Large numbers of tanoak, coast live oak and black oak trees are dying in coastal areas of California, in an epidemic known as Sudden Oak Death. As I was completing this article, there were three important new developments. Oregon announced a quarantine on oak products from California. UC Berkeley announced the discovery of the Sudden Oak Death pathogen in rhododendrons found in a Santa Cruz nursery and in Europe, suggesting a new mode of transmission and escalating the SOD problem to a new level of
crisisÑperhaps to a level at which controlling the spread of the disease becomes impossible. And finally, the federal government announced that $3.5 million will be funneled to California to fight the epidemic.
Why has this outbreak, first noted in 1995, had so little attention from government officials for so long?
"There is not a more admirable hardwood in all the West...a tree with a magnificent bole and sumptuous foliageÑevergreen and darkly glittering above, and a beautiful silvery white beneath (from the dense coating of snowy wool). Long erect spikes (catkins) of white flowers light up the tree like candles at Christmas; and the fruit, a long, strong, darkly polished acorn, stands erect in a handsome burry cup."
This vivid, wintry picture of a tanoakÑpenned in 1950 by Donald Culross Peattie in A Natural History of Western Trees, a book noted equally for the beauty of its prose as for the nicety of its scienceÑcould not be less apt when applied to the same species found in today's forest: the lowly tanoak, a tree not magnificent, but a tall and spindly pole or a brushy sprout that has seized the niche created in the forest by the excessive removal of redwood canopy.
Nonetheless, when assuming its rightful place among the redwoods along the California coast and into Oregon as the most important hardwood in this forest type, the tanoak is indeed admirableÑeven fallen from its former splendor of size. Its attributes could serve well as a guide for a life of which one need not be ashamed.
Though not a true oak, it is closely related, an evergreen of stout leaves, an abundant producer of acorns. Beautiful, tolerant, disease-resistant, persistent; having a large root system that it both sets deep and spreads wide, it is superbly adapted to disturbance and well-suited to serve a role in many successional stages of the forest. Holding and replenishing the soil; resisting fire; providing food, roost and refuge to small creatures; percolating the streams' waters. A tree of many talents, indispensable to wildlife in the redwood forests.
Unfortunately for the tanoak and the myriad functions it performs, many professional foresters consider this tree little more than a costly nuisance, a weed, a tenacious competitor with the more economically valuable conifer. To serve as firewood, perhaps. At best, an after-thought, sparingly saved from chemical and chainsaw in a temporary and grudging gesture to wildlife.
And, indeed, the laxity of the law, the long-standing failure of the Board of Forestry to provide adequate protections for hardwoods, and the ferocious cutting of conifers by the timber industry worked together, not only to create an overabundance of tanoak, which grows and reproduces prolifically following the removal of conifers, but to foster an attitude of indifference to tanoaks' existence among those for whom the short-term economic value of conifers was paramount.
It was because of this background and this mindset that the California Department of Forestry (CDF) failed to react when, in 1995, tanoaks were first found dying by the hundreds in Marin County. The causes of death were unknown, but no reports were made, no research was done, no alert was sent out to the public. It was only tanoak. The spread of the disease was tracked but no alarm was raised. Even the tanoak's renowned resistance to disease didn't prod the state into action, didn't raise a suspicion of something new and deadly. Further testimony to the casual attitude was that when the story began to emerge some years later, foresters were heard to remark, only half-jokingly, that they were rooting for the spread of the tanoak disease to save themselves the cost and trouble of treatment.
At the same time, others, alarmed by the war being waged on tanoaks by the major timber companies, were, in 1996, convened at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center in a committee of biologists and foresters from the University of California, California Department of Forestry, Department of Fish and Game, Department of Parks and Recreation, and several major timber companies, with myself as the only lay person. The commission was charged with writing a report to address the values of hardwoods (mostly tanoaks) found among conifers and to make recommendations for their retention in our coastal forests. During the months that we met not a word of dying tanoaks was spoken. Of the hardwood specialists gathered there, did no one know?
It was not until 1999 when the disease began to spread to the beautiful coast live oaks, the cherished and majestic heritage trees found in the front yards of upscale homes in Marin and in areas of Santa Cruz, that the problem began to achieve some significance to state and county officials. The disease also began to appear in black oak trees. Our treasured oak woodlands, home to hundreds of species of wildlife, were threatened. Surely now the state would act?
