Welcome to the Web site of the Tuolumne Group of the Sierra Club. Our group is one of eleven groups in the Mother Lode Chapter of the Sierra Club. This Web site has information about our activities and conservation issues here in Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties.
Massive Forest Service Plan for Mokelumne River Region is Released
In late September, the U.S. Forest Service announced the opening of a “scoping period” to invite public comments on a new plan for a huge 250,000-acre area called the MAC Project.
The giant “large landscape” national forest project would authorize tens of thousands of acres of forest treatments that will take place over many years. Some of those treatments appear to be mostly positive, such as applying prescribed burns to thousands of acres to get fire back into the forest and to reduce a build-up of fuels. The project area straddles the Calaveras District of the Stanislaus National Forest on the south side of the Mokelumne River and the Amador District of the Eldorado National Forest on the north side of the river.
Other proposed treatments would include the thinning of conifer trees to “open up” dense forest stands. Such treatments that focus on removing small and some mid-size trees can reduce the risk of the treated forest areas burning severely in a wind-driven wildfire. But thinning logging can be highly controversial if the agency proposes to log large trees (for example, up to 40” in diameter) or if logging will be proposed in wild, roadless areas. At this stage of the MAC Project, the agency is asking for general comments on such topics, but the scoping plan provides no clarity as to what is being proposed for logging large trees.
Another potential area of controversy is the degree to which the Forest Service plans to spray herbicides to kill groundcovers or brush species along fuel breaks. How much chemical treatment is proposed is one of the key questions to be answered for the new MAC Project. At the moment, there is no information provided to give the public a clue as to the agency’s herbicide use plans or how many acres could be sprayed with chemicals.
Our Sierra Club group already submitted comments of opposition to proposed herbicide use for fuel breaks in a previous local forest project called SERAL 2.0. Because of comments of concern about chemical use were also received from numerous other conservation groups as well, the Stanislaus Forest staff postponed a decision on herbicide use for fuel break treatments in that SERAL 2.0 project – but the agency indicated it still may move forward to allow thousands of acres of controversial herbicide spraying in that SERAL 2.0 Project.
Now in the new MAC Project (which will affect an even larger area of public forest than SERAL 2.0), the question arises again: “How much herbicide use (if any) should be allowed for treating fuel breaks?” It’s important to note that the Forest Service acknowledges that broadcast burning, mastication of brush by shredders, targeted grazing by livestock, and hand cutting of brush are all feasible alternatives to chemical treatments. But the agency insists that chemicals are cheaper and more effective.
The Tuolumne Group of the Sierra Club has worked hard to collaboratively engage in discussions about forest management across the local region and to support balanced outcomes. As this new MAC Project is developed, our hope is to be supportive of as many aspects of the planned treatments as possible, but to also make clear to the Forest Service that we oppose the logging large trees and that we oppose widespread herbicide spraying on public forest lands.
To learn more on this topic, visit the USFS MAC Project Page.
Individual members of the public can submit scoping comments for the MAC Project here: USFS MAC Project Comments Page