This is HFHC’s take. What I think is interesting..
The Environmental Assessment for the Middleman Project totaled 584 pages and the project took over a year and a half from scoping to assessment to decision.
A year and a half doesn’t seem that long to me for 53K acres (and 584 pages).
Two years after the project was approved, two anti-forestry groups sued to stop the project, claiming it violated federal law and in particular the National Environmental Policy Act. The litigants focused on the adequacy and detail of the 584-page Environmental Assessment.
According to the Frontier Institute, instead of a lengthy court battle over the adequacy of the environmental analysis, in April 2024 the Forest Service agreed to a settlement in which it made huge concessions to reduce the scale of the Middleman Project, forgoing almost all of the planned timber harvest and temporary road construction. The Forest Service even agreed to pay a bonus of $39,000 of taxpayer dollars to the anti-forestry groups to cover attorney fees!
Now the Frontier Institute may not be objective source of info.. are settlements and payments filed somewhere so we can go look for ourselves? I would like to see the results of litigation including the settlement documents and payments, posted somewhere by the FS. Also note the litigation started “two years after projects were approved”. Jon said in an earlier comment on the Pintler Face project, that the reason for lateness was that not enough environmental attorneys were available due to former President Trump’s administration policies. FWIW, I didn’t find that a compelling argument. Perhaps that’s also the case here?
Below is the entire HFHC post.
Writing recently on X (formerly Twitter), Frontier Institute President and CEO Kendall Cotton observed that Montana’s Horse Gulch Fire is burning in a portion of Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest that was slated for landscape-scale thinning and controlled burns, that is, before anti-forestry litigation dramatically scaled back the planned effort.
According to an analysis by the Frontier Institute, Middleman Project planned active forest management on 53,131 acres to mitigate wildfire risks, improve forest health, enhance wildlife habitats and reduce carbon emissions. The U.S. Forest Service’s Environmental Assessment for the project noted that a substantial proportion of the project area contains accumulations of hazardous fuels that “pose a risk to the communities of York and Nelson (including outlying developed subdivisions of El Dorado Heights and American Bar), as well as to public and firefighter safety in the event of a wildfire.”
The proposed Middleman Project would have addressed these risks via a combination of active forest management strategies, including logging and prescribed burns, conducted on 53,131 acres out of the total 141,799 acres included in the project.
Ultimately, the Environmental Assessment for the Middleman Project totaled 584 pages and the project took over a year and a half from scoping to assessment to decision. The Forest Service determined the Middleman Project “will not significantly affect the quality of the human environment, nor will it significantly impact any resource areas,” meaning that it did not require preparation of an even lengthier Environmental Impact Statement.
Two years after the project was approved, two anti-forestry groups sued to stop the project, claiming it violated federal law and in particular the National Environmental Policy Act. The litigants focused on the adequacy and detail of the 584-page Environmental Assessment.
According to the Frontier Institute, instead of a lengthy court battle over the adequacy of the environmental analysis, in April 2024 the Forest Service agreed to a settlement in which it made huge concessions to reduce the scale of the Middleman Project, forgoing almost all of the planned timber harvest and temporary road construction. The Forest Service even agreed to pay a bonus of $39,000 of taxpayer dollars to the anti-forestry groups to cover attorney fees!
Just as the Forest Service warned, the area was ripe for wildfire. To date the Horse Gulch Fire has burned almost 15,000 acres, threatening nearby communities and tragically claiming the life of a firefighter. To date, the wildfire has cost an estimated $6 million to contain.
Horse Gulch Fire
In celebrating the settlement, one of the anti-forestry litigants proclaimed, “We can now be happy that grizzly, elk and lynx habitat will not be sacrificed to subsidize the timber industry in the Big Belt Mountains northeast of Helena.”
As the Horse Gulch Fire continues to burn, it’s unclear how much grizzly, elk and lynx habitat has been sacrificed in a wildfire that possibly could have been prevented through active forest management.
Matt, it’s good to have you back!!!!
1. you and I know that there is no road building in IRAs and there shouldn’t be any existing roads.. so no commercial timber harvest in them except at the fringes…so I don’t think you mean 50% of the treated acres, maybe 50% of the analyzed (150K ish acres?)
2. Conceivably any tree cutting would be in lynx and bear territory if it’s in that area.. what is the prescription for “industrial logging”? Is it more dead lodgepole salvage, or ????
I haven’t gone anywhere, just have chosen not to comment for a while.
I never said the road building was within IRAs.
According to the EA (https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/hlcnf/?project=57506) the original proposal included 3,649 acres of logging that the EA identified as “clearcutting, seed tree, and shelterwood harvests” and another 3,020 of “intermediate harvest.”
Also, the Forest Service said “the project may take up to 20 years to be fully implemented.” So it may have taken until 2041 to complete.
Therefore this following statement from Kendall Cotton is pretty ignorant given the facts associated with this human-caused fire, which, by the way, has burned during a period of temperatures between 90 to 100 with winds up to 25 mph, and fuel moisture in 10, 100, and 1000 hour fuels very low.
“As the Horse Gulch Fire continues to burn, it’s unclear how much grizzly, elk and lynx habitat has been sacrificed in a wildfire that possibly could have been prevented through active forest management.”
The sad reality of the Horse Gulch Fire is that a contract pilot died while attempting to scoop water from nearby Hauser Lake. Connecting the dots here, had the thinning proceeded, maybe that person would still be among us. Maybe the litigants should return the money to her family.
