The rules, a series of three separate regulatory packages adopted in October, are intended to be effective in March 1994. They apply to privately owned forests and reflect Gov. Pete Wilson's program for sustained yield forestry and biodiversity conservation.
The watershed rules provide increased protection for domestic water supplies that may be threatened by proposed timber operations, and establish a procedure for governmental agencies and private citizens to petition the board for additional measures to preserve wildlife, fish, and other beneficial uses of water.
Under the rules, the board could determine at a public hearing that a watershed is sensitive to further timber operations and provide protection for it. A classification of sensitive must be supported by substantial evidence of significant adverse impacts from further timber operations that current rules will not mitigate.
The new rules also require submitters of timber harvest plans to give notice to landowners within 1,000 feet downstream of the harvest area boundary, and to request disclosure of information about domestic water supplies.
A second new rules package requires that timber harvest plans contain more information about the potential impacts on wildlife, and ways to offset any damage in late successional forest stands, which have larger, sometimes older trees, several layers of canopy, and possibly downed logs and dead wood on the floor.
The plans must contain maps of late successional forest stands and a description of their structural characteristics, a list of wildlife known to inhabit the stands, descriptions of habitat elements important to the species, habitat objectives, and an analysis of known long-term, significant adverse effects.
The board also adopted a silvicultural and sustained yield rule package that reduces the maximum size of even-aged harvests, including clear-cuts, to 20-40 acres from 80-100 acres, and restricts the frequency of harvests in even-aged forests to 50 years, or up to 80 years for poorer quality stands.
The rules provide additional restrictions for managing even-aged forests, tighten definitions and descriptions of selection harvesting of uneven-aged management, and define maximum sustained production of high quality timber products. Landowners would have to enhance, maintain and restore productivity of harvest sites according to the new definition.
The Board of Forestry also established an optional sustained yield plan, which landowners could file separately from their timber harvesting plans. It would address conditions on their property that relate to wildlife, watersheds, and the sustained production of timber. Once completed, the separate plan would provide background of a broader scale analysis on a landscape basis, and simplify the landowner's future timber harvest plans.
The board also has issued a 45-day notice regarding possible additional changes to clarify implementation of revised silvicultural and optional sustained yield rules. Hearings are Dec. 7 and Jan. 4 at 1 p.m. in the Resources Building auditorium, 1416 Ninth Street, Sacramento.