As many forests fail to recover from wildfires, replanting efforts face huge odds -- and obstacles - By Tammy Webber, Brittany Peterson And Camille Fassett Associated Press
Camille Stevens-Rumann crouched in the dirt and leaned over evergreen seedlings, measuring how much each had grown in seven months.
"That's two to three inches of growth on the spruce," said Stevens-Rumann, interim director at the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute.
Her research team is monitoring several species planted two years ago on a slope burned during the devastating 2020 Cameron Peak fire, which charred 326 square miles in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
They want to determine which species are likely to survive at various elevations, because climate change makes it difficult or impossible for many forests to regrow even decades after wildfires.
As the gap between burned areas and replanting widens year after year, scientists see big challenges beyond where to put seedlings.
The U.S. currently lacks the ability to collect enough seeds from living trees and the nursery capacity to grow seedlings for replanting on a scale anywhere close to stemming accelerating losses, researchers say. It also doesn't have enough trained workers to plant and monitor trees.
The Forest Service said the biggest roadblock to replanting on public land is completing environmental and cultural assessments and preparing severely burned areas so they're safe to plant. That can take years — while more forests are lost to fire.
"If we have the seedlings but we don't have the sites prepped ... we can't put the seedlings out there," said Stephanie Miller, assistant director of a reforestation program.
Scientists, private industry and environmental agencies are acutely aware of the challenges as they consider how to restore forested landscapes in an increasingly arid region.
"We need to start being creative if we want trees on our landscapes," Stevens-Rumann said. "We're in a place of such drastic climate change that we are not talking about whether or not some of these places will be a different kind of forest, but whether or not they will be forests at all."
REFORESTATION GAP
Four years after the Cameron Peak fire — the largest in recorded Colorado history — a smattering of wild raspberry bushes and seedlings has taken root. But the mountainside mostly is dotted with charred trees.
In burn scars across the West and Southwest, areas of forests may never grow back on their own.
Larger and more intense fires destroy trees that normally provide seeds for regeneration or leave burn scars so large trees can't naturally bridge the gap. The climate also has changed so markedly that many forests can't regrow in the same places. Even when seedlings take hold, drought and new fires often kill them.
Nineteen of the 20 largest wildfires ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. have occurred in Western states since 2000, according to Sean Parks, a Forest Service research ecologist. That's when the region slipped into an ongoing megadrought.
The U.S. once was able to reliably replant burned forests. But now the gap between areas in the West that need replanting after fire and the ability to do so has grown to at least 3.8 million acres (1.5 million hectares) — and that could triple by 2050, said Solomon Z. Dobrowski, a University of Montana forest management expert and a study lead author.
Forests are burning more often and especially intense and hot, which can destroy seeds that normally survive fire, harden the ground like concrete and leave barren slopes susceptible to washing away in rainstorms, polluting waterways.
In 22 years since the Hayman fire on Colorado's front range burned 182 square miles of forest, there has been almost no tree regeneration in the most severely burned areas, researchers and the Forest Service said.
In California's Sierra Nevada, where up to 20% of the world's mature giant sequoias and their seeds have been killed by fire in recent years, there are massive openings without seedlings. A U.S. Geological Survey study concluded some groves will never recover without replanting.
But researchers say the odds of forests growing back will worsen regardless of fire intensity because of more heat and drought.
That means burned forest could convert to shrubland and grassland, leading to loss of snowpack that provides drinking water and helps irrigate crops.
"Over 70% of our water in the western U.S. comes from our forested ecosystems and our mountains," Stevens-Rumann said. "And for that water to come the way we want it ... at the right time throughout the year, we need to have forests, not just grasslands."
TARGETED TREE PLANTING
When forest ecologist Matthew Hurteau joined the University of New Mexico nine years ago, he took in the aftermath of the 2011 Los Conchas fire that decimated a huge swath of Ponderosa pine forest.
Though the area had been replanted several times, most seedlings died, Hurteau said. While the average survival in the Southwest is about 25%, he said only about 13% of trees planted most recently in the Los Conchas burn scar have survived.
So he planted seedlings of different species at various elevations and on slopes facing different directions, then monitored the soil moisture, temperature and humidity.
A resulting computer model can predict the probability a seedling will survive in a particular spot with about 63% accuracy. It will be used to inform planting this fall.
"Let's not do the old plant-and-pray" method, said Hurteau. "Let's plant where we know that their chance of survival is quite high, and in places where the chance ... is quite low, let's just forego planting there."
Researchers say seedling survival is worst at lower elevations, where it's hotter, drier and more open — so replanting the same trees in the same areas is likely to fail.
