Colorado Tree Farmer Testimony
on the 2007 Farm Bill

March 14, 2007

Senator Harkin, Senator Salazar, it is a privilege to submit the following testimony in support of the new Farm Bill.

I am a Tree Farmer – that does NOT mean that I “plow rows and plant Christmas trees”! What it does mean is that I have a tract of forested land that I have committed to maintain in healthy forest in perpetuity. That is a big undertaking and one that not even many generations will survive to see. But if we do not do that with our forests today, we will see them “frittered away” until it is too late to restore them.

Within the United States, roughly 60% of all forested land is privately owned. In Colorado and other states west of the Rockies, the mix is nearly reversed, with about 30% of Colorado forest lands in private ownership. What is significant about this diverse ownership is that the proper incentives can put to work on 60% of America’s forests individuals that are highly motivated by their ownership of the land, while we have to hire folks to do that on public lands.

In the West, the suppression of fire has produced fire risk conditions that are almost unbelievable. A 1909 USFS survey estimated 11.6 billion standing board feet of timber in Colorado – if we assume that a substantial amount had been removed for railroad ties, mine pit props, and cabin construction in the previous 30 years, it would not be far off to suggest that we would have had a “native stand” of around 12 billion board feet at that time.

A 1995 USFS survey states that Colorado now has 41.3 billion standing board feet of timber! In addition, we have taken many acres out of production with roads and urban development so that today we may have areas with 5 times the timber that Mother Nature intended for that terrain!

On my own Tree Farm, in Hinsdale County in the heart of the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado, the native Englemann spruce desires an average spacing of about 16 feet between tree trunks. Yet on my place, there are areas where you cannot walk between them! A very significant number of trees must be selectively removed over 30 year period to begin to return to the native density.

Going back to the Colorado inventory, I would estimate that 800 million board feet per year would have to be removed over a 50 year period to get us back to the native density. Yet the current annual harvest runs around 80 million board feet. In addition, there is a large amount of fallen and standing dead timber that adds to the fuel load and yet we have no efficient mechanism for its removal. Nor do we have a current market for that volume of additional wood! Still, I note with dismay that we find firewood sold in bundles in the Denver area that is imported from Canada but no entrepreneur has stepped up locally to turn some of our local “woody debris” into similar products.

The Federal Government cannot dictate what the private forest landowners should do – that is the task for us who are already involved. We can contact, motivate, and educate and have programs already underway through our Colorado State Tree Farm Committee to do that. One such program will target the forest landowners in the Alamosa and Gunnison State Forest Districts supported by a 2006 RREA grant in the amount of $4,000. That is an example of the beneficial impact of prior Farm Bill provisions.

Once we have these landowners “fired up”, we will need programs that can assist them in some of the more tedious tasks of fire mitigation and selective thinning. Whether these programs come under the heading of Fire Prevention or simply Forest Health Improvement is not significant. What will be important is the degree of specificity in the Bill that insures that the forest landowner is not rebuffed when he/she applies for federal assistance. The EQUP program can be effective but every delivery agency must clearly understand that private forest landowners ARE eligible – such was not always the case at the outset of the program.

Similarly, funds allotted for conservation must be equally available to forest landowners. It will be quite difficult to draw water from the Dolores and Rio Grande rivers if forest fires have choked the watershed with dead timber and silt!

Under a separate letter, you will receive comments from Mr. Wes Rutt, another Colorado Tree Farmer, whose challenge it is in our State Committee to prepare for the use of woody biomass in the production of ethanol and other energy products. The magnitude of the biomass accumulation within Colorado would suggest that we have an abundance of “raw material” – we just need to learn how to collect, transport, and convert it efficiently, within a State of challenging terrain and roads!

There is a very interesting book by Dr. Spencer Johnson entitled “Who Moved My Cheese?” that deals with our adjustment to the changing conditions of our lives. I maintain that we have “found our cheese” but there is such a daunting mass of it that we are temporarily paralyzed! Just putting more mice to work on this cheese could cover us up with mouse manure so we have to think carefully about each program, run pilot programs where the chance of real success is indicated, and be prepared to expand those programs that do prove successful. The research components of the Farm Bill do directly address these issues and other provisions within the Bill should provide assistance for the pilot programs when they are recommended.

As a high school ag student (over 50 years ago), I recall agriculture as being the production of useful materials “from the fields and forests of America”. I thank both of you for your careful attention to the feedback “from the fields” but ask you to expand your attention to that coming “from the forests”. The definition has been divorced too long – let us get it “remarried”!

Respectfully submitted,

Carl Unlaub

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Testimony on the 2007 Farm Bill
Submitted to the Senate Committee on agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
March 12, 2007

Senator Harkin and Senator Salazar thank you for the opportunity to address
this committee concerning provisions in the 2007 Farm Bill.

