Hello, everybody.
We're waiting until 5:00.
Or maybe one or 5:02 o'clock to begin our presentations.
But thank you for joining us for our virtual public meeting
on the NPS Environmental Assessment to reestablish tree seedlings
in severely burned giant sequoia groves and adjacent fisher
habitat corridor in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
So I think we'll give maybe another 2 minutes to see if anybody else joins us.
And I'm actually going to keep my camera off
because I'm experiencing a little bit of bandwidth problems.
But now you see who I am.
My name's Rebecca Patterson, and you'll hear my voice
in just another couple of minutes.
All right, everyone, I have 5:02 p.m.
over here.
So I think that it's time for us to get started.
Thank everyone here for joining us for this virtual public meeting
on the National Park Service Environmental Assessment
to reestablish tree seedlings in severely burned giant sequoia groves and adjacent
fissure habitat corridor in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National parks.
As a reminder, this
proposal is open for public scoping and
comments through midnight
EST via
that the link has been provided
there as well as in our social media posts and news releases, etc.
And the image on the slide that you're seeing right now
shows the severely burned board camp, Sequoia Grove and Sequoia National Park.
Immediately after that, the staff complex of 2020.
Just a couple of technical
information items before we get started.
If we can get the next slide, please
wait for the live to catch up.
And throughout the presentation
there may be a couple of pauses as that's okay.
It sounds like it's on your end, just not on my end.
So before jumping into the overall content of this meeting, I just want to quickly
share a few pieces of information about the use of Microsoft teams.
First, we did share that announcement with you in the question
and answer section of teams that I want to bring to your attention.
In case you missed it.
We are
recording this presentation and we will post a link on the record
of the recording on the project website within the next few days.
The other note for you is that if you could use closed captioning,
if that would be helpful to you, it is available,
but you need to activate it individually so you do it on your end.
And if you need to do this
you can click on the little CC next to the gear icon in the bottom
right of your screen.
You see it pointed out there depending on how your screen is displayed,
you may also find the CC under the settings or the gear icon in the upper
right corner of your screen.
So it shows up a little differently in different layouts.
As we will get to in just a moment.
We will also be taking questions from you following our presentation.
You may have noticed that as an attendee in a team's live event,
we can't unmute you and you can't unmute yourself,
but we would still like to hear you and hear your questions.
So to submit a question, you go to the small question mark icon
in the upper right corner of your screen, type your question
into the field and click the arrow on the right hand side.
Your question will not automatically post to the chat for everyone to see,
but we will be publishing your questions for everybody to see as we answer.
Then following the presentation
and just on the off chance that we don't get to all of the questions today,
we do have a pretty substantial amount of information to present for you folks.
We will still respond to your questions and we will post the questions
and answers to the public website, that same website at the link in the chat.
And yes, submit your questions any time you can be anonymous or you can not
or respond during the Q&A time at the end.
Could I get the next slide, please?
So I just want to briefly introduce you to the team of folks
that are here from the parks tonight to present to you.
My name is Rebecca Patterson.
I'm the fire communication and education specialist here at the parks.
Superintendent Clay Jordan is here with us tonight, as is Ellie Burkey,
the branch chief of environmental planning and compliance. Dr.
Christy Brigham, the chief of Resources Management and Science, and Theresa,
figuring out the environmental protection specialist
next slide, please.
We're just going to give you a brief overview of of
what what those parts of the presentation are tonight.
Clay is going to give you an introduction.
Christy Brigham is going to speak to you about the purpose,
need and alternatives considered in this project.
Theresa Fiorina will discuss the resource impact
analysis, related analysis and consultations.
Ellie Berkey will describe
the planning process and the next steps that we have coming up for this project.
And then finally, we will have that Q&A session that I mentioned.
So without further ado, I'm going to hand it off
to our superintendent, Clay Jordan.
Okay.
Good evening, everybody. So welcome.
And I really want to thank you for your interest
in this planning effort.
The photo to your right is of the severely burned board.
Can't grow that burned Darren the
the castle fire back in 2020.
So if you joined us back in March during our second
public scoping period on this and this effort, we laid out a proposal
to consider replanting sequoias and mixed
conifer seedlings and up to six sequoia groves and within
a large proposed critical habitat corridor for the endangered fissure.
We're now coming back to you with an environmental assessment
that evaluates a no action alternative
and to action alternatives and considers
the impacts of each on several key resources.
I sincerely hope that you'll take the time to provide comment on this EPA
during this public review period that is open now through August
six, as Rebecca had said.
But before I turn things over to my colleague
again to talk about the purpose and the need for action
and the specific alternatives that we're considering,
I want to take a moment to talk about the scope and the scale
of what the Park Service is considering at this time.
This plan is on the heels of two of the most devastating fires
in the history as the clay in Kings Canyon National Parks,
the 2020 Castle Fire, which was part of the rescue of Complex
and the next year, the 2021 camp complex that together
along with a third wildfire that also occurred
in 2021, killed an estimated 13
to 19% of all the six fires in the world.
And while most of us in the West have come to better understand
the benefits of wildfire and indeed saw so largely beneficial fire effects
across the parks during the two fires, the fire effects that we observed,
which was thousands of acres of largely contiguous
high severity fire and the mortality of thousands of large sequoias
is unprecedented and alarming
to someone responsible for their protection.
And while we can't do anything about the loss of these monarchs,
which are the reproductive trees of these forests,
the Park Service can potentially prevent past mistakes.
And I'm specifically referring to a century of fire suppression
and the associated fuels that have accumulated and been exacerbated
by recent drought and higher temperatures under a changing environment.
And we can hopefully prevent
these mistakes from
altering these forests forever.
The concern really is that
all of the reproductive mother trees within the portions of six
sequoia groves in these parks have been killed by high severity fire,
and those that remain are too far
from large portions of these groves
to enable sufficient reach generation into the future.
And if sequoias and other conifers do not regenerate successfully
and in comparable numbers to what we have seen elsewhere,
such that restoration of a canopy
is likely, we believe these forests will likely convert
to shrub dominated communities that are more susceptible
to more frequent high severity fire and any trees that do survive
for a number of years will not likely last long.
