Month: November 2011

Pew et al. Full Page Ad on Roadless

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NOTE: THERE IS A DISCUSSION ON THIS SAME TOPIC ON THE HCN RANGE BLOG HERE. Some different kinds of comments than for NCFP readers.

In the Denver Post this morning, I saw the full page ad you see here to your right. I couldn’t figure out how to link to it, since it was an advertisement, but I did find out this on the web at Pew Environment.

Note that the Pew Charitable Trusts has on its webpage:
“The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life.”

What I found questionable about “knowledge” was the statement:

“Yet your administration is considering a plan that would open up many of these areas to new drilling, expanded logging, and coal mining.”

New drilling

No one has yet explained how the proposed Colorado rule opens new areas to drilling.. it would be interesting to have that discussion here, if someone can explain the thinking.

“Expanded logging”

Is the “logging” intended to mean fuel treatments in the WUI?

If so, many may be interested to know that individuals from some of the same groups named in the advertisement (when arguing why state rules were not needed) have said that the 2001 allows the same “logging” under the exception:

To maintain or restore the characteristics of ecosystem composition and structure, such as to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic
wildfire effects, within the range of variability that would be expected to occur under natural disturbance regimes of the current climatic period.”

It seems intellectually inconsistent to say, on the one hand, that fuels treatments are allowed under 2001, and then to later claim that fuels treatments are “expanded logging” and only allowed under the Colorado Rule.

Aside : under 2001, “maintain or restore” fuels treatments are not restricted to 1/2 mile from communities, so it could be argued that the 2001 Rule, in fact, allows “expanded logging” compared to the Colorado Rule.

AND coal mining

Finally, the exception that allows temporary roads (2-3 years) to vent methane from underground coal mines (not exactly the same image as “coal mining”, but.. OK..) was allowed in the proposal on 16-20K or so more acres than allowed under the 2001 Rule on (I think) one roadless area.

The way the statement is made “open up many to drilling, logging and coal mining” without an “or” instead of an “and” would indicate (as the English language is commonly used) that temporary roads for methane venting would be allowed on “many” roadless areas. Since the usual idea is that it takes more than one to be “many”, this is also not a fact.

So there are three assertions and 0/3 are, strictly speaking,true. Doesn’t seem very like a very “rigorous and analytical” approach to me. Just sayin’ ;).

PS the Pew website refers to ” A letter from 520 leading scientists expressing concern about the Colorado proposal went to the administration in December 2009.” I remember one that was sent April 14, 2010.. (I wonder if there are really two?) that I posted this blog post about on Roger Pielke, Jrs.’ blog here.

Wilderness Society sheds 17 percent of staff, seeks new president

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Thanks to Matthew Koehler for hearing about this and to another friend for pointing me to Greenwire.

From E&E News here.

Wilderness Society sheds 17 percent of staff, seeks new president

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

Published: Friday, November 18, 2011

The Wilderness Society, one of the nation’s largest public lands advocacy groups, this week cut about 17 percent of its workforce, a reflection of challenging economic times for nonprofits.

The staffing change comes shortly after the group’s president, William Meadows, announced he will transition out of his position over the next year to become a counselor until a new president is chosen.

The Washington, D.C.-based group, which currently runs on a $26.7 million annual budget, cited reduced donations amid a sluggish economy as one reason for the cuts.

“The Wilderness Society, like so many other organizations, has been feeling the effects of a down economy, creating budget pressures,” said spokeswoman Kitty Thomas. “The recent staff reduction is part of the normal course of business to make sure we are running efficiently and well positioned for the future.”

The group’s latest federal filing indicates that contributions and grants fell from $32 million in 2009 to $20 million in 2010, a change the group largely attributed to one pledge it received in 2009 to be used over three years. Expenses exceeded revenues by about $7 million in 2010.

Total staff numbered 224 in October 2010, according to the filing, which includes interns and double counts of some employees who had been replaced, Thomas said. The group this week reduced its permanent staff from 187 to 155.

Thomas said the group — with offices in Denver; Bozeman, Mont.; and Boise, Idaho, among other locations — will continue its focus on protecting wild lands, as well as promoting site-appropriate renewable energy development and conservation funding.

The group will deepen its administrative work on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management wild lands to maximize land protections, she said. Recently, it has fought to defend federal support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and pass several wilderness proposals in Congress, while defending a Republican push to overturn millions of acres of roadless protections.

