THE FOREST LANDOWNER #5/2

The Newsletter of the Wayne-Lackawanna Forest Landowners Association

Summer 2009

Editor: Peter Wynne

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This Quarter:
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· August Meeting: Managing a Small Pond

· Looking Ahead...

· Good Times Had by All

· Climate-Change Impacts

· EAB on the March

· Websites Worth Visiting

· Membership Dues for 2009

· Call for Contributions

===============================================================August Meeting: Managing a Small Pond

===============================================================Our next WLFLA meeting is now less than 2-1/2 weeks away. This summer is going by altogether too fast.... On the program are workshops on managing fish and aquatic plant populations in small ponds and a presentation on native reptiles and amphibians.

Presenting the management workshops are aquatic biologist Marty Miesko, owner of Natureworks Clear Water Associates, Inc., and Kevin Schultz of Schultz's Fish Hatchery. A representative of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission will present the live program on reptiles and amphibians.

Natureworks, based in Lake Ariel, is an environmental consulting firm that specializes in aquatic plant management in a seven-state area made up of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Schultz's Fish Hatchery, which is also based in Lake Ariel, maintains three aquaculture facilities -- two in Wayne County and one in Lackawanna, raising Largemouth Bass, Channel Catfish, Black Crappie, Bluegill, Fathead Minnows, Yellow Perch, Walleye, Smallmouth Bass, and Northern Pike.

The program is Saturday, August 29th, beginning at 10 a.m., at the Wall Street Lodge in Rock Lake, which is about 20 miles north-northwest of Honesdale and just off Pa. Route 247. Lunch is free to members, $5 for non-members. Reservations are a must and can be made by calling Joe Preate at (570) 430-6316. Don't forget to ask Joe for directions.

===============================================================Looking Ahead....

===============================================================Although the WLFLA won't meet in September, we have events scheduled for each of the following two months.

On Wednesday, October 14th, we'll visit RGM Forest Products in Daleville, in southeastern Lackawanna County, to see the latest technology in lumber production. Craig Olver, who's making the arrangements calls a visit to RGM a real eye opener. The event will start at 9:30 a.m. For reservations, directions and to car pool, call Craig at (570) 729-7683.

Then on Thursday, November 5th, we have our annual meeting at St. Rose Academy in Mayfield -- at what used to be known as the Lackawanna Heritage Valley Center. We'll have the election of officers for 2010 and two presentations.

Jill Weaver, USDA Area Conservationist, will talk about the 2008 Farm Bill and how it benefits woodland owners, especially those certified by either the American Tree Farm System or the Pennsylvania Forest Stewardship Program. John Maza, DCNR-Forestry Service Forester, will talk about the requirements for certification in those two programs.

Things will get started at 6:30 p.m., and the refreshments will be delightful, if past meetings are any indicator. Make your reservations (we need a head count for the refreshments) by calling (570) 281-9495.

===============================================================Good Times Had by All

===============================================================About two-dozen members and guests enjoyed each of our last two meetings -- our May 30th Forestry Field Day at the Olver Family's Tall Timber Tree Farm and our June 13th visit to Youngsville, N.Y., over in Sullivan County, for a fascinating program on restored historical barns.

This was the third consecutive year that Craig, Janet and Tara Olver hosted the field day at their tree farm in Manchester Township, and the demonstrations offered nourishment different from but every bit as rich as the buffet lunch that was served up that afternoon.

Shawn and James Galvin of Progressive Forestry demonstrated directional tree felling and chain saw safety. Raconteur Doug Weeks donned different costumes and personalities as he shared his knowledge of herbal remedies and talked about life in Penns Woods a century or two ago.

Winding up the day was Paul Reining, forest specialist for the Wayne Conservation District, who gave his take on the joys and terrors of logging in a "PowerPoint" presentation he dubbed "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Timber Harvesting."

Our barns program featured presentations by restorers Zeke Boyle and Niall Barrett, owners of Beechwoods Barns in Narrowsburg, N.Y. The program took place in a barn the pair had recently restored -- and beautifully so. The two brought along some of the antique barn-building tools they use in their business as well as color slides showing the process of restoring a barn.

Also making presentations were Sally Matlaga, executive director of the Wayne County Historical Society, and Charles Perrin Ross, of Save Our Barns, a Wayne County-based organization that has been cataloguing and documenting the old barns of our region.

