White Mountain Stewardship Project – Apache-Sitgreaves NF, Arizona
In August 2004 the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests awarded a 10-year Stewardship Contract to thin 150,000 acres of primarily small-diameter ponderosa pine trees, emphasizing WUI areas surrounding communities in the White Mountains of Arizona. The contract was awarded to Future Forest, LLC, a local partnership of WB Contracting and Forest Energy Corporation. This Stewardship contract is designed to restore forest health, reduce the risk of fire to communities, reduce the cost of forest thinning to taxpayers, support local economies and encourage new wood product industries and uses for the thinned wood fiber.
Collaboration with state and local organizations, citizen groups, and conservation organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity was critical during the process of developing this stewardship project and critical for seeing this important work done. Community Wildfire Protection Plans covering all of the communities near the Forests are complete and prioritize forest restoration treatments. Collaboration with citizens and conservation groups has resulted in 70,500 acres of NEPA analysis completed in 2005-2006 with no appeals, or litigation and only 1 objection filed, which was easily resolved.
The 10-year guaranteed supply of wood fiber enables wood product businesses to invest in equipment designed specifically to treat and mill small diameter wood. Six Forest Products Laboratory grants of $250,000 each have been awarded to White Mountain-based businesses in the last two years.
One half of the trees being thinned are between 5” and 9” in diameter. The federal funds invested in these enterprises reduce the cost of forest restoration treatments and make landscape-scale treatments possible. Prior to the Stewardship contract, forest restoration costs were up to $1,100 per acre. The thinning cost is now approximately $550 per acre, depending upon the treatment prescription.
As of February 2007, task orders for the thinning of over 25,300 acres have been issued, 16,000 acres of thinning completed, and 300,000 green tons of biomass removed. Products created from the thinned wood fiber include wood pellets for home and industrial heating, animal bedding and compost materials, wood moulding, structural lumber, paneling, wood pallets and biomass to generate electricity.