The group is also a frequent plaintiff in lawsuits challenging Obama administration decisions to allow drilling in sensitive waters or development on scenic or wildlife-rich lands.

“In just the last month we have contributed to some important victories, including a big win in the courts for roadless forests and the designation of a new national monument,” Thomas said. “We continue to focus on our vital mission to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places.”

The group reported capital reserves and endowment investments at all-time highs of $26 million in 2010, due in part to generous pledges in 2009 by donors who significantly increased giving despite the economic downturn. It listed more than 500,000 members and supporters in 2010, a more than 25 percent increase over two years ago.

Meadows, who has served as president since 1996, told the group’s governing council of his plans to leave his post at the board’s annual meeting in West Virginia in September.

“This is a change I have been planning for the last two years,” Meadows said. “In the coming months, I am committed to ensuring a smooth leadership transition for TWS. Once a new president is chosen, I am looking forward to filling a new role as counselor to the organization, where I will remain dedicated to protecting our wild places.”

Meadows is credited for helping the group promote protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and defend the Clinton administration’s sweeping rule to protect 58.5 million acres of roadless forests. He is also credited for achieving permanent protection for more than 5 million acres of wilderness nationwide, among other accomplishments.

The change at TWS comes shortly after the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, announced it would remain independent despite drawing most of its funding from energy companies including Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Entergy Corp. (Greenwire, Nov. 9).

The new Center for Climate and Energy Solutions will retain as much independence as it did when it was 70 percent funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, its president, Eileen Claussen, said.

Aerial Fire Retardant Is Like Avastin

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Today the FDA withdrew its approval for Avastin’s use as a breast cancer treatment. The FDA’s decision was based on large-scale clinical trials that failed to show Avastin improves life expectancies or controls tumor size. The lack of any statistically significant positive benefits combined with serious side effects, such as high blood pressure and hemorrhaging, has pulled this drug from the shelves.

But, some women and physicians (some with financial connections to Avastin’s manufacturer Genentech) believe that Avastin has been effective in treating particular cases of breast cancer. One protester said that the FDA’s decision is “nothing short of a death sentence” for some women.

The problem for Avastin’s promoters is that although it is conceivable that some women might benefit from Avastin therapy — even if women, in general, do not — we do not know how to predict which women these are.

Although the FDA did not consider cost in its analysis, Avastin’s $80,000/patient/year expense also does not counsel for its unsubstantiated use.

So, how is aerial fire retardant like Avastin? The Forest Service acknowledges that no data nor studies show that fire retardant improves initial attack success or decreases average fire size. In fact, fire data for the last ten years show no correlation between firefighting effectiveness and retardant use by national forest.

Fire retardant has known serious “side effects,” like dead fish and crashed airtankers. It is expensive, too, at over $1/gallon to administer — $3,000/drop from a large airtanker.

Although it is possible that fire retardant might be effective under some circumstances, we don’t know how to distinguish those fires from every other ignition.

Just substitute “fire retardant” for Avastin in this summary:

“Many breast cancer specialists say that Avastin does appear to work very well for some patients and some advocates have said the drug should be left on the market for the sake of those patients. But Dr. Hamburg said there was no way to determine in advance who those patients are, so many women would use the drug. “The evidence does not justify broad exposure to the risks of this drug,” she wrote.

House and Senate Unite Under Legislation To Protect America’s Wild and Pristine Roadless Forests

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From ENews Park Forest

Washington, D.C.–(ENEWSPF)–November 17, 2011.  On the heels of a landmark Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a broad group of senators and representatives introduced legislation today to make sure the administrative rule remains the law of the land—locking in protections for 58.5 million acres of America’s wildest and most pristine forests and waters for generations to come.
 

The Roadless Area Conservation Act, sponsored by 20 Senate and 111 bipartisan House co-sponsors, will confirm long-term protections against damaging commercial logging and road-building for vulnerable wildlands on 30 percent of the 193-million-acre National Forest System, shielding our Roadless areas from the political whims of future administrations.


This legislation highlights the strong congressional support for protecting America’s unique legacy of wild forests, despite a decade’s worth of attacks from an anti-environmental faction of Congress aiming to rollback Roadless protections. This legislation will also ensure that our Roadless protections are implemented across the nation—without exception.

Chief on New Planning Rule

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For those of you who don’t want to look at the whole hearing..from GardenNews.biz here.

