Pinelands Commission.

As you know, after the Pinelands Commission’s approval became known, the plan has generated significant public concerns, media attention, and valid scientific and policy criticism.

As you also know, the plan was not subject to meaningful public or scientific peer review before it was approved by the Pinelands Commission.

Of equal concern, Pinelands Commission lead staff Chuck Horner publicly acknowledged that the Commission staff lacked expertise in forestry, wildfire, and climate science and deferred to DEP’s expertise. That deference is reflected in the text of the Commission’s approval document, which repeatedly states that scientific and factual findings are based on the Department’s representations, not the Commission staff’s independent findings.

As you also know, Senator Smith’s Forestry Task Force is currently deliberating on legislative and regulatory policy matters specifically of direct and significant relevance to the Department’s plan, which was approved prior to the release of the Task Force’s recommendations.

Finally, the Department’s plan asserts positions on and implements fundamental and controversial scientific and policy matters, including reliance on the (draft) Forest Action Plan’s “carbon defense” policy of significance to the carbon storage and sequestration strategies required to meet the goals of the Global Warming Response Act, as discussed in the Department’s “80X50 Climate Report“.

[Note: Carbon storage and sequestration are funded under the RGGI program with millions of public dollars. There is huge federal funding for forestry and climate in the pipeline as well, under Biden’s Executive Order and the infrastructure and inflation laws, which appropriated billions to forestry programs. DEP bureaucrats and their corrupt conservation cheerleaders are obviously salivating over this money. ]

Given this context, it is deeply troubling that the Department’s Pinelands Forestry Plan received so little and clearly inadequate public and scientific review and integration with upcoming major policy changes anticipated to be the result of Senator Smith’s Forestry Task Force.

In fact, the Department’s plan has the potential to undermine the public reception of Senator Smith’s Task Force Report and followup reforms based on its recommendations.

In light of these significant procedure, scientific, and policy deficiencies and future implications, I strongly urge you to voluntarily withdrawn the plan. This can only bolster the public’s confidence in the Department’s efforts and lend public support for Senator Smith’s legislative agenda.

If you and the Department’s staff are confident in the quality and scientific basis for the plan, a “do over” should not delay or frustrate legitimate forest management initiatives.

I look forward to your timely and favorable response.

Bill Wolfe

DEP Plan To “Mow The Forest” Should Elicit Same Response As Trump’s “Rake The Forest”

DEP Again Lying About Forest Logging Plan

Coming to a forest near you?

VIEWER CONTENT WARNING – GRAPHIC VIDEOS

“Most of the thinning happens with a mower – its not a lawn mower its a forestry mower. But they’re not really removing any large trees. Most of them are only a few inches in diameter. They’re all short and bent over, those are the things being removed, for the most part. They’ll resprout anyway.” ~~~ Emile DeVito, NJCF

WATCH THIS VIDEO: “A Day In The Woods With The Bandit Forestry Mower”

The DEP wants to “mow” Pinelands forest. We think you should see what that looks like.

Here’s one of mowing pine trees with a smaller mower.

We assume that DEP contractors will have the big equipment – like this one, advertised as “the world’s heaviest forest mower”. Obviously, this equipment can handle far larger than 2 inch caliper trees. Google the term “Forest mowing” and watch all the videos, they’re all over the internet. 

Gee, I wonder what those “mowers” would do to rare plants, wetlands, stream buffers, soils, amphibians, snake dens and other habitat?

You need to see this because NJ Spotlight TeeVee finally got around to covering the huge debate over DEP’s Pinelands forest logging plan, where they tout the “mowing” of forests, see:

• Wildfire prevention plan for Pinelands sparks resistance

I must say that I got a chuckle out of the headline and the thought that a Pinelands Commissioner has become the voice of “environmentalists” and “the Resistance” in NJ’s environmental activist circles.

I really like Commisioner Lohbauer and respect his leadership, but that ought to tell you something about how lame NJ conservationists are.

Anyway, Spotlight provided a platform for DEP and NJCF and PPA to lie (again) to the public, so there’s no gain in me debunking those lies here again.

And Spotlight’s reporting spouted fact free falsehoods – obviously fed to them by DEP – about “forest thinning” and wildfire:

A similar approach helped limit damage during that massive Mullica River fire in June.

There is no evidence to support that statement and as I wrote yesterday, it conflicts with DEP’s own analysis of the factors that drove the wildfire, see:

• DEP’s Own Analysis Of The Dynamics Of The Wharton State Forest Wildfire Illustrates Why Their “Forest Thinning” And “Firebreak” Logging Plan Won’t Work

Assistant Commissioner Cecil also flat out lied by stating that “all” of the 2.4 million trees DEP will cut are “2 inches in diameter or less”.

DEP’s own plan states that the quadratic mean tree diameter is 3.1 inches (see table below). That means the average is LARGER than the 2 inches DEP said “all trees” were and that there could be a million trees are greater than 2 inches in diameter.

The DEP plan would result in radical reductions in the canopy cover that can not be the result of cutting small understory trees. LOTS of medium and large trees will be cut. DEP is flat out lying about this.

