New Momentum Gathers for Juniper Control
By Anthony Larson, K-Falls Herald & News
February 21, 2005

ALTURAS - Juniper control in the Modoc National Forest, once a back-burner issue, has come to the fore because of new developments and directives within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

After many false starts, forestry officials said efforts to control juniper in order to promote a healthy ecosystem in the high desert areas of northeastern California and northwestern Nevada may happen. The momentum stems from a new emphasis on cooperation between federal agencies, local officials and the private sector.

"It's really a matter of all the stars lining up at the right time," said Sean Curtis, Modoc County Resource Advisory Committee co-chairman.

Curtis has spent years trying to find a resolution to juniper encroachment.

"The problem has been recognized for some time, but nobody has really been able to wrap their arms around it." he said.

Curtis cites the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and recent fire plan changes for new momentum toward juniper control.

"Although it's viewed as being driven by economics, it has an environmental component as well," said Curtis, who looks for ways to address environmental and economic considerations.

Tim Burke, manager of the Bureau of Land Management's Alturas field office agrees. He sees the new Forest Service and BLM policy of stewardship contracting, a recently enacted program under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, as the catalyst to assist his agency's juniper control program.

Burke said that because the stewardship program allows contracts of up to 10 years instead of one year, contracts will be more attractive commercially. Longer-term contracts will provide a stability that ensures that timber and biomass are available on a consistent basis.

"That's really what the private industry is looking for: a stable source," Burke said.

More impetus comes from a new California law requiring that by 2017, 20 percent of the power sold in the state must be from a renewable resources.

"That's peaked interest in green power," Curtis said. "Big companies that didn't pay any attention to alternate sources of power now have to find it in order to continue to sell the fossil fuel power."

Much planning must be done before the actual work can start, cautions Nancy Gardner, Modoc National Forest spokeswoman.

"The next step is to develop and create the environmental empact statement. That probably will be kicked off in the spring," she said. "Then, it's going to take a year and a half."

In the meantime, Gardner said present juniper control projects will continue to move forward.

Stands of juniper now dominate the ecosystem in a 6.5-million-acre area that very nearly centers on Modoc County.

"Juniper has encroached on about 3 million acres within the 6.5 million acre area," Burke said. "Over the past 150 years there's been a 15-fold increase of juniper."

Burke, who pioneered a computer mapping system for tracking juniper encroachment and management strategies, said invading junipers annually gobble up an additional 50,000 acres within that larger area.

"Our response needs to be at the same magnitude," Burke said. "We can't afford to do these piecemeal projects of a couple hundred acres if we're going to address the problem."

Although juniper is an "important component of the ecosystem," Burke said a century of fire suppression has allow juniper to proliferate and overwhelm the preexisting sagebrush ecosystems.

"We want to keep some juniper out there. We just want to manage it at a level that's more natural than is occurring now. Juniper has encroached in a lot of the sagebrush ecosystems and has caused a reduction in the abundance of grasses and forbs, which also impacts wildlife."

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