US Forest Service Chief Testifies On New Direction For Forest Planning

WASHINGTON, – U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell testified before Congress on the strengths and efficiencies of the agency’s draft new Planning Rule that, when finalized, will provide a framework for how all of the 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands will be managed in the future.

“We need a planning rule that has less process and costs less, with the same or higher level of protections,” said Tidwell.

In his testimony before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, Tidwell discussed how the new rule will decrease the costs of forest planning while delivering better protections for forests, wildlife and water resources and supporting ecosystem services and multiple uses of the National Forest System. The new rule would update planning procedures for 155 national forests and 20 grasslands that have been in place since 1982.

“What started as a very strong proposed rule will now be even better thanks to the hundreds of thousands of constructive comments we received from people and groups across the country,” Tidwell said. “We firmly believe the final rule will deliver an efficient planning process that will reduce costs, facilitate the restoration and management of our forests and watersheds, safeguard natural resources and help deliver a sustainable flow of benefits to the American people.”

Tidwell noted that the new rule will greatly reduce the amount of time required by individual forests and grasslands to revise a plan, which will ultimately save time and money at the ground level. The proposed rule would direct plans to conserve and restore watersheds and habitats and would strengthen community engagement and collaboration during the development and implementation of individual plans.

“Ultimately, the new rule will help forests and grasslands get work done on the ground, producing social, economic and environmental benefits for local communities,” Tidwell said. “The proposed rule also places strong emphasis on the importance of recreation such as hunting, fishing, motorized and non-motorized uses.”

The 1982 planning rule procedures have guided the development, amendment, and revision of all existing Forest Service land management plans. However, Tidwell noted that since 1982, much has changed in the understanding of how to create and implement effective land management plans. He also said that planning under the 1982 rule often takes five to seven years to be revised on average, with some plan revisions taking a decade. The new rule, in contrast, would create a more adaptive planning process that helps units respond to changing conditions, so they can better focus their efforts on the most important work facing their unit.

Under the new rule, Tidwell said that planning would emphasize collaboration, assessment, and monitoring activities. Plan revisions would take less time because the new rule would eliminate many complex and outdated analysis requirements present. The emphasis on collaboration would also help resolve issues at earlier stages in the planning process with the goal of reducing costly litigation.

The Forest Service received around 300,000 comments on the proposed rule and the draft environmental impact statement during the 90-day comment period held earlier this year. The agency has sought public participation to help develop a final rule that will have broad support and endure over time.

Tidwell also noted that the Forest Service had announced yesterday the intention to form a Federal Advisory Committee that will provide advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture on the implementation of the new Planning Rule.

New policy lets ski resorts add warm-weather activities to Forest Service land

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ZIP-LINE RIDES (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file)

Speaking of titles, the one in the Denver Post print edition this AM was “Toys of Summer.” Definitely more evocative than the one here on the web.

What is appropriate recreation on public lands used by ski resorts?

Skiing, snowboarding and skate skiing? Of course.

How about zipping through the forest canopy on a suspended cable? Racing in a running competition? Dancing at a concert? Barreling down elevated ramps on full-suspension mountain bikes? Pedaling singletrack through the aspens?

Under the 1986 National Forest Ski Area Permit Act, regional Forest Service chieftains had little direction when it came to approving and permitting such summertime activities at ski resorts, and most summer-oriented development was limited to private land at base areas.

That is about to change thanks to the new Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act, which
CONCERTS (Associated Press file)
was signed into law Nov. 7. The act amends the 1986 law by expanding potential recreational uses of federal land used by ski resorts.

“One thing we are really concerned about is staying relevant and in touch with the youth of America and changing demographics, and we think outdoor recreation is one of the key ways the Forest Service can interact with people these days,” said Jim Bedwell, the former forest supervisor of the Arapaho and Roosevelt national forests who now serves as the agency’s national director of recreation and heritage resources.

Bedwell has two years to sculpt a new policy that will serve as a blueprint for resort development but said his team will be ready to entertain resort proposals this winter. He expects to see things like zip lines, canopy walks, mountain-bike terrain parks and trails emerging in the already- developed areas of ski resorts. More pristine areas such as Vail’s back bowls will remain in their natural setting.

“We are going to concentrate heavy development within existing development,” said Bedwell, who expects to have a new policy intact within a year.

