Matthew Koehler

Point/Counter-Point: Nez Perce-Clearwater NF Forest Planning Process

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Looking into the Mallard-Larkins Roadless Area on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. Photo by Brett Haverstick.
Looking into the Mallard-Larkins Roadless Area on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. Photo by Brett Haverstick.

Recently, the discussion of collaboration and forest planning – at least on this blog – has focused on the processes at play with the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest forest plan revision. See here, here and here.  The discussion and debate continues, as we can clearly see in these point/counter-point guest columns, which recently ran in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.  The first one is from Lee Rozen, who wrote his piece on behalf of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News editorial board. The second piece is from Gary Macfarlane, ecosystem defense director for Friends of the Clearwater.

We have this Friend, see, who’s stumped us
By Lee Rozen, for the Moscow-Pullman Daily News editorial board
http://dnews.com/opinion/article_245cf435-b50e-58a3-a9e4-98e2b09b816a.html

Sometimes, you have to wonder whether the Friends of the Clearwater can see the national forest for the trees. Generally speaking, we agree with much of what the Friends, and groups like them, stand for. We are skeptical whenever industry or local government tells us to just trust them because they are acting in our best interest.

But when government in the form of the U.S. Forest Service comes forward and seeks the informed advice of a wide variety of groups – both industry and Friends included – we don’t see sinister conspiracies lurking behind the next stump. Challenges, perhaps, but not conspiracies.

The Forest Service is trying a “collaborative” process to develop a management plan for the newly combined administration of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest. That’s instead of proposing a plan and offering it up for industry, governments, recreationists and environmentalists to take potshots at, and eventually go to court over.

It seems that’s what Friends of the Clearwater want them to do. The Friends seem to be afraid their principles will be co-opted if they sit down across the table from industry, government, hunters, motorcyclists and ski-mobilers and negotiate the best way to reach an acceptable compromise on the use of this forest. More practically, they argue that industry and government can pay to have their representatives at the discussions but groups of volunteers with day jobs can neither afford the time off nor the travel expenses. As a result, the Forest Service has offered to help the collaboration occur online.

A plan for running a national forest poses a complex problem because it is so unclear what national forests are and what they should be. It’s pretty clear what’s intended for national parks, wilderness areas and national recreational areas. But national forests are different. They are supposed to support a mix of goals, many of which can be contradictory – logging and recreation, for instance. The Friends of the Clearwater, and other interest groups, should be working to make the “collaborative process” work for all, rather trying to shoot it down in hopes of “total victory” in the courts.

US Forest Service must follow the law
By Gary Macfarlane
http://dnews.com/opinion/article_1207ba0f-0a26-5e2d-a44f-ac89653a0672.html

Lee Rozen’s criticism of Friends of the Clearwater (Our View, written for the editorial board, March 13) is off base, misinformed and reflects a lack of understanding concerning our public land laws and the public involvement process. Had he contacted us, he would have learned why we believe the Forest Service is not following the law. It appears the agency has stumbled into a quagmire, under the guise of collaboration, with its new forest planning process.

The process the Forest Service is currently following on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests plan revision circumvents existing law, creates a contradictory and confusing public involvement process and lacks accountability. For 40 years, the National Environmental Policy Act has governed public input and analysis of agency proposals. NEPA mandates that the first step of the public involvement process is to identify pertinent issues. However, this collaborative process is seeking to resolve issues before the genuine public involvement process even begins. How can the Forest Service resolve issues before they are properly identified?

Under NEPA, all citizens can participate equally. However, the new collaborative forest plan revision process – which has no statutory authority – creates two unequal classes of citizens. The E-collaborative invention funnels citizen comments from the second class through the first class citizen collaborative group. Why should a special working group have more input and be allowed to determine whether or how other citizen comments are used?

Furthermore, NEPA requires an objective analysis of alternatives before decisions are made. Thus, the integrity of NEPA is compromised when the agency reaches a deal or understanding with the collaborative forest planning group before the NEPA process even begins. NEPA must be more than a pro forma exercise. Can you imagine having a collaborative group decide the outcome of an election before the election begins in order to avoid the contentiousness of elections?

