 With proper management, our forest lands can provide us with income, habitat for wildlife, watershed protection, and a place for recreation and enjoyment for generations to come. Hello, I'm Chris Shankle, and for the next several minutes, we're going to look at how the decisions made when harvesting can affect the future health and productivity of a woods. You just about missed me as I'm on my way out to the woods to check on the guys that are doing logging. Well, so far it looks a lot better than what that other outfit did to Harry's woods. Yeah. See, are you still thinking about selling some of your timber? Well, why don't you come on over and join me? We can go out and see how these guys are doing. Good. All right, I'll see you in a little while then. All right, bye-bye. What I know is I don't see what everybody's getting so worked up about. We've harvested timber from our forest for over a hundred years now, and our woods are still fine. I know what you mean, but we've all seen some pretty messy jobs, and you know, people remember those. If we're not careful, we're going to be regulated up to our eyeballs, and it's going to cost us. Paul, you've been in logging for quite a few years. What do you think? Well, you're both right in the way. If we do the job right and others do the same, then our forest will continue to produce well. But if we don't, then we'll get what we're asking for. Just a little extra care and time using BMPs will more than pay off in the long run. BMPs, what's that supposed to mean? BMP, Best Management Practices. It's practicing conservation and the rise use of the forest and the soil. Come out to my job sometime, and I'll show you what I mean. Well guys, I gotta go. Take care. We'll see you. Mind if I join you this morning? Not at all. Jump in, we'll go to my job on Mr. Carmen. What's this about BMPs? You know, those of us in logging have a good reason to worry. I used to think that as long as you worked hard, there would always be another woods around the corner. That just flat isn't true. We have worked hard to make BMPs a normal part of our operation, and it has really been beneficial to both us and the landowners. You know the last thing we need is forest regulation. Isn't that the truth? Now tell me more about how those BMPs work. Why don't I show you? Hello, how are you? How you doing? Good. I'd like to meet my neighbor Sam Bond. Hey Sam. We were just coming out to take a look at the work, see what's been done. Notice the road coming in looks really good. The time we took up front has really paid off by putting in the right water diversions and reinforcing the rock you had on the road. We didn't damage the road base, and we kept almost all of the soil out of the stream. Looks real good. Glad you like it. You want to see the rest of the job? Sure. Let's go. Things look a lot better than I thought they would. I got to tell you, I was worried after seeing what they did to Harry's woods down the road. Hey, they didn't use BMPs. What's that? Let me talk to my crew before they get started, then I'll show you. Greg, you want to check this out? All right, let's take a walk. This stream crossing was chosen because it takes little or no bank excavation. The stream will be crossed at a right angle to minimize erosion and sedimentation. The stream also has a solid bottom. After logging completion, the channel will be cleaned of any obstructing debris, and the roads closed with water bars to prevent soil movement into the stream. Excavating crossings on permanent streams may require a permit from the Department of Natural Resources under the Flood Control Act. The best advice is to avoid crossing permanent waterways if possible. Relatively undisturbed corridors along streams are very important for wildlife, stream life, and clean water. By maintaining a minimum 50-foot strip on both sides of the stream, or little or no cutting will occur, stream quality is safeguarded. The filter strip traps soil movement before it reaches the stream, and the trees provide an excellent shady habitat for stream organisms. It's not only smart resource management, it's also the law that you cannot obstruct the flood-carrying capacity of a stream. To be in compliance, all tree tops must be pulled out and away from stream and river channels. It is recommended that these tops be pulled completely out of your stream side management zone, which should be a minimum of 50 feet from the water's edge. This would prevent tops from moving back into the channel if high waters come. Used oil and lubricants are always emptied into proper containers, not on the ground, and this maintenance should always be done away from any stream or water course. These lubricants are then hauled away for recycling or proper disposal. Refueling should also be done carefully to avoid soil and or water contamination. Long roads and main skid trails are located on slopes less than 10% in grade. They are outsloped where possible, so water is diverted off the road surface quickly. They are also closed immediately after the logging is completed. Roads are closed by smoothing of any ruts in excess of 6 inches and construction of a simple water-diverting mound called