Article from The Missoulian today, below….

Here’s the relevant language from the Farm Bill:

INITIAL AREAS.—Not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of the Agricultural Act of 2014, the Secretary shall, if requested by the Governor of the State, designate as part of an insect and disease treatment program 1 or more landscape scale areas, such as subwatersheds (sixth-level hydrologic units, according to the System of Hydrologic Unit Codes of the United States Geological Survey), in at least 1 national forest in each State that is experiencing an insect or disease epidemic.

Have other governors requested designations?

Bullock asks U.S. Forest Service to focus restoration on 5.1M acres in state

An article that looks at the need to thin forests — not just for increased water flows, but forest health, fire risk reduction, etc.”

“It’s one of the lower-cost options (to increase California’s water supply) … and it also would reduce the probability of big destructive fires,” said Roger Bales, a UC Merced engineering professor who specializes in mountain hydrology. “There could be measurable and significant gains” – a hypothesized 9 percent increase in snowmelt runoff – if the forests are properly thinned.

Modesto Bee article: “Overgrown Sierra forests gulping water that could flow to Valley.”

This can’t be done without removing biomass — in other words, reducing the leaf-area index. If the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan were enacted as federal law, this might happen. Otherwise, it’ll never happen on a large scale, as appeals and litigation will continue to restrict forest management in the Sierras.

Press release issued today….

• Timber industry
  Grazing or other land use permit holders or other private forest landowners
  Energy and mineral development
  Commercial or recreational hunting and fishing interests
  Developed outdoor recreation, off-highway vehicle users or commercial recreation interests
• National, regional or local environmental organizations
  Conservation organizations or watershed associations
  Dispersed recreation interests
  Archaeological or historical interests
  Scientific community
• The public at-large
  State-elected official (or designee)
  County or local elected official
  American Indian Tribes representation
  Youth representation

From High Country News (http://www.hcn.org), a look at how some environmental groups used “endless appeals and lawsuits, all based on fiction,” to block efforts to save a native fish from a non-native predator.

When poisoning is the solution

By Ted Williams/Writers on the Range

One of the more spectacular success stories of the Endangered Species Act is playing out in the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness of the Toiyabe-Humboldt National Forest, high in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Heroic and persevering managers of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service have prevailed in their 10-year legal battle to save America’s rarest trout — the federally threatened Paiute cutthroat. Its entire natural habitat consists of nine miles of Silver King Creek.

Cutthroat trout subspecies of the Interior West are being hybridized off the planet by rainbow trout from the Pacific Northwest, dumped into their habitat during the age of ecological illiteracy, which ended circa 1970.

In most cases, the only hope for the natives is rotenone, a short-lived, easily neutralized, organic poison rendered from tropical plants.

But a war on rotenone has been declared by chemophobic environmentalists, who refuse to learn about it, and by anglers who don’t care what’s on the other end of the rod so long as it’s bent. Although rotenone is essential to management as defined by the Wilderness Act, the group Wilderness Watch, for example, asserts that “poison has no place in wilderness.” And Peter Moyer, founder of the Orwellian-named Wild Trout Conservation Coalition, offers this mindless defense of cutthroat trout extinction: “I am a bit of a mongrel myself.”

State and federal fisheries managers are mandated by the Endangered Species Act to save the natives by poisoning the aliens. For years, however, this work has been impeded by individuals, publications and organizations that concoct and recycle horror stories about rotenone.  Apparently, they haven’t figured out that fish are wildlife, too.

The worst offenders have been Outdoor Life magazine, Range magazine, Real Fishing magazine, Friends of the Wild Swan, Beyond Pesticides, Defenders of Wildlife, two Sierra Club chapters, Wild Trout Conservation Coalition, Wilderness Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Rivers Council, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, Friends of Silver King Creek, and the Western Environmental Law Center.

The last six of these organizations managed to derail Paiute cutthroat recovery for a full decade. They accomplished this with endless appeals and lawsuits, all based on fiction. Typical of the absurd statements about rotenone was this proclamation by the pro bono counsel for the litigants, the Western Environmental Law Center: “Unfortunately, the chemical does not just kill the fish in the water but the entire ecosystem, including turtles, snakes, frogs, birds, terrestrials, insects and other animals that live in or drink from the poisoned water.”

Rotenone used in fish recovery has never affected an ecosystem except to restore it. And it has never killed a turtle, snake, frog, bird or any terrestrial organism. Aquatic insects usually survive treatment, and the few that don’t are swiftly replaced by natural recruitment. In fact, insects frequently do better after treatment because they don’t have to contend with fish they didn’t evolve with.

