After months of uncertainty, the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest received news Monday that it will remain open, after the U.S. Forest Service announced a nationwide reorganization that puts dozens of research facilities at risk of closure.
Hubbard Brook leadership credited Gov. Kelly Ayotte, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan for working with the USDA to keep the forest open.
The future of New Hampshire’s other experimental forest, Bartlett, remains uncertain. Bartlett was placed on a list of planned facility closures earlier this year and is awaiting reevaluation from the Forest Service.
Both Bartlett and Hubbard Brook are located in the White Mountains, and were established in 1931 and 1955, respectively. They’re among over 80 experimental forests and ranges across the country, at least 57 of which are facing facility closures.
Anthea Lavallee, executive director of Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, spoke with NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett about the research conducted at Hubbard Brook and what’s at stake for experimental forests.
Transcript
How did you feel when you heard the news that Hubbard Brook will stay open?
It absolutely took my breath away. It stopped me in my tracks and I was brimming with happy tears. It was just such a tremendous relief to know that we were safe from closure through this reorganization.
The future of Hubbard Brook was unknown for some time. What was it like at the research center throughout that process of uncertainty?
It was an incredibly stressful time. Knowing that our sister site in New Hampshire, Bartlett Experimental Forest, was on the list of research facilities to be closed, it absolutely sent a shock wave through our entire team, and our Forest Service colleagues were feeling very much at risk.
Well, let's talk about the science. For those who don't know, what is an experimental forest and what do we learn from them?
It's interesting because the U.S. Forest Service is this unassuming research agency that for decades and decades has been churning out actionable science that makes our lives better and makes our world a better place, but has never been in a position of having to toot its horn or defend itself in in any kind of way. Some of the science, it directly impacts issues related to water quality, air quality, protecting iconic landscapes, recreation, [and] maintaining wildlife habitat.
One of Hubbard Brook's claims to fame is the discovery of acid rain in North America at Hubbard Brook in 1963. That's a discovery that motivates us in our science to policy outreach every day, because it was that discovery and Hubbard Brook's scientists who engaged with lawmakers over an extended period of time, actually decades, that led to the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments that protect our air and water to this day.
So what kind of experiments do you do at the forest? Can you give me an example of what one of them looks like?
We're known for long-term ecosystem monitoring, which is the regular measuring of ecosystem characteristics like air quality, air temperature, water quality and quantity, how the forest is changing structurally, [how] different species are changing, [and] is the function of the forest changing over time, things like lake ice and snowpack.
And against that backdrop of long term monitoring, we conduct these large scale experiments. One example is a simulated forest ice storms. We know that these extreme winter events are going to become more frequent. They're also going to become more severe. And in order for emergency managers to prepare for these extreme winter weather events, Hubbard Brook scientists, actually Forest Service leaders, led this experiment where they blasted ice up into the forest canopy over these eight experimental plots, and using calipers, they were able to get out and measure how much ice accretion was building up on the forest branches. With that information, they were able to tell exactly when the ice buildup caused a light pruning effect, [when] entire branches started falling down and [when] entire trees were shattering.
So this is the kind of work that we do at Hubbard Brook. Then [we] share those insights with emergency managers like New Hampshire Electric Co-op, so that arborists can prune trees to protect power lines. We also took those insights to the New Hampshire Department of Homeland Security so that they could adjust their emergency management plans. So that's just one example. There are many, many examples of experiments at Hubbard Brook.
So a lot of crossover between agencies here.
Absolutely.
The current administration has said they are closing sites that are underutilized or vacant, and that closures won't affect the ability to do research at those locations. Do you think that work can actually continue without those sites?
In a system as vast and complex as the U.S. Forest Service, I have no doubt that there are inefficiencies. However, there's no-one-size-fits-all approach that can work. For example, at Hubbard Brook, our facilities are essential for conducting our day-to-day operations and science. We have an archive that has water samples dating back to 1955. You walk into that building and its shelves and shelves of water samples. It’s wall-to-wall water. Those resources are housed at Hubbard Brook and U.S. Forest Service facilities. There's nowhere for them to go. The same is true at Bartlett. The facilities at Bartlett are essential for the science and the operations day-to-day.
Bartlett Experimental Forest's future is still up in the air. You've voiced your concern about that and you've also said that the work that you two do is intertwined. What would we lose if Bartlett is closed?
If Bartlett facilities were to be closed, it would be a catastrophic loss. They are the premier ecosystem study for silviculture, which is the science of actively managing forests to achieve particular outcomes. The insights from Bartlett go directly to inform land managers and forest managers, so that they can use cutting edge science in silviculture to make good decisions about healthy forests going forward.
So here in New Hampshire and across New England, we are a very forest based economy, ecology and culture. Timber revenue, historically for paper and pulp, has been an essential part of our regional economy. And so we're starting to see new kinds of wood products [and] new manufacturing capacities. The kind of work that's done at Bartlett in order to understand how to manage forests for timber and also for forest health will be essential as these new economies, supply chains and markets emerge in the region. So this is not the time to pull the plug on science at Hubbard Brook or Bartlett when we're seeing all of these interesting opportunities to revitalize our rural economies in New Hampshire. Also at this time of accelerating environmental change, we really need this science.
What are you keeping an eye on at this moment in time?
I would say that what happened on Monday, with the announcement that Bartlett and its closure is now going to be reexamined, and knowing that Hubbard Brook is no longer in danger of being closed through this reorganization, I think that for us, sends such a hopeful signal that there can be this kind of bipartisan support for environmental science. So it was awesome to see that acknowledgement from leaders that, yes, we understand this and we will work hard to save it.
For many sites, Hubbard Brook and Bartlett included, we've been struggling under a sustained hiring freeze at the Forest Service, which basically puts our staff members in a stranglehold as people retire or they relocate. The remaining Forest Service staff are literally doing double duty and doing it with incredible grace in order to maintain stable operations and a safe site, and to keep the regular rhythm of science, all of that long-term monitoring going, unbroken.
Do you feel confident that this kind of research will continue here in New Hampshire in the future?
You know, it's hard to feel confident about anything. We're celebrating, but at the same time, it's hard to celebrate when so many of our partner sites across a vast network of experimental forests and ranges are still in limbo. We are two, I think, terrific examples, but part of a much, much bigger system. But this to me, feels like reason to feel legitimately hopeful.
