The 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.
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.”
Ed raised the question of “where do people on the blog think “intensive management, thinning and prescribed burning” belong.. everywhere? roadless? primitive areas?”
So I’ll go first.
I think that for places where there is no “timber industry” currently:
A. “Thinning for protection” thinning should be done around communities and roads in fire country . We should all work together on building “fire resilient communities and landscapes.” We should analyze all the places fire could start and make sure that for every really dangerous area, there are good areas for suppression between them and communities.
We should work on developing markets for the wood removed, so rural people are employed and we can afford to do it.
We would estimate the acreages and volume through time and then encourage industries to come in and use the material. Watch dog groups would watch to make sure than no more was offered for sale than in the agreement.
When a roadless area or wilderness is in a WUI, we would bring in experienced fire folks and determine if the fire could be fought safely with a break on private land (preferred) or public land.
Otherwise the backcountry would be left alone unless there is some compelling reason for action (protecting endangered species, corridors? or whatever).
B. “Thinning for protection plus resilience” Where there is existing mill capacity, thinnings may also be done if they make stands more resilient to drought and bugs, and they make money (not that they are restoring to the past, but the past had those attributes, say open parklike stands of ponderosa).
Now I was drafting this last night in response to Ed’s question. Meanwhile, I ran across these news stories.. in the Blue Mountains Accelerated Restoration project, it appears to be “thinning for protection plus resilience.” There are several good quotes about the rationale in the story.
The roughly 50,000 acres thinned or logged annually within the four forests is probably less than 20 per cent of what’s needed, Aney said.
“We need to at least double that” to stabilize forest health within 15 years, he said.
The plan Aney will execute calls for managing the Blues in blocks of several hundred thousand acres, instead of the current 30,000-acre planning units. Logging or thinning is likely on no more than 40 percent of each planning unit, Aney said. Individual projects will have to go through environmental reviews.
Work in the woods is expected to start in summer 2014.
Veronica Warnock, conservation director for the La Grande-based Hells Canyon Preservation Council, was more guarded. She said forest restoration is necessary but should be avoided in places where science doesn’t support it, such as stands of old growth or wildlife corridors.
I wonder what “science” that is, that involves what you should or should not do…I thought the role of science was empirical rather than normative. oh well.
According 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.
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.
On the forest management side, Vilsack’s letter predicted the closure of up to 670 campgrounds and other recreation sites and the “reduction” of 35 Forest Service law enforcement officers. It didn’t explain if those reductions meant people would be fired, furloughed or not hired.
Timber harvests would be cut about 15 percent in 2013, from 2.8 billion board feet to 2.379 billion. The agency also would “restore 390 fewer stream miles, 2,700 acres of lake habitat and improve 260,000 fewer acres of wildlife habitat.”
That sounds like the kind of work performed by Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Projects such as Montana’s Southwest Crown Collaborative. But Pyramid Mountain Lumber resource manager Gordy Sanders said he’d not heard of any change in the many CFLRP projects the Seeley Lake mill was involved in.
“We look forward to the Forest Service performing in developing projects, doing the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) work and doing the project just like always,” Sanders said. “We fully expect them to produce. They’re incredibly important piece of the overall supply for all these family-owned mills.”
Vilsack’s letter gave no indication of what this might do to Forest Service or other Agriculture Department workers.
By comparison, WildfireToday.com blogger Bill Gabbert posted a copy of a Feb. 22 letter from Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to Department of Interior employees stating “thousands of permanent employees will be furloughed … for periods of time up to 22 work days.”
The letter also stated “Many of our seasonal employees will be furloughed, have delayed starts, or face shortened employment periods. In some cases, we will not have the financial resources to hire seasonal employees at all.”
Salazar’s letter also warned of deep cuts to the department’s youth hiring this year. Montana Conservation Corps Director Jono McKinny said he was still waiting for details at a crucial time of the year.
“We have hired our crew leaders for the year, and we’re training them now,” McKinny said. “We will have 250 young people serving in AmeriCorps this summer, and another 240 serving in our summer youth programs. This is when we start negotiating projects, in March and April. If those projects aren’t there, we’re going to need to scale back dramatically. Those projects are two-thirds of our budget.”
