The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views
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With a new Republican President and a Republican-controlled Congress, how will this affect the Forest Service and the BLM?
Regarding the picture: I did some processing with a High Dynamic Range (HDR) program to get this artsy view. It is interesting that it enhanced the flames better than in the original scan, from a Kodachrome slide. I shot this while filling in on an engine, on the Lassen NF, back in 1988.
Things seem a little quiet out there, so here is my response to Sharon’s asking what I think about “disappearing districts” on June 12. The problem I see with the approach of consolidating districts (and national forests) is that is an ad hoc and opportunistic response, and I haven’t seen much of an effort at long-term strategic planning for what the current and future agency should look like.
I think there are some good arguments for maintaining a local ‘face’ of the Forest Service responsible for implementing policies and programs. I think that could be done with many staff specialists located elsewhere and in different places. Something close to a “one person ranger district” might make sense again.
On the other hand, what purpose do national forest administrative units serve? There is a need for someone at a higher level and with a broader view to develop policies and programs. But is there really a need for a hundred-and-how-many different sets of policies? There is a historic and legislative basis for national forest boundaries, but I think that the decentralization of authority that has been tied to that works hard against the need to reduce government costs (as well as creating artificial cross-jurisdictional management problems).
I think that the Clinton Administration had the right idea that the Forest Service can’t afford four layers of bureaucracy. What would happen if we eliminated national forest supervisor offices? Or if that’s too many districts for a regional office to handle, a more reasonable alternative might be to reorganize based on states or multi-state units (like the BLM, which would make it easier to eventually merge with the BLM). This might even improve working relationships with the states.
“Siskiyou supervisors want a say in national forest budget process.”
That would be collaborative, wouldn’t it? As long as other interested parties are invited to the party, too.
Terry Seyden offered this on another thread, but I’d like to hear some other opinions, or better yet, facts.
“The principal reasons most forests are not anywhere near meeting their forest plan timber and wildlife habitat goals, in my opinion, lie in the fact that congress funds targets at levels well below what the plans call for.”
If someone can explain “why” – how the process of getting from forest plan timber numbers to annual targets actually works, please share! And how is that process different for wildlife habitat goals?
This viewpoint shows more of the reasons why the desire to have larger and more intense wildfires, in the Sierra Nevada, is the wrong way to go.
In this picture below, fire crews were run out of this stand, and back into the “safety zone”, on this fire I worked on, back in 1988.
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/28/6737076/viewpoints-urgent-action-needed.html
Air quality the past two weeks has been several times worse than some of the most polluted cities in the world due to smoke from the King fire. Last year’s Rim fire emitted greenhouse gases equivalent to 2.3 million vehicles for a year.
Also, the lost habitat and recreational opportunities from major fires like these are significant. It is not an exaggeration to say that virtually all Californians are affected when these “megafires” occur.
The report points out that wildfires are getting larger and burning at higher intensity than ever before. The Rim fire burned at nearly 40 percent high intensity – meaning virtually no living vegetation is left – covering almost 100,000 acres. More acres have burned in the first 4½ years of this decade than in seven decades of the last century.
What can we do about it?
The main bottleneck in treating more acres is in implementation. The Forest Service is unwilling to increase the size of its Region 5 timber management staffs. They use some of the usual excuses, some of which are beyond their control but, not all of those issues are really significant, looking at the big picture. Yes, it is pretty difficult to implement extremely-complex plans when you are constantly training new temporary employees, hired right off the street.
Ron Roizen did a splendiferous job in covering the same thing I tried to earlier today.. so I copied in its entirety.
Editor’s Note: Report from this morning’s Sierra Sun Times (Mariposa, California).
USDA then chose to broadly apply sequester to impact all SRS states
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 14, 2014 – The House Natural Resources Committee released an interim Majority staff report today detailing information uncovered during the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Obama Administration’s decision to retroactively apply 2013 sequestration cuts to 2012 Secure Rural School (SRS) funds that had already been distributed. The report, entitled “A Less Secure Future for Rural Schools: An Investigation into the Obama Administration’s Questionable Application of the Sequester to the Secure Rural Schools Program,” highlights the Committee’s investigation and preliminary findings based on internal emails and documents that were subpoenaed by the Committee in September 2013.
The oversight investigation to date has found that attorneys in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Office of General Counsel had determined in February that the 2013 sequestration would not apply to 2012 SRS funds already distributed. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) overruled that interpretation, leaving USDA and the Forest Service scrambling in March 2013 to figure out how to make up the shortfall and to justify the decision to apply the sequester to money already paid to states. Both USDA and OMB continue to withhold an unknown number of subpoenaed documents.
