BILL ANALYSIS �
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER |
| Senator Fran Pavley, Chair |
| 2011-2012 Regular Session |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
BILL NO: AB 2170 HEARING DATE: June 26, 2012
AUTHOR: Chesbro URGENCY: No
VERSION: June 14, 2012 CONSULTANT: Bill Craven
DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: Yes
SUBJECT: Forestry: working forest management plan.
BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
California law generally requires the California Department of
Forestry to issue one of several types of a harvest permit to a
forest landowner to harvest trees. The widest variety of permits
are available to industrial landowners who may practice several
different harvesting methods including uneven age management, to
selection or group harvesting, and even age management, often
called clearcutting.
For smaller landowners who own less than 2500 acres, an option
is to harvest timber pursuant to a "non-industrial timber
harvest plan" or NTMP. Created in 1989, NTMPs are limited to
uneven age management on smaller ownerships. Once approved,
NTMPs are valid in perpetuity and notice of annual harvests is
provided through ministerial notices rather than through a
regulatory permit, most often a timber harvest plan (THP).
NTMPs are not subjected to the same level of environmental
review as THPs and generally are not subject to review or
amendments whether from changed biological conditions or changed
regulatory requirements. NTMPs do not involve the sort of
multi-agency approval that accompanies other timber harvest
permits and relies on the landowner and the registered
professional forester and the licensed timber operator to ensure
compliance with state laws dealing with wildlife, water quality,
and other criteria.
As stated in the bill's findings, CDF has approved 693 NTMPs
covering a combined area of 283,000 acres.
PROPOSED LAW
This bill would create a new permit for landowners who own
1
15,000 or fewer acres. It would not amend the existing NTMP
statute, but would be a separate statute. The permit would be
called a "working forest management plan (WFMP)."
The plan could be approved by CDF when a landowner agrees to
harvest timber only through uneven aged management (not
clearcutting). The bill contains various requirements that would
have to be met by such an application. These include, but are
not limited to: the owner's contact information, a map of the
land including all streams, logging roads, stocking information
about the timber on the property, erosion control, projected
frequency of harvest, and several other criteria.
The Board of Forestry would be given authority to develop
regulations for the ministerial notice that would authorize
annual operations under the WFMP.
The director would be given 45 days to determine if the WFMP
complies with state law and regulations. If it does not, the
bill provides that the plan would be denied and provides for an
appeals process to the Board. The bill provides that if the plan
is not approved by the Board on appeal, then the director may
approve the plan if it is revised to bring the plan into full
conformity with all applicable laws and regulations.
The bill provides a mechanism for amending a WFMP that requires
compliance with the rules and regulations at the time the WFMP
was approved.
A monitoring provision would require the board to develop
regulations that would require a review of WFMPs no less than 10
years after the plan was approved and no less than every 15
years thereafter.
Multiagency reviews of WFMPs of 5,000 acres or more would be
required and the Board is charged with developing those
regulations. CDF, the appropriate regional water board, and the
Department of Fish and Game would be involved. The review would
conduct a qualitative assessment to determine compliance with
the state's forestry laws currently in effect as well as water
quality laws and all applicable protections for wildlife listed
under the state endangered species act.
Notices to harvest timber would be a ministerial act, and the
bill contains various bits of required information that would be
contained in such notices. These include contact information for
the owner and the forester, a description of the land on which
the work is proposed to occur, a statement that no archeological
2
sites or protected wildlife or plant species have been newly
identified, and other relevant criteria.
Disciplinary actions may be taken against foresters who violate
the terms of this act and CDF would be directed to cancel a WFMP
if persistent violations are detected.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
According to the author and sponsor, California Licensed
Foresters Association, the bill is an incentive for landowners
whose lands exceed the current acreage for NTMPs to practice
uneven age management. The sponsors contend that the
multi-agency review and monitoring of WFMPs of 5,000 acres or
more is more rigorous than the standards that apply to NTMPs.
They point out that the monitoring will assess compliance with
the current laws and regulations, unlike NTMPs which some
contend do not need to comply with regulatory changes enacted
after the NTMP is approved.
The sponsors estimate that the bill could effect a range of
600,000 to 1.3 million privately owned acres, although the
numbers are mainly an educated guess. Slightly more than 3
million acres of timberland in California is owned by
nonindustrial owners, and about 9% of this land is covered by
NTMPs. It is not clear how many landowners there are with
acreages of greater than 2500 acres but fewer than 15,000 acres.
Background information from the sponsors indicates that the WFMP
program would be paid by the ongoing state timber harvest
regulatory structure, which would mean, in this instance, that
no application fees would be charged.
Assemblymember Chesbro noted that this proposal was considered
at the working group that he and Assemblymember Dickinson have
convened to consider changes in the state's forestry laws.
Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) has a support if amended position. It
suggests clarifying amendments regarding the timing of the
multi-agency reviews, that these reviews apply to all permits,
not just with ownerships above 5,000 acres, and that WFMPs be
required to include a road management plan.
The California Farm Bureau supports creation of a new approach
for landowners to comply with forest laws by using uneven-age
management. The group believes this bill will reduce pressure to
convert timberlands to non-timberland uses.
