| Bark Beetle Infestation |
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| Bark beetle infestations in mixed forest stands near The Dalles |
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Richard Dodge (far right) shows thinning work to ODF staff
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In recent years, The Dalles area of Central Oregon has experienced below average precipitation, which has helped foster a dramatic bark beetle increase in mixed forest stands with ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir and grand fir. Bark beetles have always been a major problem in pine and fir, but aerial detection surveys were showing an almost eight-fold epidemic increase in tree death in the area along the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains and in associated watersheds. When these pests proliferate to that extent, it’s often an indication of poor forest health conditions due to drought and overstocked forest stands.
To remedy the situation requires diligent forest management to thin and open up dense stands of trees to prevent the larger scale spread of bark beetles and other potential pests and diseases. Research plots in Oregon have shown that thinning ponderosa pine so there is wide spacing can help protect stands from bark beetles for several decades. Remaining trees then have more water, nutrients and sunlight available to them, and their growth and vigor improves, making them more resistant to future beetle attacks and drought. These forest management practices, which include the removal of dead and dying trees, also help prevent the buildup of dry, woody fuels that are ripe for catastrophic wildfires which kill live trees and do considerable resource damage to soils and streamside or watershed areas.
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| Help from federal grant dollars |
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Bark beetle-damaged trees
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Fortunately, federal grant dollars from the USDA Forest Service have now made it possible for the Oregon Department of Forestry to work with several forest landowners in the area to tackle such thinning projects to reduce their susceptibility to bark beetles and fire. Without such assistance, many of these landowners would not have the resources to do such work, as it is a very expensive proposition. “The bark beetle project work ties in nicely with our National Fire Plan dollars,” said David Jacobs, ODF Unit Forester, The Dalles. “It allows us to treat a larger landscape and helps us ‘plug’ some of the holes or areas where National Fire Plan monies aren’t available.”
Richard Dodge, a private landowner in Central Oregon who has treated over 1,400 acres of forestland, says getting the financial assistance was the best thing that’s happened to his piece of ground in a long time. “It’s beautiful up there,” said Dodge. One of the first stands he treated was part of an overstocked grove of mostly Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine near the community of Pine Grove that was ignited in the late 1970s from a fuel truck that had caught on fire. “Approximately 700 acres burned,” said Dodge. “We’re now spacing our timber so we can deal with bark beetles and do some fire-proofing.”
Because the majority of the infestations are pine bark beetles, the Cascade East Slope Mid-Columbia Basin Watersheds Bark Beetle Mitigation Project has also included treating slash (tree tops, branches, bark and other debris, left after a forest operation). This is important, because slash that isn’t removed or burned can result in conditions leading to another insect problem—Ips, a pine bark beetle that breeds in piles of green slash and then attacks standing green trees.
Since 2003, the federal dollars have made it possible for the Oregon Department of Forestry to help landowners who are participating in the project treat 2,115 acres, overall. The cost to mechanically treat each acre averages around $550 to $600; however, the federal grant dollars available have reduced this cost to landowners up to half of the cost of the work—the grant pays back up to 50 percent of the cost and the landowner is responsible for up to 50 percent. Even so, paying $250 to $300 an acre to get the work done is still a sizeable chunk of change for many smaller forestland owners. Especially when you consider that there isn’t any immediate value-added for landowners—in this case, they aren’t taking logs out of the forest to a mill for profit, and tangible benefits to landowners won’t occur for many years until harvesting can be done. Even at a 50 percent cost-share distribution, such work remains out of reach for many smaller forest landowners.
Because bark beetle infestations are a landscape problem, it is important that stable grant funding remain available to landowners over time to ensure the problem is addressed comprehensively, and that all land ownerships are involved in active forest management activities to reduce threats from bark beetle infestations. A frequent frustration for forest landowners who are conducting bark beetle mitigation activities is the helplessness experienced when they see an adjoining or neighboring property inflicted with bark beetles, which then threatens their own property. This includes other privately-owned lands, as well as state and federal forestlands. Even though Dodge is acting diligently in treating his land, he has had problems with adjacent lands to their property being infested with beetles. “The feds are doing a fine job of management on a small portion of lands adjacent to us, but they, unfortunately, just don’t have the personnel or the ability to do near the amount of work that needs to be done for the long-term,” said Dodge.
It’s important that all lands be addressed to curtail the destruction that can occur from such pests, and that landowners are provided appropriate incentives to engage in effective forest management practices. After all, there isn’t an easy way to “quarantine” a sick forest.
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