For this reason, this EIA analyzes two action alternatives
in addition to a no action alternative
that outlined a data driven decision making framework
for considering whether or not to plant
in areas that have been impacted by the
the human and climate driven high severity wildfire that we've been talking about.
And any intervention would be limited to planting.
We are not proposing to remove shrubs and mass decay brush at this time.
We are not proposing to install fencing to protect the young seedlings.
We are not proposing to even water what we might plant.
Rather, we are proposing to limit our action
to the minimum action necessary to direct the trajectory of these forests
towards a full recovery
and and avoid our past mistakes from becoming an alteration
to these ecosystems that would extend
into the foreseeable future.
So I noticed in recent days there is a lot of misunderstanding
floating out there of what it is that we're trying to do and why.
So I'm really grateful that you're joining us this this evening.
We are not logging.
We are.
And we are not looking to plant trees
where new seedling densities are adequate
to to restore a giant sequoia forest.
And as such, I hope that you will also take the time
to read the EIA and to provide comment on our proposal.
And I hope that in doing so you'll understand the risks
and the probabilities we are facing with regards to action and inaction,
and that you may be able to provide insight into how we weigh those risks.
And with that, I will turn it over to Dr.
Christy Brigham, who is our chief of Resource Management and Science.
Next slide, please.
And Christy, it's all yours.
Thank you so much, Superintendent Jordan.
And thank you to the attendees and those interested in this proposed project.
I'm going to cover the purpose
and need directly from the EIA.
The purpose of the proposed action is to promote
Post-Fire recovery of giant sequoia groves and proposed
Fisher critical habitat impacted by high severity fire.
The NPS believes action is needed to one prevent
an unacceptable loss of giant sequoias
to restore a habitat corridor for an endangered species
and three avoid type conversion of these forests to high severity.
Frequent fire shrub communities, thereby protecting
and park the surrounding forest for more frequent high severity fire
next slide, please.
As Superintendent
Jordan mentioned, there's a lot of additional detail
in the EIA and the appendices, all of which are available on Pepsi.
So similar to what Superintendent Jordan said, I really encourage you
to read the full EIA.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the alternatives that we considered
and I'm going to speak the most in depth about alternative to.
But alternative one is our No Action
alternative, which in this case includes monitoring.
So monitoring the impacts of fire.
Alternative two is our preferred alternative,
and it involves replanting seedlings grown from seed collected
from the local genetic community and other source populations.
And I'm going to provide quite a bit of additional detail on that alternative.
And as I said, there's a lot more information
in the EIA and supplementary material.
Alternative three is very similar to alternative to
with the exception that Alternative three does not involve
supplementing
the genetic material from more diverse groves.
So alternative three is replant seedlings grown from seed collected
from the local genetic community of each replanted area.
And additionally shown in this slide is a fire
severity map, which you can also find in the EIA
showing the groves outlined with green being portions of the groves
that burned at low severity and largely had beneficial impacts.
Burned yellow yellow is moderate severity and red is high severity.
Next slide, please.
So an alternative two and alternative three,
We present a framework for future decision making
where the NPS would consider replanting across
roughly 1200 acres within portions of six Sequoia groves,
Redwood Mountain, Suwannee, New Oriole, Lake, Dylan Wood
or Camp and Homer's Nose and a fissure habitat corridor.
The NPS would use a decision tree
to finalize where planting would ultimately occur.
The decision tree incorporates the following steps and is described
in much more detail in the EIA and supplementary material.
The first step is the analysis of remote sensing data
to find the areas that could be at risk
of loss of sequoia groves
or mixed conifer forests by looking for areas,
contiguous areas of high severity fire.
Once those areas have been identified,
a broad survey of tree mortality, sequoia mortality
and regeneration is conducted in the field
and I'll be providing some more details on that in a future slide.
And there's a lot of information on it in the EIA and supplementary material.
Then those conditions
will be compared specifically regeneration,
The measures of natural seedling densities, the mean and medians
collected in the broad survey will be compared
to natural seedling thresholds that we have measured
after previous prescribed fire, and I'll describe that in a future slide.
And finally, those areas will also be examined
through a climate change vulnerability lens to make sure that they, to the best
of our ability, appear to be suitable habitat for these forests in the future.
Action would not occur in areas with living mature
sequoias sufficient that are distributed in a sufficient manner
to provide future opportunities for regeneration or areas
where the broad survey indicates that the average is over.
The mean and median over these areas are sufficient for a sustainable forest.
And again, I'm going to speak briefly about that later.
The decision tree is shown on the right in the slide.
It's very tiny, but it is in the EIA.
And so I encourage you to look at it in the EIA and learn more about it.
There.
I just want to
emphasize that action would only be taken in areas
where the decision tree says it is necessary and that decision Tree
uses field data to evaluate sequoia mortality
and seedling regeneration.
Next slide, please.
These are data driven decisions,
and in both of the action alternatives, this decision tree is used.
The intent of the decision tree is to one limit intervention
within wilderness to only those places where it is necessary,
as determined by scientifically sound data collected in the field,
and to to minimize other impacts
associated with replanting
the decision tree and the EIA at large lay out
a data driven decision making approach to intervention.
And I think you will find that the literature review and the data
provided in the EIA and the supplementary material is extensive and relies
on the decades of Sequoia research done here and elsewhere within California.
The EIA
analyzes the impacts of the full potential for intervention
should the decision tree result in a need to intervene.
No decision is made in the EIA
as to whether intervention is needed at any of the proposed seven sites,
although field data collected so far is provided
to give context and additional information
for the public and interested reviewers.
And again, the tiny version of the Decision Tree is shown on this slide.
To illustrate.
Next slide please.
I want to give a little bit of background quickly
about this idea of natural seedling thresholds,
which is covered in the EIA and why we are using this
and how it lines up with the data that we have collected.
As I mentioned, we surveyed broad areas
that satellite imagery indicated were at risk for regeneration failure
and these
areas have been sampled or are being sampled
and mean and median seedling densities are being calculated.
The seedling densities from these surveys were or
will be compared to reference densities from previous prescribed fires.
So what are these reference densities and why are we using them
In the next couple of slides?
I'm going to go back a little bit in Sequoia Ecology
to explain how many seeds and seedlings giant sequoias produce,
but as has our superintendent mentioned, how few of them live to be large trees,
which are a critical life stage for these forests.
So when we became concerned about
what might have happened in these areas,
we started designing approaches
to measure the seedlings in the field with partners.
But we knew we needed something to compare these seedlings to.
But this what we observing now has never happened before.
We've never had huge areas of high severity fire.
So the best reference data that we could find
comes from an analysis done by York at all in 2013.
And that analysis looked at sequoia groves
with and without prescribed fire.
And what that analysis found was the areas where prescribed fire had occurred,
the distribution of seedlings, midsize trees and large trees
was distributed in such a way that you had a sustainable forest,
that you had enough seedlings to live through all the challenges
of being a sequoia drought, trampling tree falling, repeated
fire to result in the monarch forest that we see today.
Areas that did
not have prescribed fire did not show such a pattern.
And we call that pattern a sustainable, a stationary age distribution.
And it's just a nerdy way to say that the forest was sustainable.
So this York et al analysis identified that these areas with prescribed fire
had a sustainable distribution of seedlings to produce
large trees in the future.
But we have then had to go back
and look at all of the prescribed fire data that we could find
to find out what those seedling densities actually were
so that we could compare our measured densities to those.
And this is not the perfect dataset,
but it's quite good and there's a lot more detail in it.
But it spans 42 plots and transects, eight different sequoia groves,
26 different fires and 16 separate fire years spanning a 48 year period.
So it's a very extensive record.
As I mentioned, it does not perfectly match
the conditions that we're having that we have in the field now, but we feel
it is a good reference and there's a lot of description of this
in the supplementary material and the two documents.
Stephenson At all 2023 and Soderberg at all
2023 that are in the Pepsi Extra material.
Next slide please.
So just I wanted to give a little bit more detail
about why we are still concerned, even though when we go into the field
and count seedlings, which I will show you in the next
one of the next two slides, we do find seedlings, which is great.
I'm so happy that the genetic material in the trees
that were killed is still present in these seedlings.
But just to provide a little background,
large sequoias are the most important life stage of a sequoia forest.
They live through fires, they constantly produce cones,
and those cones provide many opportunities to regenerate.
And I put in here, which will probably annoy people,
but it's sort of equivalent to sea turtles where we were spending all this time
trying to preserve eggs and the baby turtles
and those things get eaten like nobody's business.
And it's the big, mature turtles that are the future of that population.
So sequoias, they make a lot of seed, but every individual seed is very tiny.
And you can see that in this photo, lower right where you have a coin
and a handful of seeds.
The seeds don't have a lot of resources to succeed,
and the vast majority of sequoia seedlings only occur after fire.
In the past, small high security patches had the highest number of sequoia
seedlings and slightly higher survivorship than low or moderate severity.
Fire areas without fire.
Sequoia forests declined, as we talked about in the previous slide
Sequoias.
If the large trees live, which they have in the past through fires, the vast
majority have many opportunities to create the next generation of old trees.
Every time there's a fire, they rain their seeds down.
Make some of those seeds, never germinate.
A lot do germinate, but very many die because they land
in the wrong place and the seeds are tiny or they get trampled.
They dry up.
Seeds that fall on verifiable
soil in openings have the highest chance of surviving.
These conditions rapidly disappear after a fire and may.
Okay.
Just want to point out that there's many opportunities to die
between birth and a thousand years old.
And I'm going to give a little bit more detail on that in the next slide.
So to put a little math to this,
because that is my happy place as a nerd,
on the right side, you will see
blue boxes and those boxes are proportional
to the number of seeds, seedlings and mature sequoias at each stage.
These data come from PRV at all 1980 and National Park
Service Fire Monitoring Handbook Plot data after prescribed fires.
What we see in the upper portion is that post-fire
sequoia seed rain can be as high as 8 million seeds per acre.
Many of these do not germinate
and some died before were being measured.
The year.
One mean seedling account per acre is 62,000
055 seedlings per acre.
Then we have first year mortality in the summer and over the winter,
resulting in a year to seedling density,
a mean of 14,112 seedlings per acre.
Then we have mortality years two through five,
which results in year five at 3481 seedlings per acre.
Then we have a lot of mortality from year
five to becoming 1000 to 3000 year old tree.
And eventually we end up with 2.61 large sequoias
per acre.
So to summarize, a lot of seed does not germinate.
Of those that do a lot dies in the first
and second year from drought stress and other factors.
Even with germination, the second year after fire, the total number of seedlings
per acre typically declines
from year one to year to and year to two, year five.
And this process of elimination of seeds,
seeds, seedlings and saplings gets repeated
every 6 to 35 years following fire over millennia
to sustain an average of 2.61 large sequoias per acre.
Another way of saying this often
is that often this process does not result in the production
of any large sequoias after a single fire.
And that's why the loss of so many large sequoias from such
large areas is concerning.
Next slide, please.
So I just want to present
some of the data that is in the EIA and also give a glimpse
of preliminary data since there has been some concern
about germination this year.
So what we have in this table is that Groves, the timing of the survey,
the number of plots sampled and the median sequoia seedlings per acre,
which then I'm comparing to the reference density, this is the median in year two,
which is 16,011 sequoia seedlings per acre.
So in the far column you find the probability of the mean
that we measured being equivalent to what we're seeing as the threshold needed
to establish a viable population
and to recover the areas that were burned.
So in poor camp it was sampled in April of 2022,
which is the second year after fire 20 plots were sampled,
the median sequoia seedlings per acre was 651, and this is
less than 0.1% chance of being equal to the year
two median of 16,011.
Suwannee Grove We sampled twice
one year Post-Fire in October 2022
and again in July 2023, 30 plots were sampled
and what we found is that in October of 2022, after one year after,
but after a full summer of mortality, we found 4763.
That was the median sequoia seedlings per acre.
If you compare that to the year to value, it's 2.4%
likely to meet that value we sampled in July 2023.
And even with new germination
from 2023, the number was smaller.
So the mortality of last year was not outpaced by the birth.
So 3155 1.1%
chance of meeting that target value.
New Oriole Lake We have also sampled twice
one year Post-Fire but after the summer we got 20 plots, 6000.
Oh, now we've only sample at once. Sorry, my apologies.
6875 11.2%
chance of meeting the target or the threshold.
Redwood Mountain.
We have sampled twice September 2022 and June July 2023.
In last year, at the end of the season, we found
4266 seedlings per acre, which is a 1.1% chance
that that mean is actually as high as the target.
16,011 When we sampled again in June
July 20, 23, 3863.
So a smaller number, even with a significant germination
of new seedlings this year and now a 0.5%
chance of meeting the target threshold,
Dylan Wood and Homer's nose are being sampled right now.
The fissure corridor has been sampled
in 2022 and
2023, but we're using post script
values, a different set of analysis.
The thing other thing I wanted to mention two things on this slide before
you're almost done with the sciency part, so hang in there.
The asterisk.
Those are data that we just collected, so they have not been.
Q quality assessed and quality control.
So we consider those values preliminary.
The rest of the information has been peer reviewed.
It's available online, both the data and the description.
The other thing I want to mention is that there's concern
that since we sampled in June
and July that we're missing germination that is continuing.
We acknowledge that there may be a continuing germination
in some of these groves that burned in the canopy complex.
But previous data collected collected by Hertzfeld showed that
in those months July, August, September, the new germination was outstripped
by decline and the numbers continue to decline.
And that is certainly what we are already seeing
in terms of the numbers this year being less than they were last year.
The other thing I would point out is that this current
number, 3863,
is quite a bit less than 16,000.
So if you're trying to make up the gap between 3016 thousand,
our understanding is that germination and survivorship
conditions in these groves is continuing to decline.
As litter continues to fall, the temperature gets hotter and drier
and the seed sources have been lost in many areas.
So we have no expectation that this number will increase
or that it has a likelihood to increase to make up the 13
well, 12,000 seedlings per acre difference.
Next slide, please.
Just to
continue with what we're thinking about, if we move forward
with the decision, which we will talk about in the end,
implementation if necessary,
Sequoia Seed Collection and germination would continue.
Some of this has already begun in order to prepare and has been evaluated.
Sequoia Seed under alternative to would include 20%
of genetic material from outside the local genetic neighborhood.
All seed would be from the local genetic neighborhood.
Only an alternative three.
If you're wondering why 20%.
You can find a discussion and supporting analysis in the EIA
that indicates that a 20% supplementation
will not overwhelm any local adaptation,
but instead will provide an opportunity to adapt to changing future conditions
while maintaining local genetic structure and adaptation.
Seedlings would be planted using hand tools,
and in the photo on the right you can see some sequoia seedlings being grown
and examples of two of the hand tools that would be used.
Stock and
helicopter support would be used to transport seedlings and gear,
stock and human carrying of our stuff is the preferred alternative.
Helicopter support would only be used where
there are barriers to stock
or foot travel that prevent safe access.
Then the NPS would further
define our mirror and utilize helicopters.
Finally, an initial planting
would occur, would occur over the next two years
with additional supplemental plantings could occur over the next five years.
Up to 1 to 2 supplemental plantings per planting area,
depending on survivorship, which we expect to be high.
But nature is complicated, so it's good to have a backup plan.
The NPS would monitor the sites
over a period of 30 to 40 years.
Next slide, please.
Just to give a little bit more detail
for if
in areas where the decision tree indicated that intervention was necessary,
which again involves reviewing mortality and seedling
densities, a planting plan would be developed.
The planting plan would include buffering around any living sequoias
that are present within those broad survey areas.
And 95% of all seed falls
within the 50 meters of a parent tree.
Some areas with adequate natural regeneration will not be planted
even within those broad areas that we have surveyed.
And planting would follow an individual plumps
and openings concepts which where we model
the planting after distribution of trees in mature forest.
So following looking for microsites,
it's not a plantation planting.
We would plant denser and favorable microsites, creating clumps
like you see naturally and less dense along areas that we expect to be drier
and more stressful, such as ridges set steep south and west,
facing slopes where scattered individuals would replanting.
And we would leave occasional gaps for habitat
heterogeneity and to help with fire behavior.
And the idea is to plant densely enough
to shade shrubs and break up continuous fuels.
And I think I'm handing it up to Teresa.
But show me the next slide so I can tell whether I have any more material.
Oh, thank goodness.
I am now handing it off to Teresa Fiorina, who is one of the park's
environmental protection specialists.
Hi. Thank you, Christine.
So in the next few slides, I'm
going to run through some of the resource considerations analyzed in the EIA.
So we're going to get back to the EIA itself rather than the data behind it.
Starting with those that the NPS considered but dismissed.
So the NPS consider about this most resource issues listed on this slide,
which include cultural resources, environmental justice,
Indian trust resources, invasive species and soil pathogens,
soils and soil erosion, wildlife disturbance
and general
wildlife habitat, including the California
spotted owl and understory vegetation.
So to be clear, dismissing the resource issue did not mean
that there are no impacts or that the resource isn't important to the NPS.
Rather, resource issues are typically dismissed
when the environmental impacts associated with the issue
are not central to the proposal or of critical importance to the proposal.
A detailed analysis of the environmental impacts related to the issue
is not necessary to make a reasoned choice between the alternatives.
The environmental impacts associated with the issue is not
are not a big point of contention among the public or other agencies,
or there are no potentially significant impacts to the resource
associated with the issue.
So for these these resources listed here, while we invested some conduct,
some analysis of the facts and developed mitigations for them
for one or more of the reasons that I just stated, the issues were dismissed
from detailed analysis under the three alternatives presented.
I will note here that because planting would not, would not occur,
would only occur if determined necessary under the decision tree.
Any impacts or effects identified
for any of these resources may be reduced from what is described in the EIA
and the photo on the
slide shows a close up of a group of sequoia trunks.
So while the NPS dismissed the previous resources
from full analysis of the effects, the EIA does conduct
full analysis for impacts of each of the alternatives on
Sequoia Grove Recovery and Resilience, fissure habitat connectivity
and wilderness.
So the opposite
of what we saw with impacts or issues that we considered but dismissed
the NPS conducted in detail analysis of these resources because
the environmental impacts associated with the issue are central to the proposal.
Or of critical importance,
A detailed analysis of environmental impacts related to the issue
is necessary to make a reasoned choice between the alternatives
or the environmental impacts associated with the issue.
Our big point of contention among the public or other agencies.
So for one or more of these reasons, these three topics
were selected for detailed analysis in the EIA.
Again, the effects determinations made in the EIA were for the full area
where NPS would implement the decision tree model.
So effects of on resources listed here may be less than what is described in the.
I will note that in the EIA the NPS primarily identified beneficial impacts,
though some
short term negative impacts were also identified
and that you can find further detail of that in the EIA.
And one of the photos
in this slide shows a picture of a fissure in Yosemite National Park
and the other shows regenerating Sequoia seedlings.
So the NPS completed the environmental assessment
in conformance with the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, of course.
However As outlined here, the NPS also conducts
additional analysis and consultations in conformance with other federal resource
protection laws, including the Wilderness Act.
Over 1100
acres of high severity fire where replanting is proposed
is within designated or recommended wilderness, which, as I mentioned
in the previous slide was an issue we analyzed in detail
in the year.
The NPS therefore applied when you were developing this
this concept, we applied the minimum requirement
concept during the initial phases of consideration
as the impacts
from the fires indicated that some action may be necessary in wilderness.
The NPS further completed an analysis using NPS guidelines for evaluating
ecological intervention proposals in National Park Service Wilderness.
The NPS also fully developed a minimum requirement analysis in accordance
with NPS policy for administrative actions proposed in wilderness
and the MRA preliminarily determined that administrative action was necessary
and evaluated multiple alternatives
as well as considered but dismissed several alternatives.
So any alternatives that we considered but dismissed
the MRA were not further considered in the EIA
and all of the wilderness documentation that the NPS developed
throughout this process was used to inform the environmentalists.
So in addition to the Wilderness Act,
the NPS has also initiated Section seven consultation with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service in accordance with the Endangered Species Act,
primarily due to the
beneficial effects that the project would have on Fisher.
The NPS has also initiated consultation with the tribes.
Section 106 Consultation would be completed on each site
Planting plan
should the NPS make a decision to approve the framework outlined in the EIA
and that that reason or the reason behind that is because the EIA again
simply provides a framework for future action
and is not considered a federal undertaking.
Again, in the photo in the slide is decorative in nature
and shows a staff person walking in a Sequoia grove Post-Fire
and with that I am going to hand it off to Ellie
Berkey, our Chief of Environmental Planning and Compliance.
Hi, good evening.
As Terry mentioned, I am.
My name is Ellie Burkey and I'm the branch chief of Environmental
Planning and Compliance here at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
The figure on this slide shows the schedule of the public planning process.
And as you can see, we completed public scoping for this effort
in spring 2022 and again in spring 2023,
after which time we analyzed and considered public feedback
began developing alternatives and prepared the environmental assessment.
And we are now in the midst of a 30 day public review period, during
which time we are again accepting public comments
during and
following this public review period of the environmental assessment.
We will again review and consider public comments
and determine the next steps of this planning process.
Typically, following an environmental assessment,
an agency could decide to select an alternative for implementation,
which could be a selection of a no action alternative,
a selection of one of the alternatives described in the EIA
or even a modification of those alternatives.
Or the agency could decide that additional analysis is needed.
A decision on next steps are determined in large part
by the public feedback we receive,
which I'll speak to a little bit in just a moment
and will only be determined after public review of the EIA.
Also, as Theresa mentioned previously, we're working through additional analysis
and consultations in accordance with other federal resource protection
laws during this time.
Next slide, please.
So on that note, the full environmental assessment
is available on a project website which is listed on your screen at HTP.
US call in forward slash forward slash
park planning period and peace period.
Job forward slash reestablish Giant
Sequoia Post-Fire 2021.
We'll be accepting public comments during this public review period
through midnight August 6th at both Rebecca and Clay mentioned previously.
And during this time, we encourage you to submit comments via the project website.
There's a green comment Now button on that website
that you can click on, submit your comments pretty easily there,
or you can email us at the address listed on your screen,
which is the superintendent, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Attention Reestablish Giant Sequoia
at 47050 Generals Highway
three Rivers, California 93271.
So during
this time feedback that supports or opposes the proposal
or disagrees with laws, regulation or policy helps us gauge public,
but it doesn't necessarily help us in our decision making process.
Rather, we would love to hear substantive comments from you
that helps us better understand our decision at hand.
Such substantive feedback includes things like address that question.
Is the information provided in the EIA accurate?
Does The EIA present the full range of reasonable alternatives.
How we considered technical information necessary to complete the impact
analysis is our impact analysis adequate?
And are the project and our the project mitigation sufficient?
So for example, earlier today, Kristie, earlier this evening, Kristie outlined
a pretty extensive detail about our thresholds
for determining whether or not we believe action is necessary.
If you have suggestions about when you think that threshold or
when you think that sequoia densities are sufficient and we do not need
to take action information, but provides a technical analysis of why
those densities may be more sufficient or things that we should
consider differently would be wonderful to hear during this time.
And the image on this
slide shows the public home page in Pepsi.
Next slide, please.
So on this slide, we have a decorative image of Sequoia Seedlings.
And here I'd like to make one final note before
opening up the meeting for your questions and answers.
And that note is related to urgency and timing for any action.
As you may have noticed on our project timelines,
it has taken us some time and diligence in thinking through the proposed action.
But no, excuse me, seeking your feedback, developing an environmental assessment,
and most importantly, understanding the science behind Sequoia Regeneration
and obtaining survey data to better understand how the reality
in the field aligns or doesn't align with Sequoia regeneration elsewhere.
Well, this process and time has been incredibly valuable.
We as an agency feel some urgency in taking action,
and if the decision is if the decision tree points us in that direction
specifically, as time goes on, the farther we are
from the natural regeneration window and the more likely
we would need to take intensive action such as removal of shrubs
to enable restoration if regeneration truly is not adequate.
Furthermore, the fire return interval for sequoia groves
in the Sierra Nevada is between six and 35 years.
So again, the more time that goes
on, the higher chance that fire will return to these areas.
We believe that seedlings need that time to grow to sufficient height and size
to potentially survive those future fires and evolve into the future.
For this reason, we're hoping to make a decision
considering next steps on this EIA this fall.
And if and if an action alternative is selected for action
potentially plant as early as this fall as well.
And with that, I would like to turn it over
to Rebecca Patterson to take your questions.
Hey, thank you so much, Ellen.
