Month: May 2012

Congressional Logrolling Threatens Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

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Writer S.E. Robinson has a new post up over at The Blaze looking at the Sealaska Corporation, Tongass National Forest and H.R. 1408. The entire article is well worth a read. Here’s a quick snip, which illustrates some of the feelings local residents have about the issue:

Referring to Sealaska Corporation and its allies in Congress, Gerry D. Misner an avid outdoorsman and resident of Kosciusko Island,  said, “In my opinion, for what it’s worth, these guys operate like the mafia if I’ve ever seen mafia, and you can quote me on that.”

NASA’s Mt. St. Helens timelapse shows progression of clearcuts

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The other day a friend sent me a link to a series of satellite images of the Mt. St. Helens areas. The images – from between 1979 and 2011 – were part of the Landsat satellite program operated by NASA and the USGS.   The time-lapse video shows the May 18, 1980 explosion and subsequent recovery of life on the volcano.  However, the time-lapse video also shows something else: The steady progression of clearcuts in the forested landscape around Mt. St. Helens.

These time-lapse images of the clearcuts surrounding Mt. St. Helens reminded me of this passage from William Dietrich’s book, The Final Forest: Big Trees, Forks, and the Pacific Northwest:

There’s a story, possibly apocryphal, about President Jimmy Carter’s flight across the foothills of southwest Washington to view the devastation caused by the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Peering down at the shaven hills, the president expressed horror at the destruction below him. The state officials who were his guides had to gently explain that the helicopter had not reached the volcano blast area yet, that was Carter was seeing was clearcut logging.

Montana ‘Timber Partners’ Drop $30,000 on Ads Calling for Lawless Logging, No Public Appeals Process

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Just in time for the “Forest Jobs Tour ”  (a series of one-sided presentations around Montana about Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act) “timber partners” RY Timber, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Roseburg Forest Products and Sun Mountain Lumber took out this full-page advertisement today in at least six Montana newspapers, including the Helena Independent Record, Missoulian, Kalispell Daily Interlake, Great Falls Tribune, Montana Standard and Bozeman Chronicle  According to Ad reps I spoke with at two of the papers, the retail cost of the advertisements likely ran between $27,000 and $31,000.

The title of the Ad is “Out of Control Administrative Appeals and Frivolous Lawsuits Against the U.S. Forest Service Must be Stopped Now!!!”

The full-page timber industry Ad is full of statements such as this:  “We believe the Forest Service is being held hostage by a small group of professional obstructionists.”  The Ad ends with these timber mills providing the following “solutions,” including suggesting that Congress could simply exempt many timber sales from judicial review, just as was done with the Wolf Rider from Senator Tester.  [note: all emphasis is as it appeared in the Ad]

“We see several options available to Congress to immediately rectify these abuses:

1) Amend the Equal Access to Justice Act by requiring a Cash Bond in these types of administrative appeals and lawsuits. Amend the Act further by implementing a Loser Pay System, where the loser is responsible for paying the attorneys’ fees and costs of the overall prevailing party.

2) In designated Timber Management Areas already established under the approved Forest Plans, Congress could exempt from judicial review those Timber Sales which deal with trees that have been killed or severely damaged by the Mountain Pine Beetle. The authority of Congress to limit court jurisdiction can be found under Article III Section 2 of United States Constitution. A similar limitation was recently enacted by Congress when they removed Gray Wolf from the Endangered Species List and barred the federal court from any further review.

3) Scrap the entire Forest Service Administrative Appeals Process and use the more streamlined approach that the Department of Interior – BLM uses for their timber projects.”

More about the timing of these Ads.   It must be pointed out that these same exact timber mills are sharing the stage this week and next week with their friends – or is the correct term ‘collaborators’ –  representing the Montana Wilderness Association, National Wildlife Federation, Montana Trout Unlimited and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition for the Forest Jobs Tour to support Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill, S. 268.   So, the timing of the timber industry’s $30,000 Ad ‘Blitzkrieg’ couldn’t be more transparent.