They're experimenting with planting near surviving trees that might provide shade for seedlings and aid water uptake and with planting in clusters that leave gaps in the landscape. Some are even asking whether different species should replace trees wiped out by fire.
Environmental groups working on private land burned by the Cameron Peak fire are replanting Ponderosa pines 500 feet (152 meters) higher because of climate change and near fallen trees that can provide shade, said Megan Maiolo-Heath, spokeswoman for the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed.
So far, 84% of trees planted last year remain alive, though long-term survival is uncertain. "Any work in the environmental world at this point can feel daunting and overwhelming," Maiolo-Heath said. "So I think just taking small bites ... and trying not to get too overwhelmed is the way to go about it."
Forest Service rules generally require planting the same species at the same elevations as before a fire, but it's increasingly clear the agency will "need to be flexible moving forward," said Jason Sieg, acting supervisor of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests & Pawnee National Grassland.
Relying on research data, Sieg said, "We'll be able to plan a strategy around how we set this landscape up for the greatest chance of success ... long term."
For now, that might mean replanting at different elevations or collecting seeds from another location. Eventually, researchers say it could require the controversial option of planting trees not found in an area originally.
Additional research and caution are necessary, researchers and the Forest Service said. But more people are warming up to the idea.
"I've seen people go from saying, 'Absolutely, we cannot move trees around' to, 'Well, let's maybe let's try it at least, and do a few experiments to see if this will work,'" said Stevens-Rumann, the Colorado scientist.
RESTORATION CHALLENGES
Four years ago, researchers and New Mexico's state forester wrote a reforestation plan for the state, where 4,500 square miles of forest were charred between 2011 and 2021, leaving up to 2.6 million acres in need of replanting.
That was before the 2022 Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire — the most destructive in state history — burned another 534 square miles.
They soon discovered a big problem.
"We realized that we were never going to have enough seedlings to meet the objectives," said Hurteau, the University of New Mexico researcher.
The number of Forest Service nurseries — once financed by deposits on timber sales — dropped from 14 to six in the 1990s as timber harvests declined and habitat protections were enacted, according to a Forest Service report on the nurseries' history.
Most Western seedling production is private and occurs in Oregon, California and Washington, Dobrowski said.
In places like New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, "we don't really have a base of facilities to support widespread reforestation," the researcher said. "We're (asking) 'What's going to fill the gap?'"
In New Mexico, several universities and the state's forestry division started the New Mexico Reforestation Center with a goal of building a nursery that can produce 5 million seedlings per year for government, tribal and private lands. The first seedlings will be planted this year.
But experts say much more nursery capacity, seed collection and trained workers are needed to make even modest progress in closing the reforestation gap. And they say public and private sector cooperation will be essential.
"There's all these bottlenecks," Hurteau said. "We've just underinvested in reforestation for decades in the U.S. There's a lot of investment in human capital that's going to have to happen."
Seed collection, for example, requires the right weather and is expensive and labor-intensive. It takes a few years for a typical Western conifer to develop cones. Then contractors must harvest them, typically by climbing trees. Growing, planting and monitoring seedlings amid more frequent droughts adds to the uncertainty, time and money.
The Forest Service said its biggest challenge is simply that the number of intense wildfires is outpacing the ability to prepare sites for replanting.
But the agency is also modernizing nurseries and seeking ways to either expand internal capacity or work with private industry, states and groups like the New Mexico Reforestation Center.
"This is an all-hands-on effort," said Miller, from the reforestation program.
Researchers say the challenges complicate a Biden administration goal to plant a billion trees over 10 years in national forests, where it identified a nearly 4 million-acre backlog.
But money provided for reforestation in the 2021 infrastructure bill enabled the agency to clear 15% of the backlog, Miller said. "If we can get more site preparation done, that would be excellent so that we can move forward a little bit faster."
Experts say there clearly will be areas where trees never return but it's critical that the U.S. does as much possible in a thoughtful way.
"Trees live for hundreds of years so we need to be thinking about what's right as we plant trees today," Hurteau said. "Are we putting the right species and densities on the landscape given what the next 100, 200 and 300 years will look like?"
Judge in 2023 Oñate shooting case to call 80 potential jurors - Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
The judge overseeing the attempted murder case against a man who shot someone at a protest of a statue in northern New Mexico is summoning 80 people to serve as potential jurors, because some of them may know too much about the case to objectively rule on it.
First Judicial District Court Judge Jason Lidyard said Thursday he doesn’t know how jury selection will go in the trial of Ryan Martinez, who was recorded on video shooting a climate activist during a prayer ceremony and protest of a monument to genocidal Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate in Rio Arriba County last fall.
