BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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| SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER |
| Senator Fran Pavley, Chair |
| 2013-2014 Regular Session |
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BILL NO: AB 744 HEARING DATE: September 11,
2013
AUTHOR: Dahle URGENCY: No
VERSION: September 6, 2013 CONSULTANT: Bill Craven
DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: Yes
SUBJECT: Timber harvesting plans: exempt activities.
BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
1) Existing law assigns forestry regulation and timber harvest
regulation to the California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection (CDF). Generally, landowners and commercial timber
companies are prohibited from conducting timber operations
unless a timber harvest plan (THP) or another similar permit has
been prepared by a registered professional forester and approved
by the CDF. The Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency has
certified that a THP is the functional equivalent of an
environmental impact report (EIR) under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
2) However, there are also exemptions from the permitting
process and one of those exemptions is the Forest Fire
Prevention Exemption often referred to as the "La Malfa
Exemption" for timber removal that assists in reducing fire risk
and that meets various conditions:
a) The harvesting must occur on parcels of 300 acres or less;
b) The harvesting must decrease fuel continuity (both vertically
and horizontally);
c) The harvesting must result in making the average diameter of
the trees that remain in the stand larger than the average
diameter of the trees in the stand prior to the fuel reduction
activities;
d) A registered professional forester must prepare the notice of
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exemption;
e) The level of residual stocking must be consistent with
maximum sustained production of high-quality timber products;
f) The activities must comply with the regulations that protect
archaeological sites; and
g) Only trees less than 18 inches in stump diameter, measured at
8 inches above ground level, may be removed. However, within 500
feet of a legally permitted structure, or in an area prioritized
as a shaded fuel break in a community wildfire protection plan
approved by a public fire agency, if the goal of fuel reduction
cannot be achieved by removing trees less than 18 inches in
stump diameter, trees less than 24 inches in stump diameter may
be removed if that removal is necessary to achieve the goal of
fuel reduction.
PROPOSED LAW
In summary, this bill would establish a five-year pilot project
in the Sierra Nevada (with the additions of Modoc, Trinity, and
Siskyou Counties) to evaluate if an increase in the diameter of
trees that could be removed under the La Malfa exemption as well
as new, additional conditions, would improve the economic
utility of this exemption in reducing the risk of catastrophic
wildfire.
The bill has intent language that CDF would maintain adequate
records to evaluate this pilot project, and that the Natural
Resources Agency would develop a forest restoration and fuels
reduction program through an interagency process.
It is important to note that all of the "existing law"
provisions mentioned earlier would apply to this pilot project.
New provisions in the pilot project include the following:
1. Trees of up to 24 inches in stump diameter, measured at eight
inches above ground level may be removed.
2. To increase the average diameter of remaining trees, the
existing provisions of the Forest Practice Rules that establish
minimum required basal areas of trees on lands of various site
classes that apply to commercial thinning operations must be
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followed.
3. To maintain canopy cover, certain minimum numbers of trees
shall be retained per acre for various site classes of lands.
4. The Sierra Nevada is defined for purposes of this bill
identically to the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. Additionally, the
counties of Modoc, Siskiyou, and Trinity are included.
5. All activities pursuant to this exemption shall occur within
the most recent version of the CDF fire hazard severity zone map
in the high, very high, and extreme fire threat zones.
(Technical note: The "extreme" reference is incorrect and should
be corrected to state "moderate" in a later, clean-up bill,
assuming this bill advances.)
6. There is a 5-year sunset.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
According to the author, there is a need to expand opportunities
for private landowners to manage forests while reducing the
threat of additional catastrophic wildfire. He points out the
existing exemption limits trees to 18 inches in diameter, which
he and others in the industry consider commercially undesirable.
He is not aware of any abuses of the existing exemption and
points to its under-use as a reason to consider this pilot
project.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
None received.
COMMENTS
According to data from CDF, since 2005, the total acreage
treated pursuant to the existing La Malfa exemption is 8400
acres. That is not much acreage, although as an exemption, it is
also not intended to be used expansively. That said, another
consideration is whether one of the reasons the exemption has
not been used is that the restriction on tree size tends to make
the exemption uneconomic. Some environmental organizations will
be leery of harvesting activities that increase the tree
diameter size pursuant to this exemption without the normal
environmental review since activities pursuant to this exemption
are approved with a ministerial permit.
Although many other forested landscapes in California are
experiencing various degrees of drought, the Sierra Nevada range
is clearly parched, as the current fire season has demonstrated.
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The Committee may decide that a five-year period to evaluate the
approach in this bill is justified.
Earlier legislation this year, AB 350 (Wieckowski) was held in
Assembly Natural Resources and would have increased the diameter
of trees subject to this provision to 28 inches and did not
include the above-described "new provisions in the pilot
project."
SUPPORT
Soper-Wheeler Company
Personal Insurance Federation of California
OPPOSITION
None Received
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