Legislature(2007 - 2008)BUTROVICH 205
03/31/2008 03:30 PM Senate RESOURCES
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HJR31 | |
| HB370 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | HJR 31 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 370 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
CSHB 370(RES)-PROTECTION OF FORESTED LAND
3:50:23 PM
CHAIR HUGGINS announced CSHB 370(RES) to be up for
consideration.
DEREK MILLER, staff to Representative Mike Kelly, sponsor of HB
370, said this measure would align statute with the Alaska
Interagency Wildland Fire Management Plan that has been in
effect since approximately 1985. It states that all fire
management decisions will be based on values warranting
protection and those include cabins, lodges and other manmade
structures.
He said existing language implies that fire management decisions
are based solely on the value of the natural resources at risk.
This bill does not obligate protection; it just allows for
management to include these structures in its decision making.
The other objective of the bill is to change the term "forest
fire" to "wildland fire" throughout statute. This term is more
up-to-date and is used throughout the Division of Forestry.
MR. MILLER said this bill has two zero fiscal notes and the
Department of Law has assured them that the state will not take
on additional liability with its passage.
3:52:36 PM
CHRIS MAISCH, Director, Division of State Forestry, Department
of Natural Resources (DNR), explained this issue goes back to
the 2004-05 fire season when a record-11-million-plus-acres
burned in Alaska.
He explained that the Interagency Fire Management Plan that all
the suppression agencies work with in the state dictates the
four different levels of initial attack suppression. The two
types of response are referred to as limited and modified.
Limited means a fire may or may not be attacked. Generally
speaking, a structure gets the same type of protection as the
surrounding areas. If the surrounding area is in limited
protection, then the structure is not protected. The exception
is if human life is at risk. This is how the policy has worked
for many years.
MR. MAISCH said the state has had more and more remote
development and it is time to update the fire atlases that show
where structures are located and the level of protection they
get. The Murkowski administration brought forth what was called
the "best effort doctrine" to see what could be done to protect
structures in remote areas. The Department of Law determined
that structures could not be protected under the current
language of "natural resources at risk."
Essentially this bill would allow the division to develop a
system that would allow the division to determine on the atlases
what protection structures would get. He explained that the
decision would be based on a number of things; one would be if
the structure had fire wise principles around it - meaning the
private owner of the structure had conducted activities to make
the structure more survivable should a wildfire approach. It
determines if there is a close water source and what kind of
fuel pipe the structure is located in. For instance, if it's in
the middle of black spruce with no water anywhere nearby,
there's not much firefighters can do to protect a structure like
that. He said updating the atlases would assure that all
structures are treated consistently and equally.
SENATOR WAGONER asked if the Caribou Hills fire was on state
land, private land or a combination.
MR. MAISCH answered a combination of lands were involved; most
of it was on state land and about a third of it was on the
wildlife refuge.
3:56:34 PM
SENATOR WAGONER asked how many of the structures were on state
land. He explained that he has a structure on leased land and
when the lease runs out, the state will either burn or remove
the building. He asked if the Caribou Hills leases are
different.
MR. MAISCH replied it depends on the individual piece of private
property. Some have trespass structures on state land, some have
permitted structures and some are just private in-holdings that
originally came from state or federal lands. State policy is to
not provide protection on trespass structures.
SENATOR WAGONER asked if those structures could be permitted for
rebuilding.
MR. MAISCH didn't know, but he said it would be a good question
for the Division of Mining, Land and Water that oversees that
aspect of permitting on state land.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked why "forest" is changed to "wildland"
on page 2, line 16.
MR. MAISCH replied the "wildland fire" is more inclusive
terminology of places that burn; it used to be "forest fire."
For example, this year the state had a quarter-million acre fire
on the tundra up north that has no trees; the west has
grasslands and rangelands.
3:58:51 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked where the meat of this bill is.
MR. MAISCH replied in the intent section, section 3, on page 3,
lines 2-3. It removes "value of the resources" and "for the
natural resources and watersheds" and inserts "values at risk".
