You're living in tree country

BOS 11/1/22: Dead tree emergency passed

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

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Forest Health | Tree mortality

County supervisors earlier this month declared a tree mortality emergency.

Third District Supervisor John Haschak led  the board’s effort to formally acknowledge the problem.

“We hope to get the resources and some grant money to deal with the issue of dead and dying trees,” Haschak said. 

Trees stressed or killed by drought and beetles are the main focus of the board’s action. 

University of California Cooperative Extension program published information saying that bark beetle activity has become a “landscape scale” issue in the county.

UC Extension: The outbreak will likely run its course until bark beetle populations run out of host material, favorable weather conditions return, or other natural control factors such as predators and competitors help reduce bark beetle populations. Short-term management objectives can focus on mitigating hazards to life and property. However, long term management goals should focus on creating healthy and sustainable forest structure that is resilient to future disturbance.

Mendocino joined Lake and Napa counties with its resolution and Haschak said Sonoma was in pursuit of its own resolution, too. 

With emergency tree resolutions in place, counties have joined ranks with the state which addressed dead and dying trees in a 2014 proclamation under former Gov. Jerry Brown. 

The dead trees talked about during the meeting are what many residents witness from their neighborhoods each day.

A map of the county colored almost entirely in red for affected areas showed the spread of stress in the forest.

Mendocino County Fire Safe Council is a successful nonprofit organization with numerous smaller councils operating under its umbrella like Sherwood and Pine Mountain, for example. 

Eric Hart heads up the Ridgewood Fire Safe Council.

Hart said he had one call this year from a resident with about 10 or 15 acres of madrone trees that died in the past two years. 

“I am getting an increasing number of calls from residents about what they can do with dead trees on their land, especially on their driveways and our roads,” said Hart.

Chantal Simon Petrie is a Ukiah environmental consultant who asked that policies enable action on a large acreage.

“To improve the health of the forests that we have, reduce risk of wildland fire and increase the health of ecosystem species; species that we have right now that are crowded, congested and lacking the natural fire cycle that we would have had,” Petrie said. 

An environmental issue like forest health brought out enthusiasm and passion from some who attended the meeting. 

Elizabeth Salamone runs the Russian River Flood Control and Water Conservation Improvement District, an important water agency on the Russian River corridor near Ukiah and farther south. 

“We need surface water and groundwater sustainability in order to support the forests,” Salamone said, “so we need to think about nature-based solutions; that is something that is really coming out from scientists now.”

If there is one thing agencies and the private or not-for-profit sectors can work together on, it may be finding solutions to environmental issues here in the county. 

“Let’s work on this together,” Salamone said.