Honestly, having already attended a number of these one-sided FJRA dog-n-pony shows I doubt I’ll waste my time – and a perfectly good spring evening – attending any of the ‘Forest Jobs Tour.’  In the past, these events have been carefully scripted to limit any tough, substantive questions or dissent and I assume that tonight’s Tour stop in Missoula will be the same.   Heck, during a similar FJRA event – held in a public building at the University of Montana – a representative of Montana Wilderness Association even attempted to prevent one of our interns from passing out simple handbills announcing a “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act Study Club,” the sole purpose of which was to simply read the actual bill language, and then discuss what the language means.

However, I can’t help but wonder if during this so-called “Forest Jobs Tour” if these conservation groups will bother to express concern or speak out against their “timber partners'” wish list for more logging, less public and scientific over-sight and no judicial review of Forest Service timber sales? Or will these conservation groups give their consent through their public silence?  I have a hunch I know how the “collaborators” will roll.  And, if that hunch is correct, what does that truly say about the state of their collaboration with the timber industry?

Update: People may be interested to know that Montana Trout Unlimited and Pew’s Campaign for America’s Wilderness have deleted the following comments I made on their Facebook pages (here and here) and have blocked me from commenting ever again in the future. This tactic has also been recently used by Montana Wilderness Association (here and here) and Hellgate Hunters and Anglers, which is part of the National Wildlife Federation.  In fact, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers (a group I was once a member of) censored and removed my substantive comments regarding the FJRA, including the actual official testimony of the head of the Forest Service from their ironically named “Bully Pulpit” blog.  This has been a very common tactic used by the “collaborator” conservation groups supporting the FJRA and I believe the public should be aware of this tactic.


4-Forests Restoration Initiative Update: A sinking feeling the Forest Service has done it again

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There’s more fall-out from the Forest Service’s questionable decision to award a massive 300,000 acre timber harvesting contract as part of the Four Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) in Arizona to an under-the-radar Montana timber corporation represented by a retired Forest Service official.  The 4FRI is a showcase forest restoration project for the Obama administration under what’s known as “the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act” and program.  Late last Friday, the Center for Biological Diversity sent out this press release.

Tommie Cline Martin, County Supervisor for Gila County, Arizona and a member of the 4FRI, had this to say.

“In my opinion, the Contract that was selected is bogus in several ways: If in fact, an agency insider that was involved in setting policy and advising potential contractors in the process and knew the particulars of the other bidding proposals, then “retired” and helped craft the winning bid is true, this is a perversion of our public trust at the highest level.

Meanwhile, yesterday the Grand Canyon Trust – a founding member of the 4FRI – issued this press release, which among other things said:

[W]e were shocked – and to honest – extremely disappointed that the Forest Service did not choose Arizona Forest Restoration Products (AZFRP) as the contractor responsible for implementing 4FRI treatments over the next decade….AZFRP did not receive the 4FRI contract. Pioneer Associates [from Montana] did. We, and the rest of the northern Arizona community, know almost nothing about the rationale for this decision, and know even less about Pioneer Associates. Some of what we do know is not at all encouraging. Pioneer Associates offered $10 million less than did AZFRP in the bidding process – a sum that would significantly address the critical shortfall in funding currently faced by 4FRI….We at the the Grand Canyon Trust find the recent contracting decision made by the Forest Service extremely problematic and worrisome….

We believe that the Forest Service should, for the sake of transparency, release all information regarding the decision-making process and rationale underlying the contract decision. Similarly, we believe that Pioneer Associates should follow the transparency lead modeled by AZFRP and share, in detail, their business model, implementation strategies, and plans for collaboration. Finally, we believe that an independent and transparent review of the bidding and contract award decision-making process is warranted and should be conducted with all due haste.

Yesterday also saw this hard-hitting editorial from the local newspaper, the Payson Roundup under the title, “We have this terrible, sinking feeling that the Forest Service has done it again” below are some snips from the editorial:

Last week the Forest Service somehow managed to turn the most hopeful and visionary consensus on how we can save our forests and our communities into yet another muddled controversy….So after all that preparation, study, waiting and hope — the Forest Service announced its choice: Pioneer Forest Products — an out-of-state [Montana] wood products company. The company plans to partner with Marlin Johnson, formerly the chief Forest Service logging industry supervisor in the Southwest.