That policy, he said, will probably include a type of zoning that would corral development into a ski area’s more
ZIP-LINE RIDES (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file)
developed areas around chairlifts and base areas while protecting the less-developed areas of a ski area. And of course, Bedwell said, all development will be natural-resource-oriented and will “harmonize with the outdoor setting and natural environment.” So no Ferris wheels, water slides, golf courses, tennis courts or skateboard parks.

Geraldine Link , director of public policy for the National Ski Areas Association, said the nation’s 121 resorts on federal land will likely quickly pursue things such as zip lines and canopy tours.

“Then, in general, ski areas will begin investing more in summer facilities because this summertime question mark has been removed,” Link said. “This act means we won’t see turmoil or issues based
MOUNTAIN BIKING (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file)
on the appropriateness of summer activities. I think we are going to see resorts go full bore and try to create a critical mass they need for a successful summer program.”

Resorts will still need to follow the established process of submitting a master development plan to the Forest Service and assessing project impacts through federal environmental review.

“It should certainly help in the sense that it will give ‘programmatic’ direction to a wider array of summer uses on Forest Service land within the ski areas,” said Jim Stark, winter-sports administrator with the Aspen Ranger District who last April completed an environmental review of new summertime bike trails at the Snowmass ski area. “Overall, this should help the Forest Service be a little more consistent in how we look at proposals nationally.”

Pine Beetles in the Black Hills

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For those who need a break from Colorado pine beetle stories..Note that this story is the sixth article in an eight week series in the Black Hills Pioneer. Remember that the Hills are full of ponderosa pine, a different beast in terms of pine beetles than the lodgepole in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

Forest Service ‘optimistic’ about success against pine beetles

By Mark VanGerpen Black Hills Pioneer | Posted: Thursday, November 17, 2011 9:38 am

NORTHERN HILLS — The Black Hills National Forest faces some serious challenges in terms of combating the mountain pine beetle, but its managers say there is hope of success.

In terms of the beetle epidemic, Forest Supervisor Craig Bobzien said that with the variety of resources available to us, we can be optimistic about successfully preventing the total infestation of the forest.

“I’m of the belief — and I will say this is a shared belief among a lot of people who are working on this — that in the Black Hills, we have the ingredients in place to have the best chance of being successful in having a healthy forest, of really any place that I know of in the West that’s being threatened right now,” Bobzien said.

To achieve that success, the Forest Service has formulated a strategy for responding to the beetles, but it will also take cooperation with governments, landowners and other entities across the forest.

The Western Bark Beetle Strategy, published by the Forest Service in July, identifies three main “prongs” or considerations in treating for the beetles: human safety, forest recovery after a devastating infestation, and long-term forest resiliency through thinning and treatment methods.

Bobzien said the Forest Service treats for safety first, in areas like campgrounds, trailheads, roads and the wildland/urban interface where public communities meet forestland.

He added, though, that many of those areas aren’t facing serious public safety threats right now.

“(Safety) is our first priority, but it’s the smallest part of what we do on the Black Hills,” Bobzien said. “We don’t have many areas like that because we’ve been able to manage so much of the forest in advance of the beetles.

“We are really working to look at the areas that are both most at risk and where the public resource values are the highest — said differently, where we’d have the greatest consequence if we didn’t take any action.”

Strategically, Bobzien said the most effective place to be — and where the Forest Service is trying to be and remain — is in the “leading edge” zone, which is the area beetles are approaching but have not yet reached.

Strengthening the forest in those areas will presumably prevent the beetles from extending any farther, protecting the forest from further infestation.

But the cumbersome regulations by which the Forest Service must abide sometimes keep it from getting to leading edge zones before the beetles do, and Bobzien said some of the leading edge zones that were identified earlier are filling up with bug-hit trees pretty quickly.

Delayed action is nothing new for the Forest Service, which is hampered by federal regulations, budget processes and litigation from outside sources. Approving a timber sale can take years. Sometimes plans need to adapt during that time to meet new threats, but regulations prevent a quick change in direction.

“It’s like the Titanic – if you see a threat coming at you, how hard is it to change course and do something different? It’s not very easy,” said Northern Hills District Ranger Rhonda O’Byrne.

Bobzien said that the 325,000-acre Mountain Pine Beetle Response Project, along with various other projects that amount to about 200,000 acres, will help decrease response time to newly-hit areas and increase the ability to create a beetle-preventing barrier of thinned, healthy forest in leading edge zones.

