BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER | | Senator Fran Pavley, Chair | | 2013-2014 Regular Session | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- BILL NO: AB 2142 HEARING DATE: June 24, 2014 AUTHOR: Chesbro URGENCY: No VERSION: June 17, 2014 CONSULTANT: Bill Craven DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: No SUBJECT: State forests: sale of timber. 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 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 1 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. 3. Last year, AB 744 (Dahle) established a three-year pilot project in several counties in the Sierra Nevada on lands that are co-terminous with the boundaries of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (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. All activities pursuant to this exemption shall occur within the most recent version of the CDF fire hazard severity zone map in the moderate, high, and very high fire threat zones. That bill expanded the diameter of trees that could be removed from 18 to 24 inches, prohibits the use of clear-cutting, requires that acreage reflect a net increase in the diameter of the remaining trees, and other specified conditions. COMMENTS According to data from CDF that was submitted last year the total acreage treated pursuant to the existing La Malfa exemption since 2005 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 previous restriction on tree size may have made the use of that exemption un-economic. 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. PROPOSED LAW This bill would add Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, and Trinity Counties to the AB 744 pilot program. All of the AB 744 conditions would apply to this bill. ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT 2 According to the author, the fire risk in these northern counties is also increasing, and he would like the department to be able to observe if the pilot project would be useful in those counties and to landowners to reduce fire risk. ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION None received SUPPORT California Farm Bureau Federation OPPOSITION None Received 3