===============================================================Climate-Change Impacts

===============================================================The U.S. Global Change Research Program, made up of 13 federal agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, has released a report outlining some of the  climate-change impacts we can expect in the years ahead.

The report, issued June 16, notes that in the Northeast average temperatures have risen by two degrees Fahrenheit since 1970, with temperatures in the winter rising twice that much. Over the next several decades, temperatures are projected to rise by as much as an additional four degrees in winter and 3.5 degrees in summer.

This warming has already resulted in many climate-related changes including more frequent very hot days, an increase in heavy downpours, less winter precipitation falling as snow and more as rain, reduced snowpack, earlier breakup of winter ice on lakes and rivers and earlier spring snowmelt, which results in earlier peak river flows.

In the years ahead, the temperature increases will likely lead to more heavy precipitation events and more flooding in the Northeast and also to more drought events, with our region experiencing a short drought (one to three months) each summer.

Climate change will affect the trees in our region. Much of the Northeast’s forest is composed of the maple, beech and birch, for example, and the climate conditions suitable for these species are projected to shift dramatically northward. By the end of the century, the maple sugar business likely will be eliminated from all but a very small portion of the northeastern United States. Another casualty will be the colorful foliage that has always marked our autumns.

The temperature increases since 1970 have brought to our region new insect pests (the hemlock wooly adelgid, for example), plant diseases and invasive weed species, and this trend is expected to continue. The habitat for some coldwater fish species, such as trout, is very likely to contract in response to warming. Indeed, Pennsylvania is predicted to lose 50 percent of its trout habitat in the coming decades.

It's a very sobering report, but it's something every forest landowner should read, which you can do online at http://www.globalchange.gov

===============================================================EAB on the March

===============================================================First discovered in the commonwealth during the summer of 2007, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) has now been found in eight western Pennsylvania counties: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Lawrence, Mercer, Washington and Westmoreland and in Mifflin County at the center of the state.

The destructive East Asian beetle, which was first detected in the United States in July 2002 in southeastern Michigan, has now been found just north of the Pennsylvania border as well. In mid June, an EAB infestation was identified in Randolph, N.Y., a town in southern Cattaraugus County, about 60 miles east of Erie, Pa.

This infestation about 200 miles from Wayne and Lackawanna Counties is perhaps less threatening than the one found in late February in Mifflin County, which is about 50 miles closer to home, but it would seem to add weight to the thought that EAB's appearance in northeastern Pennsylvania is inevitable in the fullness of time.

EAB has been blamed for the destruction of some 20- to 25-million ash trees in Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia and Illinois. Typically, the beetles kill a tree within three years of infestation. With White Ash a dominant tree species in our region, the EAB threat here is huge.

===============================================================Websites Worth Visiting

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www.wlfla.org

Type this "URL," as it's called, into your web browser, and you'll get to our very own Wayne-Lackawanna Forest Landowners Association website. Add the site to your favorites, and you'll always have quick access to information on how to reach WLFLA officers and a full schedule of our activities and meetings in 2009.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/fpm_invasives_EAB.aspx

http://www.agriculture.state.pa.us/agriculture/cwp/view.asp?a=3&Q=144707&PM=1

If the Emerald Ash Borer has you worried, above are two sites you can visit to stay abreast of developments. The first is maintained by the Pa. Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and offers informative color pictures of the EAB and the damage it does to ash trees. The second site is maintained by the state Department of Agriculture and provides detailed information on the quarantines and other restrictions that have been imposed in the commonwealth in an effort to contain the pest.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/emerald_ash_b/index.shtml

And here's one more EAB-related site. This one is the work of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the federal Department of Agriculture. Among the interesting items on this site is a brochure entitled "Emerald Ash Borer: The Green Menace," which you can download in PDF format and print out as a handy reference piece.

===============================================================Membership Dues for 2009

===============================================================WLFLA dues for 2009 are long past due, and members who haven't sent in a check are urged to do so now. A single, family or club membership with one vote (if something comes to a vote) continues at $20 for the calendar year 2009. Checks payable to WLFLA may be sent to WLFLA, c/o Cathy Wendolowski, Treasurer, 2116 Laurel Hill Road, Clarks Summit, PA 18411. And if you have a membership question, you can call Cathy at (570) 585-5638.

===============================================================Call for Contributions

===============================================================WLFLA members are cordially invited to send along by e-mail any items they think worthy of inclusion in this newsletter.