Connecting the dots here, had the human being who started the fire not started the fire maybe that person would still be among us. Maybe that person who started the fire should be held responsible for the death, and the entire suppression cost of the fire.
Hi Matt: Long time between sparring matches. Unless the person who started the fire is an arsonist, my thought remains that the massive fuel build-ups on federal lands the past 30+ years are the main blame for these catastrophic events. People are the only animal that uses fire, we use it every day, and all over the world wherever we go. But without major fuel build-ups, it’s impossible to get major fires. And somehow the federal government is not liable for these predictable events, so victims always have to go to the “deep pockets” of the power companies and railroads who then transfer the costs to their customers and other taxpayers. Maybe this fire wasn’t a result of federal passive management policies, but most of the predicted (for this reason, mostly) catastrophic wildfires since the late 1980s have shared that common history.
Dr. Bob: Your thoughts about “massive fuel build-ups” don’t seem to apply to this specific landscape and wildfire that is in question. Did you not see the image of the landscape?
Hi Matt: Nope, but I should have. A lot of these large-acreage fires are grasslands and shrublands and fire in those cases can be very beneficial in some instances — except maybe for cost and smoke. I’m not familiar with this fire — only reburns in general — and that’s why I replied in general terms. And mostly in response to the idea that it was caused by someone and not lightning, as if that made a big difference.
What were the primary fuels in this instance, and were any residual or created by the previous fire? The post mentions thinning and logging and the photo shows trees. My experience has been that logging is good for grizzly bears and that wildlife use cat roads as travel corridors within hours and days of construction. Based on documented footprints and observations of avian flight patterns.
And Jon didn’t say there aren’t enough environmental attorneys – he said that the attorney for plaintiffs in that case was reported as providing this reason for not suing sooner.
Matt, it’s good to have you back!!!!
1. you and I know that there is no road building in IRAs and there shouldn’t be any existing roads.. so no commercial timber harvest in them except at the fringes…so I don’t think you mean 50% of the treated acres, maybe 50% of the analyzed (150K ish acres?)
2. Conceivably any tree cutting would be in lynx and bear territory if it’s in that area.. what is the prescription for “industrial logging”? Is it more dead lodgepole salvage, or ????
Hoping not to have to read the EA…
Hi Sharon,
I haven’t gone anywhere, just have chosen not to comment for a while.
I never said the road building was within IRAs.
According to the EA (https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/hlcnf/?project=57506) the original proposal included 3,649 acres of logging that the EA identified as “clearcutting, seed tree, and shelterwood harvests” and another 3,020 of “intermediate harvest.”
Also, the Forest Service said “the project may take up to 20 years to be fully implemented.” So it may have taken until 2041 to complete.
Therefore this following statement from Kendall Cotton is pretty ignorant given the facts associated with this human-caused fire, which, by the way, has burned during a period of temperatures between 90 to 100 with winds up to 25 mph, and fuel moisture in 10, 100, and 1000 hour fuels very low.
“As the Horse Gulch Fire continues to burn, it’s unclear how much grizzly, elk and lynx habitat has been sacrificed in a wildfire that possibly could have been prevented through active forest management.”
Did the Environmental Assessment for the Middleman Project examine the impacts of NOT conducting the work?
The sad reality of the Horse Gulch Fire is that a contract pilot died while attempting to scoop water from nearby Hauser Lake. Connecting the dots here, had the thinning proceeded, maybe that person would still be among us. Maybe the litigants should return the money to her family.
Connecting the dots here, had the human being who started the fire not started the fire maybe that person would still be among us. Maybe that person who started the fire should be held responsible for the death, and the entire suppression cost of the fire.
I do agree with your point, Matthew.
Hi Matt: Long time between sparring matches. Unless the person who started the fire is an arsonist, my thought remains that the massive fuel build-ups on federal lands the past 30+ years are the main blame for these catastrophic events. People are the only animal that uses fire, we use it every day, and all over the world wherever we go. But without major fuel build-ups, it’s impossible to get major fires. And somehow the federal government is not liable for these predictable events, so victims always have to go to the “deep pockets” of the power companies and railroads who then transfer the costs to their customers and other taxpayers. Maybe this fire wasn’t a result of federal passive management policies, but most of the predicted (for this reason, mostly) catastrophic wildfires since the late 1980s have shared that common history.
Dr. Bob: Your thoughts about “massive fuel build-ups” don’t seem to apply to this specific landscape and wildfire that is in question. Did you not see the image of the landscape?
Hi Matt: Nope, but I should have. A lot of these large-acreage fires are grasslands and shrublands and fire in those cases can be very beneficial in some instances — except maybe for cost and smoke. I’m not familiar with this fire — only reburns in general — and that’s why I replied in general terms. And mostly in response to the idea that it was caused by someone and not lightning, as if that made a big difference.
What were the primary fuels in this instance, and were any residual or created by the previous fire? The post mentions thinning and logging and the photo shows trees. My experience has been that logging is good for grizzly bears and that wildlife use cat roads as travel corridors within hours and days of construction. Based on documented footprints and observations of avian flight patterns.
Cotton should stay in his lane – opposing public education. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Frontier_Institute
And Jon didn’t say there aren’t enough environmental attorneys – he said that the attorney for plaintiffs in that case was reported as providing this reason for not suing sooner.