The latest AFRC newsletter has an item about a USFS project where “four groups include the Yakama Tribe, Washington DNR, The Nature Conservancy, and The Wilderness Society” will conduct the NEPA work. Too long to post here, but some excerpts:
Groups Working to Help Reboot Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Restoration
The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest located in North Central Washington covers 3.8 million acres, stretching from Naches to the south to the Canadian border to the north. This diverse forest has a host of challenges implementing critical restoration work needed to stay ahead of the prolific wildfire threat faced every summer. Recent landscape-sized projects have stalled out and the implementation of needed thinning and restoration work has not happened, leading to frustration for forest planners as well as stakeholders such as the North Central Washington Forest Health Collaborative (NCWFHC) and the timber industry. The consequences for this lack of implementation became very clear this past summer when 225,000 acres of the Forest burned including part of the proposed Twisp Project on the Methow Valley District.
Six of the top ten key firesheds in Region 6 identified for a multiyear national investment strategy to target fuel management funding to reduce risk to developed areas are located on the Okanogan-Wenatchee. Firesheds were identified based on wildfires igniting on forest land available for mechanical treatments and near at-risk communities. The Wildfire Crisis Implementation Plan and Strategy released in January 2022 prioritizes hazardous fuels treatments, including commercial thinning, on these key firesheds. It is critical that the Okanogan-Wenatchee improve its project planning effectiveness in order to meet the desired outcomes and priorities outlined in this Plan.
There are a host of reasons why the projects which promote forest restoration, (Upper Wenatchee Pilot Project and Twisp Project) have failed. Those include uncertainty on how to manage forests on lands designated as Late Seral Reserves (LSR) stands of timber, completing consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a timely manner, an out-of-date Forest Restoration Strategy, and failure of the NCWFHC to lend its timely support to certain projects like Twisp, thus causing delays.
…
Outside Groups Doing NEPA Planning. Wildfire burned about 10,000 acres of the 77,000-acre Twisp planning area last summer. In analyzing the best path forward, the District chose to move forward with only a portion of the total project (North Twisp) because it was less controversial due to those lands being designated as matrix which allows more flexibility in management. This left three drainages, the Middle Twisp, Upper Twisp, and Little Bridge Creek possibly without treatment. Four members of NCWFHC are currently proposing to do the NEPA planning work needed to get these areas treated. This effort will be called the Midnight Project. The four groups include the Yakama Tribe, Washington DNR, The Nature Conservancy, and The Wilderness Society. With these groups doing the NEPA work on these landscapes, it will allow the District to start analyzing a new project called Upper Methow. Jointly, these efforts should help increase the pace and scale of treatments on the Forest.
I’m fine with letting the Nature Conservancy and the Wilderness Society do the NEPA work for forest restoration projects if they’re ok with letting the Blue Ribbon Coalition handle the NEPA work for travel management projects. 🙂
This part is fascinating..
“There are a host of reasons why the projects which promote forest restoration, (Upper Wenatchee Pilot Project and Twisp Project) have failed. Those include uncertainty on how to manage forests on lands designated as Late Seral Reserves (LSR) stands of timber, completing consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a timely manner, an out-of-date Forest Restoration Strategy, and failure of the NCWFHC to lend its timely support to certain projects like Twisp, thus causing delays.”
I wonder whether the groups did a “Lessons Learned” and whether that’s available to the public?
Remember that that quoted section is the opinion of AFRC…from their point of view, that is what happened, but that is only one side of the story…
A- Please email me if you know of someone who might tell the other side, or if you know, please elucidate.
What I thought was fascinating was that AFRC didn’t blame “radical environmentalists” and “serial litigants” or the laws or the courts.
Actually, the idea of environmental interests “proposing to do the NEPA planning work needed to get these areas treated” is also pretty interesting. I imagine there could be ways this could differ from how agency employees would do it, or even less “interested” contractors.
I wonder if the “serial litigants” will litigate, even with the heavyweight environmental interests on board – TNC and Wilderness Society.