A Spin Too Far: Garrity’s Op-ed on BLM’s Clark Fork Face Project

Gosh, for whatever reason it seems to be BLM week here at The Smokey Wire! Thanks to Nick Smith for this.

Matt Garrity had an op-ed in the Montana Standard about the project.

It’s incredibly disappointing, but the Bureau of Land Management is no better under Tracy Stone-Manning’s leadership than under Trump. While the examples pile up nationally, here in Stone-Manning’s home state the agency is attempting to dodge required public review and comment for a massive 16,066-acre clearcutting and burning project that will bulldoze 22 miles of new roads in the Garnet Mountains in grizzly, bull trout, and lynx critical habitat.

What is it about BLM that seems to invoke hyperbole? “No better than under Trump” today, or yesterday “the President’s clean energy agenda can’t happen unless one person is confirmed”?

Somehow I doubt whether Director Stone-Manning has been involved in this project. Perhaps there’s a Montana subtext I don’t understand, but saying bad things about people publicly on one hand, while you ask them to do something, on the other hand, has never worked for me.

But let’s look at Garrity’s specific claims about this project. TSW readers have seen more than our share of fuel treatment and other projects.  Certainly  people can, and do, disagree about what to do where and sometimes why.  But it might be good to 1) agree on what’s in the EA and 2) assume that the BLM employees have good intentions.

Is it a 16,006 acre “clearcutting and burning project”? Here’s what the draft EA says..

Is there burning? Yes.  Is there thinning? Yes. Are there clearcuts?  Well, no, depending on your definition, of course.  Like the Pisgah-Nantahala, for structural and species diversity reasons (also climate resilience) to get new trees established, some openings are necessary. Is that a “clearcut”? There’s actually a photo in the EA of one of these..(there are many great photos in the EA, at the end, of all kinds of proposed treatments and conditions).  It seems to me that defining a clearcut might be handy.. to me there are size of opening and number of living trees left are both important.

Will it “bulldoze” 22 miles of new roads?

Yes, 16 miles of new permanent roads (not open to the public) and 6 miles of temporary roads to be obliterated within three years of treatment.

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The context for this project is unusual (at least to non-Montanans).  The BLM is part of a larger landscape that is mostly non-fed. They only have 10% of the project area.

 

Also, of the 23,666 acres of BLM in the planning area, 19% (4,519 acres) have no treatment proposed. Those lands are largely unroaded and were excluded from proposed treatment due to their value as secure habitat.

Apparently, industrial forest ownership was sold to future homeowners effectively making “new WUI”.  There are  > 2600 structures in the planning area, according to Montana State Library GIS data from 2020.

What was once a large industrial forest ownership, is now overwhelmingly (48% of the planning area) small, nonindustrial private landowners who are constructing homes and buildings in the forest (see table 1). This subdivision and rural development have effectively transitioned the entire planning area to WildlandUrban Interface (WUI) when measured as a proximity to structures (See Appendix D, map 9.7). Because of this shift in ownership and use of the private land, the BLM’s forested parcels represent an increased risk from wildfire to the private structures and improvements and also to the safety of the residents and firefighters. It is these twin realities: the deviation from NRV and the expansion of the WUI that necessitate this project.


This gives you some idea of how these varying ownerships look from the air. You can click on this photo to enlarge.
Here’s the purpose and need:

Specifically, treatments are needed to:
1. Protect life, property and firefighter safety in and near the wildlandurban interface and promote resilience to wildfire by reducing forest fuel loading and breaking up homogeneous stand conditions.

2. Restore healthy ecological conditions by increasing the acreage of forest communities that are moving towards the midpoint of NRV.

3. Maintain and enhance native and sensitive plant communities; this includes maintaining and enhancing limber pine (Pinus flexilis) populations where present.

4. Improve ecological health by increasing resistance and resilience to forest insect and disease outbreaks.

5. Provide local and regional economic benefits through harvest of forest products and capturing the value of dead and dying timber while it remains salvageable

As I’ve said, dead trees store- but do not sequester- carbon, so insect and disease problems have carbon implications, as well as potential fuel hazards..

And this area has been designated high priority by the State (all lands, all hands and all that):

There are 142 pages in this draft EA and lots of information.

