Trees lay alongside Highway 20, east of Nevada City, last month as Caltrans crews work on wildfire mitigation efforts along the state route. The trees are being chipped and used as biomass.
Photo: Elias Funez
Logging is not the money making industry it once was in Nevada County, but amid wildfire mitigation efforts, tree trunks are the new property accessory.
After hydraulic mining and the logging industry’s cross-cutting technique removed Nevada County’s native species, the forests in the Northern Sierra Nevada became overstocked with red and white fir, states a Northstar Fire Department report published in May. Since, the Sierra Foothills have acquired, “a dense understory of seedlings, brush and downed woody material.“
TREE REMOVAL EFFORTS
Public and private agencies continue to remove an unknown number of trees and shrubs — including blue oaks and manzanita — in Nevada County.Combined with Caltrans and PG&E’s storm cleanup efforts following the late December storm, Caltrans’ de-vegetation effort can be seen along Highways 49, 20 and 174, Caltrans Public Information Officer Raquel Borrayo said.
CalTrans awarded a $3.7 million contract to Tyrell Resources for tree removal following the snowstorm with a precipitation total that broke records in the Nevada City and Grass Valley area. Some residents of the region went over 16 days without power, Borrayo said, and the number of.downed trees required that Caltrans implement emergency tree removal to address the fallen, leaning or hazardous trees on various routes.
Tyrrell Resources cleared debris and hazardous trees on Highways 20, 49, 80, 174, and 193 in Nevada, Yuba, Sierra, El Dorado and Placer counties. Borrayo said the contract anticipates the work will conclude this month.
Per Caltrans construction, the removed trees are relocated to Lincoln’s Rio Bravo Rocklin Biomass facility.
As of April 1, Tyrrell Resources sent “approximately 300 loads of wood chips to Rio Bravo Rocklin.”
Each of the 300 loads weighs approximately 24 tons, Borrayo said, meaning that by April 1, the contractor ultimately yielded 7,200 tons of wet wood chips.
Separately, Caltrans maintenance crews are performing brush removal and fuel reduction measures on eastbound Highway 20.
“They are starting just east of Penn Valley and are working their way towards the Ponderosa Overcrossing,” Borrayo said. “Once completed, they will then head westbound on State Route 20 from the Ponderosa Overcrossing to Penn Valley.”
There, Caltrans crews are removing scrub brush and trees 4-inches wide or less at chest height.
“The work is dependent on weather and fire restrictions — red flag days,” Borrayo said. “We are also coordinating with our environmental team to mark any environmentally sensitive areas prior to brush removal along the highway.”
Manzanita is mulched, Borrayo said, leaving the red humus one can see from the roadside behind.
“We’re chipping into sawdust/mulch for ground cover,” Borrayo said.
Neither the trees removed as part of Caltrans’ de-vegetation effort nor those removed by the emergency contractor are being counted, Borrayo said.
“It’s a lot of trees,” Borrayo said.
PG&E has also committed to remove 1 million trees across 70,000 miles of serviceline across Central and Northern California.
The utility company’s 2022 wildfire mitigation plan does not specify the number of trees being cut within county or city boundaries. When asked to specify the number of trees getting the ax in Nevada County, Communications Specialist Megan McFarland said she did not have the number.
PERSPECTIVES
Jamie Hinrichs, public affairs specialist for Tahoe National Forest, said she was aware of Caltrans’ tree removal on Highway 20.Hinrichs said she is not sure how much, if any, of the tree removal done along the roadsides has been paid for by the federal agency.
“The Tahoe National Forest specifically supported and engaged in wildfire mitigation work, (including addressing) hazardous vegetation on wildland-urban interface … where communities are really close to federal forested land,” Hinrichs said.
Hinrichs said part of that work is removing younger trees so that prescribed fire can be used on the landscape.
“Low intensity fire that can be used in a way that really mimics the fire ecosystem in California,“ Hinrichs said. “Using a little fire now is a way to mitigate a larger fire later — you remove some of the surface vegetation, and there are spaces between big trees so they don’t burn.”
Hinrichs said vulnerable communities need to do what they can to create egress routes.
“That’s why a lot of tree removal work is focused along roads and highways,” Hinrichs said.
Hinrichs said the appearance of trunks or visibility of sky through a usually thicketed forest region does not necessarily indicate anything unhealthy.
“You think more trees is always better, but actually density of forest is not healthy,“ Hinrichs said, adding, ”it’s not healthy for the forest. It’s also increased fire risk.“
Hinrichs said forests were much thinner hundreds of years ago than they now appear to be.
“It’s like a straw in the ground — the more straws in the ground, the more trees are sucking up water,” Hinrichs said. “Since California is in a prolonged drought, it makes the trees competing with limited resources more susceptible to insect infestation.”
Hinrichs said that leaving dead trees standing leaves local communities at risk in the case of an electrical storm.
OVERSIGHT
Terrie Prosper, director of the California Public Utilities Commission’s news office, said California created a new state agency specifically dedicated to reducing the risk of utility equipment starting wildfires called the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety.“Vegetation management is one of the ways that utilities, including PG&E, reduce that risk,” Prosper said, adding that all the company’s mitigation activities were documented in a plan submitted in February.
PG&E’s safety performance is being continually assessed by the CPUC, Prosper said, adding that the commission has “taken enforcement actions against the utility, including activation of the Enhanced Enforcement Oversight Process specifically designed for PG&E due to its record of safety failures.”
According to Prosper, PG&E is in the first step of the commission’s Enhanced Enforcement Oversight Process “based on the company’s failure to sufficiently prioritize clearing vegetation on its highest-risk power lines as part of its wildfire mitigation work in 2020, and we will continue to utilize this escalating oversight process based on PG&E’s safety performance.
“The CPUC required PG&E to submit a corrective action plan and report on progress every 90 days,” Prosper added. “CPUC staff are currently evaluating PG&E’s latest report to determine whether it has made sufficient progress toward meeting its goal.”
Last edited:
