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What Can We Do With 102 Million Dead Trees?

The U.S. Forest Service has been conducting aerial surveys and is now telling us that more than 102 million trees have died in California’s forests since 2010. They are also saying that more than half of those trees (62 million) have died this year alone. Here’s the big question; what are we going to do with all of these dead trees?

Our officials tell us that they don’t have the resources to deal with 102 million dead trees. So, they are going to have to concentrate on what they call “high-hazard areas”. In other words, the removal of dead trees which are located close to power lines, roads and areas where people play, will be the first priority. Other concerns, such as the dead trees being a major fire threat, will have to be put on hold. 980x

Cutting down these trees is easy, but getting rid of them is hard to do. They would like to have the mills purchase the dead trees and turn them into lumber. Unfortunately, the mills aren’t buying dead lumber from California.

Another option would be to take the trees to a facility were the dead timber gets turned into biomass to produce renewable energy. The bad news is that most of these wood wood-processing facilities are far away and the transportation costs are too high.

The last option would be to have the crews burn them, but that creates air-quality issues for the forests.

As you can see, there are no easy answers. More than 423,000 dead trees were removed in the past year and over $200 million spent to cope with the problem.

Scientists believe that five years of drought are to blame for much of the destruction. The good news is that our recent rains will help a lot. In the northern Sierra, they have already measured 16.2 inches of rain. That’s more than twice the normal amount. Let’s hope the rains continue and that the trees stop dying.