a water bar. Water bars should include a soil dip and followed by a soil mound, one to two feet in height, and be slanted 30% downslope. Spacing of water bars will depend on the steepness of the hill. On extreme inclines, they may be as close as 40 feet. On gentle slopes, less than 5% in grade, bars may be placed 125 to 250 feet apart. On steep slopes, it's a good idea to seed and mulch log roads, especially the water bars, to prevent erosion and wash out of your erosion control efforts. A mix of red fescue, wheat and rye make a good temporary seeding combination. Log yards are located at least 75 feet away from permanent streams, rivers or lakes with a continuous filter strip to trap moving soil. Log yards are kept free of trash and contaminants. Before leaving the site, yards should be smoothed and seeded to promote rapid soil stabilization. Mulching may be necessary where sloping log yards are involved. These BMPs don't happen by accident. They take advance planning and concern for the resources of our forests. Stream crossings, filter strips, log yards, major roads and trails all should be thought out and organized before equipment operates. It is a good idea to include them in your timber sales contract. Buyers, loggers and forest industries need to promote BMPs. Landowners should require them. Well, Mr. Carmen, we will be finished up and pulling out in about an hour. Is there anything else we can do for you? Well, what about this pile of logs here? Those we can move off to the side or we can leave them there for your use as firewood, whichever. Well, I could use some firewood. Okay. You know, you've done a pretty good job here. I'd like you to take a look at my 50 acres sometime. Buyers have been after me to sell timber for the past 15 years. I'd be glad to, Sam. I've been around logging in Indiana for over 25 years. You bet we need BMPs. They are not only smart business. They protect the woods. And that's where I make my livelihood. They not only save me money in the long run, they make me money. And you know what? I always feel good when I leave a woods that has been treated right. As State Forester, I'd like to thank you for watching this video on best management practices today. The use of best management practices ensures the future of Indiana's water quality. You know we grow some of the finest timber in the world here in Indiana. It's a tradition we'd like to continue. Forest owners and loggers can make a difference. There's an 8,000 acre section of the White Mountain National Forest created in 1965 by the U.S. Forest Service as an outdoor laboratory. Scientists there study the impact of timber harvesting on forest land and the resulting effects on watershed yield, water quality and chemistry. Separate and distinct watersheds have been identified in the experimental area. Different types of timber harvesting practices were carried out on these sites. The water flowing from these watersheds have been collected and analyzed for a number of years. I spoke with Wayne Martin, a research forester at Harvard Brook. He told me what they have learned about the impact of timber harvesting on forest land. Anybody that's ever had a vegetable garden or a flower garden knows that they have to augment those gardens with nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and limestone here in New England particularly. And those are the nutrient elements that we're looking at in this forest. We're trying to understand what effect timber harvesting has on those plant nutrients. We know, for instance, that when we clear cut, that over a 10-year period we will lose about 100 pounds per acre of nitrogen in streamflow. This is organic material. It's decomposing and the nitrogen is released and dissolves in water and goes to a stream and is left from the site. In addition to the amount of nitrogen that's lost through streamflow, we're also losing nitrogen in the wood products that are removed. And the amount that's going out in the wood products varies with the intensity of the cut. If we have a biomass harvest that is also a clear cutting, then we're removing the stems, leaves if the harvest is done in the summertime. Everything goes. And we can lose as much as 3 to 400 pounds per acre in that removal. Add that to another 100 pounds over 10 years and we've lost 4 to 500 pounds of nitrogen from the site. If we have just a stem-only harvest, we're probably going to lose about 100 to 200 pounds in just the stems. If we have a selection cutting, then if we go in and do a single-tree selection, we might lose 50 to 100 pounds and we probably would lose very little to leaching. We can recover most of our plant nutrients either through precipitation or through slow decomposition of the soil in the bedrock. Our rainfall and snowfall contains nitrogen at the rate of about 7 pounds per acre per year. And so over a 60 to 100 year rotation we can recover most of this nutrient material that we've lost and probably have very little effect in the long term. If it's a short rotation that we're talking about less than that then even so we probably would have very little effect the first rotation but we get into the second or third we might have more