Since 2020, his forest treatments have been studied by Utah State University scientists commissioned to gauge their effectiveness toward reducing fuel loads and restoring aspen. The study’s first phase is complete and the findings will be released in the next few weeks, according to study co-leader, a former member of the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Ogden. In the wake of the treatments, more than 100,000 aspen suckers were counted in a single acre.
“This needs to be monitored for much longer times to see if what we found stays consistent,” DeRose said.DeRose noted that dozers can’t operate on slopes steep sloper than 30%, making roller felling impossible in many mountainous areas. The treatment is analogous to “chaining” on lower-elevation lands where bulldozers yank pinyon pine and juniper from the ground with chains. This practice is common on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, but applying bulldozers to fragile alpine terrain raises several ecological concerns that have never been addressed, much less resolved, according to critics.
First, it pulls up dirt with the roots, turning it over, then the dozers themselves are tearing up the ground and compacting the soil. But there’s a problem with that. Any fuel reduction treatments — whether it’s prescribed fire, conventional thinning or bulldozers — on national forests require analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act , which can delay the implementation of a project by a year or more and increase costs.
“We’ve actually been working a lot with Congress to get this scaled up,” Peay told lawmakers. “We’ve been able to do this on the lower elevation BLM lands with pinyon [and] juniper. The Forest Service is the challenge. So in the next year or two, we hope to have laws changed, so we can get on high elevation.
Chaining can be good, if done correctly. The PR campaign to rebrand it is stupid.
Sad & pathetic.
UTDHC They just burn it ? What a waste .
So they've rebranded chaining?