Sharon’s take: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there are two sets of highly paid folks (Interior and Agriculture) sitting in a cascading set of meetings, planning on dealing with sequestration on closely related work (e.g., fire crews) in potentially uncoordinated ways. One is more open, the other less so. It just doesn’t make any sense.
In the days when the Forest Service did try to emphasize making money from logging, it lost support across the West because it was clear-cutting.
No matter how many times the timber industry tried to put a good face on that accepted forest practice, the public just didn’t like looking at clear-cuts. Much of the federal forest timber program was shut down by litigation and lack of money for roads, along with water-quality problems and endangered species issues.
Otter noted that timber harvests on federal lands in Idaho are the lowest they have been since 1952. They are actually beginning to rise, however, in part due to the collaborative efforts of timber executives, environmentalists and others to identify timber that can be sold.
Private forests and state forests are, by definition, high-value forests. If they weren’t, the owners would have disposed of or traded them in years ago.
But the Forest Service doesn’t manage forests for a profit. You don’t hear the conservation groups that are supporting new mills and increased timber harvests and jobs complaining about timber sales that lose money.
That’s because they know the restoration value for wildlife and fish habitat that comes with timber sales are a part of the cost of managing forests for multiple uses.
Private and state forests are managed for maximum timber harvest. The recreation, habitat and other values that come from those lands are secondary. That’s why you can go to some state forests in Idaho and clearly see the difference between them and the federal forests next door.
It’s the state forests that are still being clear-cut.
Sharon’s take: It’s still not clear to me (so to speak) why clearcutting still comes up as an issue when the FS hasn’t done it in a while. Anyone who can help with this, especially from Idaho, please comment.
I wish we could say “enough” and turn budgeteering over to a panel of non-partisans if Congress and the President can’t come up with something by a certain date. It seems like it needs something more extreme than the culture of blame (actually I would give the panel a month, and not pay Congress nor the President and his direct advisors for that month.) I liked when the Colorado legislature dreamed up the Roadless Task Force. They selected a certain number of people from each house (party) and some people that both parties could agree on. Now assuming that the US Congress isn’t even more dysfunctional than I think, there would be people that both houses could agree on, and those people, perhaps as in Colorado, could have a unique role in bringing the more extreme partisans together.
Anyway, we are now paying probably tens of thousands of people to go through budget exercises of various kinds rather than doing actual work. Right now, agency folks are prone to “Washington Monumenting”. Yet, when I was working, I did notice areas that could be cut back on managed differently to save money (and I am not talking about travel). I was also intrigued by some of the comments by federal employees on some of the articles.. like rewarding people for giving money back rather than “year end spending” to prove you really needed the bucks.
I would be interested in what you all think. I’m not sure that there is another public forum for the FS to get suggestions on reducing the budget, so I don’t know if all the potential out there has been unleashed.
They could be big or small ideas, and each idea doesn’t have to add up to any particular percentage. It is also OK to think of changes that could be put in place over up to 5 years. Finally, I’d prefer we not be obvious, for example, some of us might want to get rid of fuels reduction programs, while others would want to get rid of administrative appeals. But it’s open.
My biggest long term one would be simply to move the Forest Service to Interior, and have a five year program of harmonizing regulations between the FS and BLM. I would put back the possibility of dual delgation, which was rather abruptly removed here in Colorado for no apparent reason (IMHO). Like I’ve said in the past, when I used to be in meetings about energy projects with wildlife, NEPA, minerals and planning people, one each from each agency, with DOI solicitors and USDA OGC, I just had to wonder whether there’s a less expensive way.
Unfortunately for me, I have another class on Tuesday nights so I can’t run up to Boulder. but these podcasts will be available to everyone interested in this issue.
If you go here you can see what they will be doing on Tuesday nights, plus the link to Professor Limerick’s podcast.