problems. But with rotations that probably a small woodlot owner is talking about of 60 to 100 years the logging is done carefully so we don't have excessive erosion there's probably very little effect. We have been measuring the chemistry of precipitation here at Hubbard Brook continuously since 1963. At the same time we were measuring the hydrogen ion that was coming in the pH the acidity of this precipitation and after a while we realized that our precipitation was very acidic. Normally we think that the precipitation should have a pH of about 5.6 our pH of our rain here is pH 4 that is about 100 times more acidic than neutral water and several times more acidic than normal rainfall should be. As I said we've been measuring this since 1963 and it has not changed any in that period of time. However the components of the precipitation has changed. Sulphur compounds which are emissions from any kind of furnace whether it's a factory or an electric power plant or your home oil burner produces sulphur and that's transported to us dissolves in water and becomes a principal ingredient of our precipitation. That however has declined by about 30% since 1970. And that's probably due to a large part to the Clean Air Act that has allowed industry to clean up their emissions. On the other hand though nitrogen compounds have been increasing in our precipitation and so the net effect is that we really haven't had any change. These nitrogen compounds are coming some from our industrial pollution but more importantly from automobile emissions and there are more automobiles than we had 20 years ago. Works in many ways seen and unseen that affect our lives. This is the story of some of those ways. The story of water in the forest. Did you ever wonder where the water that you use comes from? You might be surprised to learn that most of it comes from forests where many of our streams have their source. Since 1951 researchers at this laboratory have been studying what happens to that water. Working in the Furno Experimental Forest in Parsons, West Virginia on natural drainage basins called watershed measuring precipitation stream flow and erosion and sediment water quality and studying the impact of man's activity on water resources. From their work and that of other scientists we are learning some of the secrets of water in the forest. Since the earth's beginning water has circulated in what is called the hydrologic or water cycle. The energy of the sun lifts moisture from the earth by evaporation and from plants by transpiration. The force of gravity brings it back as precipitation and moves it over and through the land as stream flow and ground water. Water comes to the forest as precipitation in the form of rain, sleet, hail or snow. It is measured by instruments placed in openings like this one which won't affect the measurement of precipitation. The standard rain gauge collects rain in summer and snow in winter. The recording rain gauge responds to the weight of precipitation and records a line on a chart that shows when and how much fell. Intensity in inches per hour also can be determined. From the data collected and other instruments, long-term records have been compiled showing annual variations in cyclic patterns. Not all water reaches the forest floor. Some is intercepted clinging to plant surfaces and evaporating when the storm is over. In hardwood forests about 13% of the annual precipitation is intercepted 16% in summer 10% in winter. But mature conifers with year-round foliage intercept as much as 25% of the annual precipitation that falls on them. The water that falls or drips through the tree canopy and reaches the forest floor is called throughfall. Most throughfall readily soaks into the litter covered forest soil where it eventually becomes water for vegetation, stream flow or groundwater. Most of the precipitation intercepted by plants along with water or other wet surfaces such as the forest floor is lost to evaporation. Evaporation is the process by which water is changed to vapor and returned to the atmosphere. The amount of loss is measured by evaporation pan. Transpiration is a special form of evaporation in which water in the soil is taken in by roots then pulled up through the stem to the leaves. There, energized by the heat of the sun it vaporizes. Thus, leaves act in two ways to return water to the atmosphere by evaporation of intercepted water and by transpiration of water taken from the soil. One of these containers is filled with sand the other with gravel. Which one do you think will hold more water? Surprised? This cylinder has less water in it. You see the sand held more water because it has more pore space room between particles. Pore space and other soil properties play important roles in controlling what happens to water in the forest. Soil is the material above bedrock. It is composed of three different sized particles. Sand, silt, and clay. Sandy soils have a predominance of large particles. Silty soils have intermediate sized particles. And clay soils have small ones. So small that individual particles cannot be seen with the human eye. The percentages of sand, silt, and clay determine a soil's