This question slide that's up on your screen
right now is an image of a Sequoia grove in the snow,
just a decorative image to accompany our Q&A section.
I just want to remind everybody, go to the Q&A section
to find the link to the the Pepsi site for this project.
All of the documents that we're talking about can all be found there.
The recordings are going to be found there.
Ellie, actually read the whole URL to you, which I thought was great.
But, you know, you can you can find that link there,
which is probably an easier way for you to access it.
So I'm going to answer these questions in the order that they came in.
Hopefully, maybe they've been answered a little bit
by some of the presentation already.
But the first question came in from an anonymous asker.
What is your response to recent observations by independent
forest scientists that natural regeneration
is occurring in undisturbed post-fire sequoia groves?
And I think Dr. Berger maybe is going to answer that one.
Yes. Thank you, Rebecca, and thank you for the question.
And we welcome in dependent
for scientists to collect data and are interested to compare
methodologies and results and learn
from anyone who has relevant data.
We agree that there is some natural regeneration, and that's really good news.
That is genetic material and sequoia
material that is very helpful to recovery.
And we are hopeful that some of those seedlings will reach maturity.
However, given the data collected from past prescribed fires
and compared to current field surveys, the analysis that I mentioned in York L
and the means and medians produced by Stephenson at all
showing sustainable stand structure following prescribed fire
and the mortality of large areas of reproductive giant sequoias.
We do not feel the current reproduction is
adequate across most areas.
Additionally, we feel that the conditions for more successful
germination and regeneration are rapidly declining based on previous studies
and previous surveys Also indicate that numbers decline
through the
season in year two and from year to year five.
Additionally, these seedlings that are occurring now
may be negatively impacted by earlier snowmelt and associated drought
found in large high severity areas
and climate change in a way that our reference densities were not.
If any of you have input on what threshold
we should rely on to determine when action is necessary,
please comment with those numbers and the rationale and supporting
modeling to indicate how those numbers will result
in large reproductive sequoias
hundreds of years from now at the densities we are targeting.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you very much, Kristi.
We're going to move on to the next section.
The next question.
And I think perhaps Superintendent Jordan can take this one.
I'm just going to read it exactly as written.
Why is the closure order in place?
What are you hiding?
Okay.
Thanks, Rebecca, for that question. And
the so
what the respondent is is asking about
is the area of
in the six groves that we're looking at,
one is the Redwood Mountain groves,
and that is the of the six groves.
The Redwood Mountain grove is is the one
that is the most accessible to the Franklin tree.
And back in the camp fire,
that area got hit real hard,
obviously, where we're talking about an area of high severity.
So the road down to the to the to the trailhead.
I had a lot of hazard trees.
And since that time,
even with the atmospheric rivers, the road has totally washed out.
There is not any vehicle access to the trailhead.
And then within the burn area, within the grove, we experienced
really extreme unsafe conditions with large areas of the hazard trees,
the route finding for the trails that go in.
There had been almost a bloody
obliterated in some areas.
And so you did for the
for most visitors,
they would have trouble navigating their way around and to find that trail,
the trails are washed out.
So the bottom line is there are just a lot of hazards
within the fire area causing us to close that area.
The trails, specifically, it was the road and the trails
that that were closed
that people use normally for safe access.
And we've been reassessing the safety
since that time.
And the atmospheric river rivers that we experienced this last winter
with the flooding has has just made the conditions worse.
And so for that reason, we have
had set up these escorted sign up
trips to be able to go in into area.
However, I do understand that there are folks that would like
to have better access to the Grove
and to be able to independently explore.
I think those are reasonable request.
The staff and I discussed that today
and we we discussed whether the situation is such
that we can just remove the public closure altogether.
And we we came to the conclusion pretty quickly
that it would be really irresponsible
for us to to do so because of the rate
that that trees continue to fall
and the condition of the trails.
And we don't want people get lost and that sort of thing.
However, I think that
I do believe that people should be able to manage risks
and for informed people and also understand that there are
a number of people who are able to go in more rugged conditions.
They know how to navigate, cross across country,
and they're willing to accept hazards
in order to go see an area.
And and we think we can mitigate that risk somewhat
by communicating what the risks are.
To point out where you can safely park a vehicle
and be able to access into the Grove area on foot.
So we are setting up
over as early as tomorrow
the means to be able to just ride us and to
request authorization.
And we will send back an informational sheet that will describe the hazards
so that people can make an informed decision where to to park, to
be able to access in from outside
the area and also be able to communicate
some some guidance as to not to cause
resource damage like trampling of the seedlings that are
trying to regenerate in the area.
But I think by means of of of being able
to communicate this back to interested parties,
then people can can assess that risk
and their comfort in that that environment
and can and with the guidance that we give,
try to ensure that that their the damage does not occur.
And so if you're interested in, in doing that, you can
write us at
s c k I
underscore public
underscore affairs at and P.
S dot gov.
And we will also broadcast that in the in the chat.
Now, I understand that
that if you do not feel comfortable
going in on your own, we still have another
escorted site visit this this Friday
that we encourage you to to join and
and you'll be able to go in the company of
of of a staff and to be able to visit it that way.
And if you're interested in doing that, use
that same address to reach out to us.
Space is limited and
and so we will reach out to you and provide that information.
If it is the authorization to go in on your own, that is fine.
And we will.
And you
can go when, when you want, you can stay.
I go wherever you want.
You can stay as long as you want, and for whatever purpose
that that is not obviously damaging to the resource or anything of that sort.
But but we think that would that allowing people
to make decisions and
and to manage your own risk and and different comfort zones is fine.
I just really want to encourage if this is you
to really watch for it's going to be impossible
to avoid hazard trees and things coming down
and we have had staff report just in an hour
on the last visit them coming down
and then and then apparently several others on
and another day when we were in there looking at data.
So it is an active tree fault area.
I cannot pretend that it is not hazardous.
That's why it's going to remain closed to the to the general public
until it's responsible for us to remove that.
But we will accommodate any request
by any individual that that wishes to,
too, with the
understanding of of those conditions
that is
that is interested in and going, you know, wherever you are.
And the other five groves
are remote.
Some of them are in similar conditions, but they are so far into the backcountry.
We don't have the average visitors going into those sites.
