BMP Trivia Question

Wing ditches collect and direct road surface runoff from one or both sides of the road away from the roadway and into undisturbed areas adjacent to the road. According to the BMP Handbook, what are 3 of the 8 Recommended Specifications for the construction and maintenance of Wing Ditches?

1.)
2.)
3.)

Click on "comments" below and post your answers.

The Texas Water Source - December 2011

December Issue of the Texas Water Source Now Available

• Who Is Using Best Management Practices?
• Organization Spotlight: Sustainable Forestry Initiative
• SFI State Implementation Committee
• Erosion Control After the Fire
• Get Help After the Fire

December BMP Q&A

By: Chris Duncan, Water Resources Forester (Ret.), Texas Forest Service

Q:  I usually try to comply with Best Management Practices (BMPs) on my harvesting operations, but it is not always easy dealing with landowners. I have a hard time explaining the benefits of following the recommended guidelines. What advice would you give me to tell my clients to convince them of the importance of using BMPs?

A:   This is a tough problem that many loggers and contractors are faced with every day. Implementing BMPs is not only time consuming, but can also be costly. It is understandable that in today’s tough economy, many landowners want as much value from their land as possible when harvesting timber from their property. However, if you take some time to explain to the landowner the many advantages that BMPs provide, using BMPs often becomes a more appealing option.

The ultimate goal of BMPs is to provide us with clean water. After a year of such terrible drought, I think we can all agree that water is very important to us all. There is a limited amount of fresh water available for human consumption and we cannot afford to do anything that will further reduce our water source. Polluted water is very expensive to treat, causing our water bills to rise.

Erosion control is also another important function of BMPs. Erosion can be very damaging to the productivity of the site, can greatly reduce accessibility, and can be very damaging to the environment. This process removes valuable soil that is necessary to grow quality timber. At the same time site productivity is decreasing, there is also an increased risk of sedimentation into our streams.

Wildlife can also benefit from implementing BMPs. Streamside Management Zones (SMZs) can provide habitat and travel corridors for many species, including deer, birds, and squirrels. Water temperatures in streams are kept inside a constant range due to the shade provided by the SMZ, maintaining aquatic populations of fish, amphibians, and insects.

The Texas Reforestation and Conservation Act of 1999 (SB 977) allows for a financial incentive to using BMPs. This legislation gives forest landowners property tax relief in special qualified zones, such as SMZs and reforested acres. Under this bill, a landowner would receive a 50% reduction in their appraised value for these restricted use timberland zones.

In Texas, we are operating under a voluntary BMP system. This means that there are no laws mandating that we follow the recommended guidelines. If we choose not to adhere to these principles, then we might enter into a regulatory system. This type of situation would further infringe upon private property rights, be more costly, and less efficient.

The reasons listed above are good selling points to make a case for installing BMPs on your property. The Texas Forest Service has several brochures and BMP fact sheets on their webpage that are very educational and available for you to use. They are located at http://txforestservice.tamu.edu/water. If you would prefer to have one of our water resources foresters talk to the landowner directly or have a any questions regarding BMPs, please call us at (936) 639-8180.

* This article was published in the December 2011 issue of the Texas Logger

November BMP Q&A

By: Chris Duncan, Water Resources Forester (Ret.), Texas Forest Service

Q: We own several hundred acres of timberland which were lost due to the recent wildfires in East Texas. We have spoken with our consulting forester and are planning on conducting some salvage harvesting operations. Our property has a fairly good sized stream which usually flows 3-4 months out of the year during the wetter months. Most of what we will be harvesting was completely or nearly completely killed by the fire, although there are some areas with higher survival. I would like to know if you have any recommendations on how we should conduct our harvesting so that we have as little impact to water quality as possible.
 
A: Sorry to hear about your loss of timber during this unprecedented fire season. I am glad to hear that you have consulted a professional forester to help you with the recovery of some of your timbers value. I would be happy to provide some recommendations for Best Management Practices which will help you reduce the risk of impacting your streams water quality during your operations. It appears you likely have an intermittent stream that flows through your property based on your description of the stream. Let’s start with the Streamside Management Zone (SMZ) along this stream.

SMZs provide several functions to help protect water quality. One of an SMZs primary functions is to provide shade to the water body. The shade provided by an SMZ helps regulate the water temperature, thereby protecting the thermal qualities of the stream. Many organisms have small tolerances to large thermal changes. Therefore, care should be taken during wildfire salvage operations not to remove more trees from the SMZ than absolutely necessary. Your forester should survey the SMZ, and make determinations of which trees will likely die from the fire, and which trees may survive. We recommend that any trees which may survive be left uncut to provide as much shade to the stream as possible. A good rule of thumb for hardwoods in the SMZ may be to leave any trees which still have at least 50% of their crown intact. As far as the pine trees go, if they are going to die from the fires we had this year, they have probably already turned brown and dropped their needles. Any pine trees which still have a majority of the crown in lush green needles should be saved if possible.

While selectively harvesting within the SMZ, care should be taken to disturb the ground as little as possible to maintain the SMZs protection of the stream from runoff. If the vegetation on the ground within the SMZ was completely consumed, efforts should be made to re-establish vegetation as soon as possible.