texture. Sandy soils are coarse textured. Clay soils are fine textured. The way these particles are arranged the soil structure together with its texture and pore space determine the moisture holding capacity. The amount of water that can be held in the soil at a given time. Water seeps easily through wet soil. But in drier soils it is held tightly so that it resists the pull of gravity and movement through the soil that is slowed or stopped. Depending on structure and texture, a foot of dry soil can hold from 2 to 5 inches of water. The amount of water left in the soil about 48 hours after a soaking rain is called the field capacity. It is greater in fine textured soil than in coarse ones. But not all this water is available to trees and plants. As soil dries it can bind water more tightly, leaving less available to plants. When plants reach their wilting point they can die for lack of water. Soil moisture can be measured in several ways. One way is with a neutron moisture meter equipped with a probe that can be lowered to different depths. Radioactive neutrons emitted from the probe measure the soil moisture which varies in response to precipitation, transpiration, and season of the year. The depth of soil also affects its capacity to hold water. Deep soil provides plants with more water for growth than shallow soil of the same texture. To understand what happens in the forest we also need to know how it moves from the forest floor through the soil to streams. This stream flow is what's left from precipitation after other water losses. Storage of moisture in the soil and evaporation and transpiration are deducted. Less than half the water that falls on forests become stream flow so these other deductions are substantial. A much smaller percentage of precipitation is returned as stream flow in the summer when trees are transpiring rapidly than in winter when transpiration is low. Runoff produced during storm periods, storm flow, accounts for about 20% of forest stream flow. Storm flow is the result of three processes. Precipitation falling directly into stream channels subsurface flow moving through the soil often through root channels and animal burrows and overland flow across bare, exposed ground. The litter layer of the undisturbed forest protects soil from the force of the rain and keeps soil pours open. Furthermore, the capacity of soil to absorb moisture is almost always greater than the rate of precipitation so overland flow is rare on forested slopes. Runoff produced between storms is called base flow and accounts for about 80% of forest stream flow. Base flow comes from springs and the slow drainage of moisture from the soil. This is a stream engaging station, one of several devices used by forest hydrologists to measure stream flow. Runoff from a watershed is channeled into a weir pond to reduce its velocity and through a V notch so flow can be measured. The weir pond and the stilling well are connected by pipes so that water levels are the same. A float in the stilling well is attached to a water level recorder in the gauge house which records changes in water levels over time on a chart. This pen trace is called a hydrograph. This hydrograph indicates that stream flow increased soon after precipitation began. Peaks on the hydrograph indicate the time and amount of highest stream flows. The amount of stream flow depends not only on precipitation but on the type of vegetation on the watershed. Grass covered watersheds normally yield more water than tree covered ones. Forest covered watersheds produced the least stream flow because trees use large amounts of water. Watersheds covered with conifers produce less stream flow than those with hardwoods since they intercept about twice as much water and keep their needles year round transpiring moisture when hardwoods are dormant. Stream flow is also affected by tree cutting which reduces transpiration and interception and temporarily increases soil moisture content and stream flow. In humid areas rapid regrowth occurs and water yields soon drop returning to normal in five to six years after cutting. The flow of water since time began has left its mark on the land. Sometimes cutting deep canyons or winding meanders through the landscape. These patterns result from gradual erosion. The process by which soil sediment has been carried away over time. Accelerated erosion seldom occurs on undisturbed forest soil because as this infiltrometer shows soil with a litter cover absorbs water rapidly. But when mineral soil is exposed raindrops acting like miniature bombs dislodge materials that can then become embedded in pores and seal them off. This reduces the soil's ability to absorb water and leads to overland flow and accelerated erosion even in forests untouched by man. There are natural sediment sources especially along stream banks and when it rains hard enough and long enough the result is erosion when the litter cover is removed the texture and rock content of the soil determines much of its potential for erosion. Fine textured soils like clay and those with low rock content are more likely to erode than soils with a higher rock content. Stones sometimes hold the soil in place