“I don’t know how many people are going to know things about this case that are going to disqualify them from being able to serve,” Lidyard said.
Lidyard and the opposing legal teams previously agreed to begin jury selection on Oct. 7 in his courtroom in Tierra Amarilla, a small, remote village in the county’s northern reaches. So far, two sessions — or panels — of jury selection have been scheduled in the case.
“We’re not going to be able to pick the jury from the very first session. I’m sure of that,” Lidyard said, but they might be able to choose jurors from the second.
Out of an abundance of caution, he said, he’s spoken to the court’s Jury Services department about constructing a third panel of people to come in on the morning of Oct. 8 “if absolutely necessary.” That would be needed only if he and the attorneys are concerned about their ability to choose a jury by the end of the previous day, Lidyard said.
“I want to have this arranged so that we can immediately continue on with the selection,” he said.
Lidyard said they should be able to seat a jury within the planned time frame, even if the trial can’t begin until Oct. 9.
The trial’s first leg is scheduled for Oct. 8 through Oct. 11, when state prosecutors are expected to make their case and call their witnesses to testify. The second leg is scheduled for Oct. 16 through Oct. 18, when defense lawyers for Martinez will make their case and call their own witnesses.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Anthony Long said he’s relatively confident they’ll be able to pick a jury in the first two sessions, because Martinez is not charged with a capital offense, which means each side is limited in how many jurors they can try to disqualify without giving a reason.
Since Martinez is charged with attempted murder, if convicted he would be guilty of a second-degree felony, which gets a basic sentence of nine years under state law. In those kinds of cases, the defense is allowed five peremptory challenges and the state gets three, according to court rule.
Still, there is no limit on how many potential jurors either side can disqualify, so long as they have a good reason and articulate that to the judge, who rules on each disqualification.
A BUSY TIME IN NORTHERN RIO ARRIBA
Another logistical challenge, Long said, is “there are no hotel rooms — nothing is available,” in the area.
“There are a host of things happening in northern Rio Arriba County right now, your honor, that make finding lodging impossible, or even changing that lodging,” he said.
He said a wedding is happening nearby, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad is reaching the end of its season, and the trees are turning their fall colors, which typically attracts an influx of tourists.
Lidyard’s comments about jury selection came at the end of a two-and-a-half hour hearing on Thursday afternoon, where attorneys argued over half a dozen disputes about whether to include certain evidence and witnesses in the trial.
Lidyard told them he will announce his rulings on those disputes in a virtual hearing at 4 p.m. on Monday.
Rental scooters roll back into ABQ - By Elizabeth McCall, City Desk ABQ
Starting Friday, Albuquerque residents will see bright orange rental scooters around the city again.
The city’s Planning Department announced in a news release that the rental scooter company Spin will begin installing and testing stations throughout Albuquerque Friday.
Spin did respond to requests for more information by press time.
The release stated scooter locations can be found on the Spin mobile app. By Friday afternoon, the app showed a handful of available scooters near the University of New Mexico’s LOBO Village and the university’s campus.
After using the scooters, users are required to return them to authorized areas. Users will continue to be charged if the scooters are not returned properly, according to the release.
The last time rental scooters were available in Albuquerque was before the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were operated by the company Zagster, which stopped operating in the city because of financial difficulties.
In August, the City Council passed an ordinance to lower the city’s charges for scooter and bike rental companies to operate. The measure was signed by Mayor Tim Keller, but Staci Drangmeister, a spokesperson for the mayor, said Spin submitted its permit for e-scooters before the new fees were implemented, meaning Spin is paying the costs “under the old fee structure.”
The release emphasized safety guidelines for users and included the following list of state and local rules.
- Helmets are required for anyone under the age of 18 and are encouraged for all users.
- Ride on the right side of the street, with the flow of traffic.
- Do not operate an e-scooter on a sidewalk when there is a wide right lane, bike lane, or multi-use trail adjacent to the road in the direction of travel; when signs are posted prohibiting bicycles on the sidewalk; or when in a business district (areas where at least 50% of the buildings contain commercial, office, or civic uses).
- If you need to ride on the sidewalk, ride slowly and yield to pedestrians. Pedestrians always have the right of way.
- Follow the instructions of official traffic signals and signs.
- Do not bring e-scooters onto city buses.
- Park responsibly – don’t block sidewalks or other pedestrian pathways, intersections, bus stops, or entrances to buildings. Park e-scooters at stations or drop zones, at/near bike racks, or in a landscape buffer, if there is one. If you need to park on the sidewalk, do so in a location that does not block other movement on the sidewalk.