Some of those projects could have boots on the ground by summer of 2012.

Bobzien said that approving that many acres for a quick response is critical to staying ahead of the spreading infestation.

“We have just got to look at every possible stand that could be threatened here and analyze this now,” he said. “I don’t think we can (assume) that this is moving at such a pace that we can keep up with it.”

O’Byrne said the Forest Service’s main defense in battling the pine beetles is the timber sale, which allows the timber industry to harvest trees on federal land and what makes thinning in leading edge zones possible.

Maintaining those timber sales in advance of the beetles is “clearly our niche here,” Bobzien said. Without timber sales, which actually create revenue for the Forest Service, then the Black Hills would have to rely on federal funding to fight the beetles, as many other forests in the U.S. do. And federal funds are in short supply these days.

Unfortunately, while the Black Hills has sold more timber than any other forest nationwide in the past five years, the beetles are still advancing, and the timber industry has limits to what it can economically log on the forest.

In other words, the timber sale can’t be our only preventative measure, and O’Byrne said the Forest Service recognizes that. The Forest Service is working with private landowners and volunteer organizations to find a solution for how to best treat the forest.

A lot of landowners and volunteers have come forward in the past six months, ardently trying to help the Forest Service remove beetle-killed trees from national forest land. But there are time-consuming processes for that too.

While O’Byrne and Bobzien said they are impressed with that effort forest wide, it’s not as simple as handing a volunteer a hardhat and chainsaw and setting him loose in the forest.

Legal questions need to be answered first: what degree of training will volunteers need to undergo? Who will pay for it? If a volunteer is injured on the forest, who is liable?

“We are trying to find some instrument that will let the Forest Service work with these other entities … so that the timber sale contract isn’t our only option,” O’Byrne said.

“Right now we’re looking through law regulation policy that affects the Forest Service, seeing if there’s some way that’s legal out there for us to be able to do it. We really want to be able to work with them, but it’s the mechanics of trying to be able to do that … All the federal processes, the laws that we have to meet, they’re there for a good reason, but it takes time to get through them.”

Along with volunteers eager to help are those eager to offer advice, which in turn generates a wide variety of ideas and values about the best treatment strategies and most critical areas to protect. Bobzien said there is no universal strategy for everybody to follow, because the beetles affect different jurisdictions that have different priorities and methods.

That said, Bobzien said there is a need for cooperation and forest-wide prioritization of areas that need to be treated.

“The reality of it is that we do have to prioritize areas, by looking at the values at risk and the consequences of not going there,” Bobzien said. “We clearly have to do that. We do that on a daily and weekly basis.”

Those priority areas naturally shift as new beetle attacks appear or existing ones expand, and even as funding is allocated and spent. Safety is always the top priority, but Bobzien said the Forest Service will also work to protect the economic, recreational and environmental assets in the forest as well, because even though fighting the beetles is tough to do with limited funds, doing nothing could end up costing even more.

This is the sixth article in an eight-week series that discusses the effects of the mountain pine beetle on the Black Hills. Next week’s article will discuss treatment options and tactics in combating the pine beetle.

Webinar Tomorrow on Conflict Management in Planning

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Webinar tomorrow on conflict management in planning.
Here’s the link.
Don’t miss this upcoming Live Webinar sponsored by: USDA Forest Service .

Title: What do you do when people start throwing food at the table? A conflict management perspective

Session Details:
Nov 18, 2011 12:00 pm US/Eastern Duration: 01:00 (hh:mm) vCal iCal
*** Please join the session 15 minutes prior to the start of the webinar. ***

What will you learn?
The 2011 Changing Roles webinar series has a theme: Considering Natural Resources in Land-Use Decision Making Processes. Natural resource professionals often refer to “being at the table” in reference to their participation in multi-stakeholder processes such as land-use planning and therefore, this same language is used in the session titles of this series. Each session will address the theme from a different perspective. This is the final webinar in the four-session series. This session will address common challenges faced in multi-stakeholder group processes and is aimed at resource professionals who are already “at the table” and engaged in land-use planning processes. This webinar will present strategies for working through conflict to create solutions to complex and contentious land-use issues. learn more here…

Who should participate?
Foresters, Land Managers, Natural Resource Professionals, Planners

Presenters/Authors:
Steve Smutko, Spicer Chair of Collaborative Practice, University of Wyoming, Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics

There are many other interesting webinars and other information at this site. I liked this one about Carbon and Forest Products.