This podcast is Patty Limerick on the history of the American West extractive industries, how scientific information is used, women’s rights and opportunities, and the difference between “laboratory” and “outdoor” science where the latter is “swirlingly awash in variables” (not an exact quote).
Interestingly to those of us who traverse the fields of science, they apparently have someone on this NSF study who is reviewing the work for neutrality.. A very interesting idea. Perhaps I should run up and interview him/her.
Professor Limerick is always a thoughtful and interesting speaker and hearing her on this subject provides some insights into our usual discussion topics. And I can safely say that she is never dull.
She has a great many points about the history of the West that suggest that the story of the “despoiling” of the west is a bunch more complex.
With regard to the analysis of health impacts, she mentions a feeling of “powerlessness” and how that may be a public health issue related to natural gas development as important as air quality. However, I feel powerless about a number of things including a proposed road near my house that would become a toll road, which seems to be inexorably pushed on our community. Is that a true health impact of the road? I’m not so sure.
But I think some elected officials and communities in the American west feel powerless about the nationalization of issues that occur next to their communities. But we haven’t yet analyzed the impacts of powerlessness of not doing things.
I certainly don’t know what the answer is, just suggest that it be universally applied.
Also the idea that the Law Center would be weighing in on whether enough laws currently exist (maybe I misunderstood) sounds a bit like conflict of interest. I wonder if they’re taking volunteers for the neutrality force?
Hoping that the drafts of all the papers for the ultimate NSF study are posted on the internet for public comment.
She also has a section on residential development that might interest folks…it looks like about 3/4 of the way through the podcast. Including “the locus of the disconnect between use of, and attitudes toward natural resources” (not an exact quote).
I would only add that my relatives in Kansas and Texas have a more positive attitude toward the energy industry. They are not suburbanites, but make their living from agriculture, so there might be something to this suburbanite idea Professor Limerick poses. She recommends social interactions with engineers.. I guess foresters could be the equivalent in our world. I’m sure many of us would be available for such interactions, especially if beer were available.
If people want federal agencies to not break the law, then the FS is not breaking the law and I can’t see that the lawsuit has helped that to happen, but maybe I’m missing something.
In a Friday ruling, District Judge Owen Panner said the Forest Service is complying with laws because it has agreed not to thin in areas that have a special designation as “restricted riparian” land.
On land labeled “restricted watershed,” the Forest Service plans to do helicopter logging, which will cause minimal impact to the soil, according to new testimony in the case from Don Boucher, the Forest Service’s project manager.
Any exposed soil will be promptly covered with slash from thinning operations, Boucher said.
Panner said those adjustments to avoid “restricted riparian” land and cover exposed soil in “restricted watershed” areas are allowed.
In 2012, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke had ruled against Navickas and Lininger on other claims regarding the project, but had upheld their claim that the project could expose too much soil, which could lead to erosion.
On Monday, Navickas said he was disappointed that Panner did not uphold the previous decision.
Navickas said he doesn’t think that scattering branches from thinning operations on exposed soil protects the soil as much as leaving standing trees intact.
“The Ashland watershed is for water production. It’s not timber resource land,” he said.
Navickas said he and Lininger plan to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The city of Ashland and the Nature Conservancy are partners with the Forest Service on the Ashland Forest Resiliency Project.
Last week, the City Council approved passing up to $975,000 in federal economic stimulus money to Columbia Helicopters to do thinning work on Forest Service land in the watershed as part of the project.
The council also approved a contract of up to $335,000 — also funded by stimulus dollars — for Columbia Helicopters to thin the Winburn Parcel, a 160-acre, city-owned island of forested land in the middle of the watershed.
Also, I didn’t know that there was a legal concept that any treatments must protect the soil during the treatment as much as not treating. I thought you just had to describe the impacts during NEPA.
He doesn’t think that scattering branches from thinning operations on exposed soil protects the soil as much as leaving standing trees intact.
It seems fair to me that federal court and Forest Service costs be claimed from the plaintiffs. It should be easy to calculate, after all, everyone’s salary is public information. A side benefit is that we would actually learn the costs.
The 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