"Values" is a broader term that allows them to include manmade
structures as part of the assessment process, which they have
done under the Interagency Management Plan. Finally, when the
law was originally put in place, there weren't as many
structures in remote areas of the state, so it wasn't a big
issue. Now it is.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI said usually intent language doesn't have a
whole lot of meaning, but here it does.
MR. MAISCH answered yes.
4:00:22 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI said he heard that forests are potentially
much more explosive now, because they had been managed by
putting out fires for decades, which encouraged their growth.
MR. MAISCH answered he was correct, especially in the western
U.S. He said the Yellowstone fires are a prime example of where
fire was suppressed for decades and when a fire finally
happened, the fuel loads were so heavy, that it had a more
catastrophic intensity than it ever would have if a natural fire
had been allowed to burn through that area more frequently. In
Alaska the boreal forest is such a fire driven ecosystem; it is
designed to burn and it needs to burn in order for it to stay
healthy. He said that some people think that climate change is
causing more intense fire seasons in addition to just fuels.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if this language would help Southeast
Anchorage concerns about protection from forest fires. He also
asked if the state was doing what it could to protect those
people from forest fires.
MR. MAISCH answered this language would not affect the Hillside
area. That area has already been identified as a critical or
full fire protection area. However, he said that the larger
urban areas have community wildfire protection plans that
identify areas of high risk and mitigation measures to either
reduce the fuels or improve the chances for structural and human
survival. The language in HB 370 would affect structures in
limited or modified protection areas.
CHAIR HUGGINS asked for an update on the beetle kill issue.
MR. MAISCH answered the spruce bark beetles are declining on the
Kenai and have been moving into other parts of the Anchorage
bowl. They are in decline overall and salvage activities on the
Kenai have declined as well. A wood pellet manufacturing company
had recently purchased about 20 million feet or basically the
remaining salvage sales. The wood, as long as it is still
standing for a three-year period after a burn or beetle kill is
low quality and can be used only for bio-energy, the last use.
4:06:09 PM
CHAIR HUGGINS asked him to describe a "controlled burn."
MR. MAISCH responded that controlled burns are sometimes
referred to as "prescribed fire," and it is infrequently used in
the Interior for grouse habitat improvement and for regenerating
aspen stands in the spring before "green up." They haven't done
a lot of prescribed fires for fuels treatment, but Alphabet
Hills in the Copper River area is one area that has. The Forest
Service did one in the Kenai area a couple of years ago as well.
The trick is if it's done anywhere close to an urban area, you
better really have your act together.
4:07:50 PM
CHAIR HUGGINS asked how long the tree residue maintains its BTU
value.
MR. MAISCH answered for a long time; once the tree starts to get
soft is the point at which it starts to lose BTUs.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if there is any plan to deal with the
spruce bark beetle kill on the Kenai. It seems like it's a
massive fire waiting to happen.
MR. MAISCH replied a dozen Kenai communities have come up with
community wildfire protection plans. The idea behind the
planning efforts is public safety - identifying evacuation
routes and mapping of fuel types and loads and where at-risk
things are like schools or residential developments. That is
where their limited funding is spent. They might remove the fuel
load close to schools and urban areas, but that makes a small
dent in risk factors on the Kenai.
4:10:45 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked what "destructive agent" meant.
MR. MAISCH replied that "destructive agent" actually refers to
the Forest Practices section of this statute. That is the law
that governs activities on private, municipal and state lands
for forest practices, which are generally commercial forestry
activities. Destructive agents are insects like bark beetles and
pathogens like the emerald ash bore.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked what he would do if we have another
spruce bark beetle invasion.
MR. MAISCH answered the fact is that most of the trees that
would serve as a host have already been killed. He is
encouraging development of a bio-energy industry to use the
residue.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI said he has the right to suppress and asked
how he approaches that.
MR. MAISCH replied that would depend on the insect, but if it's
a bark beetle they would apply a pesticide on the bowls of trees
so when the beetles emerge they come in contact with it and die.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if he crop dusts.