Another stated reason behind the new forest planning process is to save time and money. How is having two competing public involvement processes for national forest planning more efficient? Indeed, the Forest Service recently admitted the collaborative process would take longer than anticipated. We feel that such redundancy wastes time and money and also creates conflict and confusion. In fact, a member of the forest planning collaborative for the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests – Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League – recently termed the process as collective collaborative confusion at a presentation given in Eugene, Ore. Even proponents of collaboration find the new process fatally flawed.

Retired Forest Service fishery biologist and Moscow resident Al Espinosa stated in a comment letter on the new process, “The intent here is to avoid accountability by eliminating the appeal process and providing a phony pathway around the regulations and laws.”

He also noted the new planning process would circumvent the national interest. Removing accountability and de-legitimizing NEPA’s public involvement and decision-making process is not in the public interest. The Forest Service could have prevented scrutiny, confusion and distrust had the agency followed citizen suggestions made in an October meeting in how to lawfully proceed with the forest plan revision process.

If national forest management is to be determined by local collaborative groups, then existing laws like NEPA need to be repealed first. If the goal is to remove the ability of citizens to have judicial redress and to challenge agency decisions in court, then the Constitution must be amended. The new process for national forest planning clashes with the law. Friends of the Clearwater simply believes the Forest Service should be accountable to U.S. citizens and the law. We think the majority of Americans would agree with us.

Wildlife Advocates Sue Feds to Force Long-Awaited Recovery Plan for Canada Lynx

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lynxThe following press release is from the Western Environmental Law Center and a coalition of wildlife advocacy groups, including Friends of the Wild Swan, Rocky Mountain Wild, San Juan Citizens Alliance, and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. -mk
 

Missoula, MT – The Canada lynx was listed as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in March 2000, yet the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to complete the required recovery plan to ensure the survival of the elusive cat.

Today, a coalition of wildlife advocacy groups dedicated to the long-term survival and recovery of lynx filed a lawsuit to compel the Agency to complete a recovery plan to bring the species back from the brink of extinction. Threats to the lynx include loss of habitat and connectivity from improper forest management, development, and climate change, and mortality from starvation, predation, poaching, and incidental trapping.

The goal of the ESA is to prevent the extinction of and to provide for the eventual de-listing of imperiled species. As such, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to adopt and implement recovery plans for all listed species that describe the specific actions needed to achieve de-listing, include measurable criteria, and estimate the time and costs required to achieve recovery goals.

“Recovery plans are one of the most important tools to ensure a species does not go extinct,” said Matthew Bishop, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center in Helena who is representing the wildlife advocacy groups in the case. “The ESA-mandated plan provides a road map to eventual de-listing by laying out what needs to happen and how best to get there,” added Bishop.

“Lynx will never fully recover in Montana and throughout the rest of their range in the lower 48 states until state and federal agencies have coordinated, concrete conservation actions designed to promote their recovery,” said Arlene Montgomery, Program Director of Friends of the Wild Swan. “Recovery plans are vital to ensuring that lynx not only persist, but thrive. They address the threats and provide the strategy that will lead to recovering lynx that builds upon the Endangered Species Act listing and designation of critical habitat.”

“Offering the Canada lynx protection under the Endangered Species Act absent a Recovery Plan, the Service merely created a paper tiger,” explained Duane Short, Wild Species Program Director for Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “Its legal obligation to develop and implement a Recovery Plan is intended to produce meaningful actions that will actually enhance long-term survival of the species. Listing the lynx as Threatened under the Act, absent a Recovery Plan, is a job left undone.”

“The lynx’s recovery continues to be hampered by a ‘business as usual’ mentality from the federal and state agencies,” added Bishop. “Recent data suggests the lynx population in Montana may be in decline and yet, we’re still seeing development, trapping and snaring, roads, and industrial logging projects – including clear cuts – in some of the last remaining areas still occupied by lynx, including protected critical habitat” said Bishop. “Coordination among the various entities at the federal, state, and local level is needed to address the cumulative effects of these activities on lynx and their habitat. This is exactly what a federal recovery plan can do.”