The choice proved instantly controversial, mostly because Johnson spent years battling the very environmental groups whose agreement made the 4-FRI approach so promising. Johnson and groups like the Centers for Biological Diversity fought one another to a deadlock, largely over whether the Forest Service should let the timber companies continue to cut a large share of the remaining old-growth trees.

Even conservative, pro-industry experts like Gila County Supervisor Tommie Martin have expressed concern about the choice, although they have focused on other elements of the contract — like the assumption that Pioneer can make a go of using a lot of the brush and small trees in a relatively untested process for making diesel fuel from wood products….

Now, we hope we’re wrong. We hope that the Centers for Biological Diversity is overreacting when they condemned as ‘cronyism’ the inclusion of Johnson as a partner with a company he used to regulate….But we have to admit, we’re unnerved by the immediate outbreak of controversy and the Forest Service’s stubborn refusal to accept the advice of local officials, conservationists and other stakeholders. Other bidders seemed to offer a much closer working relationship with those groups at a seemingly lower cost to the taxpayers.

We hope it blows over. We hope the Forest Service and Pioneer find a way to quickly reassure the critics, who have worked so hard and so long to achieve the agreement that this choice of contractors threatens to unravel.  But we’d certainly feel better if this didn’t feel so familiar — and if we could put out of our minds the unnerving recollection that it was the Forest Service’s cozy and short-sighted relationship with industry that got us into this mess in the first place.”

Yet another “controlled” burn escapes!

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http://www.inciweb.org/incident/2874/

Sadly, it appears that fire folks can’t be trusted to safely accomplish prescribed fires. Their overconfidence has again resulted in destroyed homes and damages to private property. This area is well known for its terrain-enhanced winds, known as the “Washoe Zephyr”. High winds had been forecast, as well, and it appears that fire crews didn’t make sure the fire was fully extinguished. Gusts of 35 mph are expected for today, and the fire is burning towards more difficult terrain. It always seems like firefighters are more concerned with “good burning conditions”, rather than public safety. Perish the thought that it might be too wet for “complete combustion”.

Are YOU ready to welcome a prescribed fire in your “neighborhood”?

Update: The TV news says that more structures are threatened.

Analysis: How HR 4089 Would Effectively Repeal the Wilderness Act

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“The purpose of the Wilderness Act is to preserve the wilderness character of the areas to be included in the wilderness system, not to establish any particular use.”
– Howard Zahniser, chief author of the Wilderness Act

One of the activities I enjoy more than any other is waking up before dawn on a crisp, late-fall morning, loading up my backpack, grabbing my .30-06 and walking deep into a USFS Wilderness area in search of elk and deer.  Because of this, and many other reasons, as a backcountry hunter I’m adamantly opposed to HR 4089, the so-called “Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012.

The folks at Wilderness Watch have put together a very detailed analysis of HR 4089 titled, “How the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012 (HR 4089) Would Effectively Repeal the Wilderness Act.”  The analysis describes in detail how the incredibly destructive provisions of HR 4089 would effectively repeal the Wilderness Act of 1964.  Make no mistake about it, if HR 4089 becomes law – and it has already passed the House with all but two Republicans and 20 percent of Democrats voting for it – Wilderness as envisioned in the Wilderness Act will cease to exist.  Here’s the intro to that analysis:

Introduction
On April 17, 2012, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 4089, the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act, supposedly “to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing and shooting.”  But the bill is a thinly disguised measure to gut the 1964 Wilderness Act and protections for every unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

HR 4089 would give hunting, fishing, recreational shooting, and fish and wildlife management top priority in Wilderness, rather than protecting the areas’ wilderness character, as has been the case for nearly 50 years. This bill would allow endless, extensive habitat manipulations in Wilderness under the guise of “wildlife conservation” and for providing hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting experiences. It would allow the construction of roads to facilitate such uses and would allow the construction of dams, buildings, or other structures within Wildernesses. It would exempt all of these actions from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. Finally, HR 4089 would remove Wilderness Act prohibitions against motor vehicle use for fishing, hunting, or recreational shooting, or for wildlife conservation measures.