3
The Environmental Protection Information Center letter
identifies its position as "cautious support." EPIC seeks
amendments to strengthen the sustained yield requirements of the
WFMP, to improve the cumulative effects analyses of timber
operations generally, to require NTMPs and presumably WFMPs to
comply with new regulatory requirements, and to have a new
provision to protect old growth and late seral forests even on
small ownerships which are not protected under current NTMP
regulations.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
Sierra Club California opposes the bill because it sees the WFMP
proposal as an expansion of the NTMP program but without any
review of whether such an expansion is warranted. The Sierra
Club is not convinced that the NTMP prohibition of clearcutting
has been enforced or monitored by CDF, and is not convinced that
the similar prohibition in the WFMP would be either.
The Center for Biological Diversity is opposed because of
concerns related to the expansion of lifetime permits for
landowners of up to 15,000 acres "who can hardly be considered a
small ownership." Such an expansion of this sort of permitting
"dramatically increases both the environmental impacts
associated with logging operations and the problems related to
the lack of oversight associated with a lifetime permit."
This group is further concerned that the bill does not have a
meaningful definition of "uneven aged management" and it is
concerned that the water quality protection language is overly
vague.
While the concept of the WFMP was discussed in the working group
convened by the author and Mr. Dickinson, the opponents contend
that the concept was to have been linked to additional reforms
in the NTMP process which they find completely missing from the
draft.
COMMENTS
One could reasonably conclude that state law would benefit from
a new process for landowners who own less than 15,000 acres and
who choose to manage their lands through uneven age management.
This bill was recently amended in the Senate and thus did not
benefit from an earlier policy analysis in the Assembly. The
amendments are a combination of technical wordsmithing as well
as policy suggestions designed to respond to the comments of
supporters and opposition.
4
In particular, the proposed amendment to include NTMPs is
designed to soften the criticism that CDF has never reviewed
approved NTMPs. Adding the road management plan provision
reflects the reality that landowners in the 15,000-acre category
should have a more comprehensive road management and
anti-erosion program than landowners off 2,500 acres or less who
hold NTMPs.
These amendments do not include two requests from the opposition
. One is that the WFMP and future NTMPs include a provision for
special protection of old growth and late successional forests.
Such a provision could be added at the request of the author or
the committee as a new section 4597.2. The intent would be for
the landowner to disclose in the plan all late successional or
old growth forests including stands that are less than 20 acres
and disclose all legacy trees, which would need to be defined.
The purpose of such a provision in the eyes of the proponents
would be to emphasize the importance and rarity of these stands
and legacy trees and their importance for wildlife.
The second suggestion not reflected below is to improve the
definition of "uneven aged management" on page 4, line 31 of the
bill. That would take a discussion among various parties which
staff is willing to do assuming it is agreeable with the author
and the committee.
The major amendments below provide a period of public comment,
clarify when the monitoring reviews would occur and extend that
provision to NTMPs as provided in future regulations of the
Board of Forestry, require that amendments to WFMP comply with
current law, and add a road management plan provision.
SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS
1. Page 3, line 15. Delete "found to be in conformance" and
replace with "approved"
2. Delete page 3, lines 22-27.
3. Page 3, line 29-30. Delete "levels of atmospheric"
4. Page 5, line 7, line 8, line 14, and throughout the bill,
replace "working forest tree farmer" with "landowner"
5. Page 5, lines 32-34, change to "A description and discussion
of the methods to be used to avoid significant sediment
discharge to watercourses from timber operations."
6. Page 5, line 34. Add a new subdivision: "A road management
plan with specific site specific provisions for the maintenance
and repair of the road network that will avoid sediment delivery
to watercourses."
5
7. Page 6, line 21-22. Delete reference to cited case.
8. Page 7, line 5. Provide a 30 day public comment period to run
consecutively with the 45 days for the director's review.
9. Page 7, line 39, delete "that were in effect at the time the
working forest management plan was approved"
10. Page 8, line 27, delete and add: and every 10 years
thereafter."
11. Page 8, line 29-30. Delete" working forest management plan"
and on line 31 delete "in excess of 5,000 acres" and add, after
"plan," "and plans approved pursuant to Article 7.5 of the
Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act"
12. Page 8, line 36. Delete "qualitative"
13. Page 8, line 38, add "and other provisions of the Porter
Cologne Water Quality Act"
14. Page 9, line 3, delete "and no less than every 15 years
thereafter" and replace with "and every 10 years thereafter."
15. Page 9, line 4. Delete " who owns, leases, or otherwise
controls or operates on on all or any portion of any timberland
within the boundaries of an" and replace with: " A landowner
with an approved WFMP who"
16. Page 9, lines 36-38. Delete and add "and other applicable
laws and regulations" after "board."
SUPPORT
Associated California Loggers
Big Creek Lumber
California Licensed Foresters Association
Forest Landowners of California
The Buckeye Conservancy
Redwood Empire Co.
2 Individuals
OPPOSITION
Sierra Club California
Center for Biological Diversity
Central Coast Forest Watch
6