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Project ID: 07-3-2-08

Year: 2007

Date Started: 08/02/2007

Date Completed: 02/27/2009

Title: Characterizing Lessons Learned From Federal Biomass Removal Projects

Project Proposal Abstract: The proposed study includes two parts. The first part focuses on characterizing biomass removal efforts on USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and tribal lands for a total of 10-12 case studies located throughout the country. Information will be collected on project planning, implementation, operations, and efforts to build industry, community, and market capacity. To the extent that data is available, we will collect the following information on biomass removal activities initiated or completed during fiscal years 2001 to 2006, which will be aggregated into a comprehensive database to facilitate comparison across forest types and fire conditions: - Project Planning: number of NEPA-ready projects, staff resources, contracting authorities used, - Project Implementation: acres treated by fire condition class and proximity to the wildland-urban interface, type of biomass removal, cost of biomass removal activities, and sources of funding for planning, implementation, and operations - Project Operations: site operability, species composition and density, contractor availability, equipment required, transportation distances - Regional Industry Capacity: size, type and location of existing/previous wood products industry - Market Capacity: market availability, product feasibility, required technical expertise - Community Capacity: community partnerships present, history of collaboration, labor and workforce capacity, economic development planning, infrastructure availability. A synthesis of existing research will be used to verify information to be collected. Cases will represent a range of federal administrative units, different population densities, and size of the wildland-urban interface. They will also be selected to represent a range of community capacities, experiences with biomass removal, planning efforts, and the use of federal contracting authorities. Descriptive information gathered in Part I will be used in Part II to assess project actions leading to successful implementation of biomass removal projects. Project planners, contractors conducting the work, and relevant community partners will be asked to characterize key lessons learned from past projects and to identify barriers to further biomass removal and utilization. To the degree possible, we will compare these factors to illustrate overlapping challenges across forests and to highlight specific types of activities that might be applied in other regions of the country. For each case, our analysis of the effectiveness of local efforts will focus on the following questions: - What have the ecological, economic, and social impacts been of federal investments to remove woody biomass from hazardous fuels reduction projects? - Which factors contribute most to development of biomass enterprises, and are they sustainable? - What have been the unanticipated results of biomass removal and how have they affected progress? - What have the barriers to implementation of biomass removal projects been related to a) project planning, b) operations, c) industry capacity, d) market development, and e) community capacity? - Which strategies contribute most to overcoming key barriers? - To what extent have community partnerships contributed to project planning and building local industry capacity necessary to utilize fuel reduction byproducts? Results from this part of the study will be aggregated across cases to identify key themes for lessons learned. Perceptions of barriers and lessons learned will also be compared across types of participants to identify perspectives of project planners relative to that of contractors, and community partners.

Principal Investigator: Dennis R. Becker

Agency/Organization: University of Minnesota

Branch or Dept: Department of Forest Resources

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Federal Cooperator	Pamela J. Jakes	Forest Service	NRS-Northern Research Station

Project Locations

Consortium

Alaska

Appalachian

California

Great Basin

Great Plains

Lake States

Oak Woodlands

Northern Rockies

Northwest

Pacific

South

Southern Rockies

Southwest

Tallgrass

There are no project locations identified for this project.

Project Deliverables

Final Report ("Results presented in JFSP Final Reports may not have been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as tentative until published in a peer-reviewed source.")

	ID	Type	Title
	9749	Refereed Publication	Characterizing Lessons Learned from Federal Biomass Removal Projects
	9105	NonRefereed Publication	Conventional Wisdoms of Woody Biomass Utilization
	8880	NonRefereed Publication	Study Focuses on Biomass Utilization for Hazardous Fuel Reduction
	7844	NonRefereed Publication	Nationwide Analysis Offers Lessons from Biomass Removal Projects
	7897	Poster	Hazardous Fuels Reduction and Forest Biomass Utilization: A Nationwide Analysis
	9104	Final Report Summary	Summary Report of Deliverables

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents available for this project.

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