The Western Environmental Law Center is representing Friends of the Wild Swan, Rocky Mountain Wild, San Juan Citizens Alliance, and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.

Celebrating Lake Como “Thinning” by Ignoring the Fiasco

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Lake_Como_Logging

This week, the Ravalli Republic had yet another glowing article about a “thinning” project around the very popular Lake Como Recreation Area of the Bitterroot National Forest. The paper billed the project as “an effort to protect the forest from a mountain pine beetle invasion.” Here’s a snip:

Bob Walker and his small crew have been working to thin out the forest around the Lake Como Recreation Area since last year….“We need to be doing more work to get ahead of the pine beetle. It’s sad to see our forests dying right before our very eyes.”  The project his crew is working on now has that focus in mind.  Over the past year, Walker’s loggers have removed about 60 percent of the trees from most of the recreational sites in the Lake Como area in order to give the remaining trees a fighting chance when the mountain pine beetle arrives en masse.

And now, for the rest of the story, which the Ravalli Republic reporter has been provided a number of times over the years as the Lake Como “forest health” project does its best Energizer Bunny impersonation and “just keeps going…. and going…and going.”

But first, here’s a link to the official 2011 Decision Memo for the “Lake Como Recreation Area Hazard Tree Removal Project.”  Yes, this time I was able to rather quickly and easily find a recent decision memo on a Forest Service website. So perhaps this one-time success will develop into a trend of good luck with Forest Service websites. Of course, in order to get to the “Projects” portion of the website I first had to click on the “Land and Resource Management” link, which includes a somewhat idyllic and pastoral picture of horse logging on the Bitterroot National Forest….which must have taken place at least one time in the past, although I must admit I haven’t heard of any horse logging on the Bitterroot National Forest for quite some time.  But, hey, why not give the public the impression that horse logging is common-place on the forest, right?

OK, on with the rest of the story, courtesy of the local group Friends of the Bitterroot (which, I should point out, counts former loggers, retired Forest Service district rangers, biologists and even the son of the Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor from 1935 to 1955 in its leadership).

Probably the most popular and well used trail on the Bitterroot National Forest snakes through an old growth stand of big ponderosa pines on the north side of Lake Como. The first half mile of the trail is paved to make it handicap accessible. Benches and interpretive signs have been placed as amenities along the way.

Darby District Ranger Chuck Oliver decided to improve the experience of what was a beautiful old growth pine forest by slashing and burning undergrowth. In April 2004 the area was torched on a hot dry day. The fire erupted out of control and burned many of the prime old growth pines.

Then the Forest Service salvage logged the area and burned the logging slash.

Subsequently pine beetles invaded many of the fire stressed trees and a bunch more big old growth pines died.

This offered the Forest Service another opportunity to salvage log big trees in 2006.

Then the logging slash from that logging was burned.

The end result of the Como fiasco is a handicap accessible paved trail through a thrice burned, twice logged remnant of old growth pine studded with many big stumps.

The new interpretive signs do not tell the reader that the fire was set by the Forest Service and do not point out that the beetle infestation area matches the burned area. The public is given the impression that the events were all natural rather than the results of Forest Service [mis]management activities.

Keep in mind that here we are in 2013 and the Forest Service is still logging trees in the Lake Como Recreation Area, including what appear to be (see photo above) some rather nice looking, green, large-ish ponderosa pines trees.  This would all be funny, if it wasn’t so sad and frustrating.  And, isn’t it absolutely amazing how none of the timeline or facts above about the Lake Como Fiasco make it into this reporter’s “feel good” story?  Equally so, how come none of this history made it into the “background” portion of the Bitterroot National Forest’s 2011 Decision Memo?

But wait…there’s more! The Forest Service now is analyzing yet another project for the area called the “Como Forest Health Project.”  Yep, this is truly a logging project that keeps on giving.

Update:  The Alliance for Wild Rockies has provided a copy of AWR’s scoping comments on the proposed “Como Forest Health Project.”