MR. MAISCH replied that the state has never done that, but at
least one private land owner has used aerial application of
herbicides for weed control. He said another example is the
spruce bug worm, which is in the Interior right now. It's also
in the state of Maine and other places in the Lake states and
they have aerial sprayed for it as a mitigation measure; Alaska
doesn't have the resources or the need to do that.
4:14:30 PM
JENNIFER YUHAS, Special Assistant to Mayor Jim Whitaker,
Fairbanks North Star Borough, supported HB 370. She explained
after the 2004 Interior fire season the mayor placed a high
priority on fire prevention. This legislation places in the
intent language the expectation that already exists in their
communities for the Division of Forestry to assist with this.
4:16:42 PM
LYNN WILCOCK, Fire Program Manager, Division of Forestry,
Department of Natural Resources (DNR), supported HB 370. He said
Mr. Maisch did a great job of explaining why they want this
legislation. He offered to answer questions.
SENATOR WAGONER asked what they have learned about the spruce
bark beetle and put in place to respond to it.
MR. MAISCH answered they have learned that earlier action is
appropriate in circumstances where you have the ability to act
through salvage after initial discovery of an outbreak. The
division has the authority to declare a zone of infestation,
which gives them other tools to use. He didn't know if it would
have made a difference on the Kenai, because those trees were
old and in large tracts. One of the things that probably allowed
it to happen was the successful effort at keeping fire out of
that ecosystem over the previous decades. It put on a
smorgasbord for these insects and once they got going, there
wasn't a lot they could do to stop them. The same thing is
happening right now in Canada and Colorado where hundreds of
thousands of acres of lodge pole pines are being attacked by the
mountain pine beetle. "It makes the Kenai look like a small
disaster in comparison."
4:19:31 PM
CHAIR HUGGINS asked if he has land mobile radio (ALMR).
MR. MAISCH answered yes; his budget has some funds that are
dedicated to ALMR, which has to do with the suppression
organization and fire engines. It is part of the statewide
effort to convert over to that system as mandated by some of the
changes in interoperability between federal and state agencies -
so they can communicate with each other in emergency situations.
CHAIR HUGGINS asked when he is communicating with the Alaska
National Guard, does he use VHF or UHF.
MR. MAISCH replied he thought it was UHF.
MR. WILCOCK added that the department is still trying to figure
out how to integrate ALMR with the traditional Legacy System.
The problem with ALMR from his perspective is that it is limited
to alongside the road net and wildland fires occur much broader
than that. An interface would help them communicate with the
National Guard. They use ALMR with fire departments and with
some other cooperating agencies.
4:21:35 PM
SENATOR STEVENS remarked that his grandchildren know them as
forest fires.
MR. MAISCH reiterated that the term "wildland fire" just
broadens the concept to include more types of places where fires
happen and it is okay with Smokey the Bear.
CHAIR HUGGINS asked what the term is when they let the fires
burn themselves out and if he exercised that option here.
MR. MAISCH answered those fires occur in limited or modified
areas and they just monitor them. It's a "let burn policy."
SENATOR WAGONER asked the difference between a controlled fire
and a let burn fire.
MR. MAISCH answered that a lot of planning happens before a
controlled fire. It often takes a year to write a burn plan that
actually dictates how it will be ignited. A let burn happens as
a matter of course.
SENATOR WAGONER asked if a let burn fire ever becomes a
controlled burn.
MR. MAISCH answered no.
CHAIR HUGGINS asked how long he has been doing this.
MR. MAISCH replied nine years and he takes blood pressure pills
aside from having grey hair.
4:25:36 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if adding protection from other
destructive agents was a big change or just a clarification.
MR. MAISCH answered that other destructive agents have been in
this section all along. The House Resources Committee requested
a definition of "destructive agent" and that is in section 5.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if adding "other destructive agents"
to AS 129.40/010 gave him any sort of new powers.
MR. MAISCH answered no.
SENATOR STEVENS moved to report CSHB 370(RES) from committee
with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note(s).
There were no objections and it was so ordered.
CHAIR HUGGINS thanked them for their comments and adjourned the
meeting at 4:27:47 PM.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|