Appellants and litigants claimed a “link” between rotenone and Parkinson’s disease, basing this untruth on an Emory University study in which concentrated rotenone was mainlined into rats’ jugular veins via implanted pumps. (Rotenone used in fisheries management is applied at less than 50 parts per billion.) At the end of a year and a half no rat had Parkinson’s disease. The researchers knew they couldn’t cause Parkinson’s and never intended to. They wanted to establish a “Parkinson’s-like condition” — i.e. tremors — in an animal model.

Appellants and litigants also claimed that rotenone threatened the rare mountain yellow-legged frog. But it was extirpated in the watershed sometime in the 20th century, probably by the very alien rainbow trout that had been extirpating Paiute cutthroats. Rotenone doesn’t affect adult frogs but can kill tadpoles, though it usually doesn’t. If frogs are present, managers delay treatment until tadpoles transform. Ironically, rotenone is being used elsewhere in the Sierras to recover yellow-legged frogs by killing the alien trout that are eating them.

With each successful appeal and lawsuit, rotenone opponents boasted that they had “saved” Silver King Creek. But last August they ran out of legal options, and the managers applied about two quarts of rotenone to the entire treatment area. In case a few hybrids survived, two more quarts will be applied next August. Then, pure Paiutes will be reintroduced.

This will be the first time humans have restored a threatened or endangered fish to 100 percent of its historic range. Maybe it’s a turning point in the war.

Ted Williams is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He writes for Fly Rod & Reel magazine. Read more on this issue at: www.flyrodreel.com/blogs/tedwilliams/2014/january/big-win-for-our-rarest-trout

I have come across a web ad several times in the last week or so. Against a forest-stream photo background, the ad text reads, “Balance at last for our OC lands?” OC meaning the 2.4 million acres of Oregon and California Railroad (O&C) lands managed by the BLM in Oregon. Clicking on the ad leads to The Coalition for Our O&C Lands, http://oclands.org. Its members include green groups, fishing and river-guide services and groups, along with assorted others, including, for what it’s worth, “Chef Kim Reid.”

What Does Balance Mean? The coalition says Vibrant Economies, Responsible Timber Harvest, Clean Water, Land & Water Protections. “Responsible Timber Harvest” means selective harvesting, rather than clearcuts:

A balanced approach on O&C lands, while including protections of special places, clean drinking water and wildlife habitats, must also include responsible timber harvest. Timber is an important contributor to our state’s economy and any plan for the O&C lands should recognize that reality.   

For decades in the Northwest, we clearcut our ancient forests, believing that we could reestablish our forests and the species that lived there.  As we learned more and realized more of the damaging impacts that our actions had on our forests, wildlife, and clean water, we learned to change.  We can harvest more selectively and preserve habitat while still economically harvesting trees.   Responsible timber practices can ensure a predictable, sustainable supply of timber and forest products while also protecting our natural heritage.  We have examples of these types of practices throughout the state and we need to replicate them on the O&C lands.

The great thing about our timber industry is that it is adaptable.  It is managed by people who care for the land.   Many of them are hunters and fishermen.  They enjoy the outdoors and cherish the wild areas of our state.  They want wildlife to flourish and clean water for everyone to drink.  The industry has adapted to severely reduced timber harvests and survived.  But there is a better way to manage our timberlands, somewhere between “no harvest” and “clearcutting.”  Working together, we can find that careful balance.

At the end of the day, any plan must ensure a predictable, sustainable supply of timber and other forest products to help maintain the stability of local and regional economies, and contribute to supporting healthy, vibrant communities.

I’ve lately heard several green-leaning folks suggest that selective harvesting would work perfectly well on the O&C lands and elsewhere in western Oregon. Maybe so, if an economic return is low on your priority list. What do you think?

Folks, an acquaintance has asked for help in finding information about the 6 Federal Sustained Yield Units established under the Sustained Yield Forest Management Act of 1944. I know a little about the Lakeview unit, the only one that still exists, I think, but nothing of the others. What happened to the others — Vallectios, Flagstaff, Grays Harbor, Big Valley, Shelton? Anyone know of a paper or article that looks at these as a group?

Report released today by a group of House Republicans for updating the Endangered Species Act:

Endangered Species Act Working Group

From the report:

This Report summarizes the findings of the Working Group and answers key questions related to those findings. The Report acknowledges the continued need for the ESA, but recommends constructive changes in the following categories:

* Ensuring Greater Transparency and Prioritization of ESA with a Focus on Species Recovery and De-Listing
* Reducing ESA Litigation and Encouraging Settlement Reform
* Empowering States, Tribes, Local Governments and Private Landowners on ESA Decisions Affecting Them and Their Property
* Requiring More Transparency and Accountability of ESA Data and Science