So we we didn't go to the length of physically, you
closing those those sections of trail to the to the public.
So so basically all all six were very as well
be accessible through this
this means available all right.
With that, I'll hand it back over to you, Rebecca.
Thanks.
Okay, terrific.
Thank you, Clay.
And again, the email address to RSVP to come out with us on Friday
is in the Q&A section, if you want to find it. There.
The next question that we have coming in, I think that Dr.
Brigham already spoke to this summit in her presentation.
But, Kristi, if you're willing, I'll send this one to you.
The question is, whose data is being used to justify this reckless project?
Has any timber industry, money, finance to any of this data?
Great.
Rebecca, thanks for the question.
I would say first that a lot of the data and understanding of Sequoia
ecology is based on 50 years of research
in these groves and elsewhere.
A lot of the early research, the seminal research
was done by UC Berkeley and San Jose State University
actually in this grove in the Whitaker's forest portion
and in the our portion by San Jose State University.
The data that on current conditions has been collected
by a combination of National Park Service staff, USGS
staff, US Forest Service staff and UC Berkeley
data collection is based on a stratified random sampling design,
and you can find the details of that in Soderberg at all 2023,
which is posted on Pepsi and is described in the EIA.
These data are compared to current to the current conditions
as compared to years of data from the National Park Service
Fire Monitoring Handbook, Prescribed fire data collection.
No timber industry funding has been involved
in any part of this project development or data collection.
If if the commenter would like to make
give us more specific information and Pepsi about their concern,
that might help me allay those concerns even more.
I'm a forest ecologist.
I don't come from a timber background, so I can't even imagine
why the timber industry would be interested in this project.
This is in wilderness.
This will not be a tree plantation.
There are no plans to cut any living trees or do any salvage logging.
There's no plans to remove any material.
So but if you want to comment in Pepsi, we would
I would help me if you could give a little more detail in Pepsi
and maybe I could help address some of those concerns.
Additionally, I would say we would also be interested
to hear in a comment in Pepsi during the comment period
why you feel the project is reckless, as our analysis did not find
significant negative impacts from the proposed action alternatives.
And so I would we really, if we missing something, some potential
negative ecological outcomes or other significant impacts
from the action alternatives, please do point that out during the comment period.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you very much, Dr. Brigham.
The next comment that came in as a nice comment
from Joanna Nelson that we can publish,
go ahead and publish the Q&A, but no response required.
Thank you, Joanna.
All right.
And just give us a moment here to
to catch up on some of these questions that have come in.
I realize that we are a bit over time, so I'm not sure that we are going
to be able to answer all of these questions tonight.
There's a few more that have come in.
I can go on those last two.
Rebecca, with a with a quick answer if you want to if you want to read them
out. Okay.
So there's a question about Redwood Canyon.
It says, In Redwood Canyon, during the early 1970s,
a hot prescribed fire resulted
in sea drop and a virtual lawn of seedlings.
The next year later, those grew up.
Were they still there before the camp fire?
What happened to any of those during the camp fire?
That's a great question.
And I'm going to give you a little bit of a crummy answer.
So I suggest we would appreciate seeing that in a comment in Pepsi.
I'm not.
I think you might be referring to what we called the Garden Grove.
But I'm not sure because those seedlings came up
as the result of a 1984.
I think I'm pretty sure it was a wildfire
that burned hot in that area because of excessive flash.
And if that is the area it was, it's on the Sugar Bowl loop
when it's coming down towards the valley bottom.
Those trees, unfortunately, were killed during the camp.
High severity.
So the fire burned with such vigor in that area.
And those trees were quite dense.
And even though they were 30 to 40 years old and they were not able
to withstand the fire effects that we observed in that area.
But if that's not the right place and that's not the right fire,
please do submit it in a Pepsi comment and I can track it down for you.
Okay.
Thank you.
And Kristi, if you want to just keep rolling.
The next question that we have that that came and said,
does the Fisher Habitat Corridor
entail additional considerations?
Okay.
Great question.
I'm not 100% clear on
what additional considerations you're thinking of.
We did use postscript modeling
as opposed to a different analysis to identify sea shadows
and areas at risk that were field sampled and.
Then those densities were compared to the postscript model and other information.
So it's a little different.
And there was
an analysis of Fisher habitat and connectivity
that actually identified from a wildlife perspective and a landscape pattern
and process perspective, that that was an area that was of concern.
So there were additional considerations for the Fisher Habitat Corridor
that went into identifying that area as potential
of being of high importance for Fisher Connectivity.
And then the additional techniques were used because that area
is dominated by mixed conifer and not giant sequoias.
So I hope that that answers your question.
If it doesn't.
I apologize,
but please do submit a written comment and perhaps so we can track down.
If you give me more specifics about your concerns.
Okay.
And we are over time, folks, but we are going to continue
to answer questions for a little while longer.
If you are all willing to stay here with us,
I'll take that next one to Rebecca.
If you want to read it out.
I think it would be good to clarify.
Sure. Absolutely.
So the question is, have tree rings been counted, burn trees
less than eight feet h after the camp fire?
Could that possibly reveal more regeneration
of giant sequoias after prehistoric severe fires
at some point in time?
Okay, that's great.
I am. I'll take it.
There's like three above that.
Just so you know,
the next one is something about helicopter landings.
But that one, there is a lot of fire history work that's been done.
And it's really interesting.
And it did inform our analysis.
And a lot of it has actually been done by Tony
Caprio at Sequoia and Kings National Parks.
And and Nate Stephenson has also done an extensive tree ring analysis.
And both of them were heavily involved in this project and advising on
the project.
Those fire history and tree ring data
actually show that the last time that something like
maybe a dozen sequoias were killed by high severity fire
and was 1297, I hope I got that date right.
But that's approximately right.
And it was during another dry period, and it was a very small number
of trees, 10 to 12 monarchs.
So those data have been examined.
We have also mapped millennial sequoias, and neither of those sets of data
indicate that anything like this has ever happened before.
Thank you.
All right, Kristie, I'm going to
just have you keep on rolling with the question
that you were talking about in the first place.
It says. This is from Tom.
Thank you for your increased commitment to transparency and public access.
Are helicopter pads and explosives really necessary to do reseeding,
considering that is prime habitat for Fisher and other sensitive species?