On rare occasion (flat terrain, lightly erodible soils, and cooler burned areas), a forester may use his professional judgment to determine if it is safe to narrow an SMZ so that it is less than the recommended 50’ on each side of a stream during salvage operations to recover some of the value. If it is determined that an SMZ will be narrower (maybe 30’– 40’ feet wide) than the 50’ recommendation, efforts should be made to disturb the soils and vegetation that would normally fall within the recommended SMZ as little as possible. Any mechanical or chemical site preparation or machine planting should be conducted outside the original 50’ buffer to reduce the risk of impairing water quality.

As far as the rest of the tract outside the SMZ; the harvesting, site preparation, and planting should all be conducted in accordance with all other BMP guidelines in the bluebook.

If you have any questions about wildfire salvage BMPs or any other BMPs please contact me.

* This article was published in the November 2011 issue of the Texas Logger

BMP Trivia Question

Streamside Management Zones (SMZs) are buffers maintained on perennial and intermittent stream to protect water quality during forest operations. The minimum width of an SMZ is 50 on either side of the stream to allow runoff water to be filtered before entering the stream. The minimum tree density of the SMZ is based on a measure called "basal area" and recommends that a mimum of 50 square feet of basal area be evenly distributed across the SMZ. If an SMZ was made up entirely of 7” DBH trees and nothing else, how many trees per acre would it take to meet the minimum recommended guideline of at least 50 Sq. Ft of basal area within the SMZ? (Hint: Refer to the chart on page 109 in the bluebook)

A. 36 trees per acre

B. 92 trees per acre

C. 187 trees per acre

D. 306 trees per

Click on "comments" below and post your answers.

The Texas Water Source - September 2011

September Issue of the Texas Water Source Now Available

• One More Reason for Leaving SMZs!
• Forest Landowners Meeting
• Agency Spotlight: Texas Logging Council
• Texas Pro Logger Program
• Water Conservation Bill Passes
• Upcoming Events

September BMP Q&A

By: Chuck Coup, BMP Forester (Ret.), Texas Forest Service

Q:  I have a question about a landowner that is clear-cutting a wetland / forest swamp area. It is a patchy clearcut, and they are removing most of the merchantable trees (the cypress and gum), leaving most of the tallow, gnarly oaks, and willow. There are no issues with rutting because of the dry conditions, and all best management practices (BMPs), to the best of my knowledge, are being followed. Of course, it appears that the area is being over-harvested, because I know the BMP handbook says you’re supposed to treat forest swamp areas as if they were SMZs. The tricky part is that this is a land conversion harvest. The landowner has managed the property for timber for many years, but is conducting this harvest because he wants to turn the area into pastureland. In fact, cows are already on the site. However, as I understand it, because this is a land conversion harvest that is taking the property out of ongoing forestry, BMPs would not apply. Is this correct?

A:  An excellent question! Let me start by saying great work consulting the BMP handbook to find out about the guidelines for forest swamps. You are exactly right that the green section of the handbook recommends treating these areas as if they were SMZs; so clear-cutting would not be a recommended forest management strategy. I am also glad to hear that the dry conditions allowed you to operate in the wetland without causing ruts, because it is extremely important that the natural flow patterns of these areas be maintained in order to protect the wetland’s many beneficial functions.

Now, do BMPs apply to this wetland conversion harvest? Well the answer is a little more complicated than a simple yes or no.

First, let’s start with some background information. As most of you know, our forestry BMPs originate from the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) which is directed at protecting our water resources. Section 404 of the CWA specifically relates to wetlands and makes it unlawful to “discharge dredged or fill material” (which includes rock, sand, soil, clay, and wood chips) into “waters of the United States” (which includes wetlands such as forest swamps) without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE); commonly referred to as a 404 permit. This basically just means you can’t legally impact a wetland without first obtaining a permit from the ACOE. Fortunately, forestry is generally recognized as a land use that is compatible with wetland protection, and as a result, the CWA specifically exempts forestry operations from requiring 404 permitting.

However, that permit exemption comes with a few important conditions.

The first requires that the forestry operation qualify as “normal silviculture,” which includes such activities as soil bedding, site preparation, and harvesting. The second requires that the “fifteen mandatory road BMPs” are followed (check your BMP handbook if you are not familiar with these). The third requires that the operation must be conducted as part of an “established” silviculture operation; which means that the area has previously been managed for timber and the operation is just a continuation of that management. The fourth requires that no toxic pollutants be discharged into the waterway. And finally, the fifth requirement says that the purpose of the operation cannot be to convert any part of a wetland (such as a forest swamp) to a use that it was not previously subject to (such as pastureland). All five of these conditions must be met in order to be exempted from the 404 permit requirement.

Having gone through all of that, the answer to your question is “No.” While still a good idea, BMPs do not apply to your wetland conversion harvest, and therefore you are not required to harvest the area as if it were an SMZ. However, this is not because wetland conversion operations are somehow exempt from BMPs. Rather, it is because wetland conversion operations do not fall within the forestry exemption, and therefore, are required by federal law to have a section 404 permit from the ACOE.

For more information on wetlands and other BMPs visit the Texas Forest Service webpage at http://txforestservice.tamu.edu/water or contact me by phone at (936) 639-8180.

* This article was published in the September 2011 issue of the Texas Logger