USFS Proposes Building 7.5 Miles of Permanent Firebreaks in Ventana Wilderness

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Ventura_WildernessAccording to the folks at Wilderness Watch, the U.S. Forest Service has proposed to build 7.5 miles of permanent firebreaks within the Ventana Wilderness on the Los Padres National Forest in California, using chainsaws, heavy equipment and vehicles. Wilderness Watch is opposing this proposal as a violation of the Wilderness Act, among other things. The issue is complicated by a series of special provisions that Congress added to laws that expanded the Ventana Wilderness over time. These special provisions authorized the use of some “presuppression” work within the Ventana additions, but none authorized chainsaws, heavy vehicles, or permanent 150-foot-wide firebreaks within an area that is supposed to remain “untrammeled by man.”

You can read Wilderness Watch’s detailed comments on the issue here.

Letter to Sec Vilsack Questions Nez Perce-Clearwater Planning Process

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Summer Solstice sunset on the Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. Photo by Matthew Koehler.
Summer Solstice sunset on the Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. Photo by Matthew Koehler.

The following letter was sent to Secretary Vilsack on February 28, 2013 by Friends of the Clearwater and eleven other conservation groups. To view a pdf copy of this letter, and to see the names of all the conservation groups that signed onto it, click here.

Dear Secretary Vilsack:

The undersigned represent non-profit conservation organizations that have been heavily involved in national forest issues, including forest planning. We are writing to express serious concerns with the way the revision of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Plan(s) is taking place. As an early adopter of the new National Forest Management Act (NFMA) regulations, these two merging national forests will be a model for how Forest Plans are revised in the future.

Introduction

We request that you halt the current planning process, because it is being inappropriately fast-tracked; gives disproportionate voice to local special interests; does not properly incorporate public involvement; undercuts NEPA; and appears to purposely circumvent the just released and still draft directives for the new Planning Rule.

By way of background, these two national forests comprise about 4 million acres of some of the most remote and spectacular country in the lower 48 states. These forests are home to wolves, salmon, fisher, bull trout, wolverines and grizzlies (one was illegally shot in 2007 in the North Fork Clearwater Basin). All or portions of the Gospel Hump, Selway-Bitterroot, Hells Canyon (managed by the Wallowa-Whitman) and Frank Church-River of No Return Wildernesses are found in these national forests, as are the Lochsa and Selway Wild and Scenic Rivers.

There are several problems that we see with the Forest Plan revision as it is proceeding to date. They encompass agency capacity, public involvement, and compliance with our nation’s environmental laws.  An additional concern that overlays the entire process is the apparent devolution of public land management and decision-making to local and/or private special interests. All citizens have equal footing to participate in the revisions of these Forest Plans, and the public involvement process must not be “frontloaded” to render NEPA a pro-forma exercise

Administrative Issues

The Forest Service lacks the capacity to produce high quality plans through this fast-track process. The agency is clearly over-extended, in part because of the combination of the two forests into the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, which is being done mainly for funding reasons. This is effectively doubling the workload for agency staff, and revising these Forest Plans now will only exacerbate the problem. In addition, this process attempts to merge two existing, quite different, forest plans into one–a daunting task under the best of circumstances that will not be improved with a fast-track approach.

The concept behind Forest Plan revision is just that–a revision of an existing Plan. Yet the current process seems instead to be erasing all previous information and lessons learned to create an entirely new Plan. While the required Forest Plan monitoring on both of these national forests has not been up to par, it does provide information valuable to the Forest Plan revision effort. The Forest Service appears to believe otherwise, and failed to link years of prior monitoring and the need for Forest Plan revision in the initial round of meetings.

It is also unclear as to how the Forest Service intends to use the Analysis of the Management Situation (AMS) prepared for the earlier revision process.  The public was told at the initial round of meetings the AMS was being revised in an ongoing effort. To proceed with public involvement and plan preparation when the revised “assessment” (the new term for AMS) has not been completed is to put the cart before the horse.

