Jon Haber

Forest Supervisor speaks out on behalf of public lands

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Kudos to the Forest Supervisor on the Cleveland National Forest for engaging in the local planning process and pointing out the threats to the national forest of increased housing density on its borders.  This is one way the Forest Service can attempt to both protect its resources and manage its costs, but it’s not something I’ve seen very often.  (In fact, I once saw a forest supervisor retract similar comments for political reasons.)

The Forest Conservation Initiative was a voter-approved initiative which required that private lands within the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County have a minimum lot size of 40 acres. The FCI was originally approved in 1993 and expired in 2010.  An unusual history maybe, but it’s not unusual for local governments to allow increased development density (by either re-zoning or lack of zoning).  The responsibility of the Forest Service to speak up for our national resources exists regardless.

Natural amenities, “the creative class” and economic success

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This map got my attention because of the disproportionate amount of “green” in the rural intermountain west.  In this case it means counties have a disproportionately high number of employees in jobs like management, finance, technology, engineering, science, sales, entertainment and non-primary education (and of course lawyering).

“The creative-class thesis holds that communities that attract and retain more workers who are in creative occupations will fare better in today’s economy.” 

From the background paper linked to this article:

“Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class makes a compelling argument that urban development now depends on novel combinations of knowledge and ideas, that certain occupations specialize in this task, that people in these occupations are drawn to areas providing a high quality of life, and that the essential development strategy is to create an environment that attracts and retains these workers. While developed with urban areas in mind, this thesis may be particularly relevant in rural areas, which lose much of their young talent as high school graduates leave for college, the armed forces, or “city lights.”  Our analysis of recent development in rural U.S. counties, which focuses on natural amenities (for which ERS has also computed county-level scores) as quality-of-life indicators, supports the creative class thesis.”

So, perceived natural amenities attract creative workers who improve local economies.  With a caveat that “growth and success among creative-class workers doesn’t necessarily extend economic benefits to other parts of the economy, such as blue-collar and service workers, at least in metro areas.”  (All wages go up, but housing costs go up more.)

So maybe all this is saying is to get the right kind of education so you can do well and live in a nice place, but it might also paint a promising picture for these rural “green” counties.

 

Ghost of the Forest Service yet to come

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I happened to read these two articles today that seemed to fit together in an interesting way. The first was about proposed legislation that would create a national recreation area from a big chunk of a national forest to get it funded through the Park Service. This quote was kind of telling: “Remember, the main function of the Forest Service is to fight fires. Recreation is last on its priority list. That is why nothing gets done …” The second was about the inability of the Forest Service to manage motorized recreation. Hmmm …

Settlement agreements in litigation

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Here is a textbook example, from the Stanislaus National Forest travel planning process.

  1. The Forest Service makes a decision
  2. Plaintiffs sue
  3. Intervention granted to supporters of the decision
  4. Court finds Forest Service violated a procedural analysis requirement
  5. Plaintiffs, intervenors and Forest Service agree on an interim solution while the process is redone

It looks like win/win/win/win:

  • Plaintiffs: “Now we have 40 miles of the worst routes officially closed.”
  • Intervenors: “At the end of the day, we need to be partners in effective forward-looking management and allowing this agreement to be approved as opposed to tilting at windmills.”
  • Forest Service: “Diverse riding and driving opportunities for motorized recreation and dispersed camping still abound on the forest with over 230 miles of OHV trails available.”
  • General public:  Gets another chance to participate in the process

(Of course the goal in most litigation is to settle a case before a judge has to decide it.)

Talkfest about “Large Wildland Fires”

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This conference is going on this week in Missoula.  With this many events and speakers I would like to think that someone would talk about the legal and administrative framework for making decisions about fire prevention and management on national forest lands.  That would be the National Forest Management Act and land management plans.  Specifically the law’s requirement that “resource plans” (fire plans) and projects (fuel treatments and fire suppression actions) “shall be consistent with the land management plans.”   The new planning rule also requires that development of plan components consider “wildland fire and opportunities to restore fire adapted ecosystems.”  Someone should maybe be thinking and talking about how revised forest plans should plan for fire (where we want what on a national forest).

Does anyone in the fire profession care about this?  Apparently the ‘counter-culture’ does – Professor Richard Hutto will talk about “It’s Time to Integrate the Ecological Benefits and Necessity of Severe Fire in National Fire and Forest Management Plans.”  There’s also one (1) presentation by Forest Service fire staff that sounds like it could talk about the decision-making process on national forests: “Integrating Fuel Treatments in Land Management Planning and Wildfire Incident Response.”  I hope that someone who knows something about the Forest Service planning process has been involved.