More on Ski Area Water Rights- from Bob Berwyn

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Following the hearing (see previous post here) , Bob Berwyn did this story explaining the water rights issue that was discussed at the hearing.

National Ski Areas Association charges Forest Service with ‘takings’

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — A decades-old water-rights struggle between the U.S. Forest and the ski industry flared up again this week, as the National Ski Areas Association charged that the agency wants to make an end run around state law and “take away” water rights worth tens of millions of dollars.

The accusations came during a Nov. 15 hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee, as Boulder attorney Glenn Porzak testified on behalf of the ski industry, asking Congress to intervene in the matter. Porzak’s written statement is online here.

“All water rights owners should be concerned,” Porzak said, claiming that the change would require ski areas to transfer ownership of several types of water rights to the Forest Service.

“Ski areas would lose the ability to control future use of those water rights … they would have no guarantee on future use,” Porzak said, explaining that ski areas collectively have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in water rights used for snowmaking, lodging, restrooms, culinary purposes and irrigation.

At issue is a water-rights clause in the standard ski area permit that specifies who owns the water flowing down from public national forest system lands both within and outside ski area boundaries. The current language has been in place since 2004 and the ski industry says it’s been working well.

Under the 2004 clause, ski areas exercise almost absolute control over all water rights associated with ski area operations — to the point that a resort could potentially sell at least some of the water rights, potentially leaving a future ski area permittee high and dry.

The Forest Service is replacing that clause with new language that would prevent such a sale, but the ski industry claims the new clause goes far beyond that, and amounts to a takings of private property.

After the hearing, a top Forest Service official said the 2004 permit language wouldn’t stand up to a legal test in Colorado and possibly other states where ski areas operate under permit from the agency.

The agency is seeking to sustain resorts operating under permit for the long-term by ensuring that the water rights stay with the ski area even if there is a change in ownership or some other unforeseen circumstance, according to Jim Bedwell, director of the agency’s recreation and heritage resources programs.

Bedwell said the agency recognizes that the value of ski areas is tied at least in part to the associated water rights.

“If there’s a change of ownership, the buyers will know they have continued ownership of the water rights, They can’t be parted out,” he said.

The new clause would clarify and define ownership of various water rights associated with permitted ski areas, he said, adding that the language in the 2004 clause was not legally viable because ownership of the water rights was not clearly defined.

Porzak disagreed.

“In a nutshell, it takes away all the important water rights,” he said.

Via email, NSAA public policy director Geraldine Link explained it this way:

“The (new) clause requires certain on-site water rights (arising on permit) applied for before 2004 to be held solely by the US, and some water rights that arise off-site as well.

“The Forest Service wants ownership of these water rights in the future so it can control them. USFS should honor state law and state adjudication of water rights rather than making this end run via permit conditions,” Link said.

No Forest Service officials were invited to testify during the session, but former agency chief Mike Dombeck was there, and was asked if the Forest Service wants to take away ski area water rights as a way to exert more control.

“The land managers committed to the resource,” Dombeck said. “I see it as the desire of the agency to do the right thing for the land,” Dombeck responded when Republican Colorado Congressman Scott Tipton accused the agency of wanting to exert more control over the ski industry.

The Forest Service and the ski industry have tussled over the issue of federal reserved water rights on and off for decades, and the latest shift in the tide may reflect philosophical differences between the former Bush administration and the current Obama team, according to Mark Squillace, director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado.

Squillace said that the issue isn’t unique to the ski industry, referring to a well-publicized case involving a federal attempt to subordinate its own water rights in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. In the end, a judge ruled that the federal government can’t do that, he explained.

“I think it’s smart policy,” he said, referring to the Forest Service’s position on water rights. “From the federal government’s standpoint, they need to make sure the water rights stay with the land,” he said. “It would be a disaster if the ski areas walked away and sold off the water rights separately, he added.

“This is not a takings,” Bedwell added, emphasizing that the Forest Service has been working with the ski industry on the issue for a year.

“We tried to honor the spirit of the 2004 clause,” he said, adding that, from his perspective, work on the new clause is done.

Porzak said Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell indicated that there may be some additional room for negotiation. Failing that, the ski industry will continue to ask Congress for intervention, and as a last resort, the permit condition could be litigated, he concluded.