According to Garrity:

Carey should have ordered a full Environmental Impact Statement instead of trying to sneak the project past the public with no scoping, the lower-level analysis of an Environmental Assessment, and an illegally-shortened public review and comment period.

But there was scoping and public involvement, as detailed in this document. I suppose we could disagree on the definition of scoping as well, but it sure looks scoped to me. See for yourself. According to the folks involved:

Since we had already had two public meetings and scoping which did not indicate a overwhelming amount of public interest, a two week public comment period was identified. Once it became clear folks wanted a longer comment period, we made that change. This change was initiated prior to the opinion piece in the Standard.

The fact is that there was scoping, and the comment period is now 45 days.

Despite the legal requirement that the agency carefully consider public comments, the whistleblower also said there is no intention of taking input from the public or modifying the project prior to issuing a final decision.

Truth is the friend of time and all that. We’ll circle back and look at the response to comments in the final EA.

The way I see it is that the BLM, like the FS, is in a “darned if you do, darned if you don’t” position here. They would like to do WUI fuel treatment projects as residents, fire departments and others are legitimately concerned. They will be blamed if they don’t get them done. They received all kinds of $ from Congress to do them. But if they don’t do an EIS, then they will be criticized by folks like Garrity for not involving the public enough or writing a 120 page document instead of five alternatives and a 600 page document, or whatever. At the end of the day, it seems to me that it’s about finding zones of agreement among people – not more pages of analysis.

And according to Monday’s table, Montana BLM staffing is down by 23% to do all this.  So disagree about the project all you want, but give these gals and guys a break!

19 thoughts on “A Spin Too Far: Garrity’s Op-ed on BLM’s Clark Fork Face Project”

  1. Ah, yes… what is a clearcut?
    https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/289241788_527869779123247_3010888839506314029_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=G4rSO__5eZsAX8tsIV6&_nc_ht=scontent-den4-1.xx&oh=00_AfC7jN5vsvw3wp0PwpVjsUpbrOIWsjqkRnPBJmaz5WGY8g&oe=639F01BF
    Sorry my ineptitude won’t allow me to simply paste in photo, but this image from Black Hills NF shows a vast several hundred acre – ahem – “overstory removal”, the understory being seedlings and saplings. Treatment removed sawtimber that had been nicely thinned just a few years prior.
    I say this is what gets forester “experts” in trouble with regular folks. In my view, GOOD forestry would have conducted precommercial thinning of understory saplings, then let them grow to poletimber size, before removing some (not all) overstory while assuring that sufficient big legacy trees remain. Simple reason BHNF is doing it is to satisfy politically driven, unsustainable timber production.

    Reply
    • Thanks for the photo, Jim! It’s great and I will post it in my next post. See that’s not a clearcut to me.. but I think the most important point in the dry interior forests is…
      1. Were the trees removed alive or dead? You can’t really tell that from photos.
      In this case, they were alive, so 2. I agree with you on the prescription based on what you’ve said and how it appears. I still wouldn’t call it a clearcut, though…

      My point is, I don’t think we can have a rational discussion about whether a specific project involves “clearcutting” unless we agree on what that means.

      Reply
  2. If this complainer is Michael Garrity, that explains most of the hyperbole. He is a serial litigator who may be changing his tactics as he encounters certain situations beyond his meddling. He has tied Forest Service R1 into knots for decades with lawsuits.

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  3. Sharon, your effort to argue on the basis of facts is admirable, but disciples in faith-based land-management sects listen only to their gurus, sadly. There are people who think their plane remains in the air because they prayed to some god over it. It’s science versus religion.

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  4. It’s always hilarious what whiners environmentalists are. They’ve achieved almost complete regulatory capture of the federal land management agencies and get what they want 90% of the time, but complain to high heaven the 10% of the time they don’t get their way. Thanks to them, any actual productive use of federal lands is virtually unthinkable, yet they scream like the world is ending when an agency wants to do a tiny amount of thinning and controlled burning to protect nearby homes. These people truly are parasites of the worst order.

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  5. While public involvement and buy off are critical, as put forth in a way by the Pinchot Principles, there comes a point where one must also ask if the public, largely ignorant of many things forest management or ecology related (or disgustingly misled by certain groups), don’t need to have non stop, detailed, perpetual input into every project?

    Put another way, if you never cared to learn or engage the other 99% of the time, and are not an individual or group with an agenda, why do you need to be asked permission for something that educated, trained, knowledgeable professionals plan to execute on public lands?