- If e-scooters are not returned to authorized areas Spin will continue to bill the user for their time.
- If you see a unit toppled over or parked improperly, help out by righting the unit and reporting the issue.
- Using e-scooters can be dangerous. Roadways, streets, alleys, sidewalks, paths, and trails may be dangerous. Users must stay alert at all times and are responsible for their own safety while riding.
Bernalillo County buries 222 unclaimed residents - Damon Scott, City Desk ABQ
Bernalillo County officials and members of the public gathered Thursday morning to recognize 222 deceased residents as part of its unclaimed indigent cremation program — the highest number since the initiative began in 2012. A ceremony was held at Fairview Memorial Park in Albuquerque where each person’s name was read.
Urns containing ashes from cremations that took place in 2021 and 2022 were placed inside four caskets that had been draped with the official flag of Bernalillo County.
“We’re here to remember those among us who, in death, had no family to claim them, no one to speak their name, no one to stand at their gravesite,” Robert Noblin Jr., the owner of Director’s Choice Mortuary Services, said. “Yet today, we ensure that they’re not forgotten.”
Under the program, a deceased person is classified as indigent when there is no property or assets available to cover the cost of a cremation or burial. The majority of those who were recognized at the ceremony had experienced extreme poverty or homelessness.
Officials said about a third of the names referred to the program come from the Office of the Medical Investigator and the remaining two-thirds from hospice and nursing home workers.
Deputy County Manager Lisa Sedillo-White said most of those recognized in this year’s ceremony had died during the Covid-19 pandemic — which she said was significant — even though the majority had not died from the disease.
“It caused hardships where families have not been able to care for their loved ones,” Sedillo-White said.
Included on the list of 222 were twin brothers Lorne Nigel Allison and Dion Todd Allison, who died nine months apart from each other; mother and daughter Lois Meryl Moscow and Kayla Jade Valentine, who died one month apart from each other; and brother and sister Ronald Bruce Serzynski and Dolores Serzynski, who died two weeks apart from each other in the same nursing home.
Patrick Marquez attended the ceremony to recognize Raymond Montoya who died three years ago. He’d previously assisted Montoya with food and other services.
“I ran into Raymond pulling a suitcase with three wheels. This man was a homeless man. He’d lost hope. He had no family,” Marquez said.
He said while Montoya eventually got a job and secured an apartment, he disappeared for a time. When he resurfaced, Marquez said Montoya had stage four cancer.
“For nine months this man went and got his treatments. He was a soldier, he was a warrior,” Marquez said. “We need to make it better for these people.”
Officials said under the program ashes are stored for up to two years while attempts are made to contact family members. There are more than 350 cases each year.
“The individuals we honor today are not just statistics, they were once part of our community,” Noblin said. “They had lives that were just as important as any of ours, and though they may have faced difficult circumstances in life — poverty, isolation, homelessness — today we remember them as fellow human beings deserving of respect, care and remembrance.”
More information on the program is available here.
Chemical spill prompts warning from NMHealth — Daniel Montaño, KUNM News
In response to a death following a chemical spill, NMHealth, formerly the Department of Health, issued a warning Thursday to New Mexico workers to be aware of chemical and exposure hazards in the workplace.
The department is also looking into the chemical spill at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas that occurred on Sept 3, according to the release.
Leaders from NMHealth are working in collaboration with the New Mexico Environment Department and the Higher Education Department on the investigation.
The Las Vegas Optic reports Martin Lujan, a janitor who worked in the building where the spill occurred, passed away on Sept 14. The cause of death has not yet been established, however, which will be revealed with the release of a toxicology report.
Highlands announced the chemical spill has been completely cleaned and contained at this point. It was initially discovered because of a strong smell.
After a faculty member removed the offending specimens and chemicals, a janitorial team was assigned to mop up the remaining chemicals.
They were forced to stop because the odor was too much for them to handle.
Santa Fe City Council delays vote on the fate of controversial monument - By Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
Santa Fe’s local elected officials on Wednesday night declined to make a final decision about what to do with the controversial Soldier’s Monument, known as the obelisk.
With such sharp division among the community members in attendance and an ongoing court battle over the obelisk’s fate, the Santa Fe City Council voted to postpone any final decision until their next meeting on Oct. 30.
During the wave of social unrest in 2020, demonstrators tore the obelisk down with rope, and argued it represents a celebration of the destruction and subjugation of Native people. The monument’s base remains in place, covered by a wooden box, some plants and a sign giving context about it for curious visitors and locals. The damaged upper sections of the monument are being held in storage, though their location is a closely guarded secret.