forming pedestals and eventually an erosion pavement. This stream gauging site also is equipped with devices to measure sediment loss. Course materials that move along a stream bed bed load are trapped in a sediment box and removed for weighing. Fine organic and inorganic particles suspended in water are collected by a kashaktan wheel which diverts a small percentage of stream water into a sediment collection tank where samples are removed periodically. In a lab the cloudiness produced by suspended particles is measured with a turbidity meter and the sediment is filtered out and weighed to determine its concentration and calculate how much suspended sediment is transported from the watershed. The sediment is exported during storms reaching its maximum concentration and beginning to decrease before stream flow peaks. Roads can be a primary source of sediment in forest streams. They can be equipped with devices to measure erosion. A common method is to install erosion plots in road beds with a collector trough where sediment-laden overland flow from the plot can be diverted to a tank where samples can be collected. The annual sediment production is usually very low on undisturbed forest watersheds and is also low on carefully logged areas with appropriate buffer zones near streams. But if care is not taken especially with logging roads near streams sediment levels can be high harming fish and limiting recreational use. The way water is used determines the quality needed. Water for one purpose of irrigation for example may not be good enough for another, like drinking. And the quality of water will be affected not only by things we can see such as sediment but also and even more important things we can't see. Temperature is one if streams get too warm some species of fish like trout can't survive. And dissolved materials substance is visible only by chemical analysis and the use of sophisticated electronic equipment can affect water quality. One of the important measures of water quality is its level of acidity expressed in pH units. As pH decreases acidity increases. The acidity of water affects its usefulness for many purposes including its ability to sustain plant and aquatic life. Another important characteristic is the water's electrical conductivity an index of the amount of dissolved water. A low conductivity can make a stream infertile. Too high of a conductivity produces poor water quality. The forest makes natural changes in water that passes through it. As precipitation enters a tree canopy and becomes through fall water passing over its surfaces dissolves particles and changes its chemical content. Geologic materials produce additional changes in the water as it passes through the soil and over rocks. Because of these changes most of the naturally occurring elements in a forest can be found in its water dissolved in the form of ions. Samples to be analyzed for water quality are gathered in several ways. A wet dry collector captures precipitation in the open and a through fall collector catches it under a tree canopy. Grab samples can be used to collect stream flow and automatic pumping samplers are especially useful during storms. Lysimeters buried in the ground provide samples of soil water by catching seepage and delivering it to an outlet for collection. Continuous measurements of stream water characteristics are also obtained. Automatic instruments record direct measurements of pH, conductance and water temperature. In addition to natural changes man's activities can also dramatically affect stream water chemistry. In the eastern United States air and water pollution both have an impact on stream water chemistry. And both pose a threat to forest ecosystems. Rainfall in the east is acidic partly because of acid forming compounds present in air pollution. During storms these acids are carried to earth as rain and snow. While scientists have found that precipitation falling on the ferno watersheds becomes less acidic through natural processes as it passes over and through vegetation soils and bedrock. The forest's ability to neutralize or buffer these acids is limited. Therefore the soils and stream water could become more acidic over time and may eventually slow forest growth or harm aquatic life. Drainage from active or abandoned mines also can affect forest streams producing high levels of acidity which will not support plant or animal life. In contrast some of man's activities have small or only short term effects on streams. Logging usually does not cause significant changes in stream flow chemistry and buffer strips with shade trees prevent temperature increases. Aquatic organisms can thrive when care is taken to maintain water quality. Forest researchers are still working still learning and from their patient efforts we understand some of the ways in which water affects a forest and the forest affects water. We know something about precipitation evaporation and transpiration soil moisture stream flow erosion and sediment and chemical actions that affect water quality. An understanding of these processes is helping foresters make decisions about two of our most valuable natural resources our forests and our water.