Will the pads be removed after the receding?
Okay.
Great question.
And I wanted to clarify and maybe we all have
a different mental picture of what a helicopter landing pad is.
There won't be any.
Or helicopter pad is there won't be any helicopter landings.
And what we're talking about are sling load sites.
They don't require development.
They are not perceivable as a landing area.
So they're not they're not out with sand.
They're not paved. They're not.
And we're very specifically trying to in places
where we might need to use a helicopter, find the sling
load site that actually requires no effort.
In some cases, the dead tree density is so high
that there is not a safe place to sling, which is lower a tarp
that's attached to the helicopter and unload it and then fly away
without cutting a handful of dead trees, trees that are already dead.
The explosives are one of the ways to fall
hazard trees if they are technically difficult
and could pose a safety risk to tree falls. But
I don't.
And maybe Theresa can hop on.
But I didn't think. I don't.
And I'm not imagining that we are going
to be using explosives in this project.
So the only way that that would be
an issue is if there was some hazard tree that absolutely a dead tree.
That's what I mean by has a tree that absolutely had to be removed
for doing the sling loading that could not be safely cut down.
And I think that is a very small likelihood.
And Theresa, do you have any
I'm not going to jump on the camera too long.
It's just it's a safety
recognition of the safety hazards with the tree.
And a tree feller would make a determination as to
whether or not felling with explosives would be safer than falling with
a chainsaw.
And in some cases, it may be if the hazard
cannot be safely removed
with a chainsaw.
I will note also that
explosives are not
prohibited in wilderness,
and we have analyzed the impacts of both
tools in case one
or the other needs to be selected for safety reasons.
Great. Thank you.
And for the Fisher piece, I agree we are incredibly sensitive to impacts to Fisher
because they have been so stressed and impacted by all these fires.
So the one thing I will note is that because of the high severity fire,
these areas are of much lower quality to Fisher and other sensitive species.
And this is a major reason for the Fisher Habitat Corridor project.
But even with that, our wildlife
biologist who has is a fisher expert is helping us in the timing
and execution of any of these actions to minimize the impact to Fisher.
And we are consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service on those
and on the way to make this beneficial for Fisher and reduce negative impacts.
Great.
Thank you, Kristy.
We have one more question here that I see that has come in
and, Christi, I think this one is also for you.
It says, will you try to identify wet and dry spots before any initial planting
so that the likelihood of seedling survival is greater?
Right.
Yes. Part of the planting plan considers
micro topography, soil seeps and proximity to waterways
that could support high survival and would be a good candidate area for clumps.
The other comment I will make, though, is that
there's a lot of
changing things with sequoias
and the beetle killed sequoias that we have our in what areas.
So it is important to plant both wet and dry areas
so that we have that variability
in space for nature to act on.
And to increase the likelihood that no matter
what happens in the future, some of our sequoias will survive.
So yes,
we will be identifying wet and dry spots and adjusting our planting accordingly.
All right.
And Christy, while you were answering that question,
we did have another question came in this one.
I think that perhaps Ellie Burkey can take.
It says, Can you comment on the following mentioned in the EIA
explosives being used to remove snags which are valuable habitat?
Right. Question mark.
Helicopters stressing wildlife
with noise, human intrusion, workers
camping in the forest for one week or at a time.
And lastly, what follow up would there be to maintain
any seedlings planted this way?
I really appreciate the question.
As the commenter probably noticed,
we did talk through the EIA does evaluate those impacts
from explosives, from potential snag removal.
Again, Christi's point is we're trying to minimize that to the extent possible.
The impacts from helicopters and from human intrusion.
So those are all laid out in
both Chapter one as we talk about some of the issues that we considered
but dismissed as well as within Chapter three, specific
to some of those issues, such as for sure.
But I don't know exactly what the commenter
wants on my comment at this point in time,
but if you have specific feedback or feel that our impact
analysis is actually missing information
or not fully
assessing portions of that action,
but it does look at all of those impacts and discloses those.
And then in terms of the follow up to maintain any seedlings
planted in this way.
Christy, I'm going to let you interrupt me, but I'll take a quick stab at this.
And that is that the action alternatives both laying out
some as we as we would
plant, we may create a little.
I don't know what exactly called it in the EIA
and that's in my terminology here but a little mound
to try to collect any kind of moisture that would flow toward the seedling
to try to keep moisture there on site.
And then we would complete monitoring, post planting.
And so if there are things that you would like to think that
we are missing in that proposal, please, again, that's a great thing to comment on
during this public review process, but it's a really a hands off
approach
in terms of just trying to give the seedlings
just a little bit of and then really just monitor and consider
1 to 2 supplemental plantings post the initial.
And Christy, did you want to say anything else on that?
Is that something I'm is there something I'm missing there?
No. I thought you did a great job.
And Christy,
I see that you needed to go back on on the question about tree rings.
I did.
Sorry.
It's been a tiny bit chaotic
here at the end with a lot of questions coming at the last minute and looking.
I see that the question specifically asked about looking
at tree rings in trees after the canopy.
That has not been done.
The trees that survived.
But as I mentioned, lots of tree rings.
Studies have been done in giant sequoias that have addressed this issue.
And some of them might even have been in Redwood Mountain Groves.
I don't I can't speak to that specifically.
So I just wanted to clarify that we have not cored
trees in sequoias in the canopy.
All right.
We don't have any new questions in our Q&A.
We're now at 621.
So we're we're we're 21 minutes past.
What about what we had had told you to to set aside for this? But
it looks like pretty much the whole group stayed with us the whole time.
So I really appreciate everybody, everybody joining us for this tonight.
Some great questions.
Again, that link to the site
on Pepsi, where you can find the environmental assessment.
You can submit your comments, You can find all
of our updates, information about getting in touch with us.
It's all there at that link.
So before we wrap up for the night, Superintendent Gordon,
is there any closing comments you'd like to make?
No, I think
just to say again, thank you for joining us
and we do appreciate hearing from
and appreciate the the
constructive and healthy
dialog on these issues.
And we're going to continue
to make decisions that is based on
and mainstream science and
and act accordingly.
But again, please take the time to read through the EPA and to
post your your your comments.
And again, thanks for joining us this evening.
Thank you, everybody.
Have a wonderful evening.