The report concludes:
“There are a number of important questions that remain unanswered about the authority for the sequester decisions affecting the SRS program, whether the Obama Administration will continue to pressure states to return FY 2012 money that was paid to them in FY 2013 and later covered by the sequester, and how sequestration will affect the SRS program in future years.
Given the change in USDA’s legal analysis, pressure by the White House, and the desire for consistency at all costs, it is clear that Congress, states, and rural communities were right to question whether these decisions were correct and made for any reason other than to make sequestration as visible and painful as possible in rural communities across the country.”
“It’s taken many months and the issuance of subpoenas to extract some truth and transparency from the Obama Administration about its decision to demand states and rural communities return funds for schools and local law enforcement. Retroactively applying the 2013 sequester to 2012 SRS funds was done at the direction of the White House OMB and then USDA chose to apply the pain to all SRS states. We can’t forget that the impact of these actions falls on schoolchildren, teachers, police officers and small communities that the federal government has already failed by not keeping its promise of responsible timber harvests. It’s important that the questions surrounding this matter are fully answered,” said Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04).
Video of the Full Committee hearing.
Click here for the full report.
Click here for emails and documents obtained by the Natural Resources Committee.
For additional background on the Committee’s investigation, visit
Would Mirror Funding Response to other Natural Disasters
December 19, 2013 (Arlington, Virginia) — A group of conservation, timber, tribal, recreation, sportsmen and employer groups praised Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Crapo (R-ID) for introducing the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act of 2013 that would create an emergency funding process for fire response. This funding structure would simulate existing federal funding mechanisms for response to other natural disasters, and prevent “borrowing” from other USDA Forest Service (USFS) and Department of the Interior (DOI) programs. Since 2000 these agencies have run out of money to fight emergency fires eight times.
This language creates a budget cap adjustment for a 30% portion of wildfire disaster funding for USFS and DOI, a structure similar to what the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses for other natural disaster response. This would significantly minimize the need to transfer funds from non-suppression accounts when suppression funds are depleted. For years, the practice of transferring and high suppression costs have negatively impacted agencies’ ability to implement forest management activities.
The additional funding would be separated from other USFS and DOI funding, and could free up as much as $412 million in discretionary funds for forest treatments that help to reduce fire risk and costs, such as Hazardous Fuels removal.
“This leadership from Senators Wyden and Crapo can establish a long-term solution for fire suppression funding that will finally end the senseless series of fire transfers and guarantee firefighters adequate resources to protect our communities and lands,” said Darrel L. Kenops, Executive Director of National Association of Forest Service Retirees.
“We need an approach to fire suppression funding which lets Forest Service manage the Forests, instead of constantly moving funding to emergency suppression needs. Wildfire costs and fire borrowing disrupts forest management and other key programs”, said Bill Imbergamo, Executive Director of the Federal Forest Resources Coalition, “This bipartisan bill will help put the Forest Service back in the woods doing what they do best. We appreciate Senator Wyden’s leadership on this issue. He’s done yeoman’s work in developing this approach to fire budgeting. Anyone who cares about our National Forests should get behind this bill.”
“Important USDA Forest Service programs can be and are significantly impacted by fire transfers, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund, urban and community forestry, roads and trail maintenance, wildlife, recreation” said Rebecca Turner, Senior Director of Programs and Policy of American Forests, “including the very programs that would reduce wildfire risk, like State Fire Assistance and restoration. This new proposed mechanism will help stop this from happening.”
Many factors contribute to the increase in wildfire frequency and severity, including changes in climate, build-up of hazardous fuels, and increasing populations in the wildland urban interface. This past decade fires have burned 57% more land than in the previous four decades; the fire season has expanded by two months; and the average size of fires has increased by a factor of five since the 1970s. The frequency and severity of these wildfires need to be matched by significant levels of funding to protect people, water, and wildlife.
“We’re asking House and Senate appropriators to adopt the language in the Wyden/Crapo bill as they work to fund the remainder of FY2014”, said Cecilia Clavet, Senior Policy Advisor on Fire and Forest Restoration of The Nature Conservancy, “we cannot afford another year of inadequate funding levels that force agencies to take away from already constrained programs, including the very ones that would decrease fire risk and costs like restoration.”
