There were no January or February meetings, and there won’t be one in March either, as the ABC is deferring to the County and Forest Health Community Working Group (FHCWG) which has been hosting a series of meetings and activities on forest health and resilience, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan etc. In the meantime, this blog will be published at least every two months or so. If you have any message that relates to the ABC mission statement that needs distributing, please let me know at dGriffith.9@gmail.com.
Tree Nursery Feasibility Study: The ABC has been awarded partial Sierra Jobs First Catalyst Grant funding for a study on the feasibility of starting a tree nursery in eastern Alpine County. The tree nursery would produce tree seedlings for the eastern Sierra and Western Great Basin as well as native plants for restoration after wildfires. As of today, it is not known how much has been awarded but that should become clear within a week or two. The Sierra Business Council, which is the convenor and fiscal agent for Sierra Jobs First, has stated that they will help find any additional funding needed.
Thanks are due to Alpine Watershed Group Climate Resiliency Fellows Bella Kurtz and Kaitlyn Garber for their work on the grant application, and to Kimra McAfee, Alpine Watershed Group Executive Director, for her helpful suggestions and editing. The 14 letters of support were key as well, and we thank them too.
Arbor Day: The FHCWG will be hosting its annual Arbor Day tree planting event on April 25th. Details are still to be finalized but mixed conifer seedlings supplied by the Sugar Pine Foundation and germinated Pinyon Pine supplied by the Washoe Tribe Environmental Protection Department will be planted between Curtz and Summit Lakes on BLM land off of Airport Road. Planting is expected to begin at the Curtz Lake Trailhead at 10 am with lunch around noon at Turtle Rock Park. For more information contact Clint Celio at ccelio@alpinecountyca.gov.
Musser and Jarvis Watershed Reports: Alpine Watershed Group has released two reports on the Musser and Jarvis drainage, which provides ~70% of the water supply for Markleeville and Markleevillage and was seriously impacted by the Tamarack Fire. The 2024 Monitoring Report presents the monitoring data on the restoration work that community members helped with in November 2021, immediately after the fire. The Musser and Jarvis Watershed Assessment Report discusses pre- and post-fire watershed conditions and recommends future management actions needed for watershed and forest health.
Resource Advisory Committee (RAC): The RAC is a committee convened by the Carson Ranger District to advise the Forest Service on how to spend Secure Rural Schools Title II funds to benefit federal lands. There is currently about $200,000 available and the possibility of $15,000 to $30,000/year after that. Due to the inability of the RAC to convene a quorum none of the available funds have been awarded. Consequently, the RAC will be accepting project proposals until late May Possible project ideas could include such things as trail and trailhead improvements, toilets, campgrounds and campground improvements, new or improved signage etc. Fuels reduction projects are generally too expensive to accomplish with the available funding.
For more information or to submit a project idea contact Brian Peters, bwpeters1@gmail.com, or Matt Dickinson, Matthew.Dickinson@usda.gov, or 775-884-8154. There are vacancies on the RAC so if you are interested contact Matt Dickinson as noted above.
Wilderness & Fire: Some 16% of Alpine County is designated as Wilderness Areas, where forest management activities such as harvesting, grazing, and fuels reduction are not allowed, but some fire suppression is. This seemed like a good idea when the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, but has resulted in forests that are no longer natural due to the uncontrolled growth of vegetation resulting in an overly dense forest structure that is highly vulnerable to high-severity fire. Prior to European settlement a combination of lightning caused fires and Native American prescribed burning kept the forest in a sustainable state, where most fires were low-severity and able to recover after fire. Recovery after high-severity fire is extremely difficult due to the changes in the soil after being exposed to the associated high temperatures.
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute at the Center for Public Lands at Western Colorado University has published a story map that demonstrates the problem and proposes solutions. Part of southern California has lost some 60% of its montane Wilderness Areas to fire, much of it, high severity. From Hennessy, S. et al (2024). Climate-Adapted Conservation Strategy for Southern California Montane Forests. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13129913, page 19.
“Across Southern California, designated wilderness areas contain 578 square miles (370,000 acres) of montane forest. Of that forest area, nearly 60% has burned since 2005, much of it at high severity due to overly dense forest structure and compounding factors such as extreme weather conditions. In addition, most of the remaining forest area (~28%) has not experienced fire in more than 80 years, since the early 1940s. This remaining unburned montane forest has an elevated vulnerability to high severity fire.”
Alpine Biomass Collaborative 