According to some news reports, Senator Tester (D-Montana) is the guy the NRA and Safari Club are hoping will sponsor the bill in the Senate. They’ll need Democrat support and Tester is a target for obvious reasons, since he’s locked in a tight re-election campaign with Congressman Denny Rehberg (R-Montana).   In addition to the detailed analysis from Wilderness Watch more info concerning HR 4089 from the Animal Welfare Institute is contained in this action alert, where you can quickly send a note to your two US Senators.  According to the Animal Welfare Institute, other extreme provisions within HR 4089 include:

  • Amending the Marine Mammal Protection Act to permit the importation of polar bear hunting trophies from Canada for bears killed before May 15, 2008 — the date when polar bears were designated as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.  This would reward 41 hunters for bad behavior: they either killed bears who were off limits or wanted to get their kills in knowing the bears were about to be listed;
  • Requiring the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior to open nearly all public lands (including National Wildlife Refuges!) to recreational hunting, and directing them to do so without following the environmental review processes required under the National Environmental Policy Act; and
  • Eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to protect wildlife, habitat, and people from lead and other toxic substances released by ammunition waste under the Toxic Substances Control Act, thereby undermining the ability of the Agency to fulfill its obligation to protect public health and the environment.

During a recent interview on C-SPAN, the head lobbyist for the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, one of the groups pushing the bill, admitted that most federal land is already accessible to hunters and anglers, and that this bill was simply a proactive measure in case something happens at a later date.  That just reaffirms what Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) correctly noted during his speech against the bill:  “The problem this bill claims to solve actually does not exist.”

As an avid backcountry hunter, I couldn’t agree more.

Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Oversight Field Hearing on “Failed Federal Forest Policies: Endangering Jobs, Forests and Species”

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Thanks to Mike for sending this.

Upcoming hearing should be worth tuning into. Should generate some discussion.

Can be accessed here:

http://naturalresources.house.gov/Calendar/EventSingle.aspx?EventID=295110

This hearing will examine how federal administering of the Northwest Forest Plan and Endangered Species Act has affected local economies, forest health and the Northern Spotted Owl. In 1990, the Northern Spotted Owl was listed under the Endangered Species Act and as a result, the Northwest federal forest management regime was established. Still in effect, the Northwest Forest Plan has proven to be been a failure. The management plan has been driven by lawsuits as opposed to sound science, caused active forest management to plummet, failed in its mission of protecting the Northern Spotted Owl, and contributed to the deterioration of forest health. The Obama administration recently released a new critical habitat proposal for the Northern Spotted Owl that would replace the current management plan. It would place huge portions Washington, Oregon and California off limits to economic development and could indirectly impact over 19,000 Northwest jobs tied to private lands. The proposed plan also fails to adequately address the most serious threat to the Spotted Owl – the Barred Owl.

Forest Service Awards One of Largest-ever Timber Contracts to Agency Insiders

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From the Center for Biological Diversity:

Center for Biological Diversity ecologist Jay Lininger displays the core of 180-year-old ponderosa pine marked for logging at the Jacob Ryan timber sale. CBD photo.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— The U.S. Forest Service awarded one of the largest-ever tree-cutting contracts in the history of the national forest system today to a timber company represented by a retired Forest Service official. While he was a federal employee, the official was the agency’s liaison to that same company’s timber-sale inquiries in the same region. The contract calls for timber harvesting on approximately 300,000 acres of ponderosa pine in northern Arizona as part of the Four Forests Restoration Initiative, a showcase forest restoration project for the Obama administration under what’s known as “the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act” and program.

Speaking of today’s contract award, Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has led the charge to reform logging in the Southwest, said, “The decision stinks of cronyism.”

“Much of the Southwest’s last old growth was liquidated on Marlin Johnson’s watch during his years at the Forest Service—it was wrong then and it’s wrong now, and the fact that Mr. Johnson is wearing a different hat this time underlines that fact,” he continued.