“In passing the FLAME Act, Congress intended to fully fund the USFS and DOI’s suppression accounts while eliminating the need to transfer monies from other agency programs to fund emergency wildfire suppression,” said Chris Maisch, Alaska State Forester and President of the National Association of State Foresters, “the practice of transferring funds from non-fire programs has undermined the agencies’ ability to help sustainably manage the nation’s forests that are essential in delivering products, jobs, and many important services including clean air and water, wildlife habitat and other benefits that people value.”
Members of the Fire Suppression Funding Coalition provided a letter to appropriators requesting they adopt language from the Wildfire Disaster Funding bill in the FY2014 appropriations bill.
Members of the Fire Suppression Funding Solutions Partner Caucus include:
1. American Forest Foundation
2. American Forests
3. Federal Forest Resource Coalition
4. Intertribal Timber Council
5. National Association of Forest Service Retirees
6. National Association of State Foresters
7. National Ski Areas Association
8. National Wild Turkey Federation
9. Society of American Foresters
10. Sustainable Northwest
11. The Nature Conservancy
12. The Wilderness Society
Here’s a link to the courthouse news service article on the concessionaire’s lawsuit.
The National Forest Recreation Association and co-plaintiffs American Land & Leisure, Recreation Resource Management, and CLM Services sued the U.S. Forest Service in Federal Court.
They note acerbically that the shutdown of the federal government has cost their employees hundreds of jobs, and that “Congress has stated no intention to vote to restore campground concessioners’ ‘back pay.'”
They claim the Forest Service is “nonsensically asserting that, while recreating and camping in undeveloped areas is fine, recreating and camping in developed campgrounds and recreation areas run by trained, private concessioners who do not receive any federal funds creates a risk to property, public health and safety because the Forest Service has reduced funds.”
The companies say they do not get federal funding: “In fact, plaintiffs pay money to the federal government to operate.”
The Forest Service this month decided to close certain areas in the National Forest System and suspend all concessionaire operations at developed campground and recreation sites nationwide.
The plaintiffs are concessionaires at the sites, operating campgrounds in National Forests across the country. They say their services are crucial for the safety of campers, providing emergency first aid, restrooms and clean drinking water on federal campgrounds. They also repair parking lot potholes, fire hydrants and roads.
Since the shutdown of the federal government has closed campgrounds in federal forests, campers have been forced onto undeveloped areas, despite the companies’ autonomy from the federal government.
“Having people camp at developed campgrounds or recreate in developed areas operated by concessioners reduces the risks to public safety and resource damage,” the groups say.
They claim that “the reduction in Forest Service funding has absolutely no impact on the ability of concessioners to continue to ensure public safety and reduce risk of property damage.”
I continue to wish we could hear the logic for why ski areas are OK but concessionaires aren’t. Still haven’t got a phone call back from the furloughed public affairs folks.
Parks are reopening across the US with state funds. Here. and a story here.
Arapaho Ski Basin opening for the year here.
But Colorado Mesa University’s bike race could not go on.. they actually sued see here. I’m still not clear on which special use permits can go on and which can’t (And there could be a difference in views between BLM and the FS).
“It’s really too bad,” he said. “It’s an event we run, we staff it, the BLM doesn’t have to do anything.”
The university took the matter to court Friday in hopes the permits already issued would be honored, but the judge ruled against it.
From this story…
In your neck of the woods, any interesting stories about what is closed and what is not?
This reminded me that the Park Service can charge for you to access a federal highway, Trail Ridge Road. So when the Park closes you can’t drive the road.
Had to call CDOT, and found this out. It’s always been interesting to me that the Park Service can charge for people to “simply drive the road.” Of course, it’s different legislation, but still seems odd. IMHO.
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is vowing to do everything he can to save Estes Park from a second economic hit, even if that means staffing part of Rocky Mountain National Park with state employees.
First it was the devastating floods that hit Estes Park and the surrounding roads, but now it’s the government shutdown that threatens to sink some small businesses for good.
Trail Ridge Road through the RNMP is one of the more popular routes to Estes Park. Since the park is closed, Trail Ridge is closed, cutting Estes Park off from the Front Range and tourists.
Wednesday afternoon. Sen. Michael Bennet sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that Trail Ridge road through the RMNP be reopened.
“Estes Park is in the midst of a massive recovery and rebuilding effort following the historic flooding that Colorado experienced early last month,” Bennet wrote. “Reopening Trail Ridge Road, if only for a few weeks, would help that effort.”
and also from Hickenlooper..
“I have to talk to the department of transportation and I have to talk to the department of public safety, but I know those guys, they work for me, so they kind of have to say yes and they will,” Hickenlooper said. “We don’t have to open the whole park up. We just have to have Trail Ridge Road open.”