    Sharon, I absolutely agree with “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” (I’m A so I’ll swap out d-words). Short and sufficient, in a way that the lay person can understand, is criticized as being insufficient, while long and technical is criticized as too much for the lay person to understand…yet it is blasphemy in most circles to say that NEPA etc should be refined and modernized [maybe because it is a nice cash cow/way to challenge something that hurts someones feelings?]

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  6. I renew my observation that the conversation has not changed (will not change) until the players change. And even if that happens, someone else will step into the vacancy to carry on the same message.

    I would like to know whether more environmental analysis actually changed the value-laden conversations that have many of us at odds with each other. If “no”, what exactly is the end game here when the desired environmental outcomes seem to be reasonable? (Who wants their life/home put at risk?)

    Reply
    • Actually, yes, Anthony.

      On the Malheur, as the 2015 Canyon Creek fire was burning, I knew the next step would be a loud cry from the local community to salvage the burn and for the Forest Service to give it a go with a CE. Instead, our collaborative worked with the agency, RMRS, and the industry to develop a research project – analyzed with an EA with full public scoping, comment, and administrative review – that looked at the sweet spot between economic recovery and ecological and wildlife protection. The agency got the NEPA done in less than a year, the salvage done a year post-fire, logs to the mill, and an excellent, peer-reviewed study on post-fire wildlife needs. Because the collab was involved throughout, we all LEARNED SOME THINGS, and yes, CHANGED OUR MINDS ABOUT SOME THINGS TOO.

      Had the USFS tried to implement the salvage with a CE as originally intended, none of that would have happened.

      Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast, and yes, as Pinchot said, bring the public along (“Public support of acts affecting public rights is absolutely required. It is more trouble to consult the public than to ignore them, but that is what you are hired for. Find out in advance what the public will stand for. If it is right and they won’t stand for it, postpone action and educate them”).

      Reply
      • SJ- I think you raise some good points. I’m always interested in why your experiences are different and how they can be extrapolated. These folks are doing an EA with full public scoping and admin review.. But Garrity is basically arguing that that’s not enough. I wonder (1) to what extent did the availability of $ for research help get researchers involved, (2) perhaps the Clark Fork area does not have a collaborative? And (3) can you post a link to the research paper?
        Everywhere can’t be funded like a CFLRP is my point and how does that impact what non-CFLRPs can do?

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      • So much ‘stuff’ can be bypassed when the ‘objector’ proves that they know the rules, laws and policies as well as the ‘authorities’. (Maybe even better, in this case?) It tends to keep the honest person honest in this new age of charlatans. The politics of eastern Oregon are probably worse than you’ve heard, pushing their ‘us against the world’ ideas in local government. I like that SJ knows what the FS can do, as well as what they cannot do.

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  7. SJ- I also completely agree with the need to go slow to go fast in general.. unfortunately, though, the urgency is felt by people who live in the areas, their elected officials, the US Congress who gave the agencies beaucoup bucks and so on. My point was that the current employees are between a rock and a hard place without all the folks on board they need to do the work.

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    • It would help get “all the folks on board they need to do the work” if the agency employees themselves stopped moving around!!! Locals are local, and generally don’t turn over – but USFS employees sure do. In general, the public is there; the agency is not, or at least not consistently. IMO.

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      • Point well taken, SJ. I think this problem is solving itself with the FS’s inability to attract applicants to certain areas due to lack of affordable housing (a whole other topic worthy of debate). If people cannot move to new jobs because they cannot find housing in the new location, they are staying put (at least, that’s what my few inside sources are telling me).

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  8. I’m impressed that you could find anything about this on the BLM website. If the EA says, as Garrity says it does, that there are significant adverse effects on lynx and grizzly bears, then an EIS would be required.

    I’m more intrigued by the “whistleblower” aspect of this. The comments are heresay (Garrity said that the whistleblower said that the BLM said), but these are the kinds of things that are not hard to imagine being said, and that kind of attitude may be more of a problem to Garrity than the specifics of this project. Sort of the opposite of a collaborative approach.