Funding Issues

In a meeting last year–attended some of us, which included both regional and national ecosystem planning staff–the Forest Supervisor stated there is adequate funding to revise these two Forest Plans on the fast track. This money is apparently being spent on a consultant revising the two Plans and University of Idaho facilitators. While we are not questioning the qualifications of these consultants–we are concerned about three issues.

First, the outsourcing of agency functions devolves national forest management and decision-making. Second, we seriously question whether this Forest Plan revision can be done cheaply and efficiently by outsourcing. Third, we question the agency’s funding priorities when it comes to fast-tracking the revision of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Plans as these two national forests have serious funding problems for campgrounds and other important programs. Blaming congressional allocation for this apparent funding imbalance seems disingenuous given the agency’s remarkable flexibility in redistributing funds, due in large part to the Forest Service’s ever-changing and inscrutable accounting process.

Public Involvement

The public involvement process under the new NFMA regulations is very confusing. The Forest Service has sent mixed signals about the collaborative process, which has been portrayed by the agency as a pre-NEPA public involvement process.

Communication surrounding the planning process showed an inappropriate level of involvement by local special interests.  Five initial public meetings were held on the revision of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest Plans: Four in Idaho and one in Montana. Aside from the serious omissions of the major populations centers of Missoula, Montana and Spokane, Washington–two areas where citizens recreate on the Clearwater National Forests in particular–the meetings that were held generated considerable concern among the public.

These initial meetings were hosted by the local county commissioners, sending the signal that the counties, which represent less than 1/10th of one percent of the American public, are running the show. The card sent out about the meetings came from the Forest Service, and yet the press releases came from the counties, creating the impression that local government entities are in charge of the forest plan revision. This is completely unacceptable–the federal agency in charge cannot simply step back and endow local special interests with the power to shape public policy with regard to federal lands.

The pre-NEPA planning process undercuts the critical role of NEPA.  The PowerPoint presentation given at the meetings stated that the so-called collaborative process would, “Try to resolve issues before formal plan and NEPA.”  Apparently, this is what is meant by the “pre-NEPA” work. The purpose of scoping under NEPA, however, is to identify issues. How can NEPA be anything more than a pro-forma exercise under this scenario where the “collaborative group” resolves issues before they are identified in scoping?

It is unreasonable to place Forest management and the time commitment it demands in the hands of self-selected volunteer citizen-advocates.  The Forest Service apparently sees two unequal classes of citizens:(1) “stakeholders” who have had time to participate in the three-day summit and then subsequent working groups, whom the Forest Service refers to as “involved;” (2) those who participate fully in the only legitimate and legally required public involvement process via NEPA, are not considered involved, but merely “informed.”

Citizens engaged in the NEPA process have the right to expect that decisions will be made after an objective analysis of alternatives. Participation in a pre-NEPA collaborative could lead to insider decision-making or the implication that these participants’ ideas will get priority over input from the NEPA process itself

As reported in the press, the Forest Supervisor told the public that this revision effort would “get out ahead of” Washington DC, since the directives for implementing the new NFMA regulations have yet to be completed in final form. Frankly, it seems to us patently inappropriate for a Forest Supervisor to inveigh against the federal government, even mildly, in order to appeal to anti-government sentiment. This only underscores our concern that this process is driven by local, special interests.

Forest Plan Substance

In addition to the process for this Forest Plan revision, we would also like to address the substance of the Clearwater and Nez Perce National Forest Plans. Currently, these plans provide some accountability–with measurable, enforceable standards and required monitoring tied to on-the-ground projects. We are concerned that the new NFMA regulations, and the approach being taken here, will lessen accountability in terms enforceable standards and required monitoring.

Summary

In summary, the revision for the Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest Plans is taking the wrong track. With private and university consultants handling the process, and with counties taking the lead at the initial meetings, it appears national forest management is being devolved to private and special interests at the local scale. National forests were established precisely because there is an overriding national interest that is a counterweight to local, special interests.

We also would like a clear explanation of what the Forest Service believes is the difference between the normal NEPA public involvement process and the pre-NEPA collaborative process in the new rule.