Mayor Alan Webber and the Council’s eight other voting members could not reach an agreement after an hour-and-a-half of debate on a proposal by Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth to study the possibility of moving the monument to the Santa Fe National Cemetery near Rosario Hill on the city’s north side.
“We have got to figure out a way forward,” Romero-Wirth said. “This proposal is one way, one path, that we can take to get beyond the events of 2020 when the obelisk came down.”
The first people to make public comments Wednesday night were local resident Carrie Wood (Diné), a member of the Santa Fe Indigenous Center’s board of directors, and her family. They supported Romero-Wirth’s proposal.
“I want to remind you that the Native community in and around Santa Fe are against the obelisk, and do not want it on the Plaza,” Wood told the councilors. “We have made that clear many, many times, so I’m not sure why we have to keep restating that. Our stance on this hasn’t changed.”
Moving the monument would require the city to work alongside state and federal officials to formally ask the cemetery to accept the monument. The cemetery’s director has already said it’s something they would consider, Romero-Wirth said.
“I think we all agree the statue, as is, is unacceptable,” said Webber. “The only path forward is compromise.”
Romero-Wirth said she believes the monument can be either rebuilt or moved to the cemetery, near the graves of Union soldiers who fought in the American Civil War. She said that would place the monument in a more appropriate context. When her constituents brought the idea to her in Spring 2023, she said she thought the community was too polarized to accept it.
What changed her mind, she said, was the near-fatal shooting of a climate activist later in 2023, about 23 miles north in the city of Española, at the site of another controversial monument. Demonstrators gathered in opposition to Rio Arriba County plans to resurrect a statue depicting the genocidal Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate. It had been removed by government officials in 2020. The shooter’s trial is set to begin on Oct. 7.
In Santa Fe that year, Webber declared an emergency in June 2020, saying that continued prominent display of the obelisk and two other monuments in the city, without public debate about their appropriate treatment and context, “perpetuates systemic racism, civil unrest, and may lead to violence.”
Earlier this year, in sworn testimony in court, Webber said at the time he believed the city was facing the possibility of civil unrest, due to reports of imminent demonstrations and counter-protests at monuments.
That danger remains today, Romero-Wirth said.
“I strongly believe we can’t put the obelisk back up in the middle of the Plaza,” she said on Wednesday. “It presents a potential public safety threat. As a result, this idea seemed like something that we should pursue.”
OFFENSIVE PLAQUE HAS TO GO
Even without official action, council members appeared to reach agreement on one thing: A bronze plaque containing a racist description of Native American people has to go.
The plaque included offensive language dedicating the monument to “the heroes” who fought “savage Indians.”
The plaque was one of four placed on the obelisk’s stone base at each compass direction, paid for by New Mexico’s Territorial Legislature, before statehood.
The Soldier’s Monument was originally built to commemorate both the American soldiers who fought both in the U.S. Civil War, and wars against Indigenous tribes.
That’s according to sworn testimony in court from David Rasch, a museum collections consultant and a former historic preservation officer for the city of Santa Fe.
He was the expert witness in the ongoing civil lawsuit over the monument. Rasch was hired by the Union Protectiva de Santa Fe, a fraternal organization suing the city government to try to force the obelisk’s restoration in its original location, and whose members on Wednesday night called for the same.
The deadline for written arguments to the judge is Friday. A member of the public and a city councilor said it might not be a good idea to make a final decision on the monument before the case is resolved.
One of the city’s arguments in the case is that they haven’t violated the law at issue — because the city government hasn’t made a final decision on the matter.
“How does the lawsuit that we’re in affect any of these decisions?” asked Councilor Lee Garcia. “If we were to come up with a consensus on a direction here, and there’s a different opinion coming from our courts … I would definitely be in support of whatever decision that is, as long as it’s fair in judgment.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer sentenced to 20 months in prison – KUNM News
An officer with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Columbus Port of Entry has been sentenced to 20 months in prison following a lawsuit by the ACLU.
The U.S. Attorney for New Mexico said Oscar Orrantia became angry at a 63-year-old U.S. citizen, identified only as John Doe, when he complained about the heat while at the port. Orrantia pulled the man from his car and threw him into a side barrier. Doe sustained bruising to his body and head. Orrantia then handcuffed the man and took him inside.
Orrantia then filed a report with false statements. An investigation revealed a pattern of conduct by Orrantia where at least two other people made allegations of improper behavior at the Columbus Port of Entry. His disciplinary records show other instances for which he was investigated.
Orrantia was convicted by a jury in December 2023 of one count of a deprivation of a right and one count of falsification of records.