Marin County, where the disease was epidemic and the fire danger from standing dead trees increased dramatically, published its own pamphlet and coined the name "Sudden Oak Death," a name that scientists spoke reluctantly, because it didn't really describe the course of the disease. There is no sudden death. The disease can be present many months before a tree dies but may not manifest until just weeks before death, when leaves suddenly turn brown.
However, the dramatic-sounding name helped do what was surely intended by its choiceÑattract attention to the issue. The Santa Cruz Coast Sentinel, in mid-1999, was one of the first newspapers to inform readers of the problem. Concerned citizens began to prod state officials, pushing for action, funding, research, education.
Still, the level of effort was minimal. In the spring of 2000, a report to the Board of Forestry by Rick Standiford from UC Berkeley included the dismal news that so little money had been allocated to track and study the disease that worried scientists were volunteering their time to design and implement much-needed, long-overdue research. Simultaneously, in ironic contrast to the state's low priority regarding oaks, was the headline news of millions of dollars going to protect the $33 billion wine industry from the glassy-winged sharpshooters' invasion of vineyards. Oaks? Ho hum.
Also during the spring of 2000, another committee was meeting in Mendocino County, convened by UC Cooperative Extension in response to a 1993 directive on oaks issued by the Board of Forestry. By this directive the Board had carefully dodged both the Farm Bureau and its own responsibility for oak woodland conservation and handed protection problems off to local jurisdictions, as a "land-use planning issue." In response, most local jurisdictions passed resolutions that extolled the virtues of oaks but had no teeth. But Mendocino County, though it has one of the largest acreages of oak woodlands in California, had done nothing.
Thus another oak committee. This one, made up of local landowners, conservationists, and an alphabet soup of agencies local, state and federal, has yet to issue a final report. The first draft of June 2000 contained not a whisper of Sudden Oak Death. The latest draft has included it.
Finally, in August, following the discovery by UC Davis pathologist David Rizzo of the causal agentÑa virulent new fungus of the Phytophthora (Phy-TOFF-thoruh) genus, closely related to the Port Orford Cedar fungusÑa California Oak Mortality Task Force was formed.
But, again, though the task force outlined a two-year $10 million budget, Governor Gray Davis allocated in November only $100,000. Requests to the state legislature for the millions of dollars more needed by Sonoma and Marin counties just for protection from the increased fire risk of the standing dead trees were denied.
Everywhere among California officials, it seemed, the disease was minimized. Quarantines were discussed but nothing put in place. The state's stance continued to be that more information was needed before it could act. It was at this point that Oregon cut through the dithering and slapped a 90-day quarantine on oak products coming from California. Given the latest discovery of the pathogen in rhododendrons, this quarantine will likely be extended. Many hope that federal officials will impose a similar quarantine.
As things stand now, the disease has been found among three tree speciesÑ tanoaks (Lithocarpus densiflorus), coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia), and black oaks (Quercus kelloggii)Ñand, most lately, nursery rhododendrons. Its distribution has been confirmed from Sonoma County in the north to Monterey in the south, with reported but unconfirmed cases in other coastal counties. In several counties, it's epidemic. It hasn't been confirmed in Mendocino County, but is almost certainly here. There is no known control for this disease. Knowledgeable scientists are calling it a "disaster in slow motionâ" a disaster that could spread to the Sierra Nevada and to the East Coast and bring permanent ecological change.
We urge all MEC readers to further educate themselves about this disease. The MEC has information on hand. People can go to the website: * brown or black discolored bark on lower tree trunks;
* seeping or bleeding of reddish-brown or black viscous sap from bark;
* fine, granular powder on the bark, resulting from the tunneling of beetles;
¥* the presence of fruiting bodies of the fungus Hypoxylon thouarsianum; these are small, approximately 5-30 millimeters in diameter, shiny black at first, becoming khaki green to dull dark brown or black as they age.
These symptoms (taken from "Tree Notes" No. 26, August 2000; published by the California Department of Forestry) may not all be present on a tree. Foliage of affected trees may appear to die rapidly, turning from green to brown within a few weeks. However, trees in which foliage rapidly turns brown are likely to have had other symptoms for more than one year.
If we truly love our oak woodlands, we must demand that our state and local officials recognize the gravity of this threat to their existence and give Sudden Oak Death the attention and funding it needs. Finally, it is imperative that the state act immediately to place a quarantine on any plants or plant products moved from zones of infestation.
Linda Perkins is a member of the MendoLake Group of the Sierra Club. Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2001Symptoms Of Sudden Oak Death
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