Given the challenges facing the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, we believe it is in the public interest to delay the revision until the directives have been issued in final form and it is clear the current planning rule will remain in effect. The Supervisor’s intention to “get out ahead” of the directives is improper. Alternatively, revising the two plans under the 1982 regulations could alleviate some of these concerns.

We look forward to your response.

Seattle Times: Timber Theft a Big Problem, but Hard to Quantify

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Jeffrey Penman, area measurement specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, stands on the giant stump of a stolen old-growth tree.
Jeffrey Penman, area measurement specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, stands on the giant stump of a stolen old-growth tree.

From today’s Seattle Times:

Next month, a federal court judge will try to put a value on something that’s somewhat priceless: trees stolen from the Olympic National Forest.

The trees in question include old-growth fir, six feet across, that laid down roots before the Revolutionary War; they include intricately patterned maple destined to become high-end musical instruments; they include cedar for shingle or shake.

All of them, the U.S. Attorney’s Office says, were stolen by Reid Johnston, the son of a prominent family that had laid its own roots alongside those same trees on the Olympic Peninsula decades ago. Johnston was sentenced in December to one year in federal prison in one of the largest timber-theft prosecutions in Washington history, involving more than 100 trees. He faces another hearing March 7 to determine the amount of restitution he’ll pay — that is, the value of his haul.

“The fact is, you can’t replace with a dollar amount a 300-year-old Douglas fir tree,” said Matthew Diggs, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case. “It’s like taking an antiquity.”

Experts at the hearing will certainly try, offering estimates of the trees’ worth based on their economic value in the market as well as the ecological cost of their removal. Some of the trees were located in an area designated as marbled murrelet critical habitat.

Despite his guilty plea, Johnston maintains he was wrongly accused — that the trees were on his parents’ property, not in the national forest. (Official land surveys prove otherwise, prosecutors say.) But even he concedes that theft of trees is rampant in Washington, where thousands of dollars can be earned in less than an hour’s work.

“That’s never going to change,” he said. “There’s plenty of wood in the national forest and places they can steal.”

State and federal authorities agree the theft of natural resources, from leafy salal to massive timber, is a growing problem.

“Theft and damage to forest products have reached near epidemic proportions on public lands,” Diggs wrote in court documents.

U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Anne Minden, who is stationed in Washington, said it’s impossible to say for sure how much is stolen.

“It’s an incalculable value, but we do what we can do calculate it,” she said. “They’re somewhat priceless.” The Associated Press in 2003 pegged timber theft as a $1 billion-a-year problem.

Read the entire story here.

New Video: Forests Born of Fire

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morel
The Wild Nature Institute has produced a new video, “Forests Born of Fire.”  Western US forests burned by high-intensity fire are important and rare wildlife habitat – but widespread policies of salvage logging and logging intended to prevent the likelihood of fire on private and public lands harms this habitat. a

The video was filmed in burned forests of the Lassen National Forest of California.  The idea was conceived, the script written, the footage gathered, and the video narrated and edited entirely by biologists studying wildlife that use burned forests.  Read more about WNI’s work to study and protect wildlife in burned forests.

Enviros protect 8,000 acres of old-growth, or hold people of Utah ‘hostage?’

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This blog has highlighted the Dixie National Forest, Utah, “Iron Springs Vegetation Reduction Project” before.  Yesterday, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported:

Wildlife conservation groups on Thursday praised a decision by Dixie National Forest withdrawing a plan to harvest 8,000 acres of old-growth forest near Escalante.

“Conservationists are calling this a valentine for wildlife,” said Kevin Mueller, program director for Utah Environmental Congress. “The withdrawal really is a reprieve for wildlife.”….

Mueller said the harvest has appeared dead at least three times before, as far back as 1999.  “This is a horrible game of whack a mole that’s been going for about a dozen years, and I just really hope the Forest Service gives up the ghost on this project and doesn’t resurrect it again,” he said.

The timber harvest area of 8,306 acres is about 15 miles northwest of Escalante at elevations ranging from 9,000 to 10,750 feet. Mueller said the trees that were to be cut down are an estimated 150 to 400 years old.  Conservation groups have fought the harvest, saying the trees provide needed nesting and forage habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl and sensitive-species goshawk….

Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab said opposition by groups outside of Utah like the Montana-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies, is a “perfect example” of why state officials want to take control of public lands. “This is another reason why our Utah lands and forestry people and local people can do a better job of managing lands because we’re not held hostage to groups in … other areas,” he said.

Judge: FS should have regulated megaloads along Wild/Scenic River

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Yes, that's a full-sized log truck to the right of this Exxon-Mobile megaloaded carrying Korean-made tar sands mining equipment bound for the Alberta tar sands oil fields over Lolo Pass and along the Wild and Scenic Lochsa River in Idaho.
Yes, that’s a full-sized log truck to the right of this Exxon-Mobile megaloaded carrying Korean-made tar sands mining equipment bound for the Alberta tar sands oil fields. A federal judge has ruled that the Forest Service should have regulated these megaloads as they traveled along the Wild and Scenic Lochsa River and over Lolo Pass on US Hwy 12. Picture from 2011.

According to the Missoulian U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill has sided with environmentalists and ruled the U.S. Forest Service erred by not exercising its regulatory authority when Idaho allowed huge trucks to haul giant oil refinery equipment along U.S. Highway 12, through a scenic corridor protected by the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

The group, Idaho Rivers United, sued the government in 2011 after the state allowed ExxonMobil’s Canadian unit to ship hundreds of so-called megaloads from Idaho’s Port of Lewiston along the two-lane highway. A copy of the judge’s ruling is here.

A previous article contained this additional information:

Idaho Rivers United argues the U.S. Forest Service neglected its duty to intervene, including by allowing 500 trees along U.S. Highway 12 to be trimmed to accommodate oil-gear shipments by ExxonMobil weighing up to 300 tons. The federal agency says it relinquished that authority over the shipments between Lewiston and the Kearl Oil Sands projects in southern Alberta to the state of Idaho….

As early as September 2010, Forest Service leaders in Idaho expressed concern about the ExxonMobil shipments. That month, Clearwater-Nez Perce National Forest supervisor Rick Brazell told the Idaho Transportation Department in a letter that hundreds of oversized loads jeopardize “the experience the traveling and recreating public will have along U.S. Highway 12 through the introduction of overtly industrial elements into the otherwise pastoral environment.”

In the same letter, however, Brazell conceded he was powerless to interfere. “I recognize that I have no jurisdiction to stop these shipments, but I do oppose the idea of allowing this precedent to be set,” he wrote.

For more information about this issue, check out this video produced by some friends.

Monday AM Update: There have been some questions in the comments regarding what the Forest Service’s regulatory authority is in this issue. Here’s a portion of what the judge wrote:

“This line of authority – beginning with the Property Clause and proceeding through the Organic Act, the Federal-Aid Highways Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and finally the Highway Easement’s directive to protect the scenic and esthetic values of the river corridor – is focused on granting the federal defendants the authority to regulate the use of roads over federal land. This authority clearly gives the federal defendants jurisdiction to review ITD’s approval of mega-load permits that authorize acts along the river corridor including the construction of turnouts along the rivers, the trimming of hundreds of trees, and the restriction of the public’s recreational opportunities.”

Wildfire Risk Management on a Landscape with Public & Private Ownership: Who Pays for Protection?

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We’ve had these sorts of discussions here before in regards to people building homes in fire-prone forests with an expectation that the federal government (and US taxpayers) will provide funding for fuel reduction activities.  A new(ish) research paper provides another look at the issue.

Abstract: Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership. We find that in areas where ownership is mixed, the private landowner performs too little fuel treatment as they ‘‘free ride’ —capture benefits without incurring the costs—on public protection, while areas with public land only are under-protected. Our central result is that this pattern of fuel treatment comes at a cost to society because public resources focus in areas with mixed ownership, where local residents capture the benefits, and are not available for publicly managed land areas that create benefits for society at large. We also find that policies that encourage public expenditures in areas with mixed ownership, such as the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 and public liability for private values, subsidize the residents who choose to locate in the high-risk areas at the cost of lost natural resource benefits for others.