During his tenure as the southwestern region’s silviculturist, Marlin Johnson was one of the agency’s liaisons for Pioneer Forest Products’ timber-sale inquiries; within a year of retirement, in 2008, Johnson began representing Pioneer’s inquiries to the same Forest Service office in which he had worked. Since then, representing Pioneer in Four Forest Restoration Initiative stakeholder meetings with the Forest Service, Johnson has openly pushed to log old-growth trees and forests.

As regional silviculturist Johnson presided over an attempt to loosen regional limits on logging mature and old trees and forests in Arizona and New Mexico without public or environmental review. Without officially changing the forest plans that guide management of the public’s forests, and over the concern of staff and other agencies about lawfulness and impacts to wildlife, the Forest Service’s southwestern regional office under Johnson tried to sharply reduce the amount of mature and old forest the agency is required to leave on the landscape after logging.

The southwestern region has tried to follow this guidance since Johnson’s retirement, and because logging intensities violate wildlife protections in forest plans, several of those timber sales have crumbled under internal review prompted by administrative objections from the Center. In its collaboration on the Four Forests initiative, which has suffered at the hands of regional micromanagement, the Center has warned the Forest Service not to deploy Johnson’s guidance; it’s unclear whether or not the Service will do so.  Last week the Center sued the Forest Service for using that guidance at the Jacob Ryan timber sale, which would log old growth trees near Grand Canyon’s north rim.

Pioneer Forest Products, a Montana corporation, was one of four bidders on the contract. Another, Arizona Forest Restoration Products, had advanced a plan solely focused on using small-diameter trees, and signed an historic memo of understanding with conservation groups committing to a common goal of ecological restoration as a step to restoring healthy, fire-maintained forests and native biological diversity.

“Today’s decision, among many other signs, suggests that the Forest Service’s leadership, after all these years and despite mountains of restoration rhetoric to the contrary, remains hopelessly mired in an antiquated age of agricultural forestry.”

On Time, On Target: How the ESA is saving America’s Wildlife

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The Center for Biological Diversity just keeps on pumping it out. Today, they released this new report (PDF).  The Executive Summary is pasted below.

Report

Critics of the Endangered Species Act contend it is a failure because only 1 percent of the species under its protection have recovered and been delisted. The critique, however, is undermined by its failure to explain how many species should have recovered by now. It is a ship without an anchor.

To objectively test whether the Endangered Species Act is recovering species at a sufficient rate, we compared the actual recovery rate of 110 species with the projected recovery rate in their federal recovery plans. The species range over all 50 states, include all major taxonomic groups, and have a diversity of listing lengths.

We found that the Endangered Species Act has a remarkably successful recovery rate: 90 percent of species are recovering at the rate specified by their federal recovery plan.

On average, species recovered in 25 years, while their recovery plan predicted 23 years — a 91 percent timeliness accomplishment.

We confirmed the conclusion of scientists and auditors who assert that the great majority of species have not been listed long enough to warrant an expectation of recovery: 80 percent of species have not yet reached their expected recovery year. On average, these species have been listed for just 32 years, while their recovery plans required 46 years of listing.

Many species that have not been listed long enough to reach their recovery goals increased dramatically since being protected by the Endangered Species Act:

California least tern2,819%  increase in nesting pairs
San Miguel island fox3,830%  increase in wild foxes
Black-footed ferret8,280%  increase in the fall population
Atlantic green sea turtle2,206%  increase in nesting females on Florida beaches
El Segundo blue butterfly22,312%  increase in butterflies

While many species are near or above the numeric population goal set by their recovery plan and will likely be delisted in the next 10 to 15 years, others also have strong recovery trends, but will not be delisted for many decades because their recovery plans require that much time to fully secure their fate.

The study’s findings are similar to a 2006 analysis of all federally protected species in the Northeast, which found 93 percent were stabilized or improving since being put on the endangered species list and 82 percent were on pace to meet recovery goals.

When judged in the light of meeting recovery plan timelines for recovery, the Endangered Species Act is remarkably successful. Few laws of any kind can boast a 90 percent success rate.