An intact canopy will not be maintained. Here’s how the Pinelands Commission’s approval documents quantified the significant tree canopy reductions. You can not get these radical reductions in canopy by cutting only 2 inch understory trees:

• The proposed “low and from below” thinning will reduce the forest from 2,075 trees per acre to 204 trees per acre. Canopy cover will be reduced from 68% to 43%.

• Approximately 255 acres of pine-shrub oak forest type will be subject to a variable density thinning treatment. This thinning will reduce the forest from 1,940 trees per acre to 74 trees per acre. Canopy cover will be reduced from 74% to 30%.

• The applicant indicates that this type of thinning creates a gradual transition in tree density from zero trees per acre created by the proposed forest firebreak to 33 trees per acre for a distance back from the proposed forest firebreak of 75 feet. Canopy cover will be reduced from 74% to 19% by the “feathered” variable density thinning treatment.

Take a look – lots more than tiny 2 inch trees cut in this “thinning” project:

But one new angle on the story that I was surprised that Emile DeVito put on the table was the concept of “mowing the forest” (at time 2:05):

“Most of the thinning happens with a mower – its not a lawn mower its a forestry mower. But they’re not really removing any large trees. Most of them are only a few inches in diameter. They’re all short and bent over, those are the things being removed, for the most part. They’ll resprout anyway.

That “mowing” concept should garner the same belly laughs and media ridicule as Trump’s suggestion of the need to “rake the forest”.

(and vibrant growth of small trees used to be valued as the “understory” and an indicator of forest health and future carbon sequestration, not targeted for “mowing”! And if the trees “resprout”, will DEP be locked into a costly regular mowing program, like beach replenishment?).

So, perhaps I’ve been far too analytical and wonky in my criticism, with all the emphasis on radical reductions in canopy cover and such –

Maybe if people just saw what “mowing the forest” looked like and actually did to the forest, people might rise up in disgust and anger and force DEP to withdraw the plan.

So, watch these short videos and see what Emile DeVito and DEP want to do our ecologically exceptional recognized World Biosphere Reserve Pinelands forests.

We say no way.

Extremely Dry Conditions, High Winds, And Wind Blown Embers Drove Wildfire

Cutting Trees Will Make All Those Conditions Worse

Mullica River Failed To Serve As Firebreak

The DEP held a video press briefing on June 21, 2022 on the Wharton State Forest wildfire this summer (watch the whole thing).

In that video, DEP Forest Fire Chief McLaughlin explained what drove the intensity and spread of the fire. (He starts at time 2:00):

Direct attack measures were not effective in containing the fire because of extremely intense fire behavior, which resulted from very low humidity, unprecedented dew points, sustained winds at 23 mph with wind gusts up to 30 mph. This fire was sending burning embers causing spot fires long distances and this causes our resources to have to scatter about and try to track down these spot fires so that the fire doesn’t continue to grow larger. […]

Later in the afternoon and evening on Sunday, the fire turned with the wind and came back west across the Mullica River and stated to travel in a southwest – south direction towards Batsto Village. … With variable winds predicted for Monday and Tuesday, and possible sea breeze and change of wind direction to the south, then we became concerned that fire, which would continue to burn for several days, that it could change direction and move even to the north.

Let’s repeat the factors that drove the intensity of fire:

extremely intense fire behavior, which resulted from very low humidity, unprecedented dew points, sustained winds at 23 mph with wind gusts up to 30 mph. 

Let’s repeat what drove the spread of the fire:

This fire was sending burning embers causing spot fires long distances and this causes our resources to have to scatter about and try to track down these spot fires so that the fire doesn’t continue to grow larger.

Notice there is no mention of any ladder fuels as a factor in driving the fire.

Notice that there is no mention of excessive fuel loads or tree density as factors in the spread or direction or intensity of the fire.

The DEP’s Pinelands Forestry Plan is designed to cut and remove 2.4 million trees, which DEP claims are “ladder fuels” that allow the fire to spread and burn more intensely.

DEP claims that the forest is too dense (too high a fuel load) and that cutting these trees – which they call “forest thinning” – will result in fires that burn “low and slow”.

But by DEP’s own statements, it was extremely dry conditions, high winds, and blowing embers that drove the intensity, not “ladder fuels” or “fuel load”. 

Therefore, according to DEP’s own analysis, DEP’s forest thinning plan will not be effective in reducing the intensity or spread of wildfire.

Just the opposite: thinning the forest opens the canopy to sunlight, which dries out the forest vegetation, duff, and soils, which makes them MORE combustable and prone to wildfire.

Thinning the forest also makes the wind penetrate into the forest, which also dries the forest out and increases the winds acceleration of the fire, and the spread of the fire via wind blown embers.

Instead of “low and slow” wildfires DEP is creating conditions for more “hot and fast” wildfires.

Finally, DEP’s briefing noted that the Mullica River bisected the fire, but that the fire unexpectedly crossed the river, based on wind speed and direction and blowing embers.

If the Mullica River failed to serve as a “firebreak”, the DEP’s plan to clearcut along 13 miles of Pinelands roads surely won’t work as a firebreak either, particularly under extreme conditions: dry, high winds, wind blown embers.

I filed an OPRA public records request for DEP’s fire investigation and reports to DEP Commissioner LaTourette, as well as the facts that supported all the claims DEP made in this press briefing.

The would include how many acres of “backfires” DEP created.

We’ll provide a followup as soon as DEP responds.