Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
In article , writes:

If it's good timber, why would it be salvage? Isn't that sort of a
contradiction?

Nope. A tree doesn't have to be alive to be good timber, if you are
quick. After a fire you have about a year before the wood really starts
to deteriorate. In those 120,000 acres or so of moderate fire, only the
outer inch or so of the tree is charred. The rest of the wood is just
fine.

The same is true of bug killed trees. I have some pines that are dead
from bark beetle. Some of the dead trees are still green in the crown,
they just don't know they are dead yet. They won't recover. The bugs
have killed them. There is nothing wrong with the wood, this year. If I
salvage the trees next spring, they will make fine saw logs. If I wait
until the year after, I would expect substantial dock for rot. Plus,
that year means all those bark beetles are infesting surrounding trees
and killing them too.

Salvage operations require you to be nimble, or there is no point.
That's why I don't think it is worth talking about salvage operations on
federal land. By the time a salvage operation makes it through the
review process, there is no wood left worth taking.

Quite correct, Larry. This is where NEPA needs to be re-vamped.
Salvage sales should have different staus than a green sale. This is
an emergency situation and the wood has a shelf-life.
"Preservationists" know this and use the system to make the wood
unusable. We can't (though I'd like to, if I could guarantee the work)
eliminate them from appeals but we should, at least, minimize the
timeline.
Also, "preservationists" don't want the inevitable (and significant!)
bug salvage in the remaining green trees to be cut.

Larry