    Reply
  9. Here is a link to the EA https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/2020951/200539455/20070931/250077113/EA.pdf. On page 69 is a discussion of the public involvement to date, which included to public meetings, it was mentioned in an article in the Missoulian. These were in March of 2021. This was NOT a rush job and it was fully scoped, they sent letters to all the adjacent landowners, the UM and others. They consulted with FWS, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Garrity apparently did NOT comment during the scoping process, as they published the 4 comments that were received. Three were supportive of the need for harvesting and burning on the lands. One was opposed to any prescribed burning, they requested chipping and grazing as alternatives to burning.

    The May Effect, determination was by the BLM biologist and concurred with by the FWS. It was tiered to the BO for the Resource Management Plan, which the FWS has granted and Incidental Take for as a result of the high number of homes and other buildings in the mixed ownership area. The RMP was an EIS and the BO and IT were provided on that basis. They followed the rules.

    What bothers me the most about this whole list of responses is that Garrity got exactly what he wanted by gaslighting the public with his Op Ed’s and everyone on this string of comments. He got most everyone at least suspecting something was amiss and he slandered Tracy and Erin in the process. He lied about the scoping, he lied about the clearcutting, he lied about the consultation, he lied about the comment period on the draft EA. He cited the wrong CFR’s. The original two weeks identified were legal based on BLM’s rules. Some of the public (not Garrity) called the BLM and asked for more time and they extended it to 45 days. There has been no whistleblower complaint filed that anyone in the BLM office knows about. The sad irony is that Garrity uses the same tactics that Trump does. He draws attention to his lies by using Trump’s name and making an outrageous claim that there is no difference than in the Trump Administration.

    I encourage us all not to take outrageous comments at face value, especially from people that use environmental gaslighting as there standard operating procedure. The staff doing the work are dedicated civil servants. Public scoping and comments on draft proposals are valuable requirements in NEPA. I participate in local collaborative (the Lolo Restoration Committee) efforts reviewing and commenting on many public land projects, helping lead field tours to engage the public. Garrity and his ilk never show up, they prefer to distort, take information out of context and outright fabricate stuff to see what might stick. There goal is to destroy trust and sow division. Democracy is fragile and requires a willingness to listen as well as talk. Facts matter, context matters, lying matters.

    Reply
  10. Here is a link to the EA https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/2020951/200539455/20070931/250077113/EA.pdf. On page 69 is a discussion of the public involvement to date, which included two public meetings, it was mentioned in an article in the Missoulian. These were in March of 2021. This was NOT a rush job and it was fully scoped, they sent letters to all the adjacent landowners, the UM and others. They consulted with FWS, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Garrity apparently did NOT comment during the scoping process, as they published the 4 comments that were received. Three were supportive of the need for harvesting and burning on the lands. One was opposed to any prescribed burning, they requested chipping and grazing as alternatives to burning.

    The May Effect, determination was by the BLM biologist and concurred with by the FWS. It was tiered to the BO for the Resource Management Plan, which the FWS has granted and Incidental Take for as a result of the high number of homes and other buildings in the mixed ownership area. The RMP was an EIS and the BO and IT were provided on that basis. They followed the rules.

    What bothers me the most about this whole list of responses is that Garrity got exactly what he wanted by gaslighting the public with his Op Ed’s and everyone on this string of comments. He got most everyone at least suspecting something was amiss and he slandered Tracy and Erin in the process. He lied about the scoping, he lied about the clearcutting, he lied about the consultation, he lied about the comment period on the draft EA. He cited the wrong CFR’s. The original two weeks identified were legal based on BLM’s rules. Some of the public (not Garrity) called the BLM and asked for more time and they extended it to 45 days. There has been no whistleblower complaint filed that anyone in the BLM office knows about. The sad irony is that Garrity uses the same tactics that Trump does. He draws attention to his lies by using Trump’s name and making an outrageous claim that there is no difference than in the Trump Administration.

    I encourage us all not to take outrageous comments at face value, especially from people that use environmental gaslighting as there standard operating procedure. The staff doing the work are dedicated civil servants. Public scoping and comments on draft proposals are valuable requirements in NEPA. I participate in local collaborative (the Lolo Restoration Committee) efforts reviewing and commenting on many public land projects, helping lead field tours to engage the public. Garrity and his ilk never show up, they prefer to distort, take information out of context and outright fabricate stuff to see what might stick. Their goal is to destroy trust and sow division. Democracy is fragile and requires a willingness to listen as well as talk. Facts matter, context matters, lying matters.

    Reply

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