Who we are and what we do:

My name is Wes Rutt. I am the Chair for Biomass on the Colorado State Tree Farm Committee. The mission of the Colorado State Tree Farm Committee is to promote the growth of renewable forest resources on private lands in Colorado while protecting the environment, and increasing public understanding of sustainable forestry practices. One of the ways that we have chosen to promote our mission is by informing forest landowners and the public at large of the huge and relatively untapped renewable energy resource that we have in Colorado, i.e. forest biomass. I will limit my testimony today to the development and use of forest biomass as a clean, economical, and locally renewable energy resource.

Last year the Colorado Tree Farm Committee hosted a meeting attended by representatives from the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, the Colorado State Forest Service, the Governor’s Office of Energy Management and Conservation, Colorado State University’s Wood Utilization and Marketing Program, private forest landowners, and potential users of alternative energy to determine if forest biomass might become a viable source of alternative, renewable energy for Colorado.

It was determined at that meeting that:
1. There is a significant amount of forest biomass available along the Front Range and throughout western Colorado, which, using sustainable forestry practices, could provide a significant source of renewable energy for Colorado, according to a recent survey conducted by Colorado State University.
2. That amount of forest biomass currently poses a significant danger of becoming fuel for devastating wildfires and a breeding ground for destructive insect infestations such as the Mountain Pine Beetle if it is not removed.
3. The technology exists to utilize forest biomass as a clean, economical and sustainable fuel source to heat public buildings, as demonstrated by the U.S. Forest Service’s Fuels for Schools program and numerous other programs throughout the nation.
4. Cellulosic ethanol should provide an even larger market for forest biomass in the future.
5. The infrastructure does not now exist to collect, process or transport this forest biomass to potential end users in significant amounts.
6. It will be difficult to persuade potential end users of forest biomass to invest in the equipment and facilities needed to use this abundant alternative fuel until an infrastructure exists to supply it as readily as fossil fuels can now be supplied.
7. Due to the costs involved in transporting forest biomass, it will be necessary to encourage potential end users to situate biomass heating facilities and, in the longer term, cellulosic ethanol production facilities relatively close to forested areas.
8. If an adequate supply infrastructure was available, a rural community, utilizing forest biomass and sustainable forestry practices, could attract new business to its locale, improve its tax base, and provide new jobs for its residents. Utilization of forest biomass would also improve public safety by reducing the fuel load available for wildfire and improve the overall health of local forests.
9. Therefore, rural communities should be encouraged to help develop the infrastructure necessary to transfer forest biomass from local forest landowners to end users. Rural communities should also be encouraged to work with potential end users of forest biomass to build local, renewable energy zones where a renewable energy resource could be produced, processed, transported and converted to usable energy.

Based on the findings from that meeting, Colorado State Tree Farmers set out to inform forest landowners, local municipalities, county governments, private businesses and the public at large of the benefits of choosing forest biomass as an alternative energy source over fossil fuels wherever possible.

How can forestry-related provisions in the 2007 Farm Bill be tailored to help persuade forest landowners, rural communities, and potential end users to invest in an alternative renewable energy resource, such as forest biomass?

Many community leaders, forest landowners and businessmen remember the 1970’s when the cost of fossil fuels skyrocketed and everyone was promoting alternative sources of energy. However, the cost of fossil fuels soon subsided and many of those who invested heavily in renewable energy lost money. The 2007 Farm Bill can go a long way in persuading these folks that investing in renewable energy this time around can be a safer bet.

We’d like to suggest the following provisions for the bill that could be particularly helpful:

1. Include the proposed Forest Wood to Energy Program in the Farm Bill and tailor it to encourage the formation of what is currently the missing link in the utilization of forest biomass, the infrastructure to process and transport biomass from the forest to the energy producer or user. Use the program to promote the formation of pilot projects that encourage private forest landowners to experiment with ways to best develop supply infrastructure and encourage their peers to take part.
2. Include the proposed Landscape Scale Forestry Competitive Grants Program and tailor it to challenge rural communities to encourage the production of forest biomass and the development of the infrastructure needed to supply it to end users. Also, provide adequate incentives for these communities to build their own facilities to heat public buildings with forest biomass and, by example, demonstrate to local businesses, school systems and other potential end users that investing in a locally supplied renewable fuel is practical.
3. Improve support for state forestry agencies providing technical and financial assistance to private forest landowners. Encouraging active management of forests using sustainable forestry practices will not only keep forests safer and healthier but will assure a renewable and sustainable source of energy for the future.
4. Continue support for the USDA, Rural Development Renewable Energy Loans and Grants and Value Added Producer Grant programs. Successful renewable energy programs will more often than not be local in nature and driven by the grassroots efforts of local rural communities. Local USDA Rural Development staff is often best positioned to determine how loans and grants can best be put to good use.

Various sources of renewable energy including wind, solar, geothermal, and various biomass crops are currently vying for public support. Each of these sources has advantages in certain situations and all of them may eventually find a place within this nation’s energy policy. However, we hope you will agree that forest biomass will not only save money as an economical and renewable energy source, its use can insure that the nation’s growing expense to fight wildfire is reduced and that the health of its forests is improved. Forest biomass should have a place as a renewable energy resource in this country. Anything included in the Farm Bill that will promote its use will reap multiple benefits in the long run.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our views on legislation that can help make locally produced renewable energy a reality.