Forest Service ESA/NFMA success story

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The West Virginia northern flying squirrel was removed from the endangered species list a few years ago, apparently mostly the result an effort to restore red spruce trees in the Monongahela National Forest.  This story doesn’t mention the forest plan, but says that 100,000 acres are being “managed primarily for red spruce.”  Here is what the plan says:

“Management Prescription 4.1 emphasizes the active and passive restoration of spruce and spruce-hardwood communities and the recovery of species of concern found in these communities, a mix of forest products, and management of hardwood communities where spruce is not present or represents only a negligible component of a stand, and research or administrative studies on spruce restoration. On lands determined to be suitable habitat for the West Virginia northern flying squirrel, vegetation management initially would be limited to research or administrative studies to determine effective habitat enhancement techniques for the squirrel. After such studies have demonstrated effective techniques, vegetation management to enhance habitat for the squirrel or other TEP species could occur on a larger scale (see FW standard TE61).”

“Objective WF11 – Maintain at least 20,000 acres of mid-late and late successional (>80 years old) spruce forest to provide optimum habitat for West Virginia northern flying squirrel, a Management Indicator Species. The long-term objective is to increase mid-late and late successional spruce forest to at least 40,000 acres.”

According to the de-listing rule:   “Implementation of the amended Appendix A guidelines by the Monongahela National Forest (MNF) effectively abated the main threat to the squirrel (i.e., habitat loss from timber management) throughout the majority of its range, by eliminating adverse impacts on all suitable habitat on the MNF without having to prove WVNFS presence.”

What’s not to like about this as an example of how public land laws can work the way they were intended?  If there’s any easterners more familiar with the back-story, maybe they could share it.

The current interest is related to coverage of the flying squirrel in the April/May issue of The Nature Conservancy Magazine.  Here’s more on red spruce.  

Collaborative objections?

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This is apparently the first test of the 2012 planning rule objection process for forest plan revisions (though the plans were prepared under the 1982 rule).  On the Kootenai, there were 38 objectors and the same number of ‘interested persons’ (presumably some overlap).  On the Idaho Panhandle, 22 objectors and 94 interested persons.  Someone distilled that to these four topics for discussion and possible resolution at a meeting on each forest:  county coordination, Wild and Scenic Rivers, recommended Wilderness and wilderness study areas, and management indicator species.  Meetings with objectors are optional, but if held must be open to the public (interested persons can participate but the general public can’t).  The reviewing officer, Associate Deputy Chief Jim Pena, attended in person.  What do you think?

Bull trout planning

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Bull trout came up as a side-topic elsewhere, but it should also be a hot forest planning topic in the northwest.

The 2012 Planning Rule requires the Forest Service to “provide the ecological conditions necessary to contribute to the recovery of federally listed threatened and endangered species …”   The roadmap for accomplishing this should be the recovery plans required by ESA (“unless (the Secretary) finds that such a plan will not promote the conservation of the species”).  Bull trout were listed in 1999 and there is no final recovery plan yet.  A lawsuit has been filed to compel completion of a recovery plan (article on the lawsuit here, background on bull trout here).

With forest plans being revised across the northwest, the Forest Service should be doing what it can to help get the recovery plan done.  Draft recovery plans have prioritized the areas most important for bull trout, and this information should be used by the Forest Service now to identify in forest plans the places to emphasize aquatic resources.  Forest plans completed prior to a recovery plan would then need to be assessed against the new plan and possibly amended.  (Perhaps the FS should encourage the FWS to settle the lawsuit?)

NEPA abuse in travel planning

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The basic requirement of NEPA is to evaluate environmental impacts before taking action.  Thus, the Payette National Forest prepared an EIS before implementing a travel management plan.  Part of that decision included closing all user-created roads until their effects could be site-specifically evaluated.

The Forest Service was sued for violating NEPA “because they fail to disclose and evaluate the impacts of 972 miles of unauthorized roads” (Valley County, Idaho v. USDA).  The judge was concerned that, “motorized vehicle use, particularly on roads with stream crossings or that run along streams, damages watershed conditions”  (effects of closing roads on motorized users were not an issue in this opinion).  The court borrowed reasoning from cases about using ‘proxies’ for the effects of timber sales to agree with the plaintiffs.  The parties are now discussing the appropriate remedy.

What would you advise?  Should the Forest Service re-open the closed roads while they re-evaluate the effects on watersheds of leaving them open?  Or should they close them until … ?

I think the judge took his eye off the ball here and is not looking at the effects of the action the Forest Service is taking.  The action is to close the roads; the effects at issue are the effects of NOT closing them.   The court’s confusion could lead to NEPA being misused as a barrier to achieving its intended purpose as “our basic national charter for protection of the environment” (40 CFR 1500.1).

ESA lawsuits: fair and balanced

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Environmental litigants seem to be a favorite target these days of both Congressional hearings and criticism on this blog.  So after reading (here) about a recent lawsuit that led to DE-listing of species, I decided to look into what these anti-environmental plaintiffs were trying to accomplish with it.  What we have (here) is an exact mirror image of the litigation strategy to list species under ESA, and the same reason they won – failure to meet deadlines.

In this example, plaintiff’s reasons for de-listing have nothing to do with the species or restrictions resulting from the listing.  The species will still be protected.  As the other article says, the lawsuit was merely “symbolic.”  Harassment maybe.  Now wasn’t defending against it a good use of our tax dollars?

Just saying – it’s ok to talk about whether limiting litigation is a good idea, but let’s not suggest that judicial review inherently favors any particular position.