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Subject: / Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program Proposals - Umpqua NF Pre-Proposal for Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
To: / Bill Aney & Tracy Beck
Please accept this pre-proposal for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program. The Defensive Fuel Profile Zones (DFPZs or Shaded Fuel Breaks), with the incorporation of Biochar production is in it’s very fledgling conceptual stages with limited existing NEPA or established collaborative framework. That said, there is tremendous opportunity to apply DFPZ concepts across the Forest and use as the foundation for building upon existing and forming new collaborative relationships with a variety of stakeholders. The Biochar aspect of the proposal would promote creation of a new forest product from small diameter forest residues promoting business and employment opportunities in this area and assist in off-setting fuels management costs. If enacted this type of work could enable fiscal returns from a greater amount of forest activities potentially benefiting Forests across the Region and Nation who struggle with the costs of fuels reduction activities and finding suitable uses for biomass generated from these treatments.
/s/ Bill Gamble
Acting for
Clifford Dils
Forest Supervisor
Umpqua National Forest.
Pre-Proposal for Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
Umpqua NF would like to submit the concept Defensive Fuel Profile Zones (DFPZs or Shaded Fuel Breaks) on the landscape, with the incorporation of Biochar production. DFPZs are used to compartmentalize landscapes, reducing potential fire behavior in strategic locations so that suppression resources can more effectively limit fire size and the potential loss of values at risk. The concept originally started with the Copeland Creek Watershed Restoration Plan’s use of DFPZs to protect and enhance a Key Watershed that encompasses Late Successional Reserve #222. The concept can be draped over many landscapes or management areas, with varying objectives (Matrix lands, traditional WUI, or Forest boundaries w/private industrial lands). This DFPZ w/Biochar concept meets criteria for this pre proposal request, while producing a valuable environmentally renewable product that can improve soil productivity and sequester carbon while helping to diversify the market for small diameter forest products. When implemented, on a regional or national basis, this concept could allow fuel reduction projects to produce market-place valued products in addition to reduced fire risk along with the opportunity to promote soil productivity and carbon sequestration. Biochar exported from the forest may also be useful as an energy source (a “reduced sulfur fuel” in coal fired electrical generation).
Current land management tactics focus on reducing potential fire behavior through rearrangement and removal of small diameter material with a current low- to no- market value resulting in concentrations of slash for disposal. Rather than open air burning this material, it is proposed that we contract work to thin the prescription area to the appropriate stand density and convert the biomass to Biochar. The Forest Service can either pay outright for this work (traditional method) and retain the Biochar, use the product value of Biochar to pay for work done, or charge (stumpage) for Biochar taken outside of the forest boundary.
Currently Biochar prices can vary from $12.50/50lb bags (EternaGreen Biochar) to $141.00/50lb bags (Charcoal Green® BIOCHAR PLUS) on the internet. A reason for the price variation is inoculation and enrichment of the BIOCHAR PLUS. While this price variation clearly shows a volatile market for Biochar products, it also shows an unrealized product market for the Forest Service. While the Forest Service may be opposed to involvement in another volatile resource market, like the timber market, we (the Forest Service) should reconcile the fact that this may be a viable way to produce a new tangible product from fuels management activities. Should this concept prove to be a means of producing a valued product from fuels reduction, it would lead to long-term fuels management program that could pay for land treatments with more than appropriated funds, ultimately treating more acres. The proposal will include the need for purchase of equipment to convert Biomass to Biochar; such as a Biochar 1000 from Biochar Systems or other system. Additionally, a chipper or grinder will be needed, if not available from contractors.
The collaborative opportunities of this proposal can be envisioned when looking at a similar project on the Umpqua last August (Fast Pyrolysis Demonstrations 2009). The Fast Pyrolysis collaboration brought together over 15 collaborators from other Federal, State, County and City agencies, to private companies and 1 NGO. These entities recognized the benefits of on-site Biomass conversion to the landscape and offered many forms of contributions to the effort.