Energy

Predicting Future Court Decisions: “Gap Leases” and the Thompson Divide

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10th Circuit Court of Appeals.. to what extent should agencies “roll the dice” in advance of court decisions?

Here’s another story about “gap leases.” These are leases issued at various times when the 2001 Rule was not the “law of the land”.
Below is a brief summary from this Forest Service document.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR) prohibits, with some exceptions, road construction and timber harvesting across 58.5 million acres of the National Forest System. The rule was published in the Federal Register on January 12, 2001 (66 FR 3244).* Ten lawsuits were filed challenging the rule. In May 2001, a preliminary injunction barring implementation of the rule was issued by a federal district court in Idaho. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, and the RACR became effective in April 2003. In June 2003, the State of Alaska settled its claims regarding the RACR and after further rulemaking the Tongass National Forest was exempted from the RACR (68 FR 75136). Two cases in North Dakota that involved the RACR were eventually settled in March 2007 and three others were dismissed.
However, in July 2003, a federal district court in Wyoming upheld the State of Wyoming’s challenge to the RACR holding that promulgation of the RACR was procedurally flawed under NEPA and substantively illegal under the Wilderness Act. The court set aside the rule and permanently enjoined the rule. The decision was appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the court declared the case moot and vacated the Wyoming order after the 2005 State Petitions Rule was promulgated.

Gap leases occur in other states, but attention has been focused on Colorado, seemingly earlier as a negotiating point with groups who wanted the leases withdrawn as part of the Colorado Roadless Rule. There was even an earlier effort with the FS and the State to buy out these leases.

According to some legal sources on the government side, there were various stages during the periods when the 2001 Rule was enjoined, with various letters and interim directives, and each lease might have different facts associated with it. The easiest way to find out their legal status would be to take them all to court as individual leases.

There must be some reason folks aren’t doing that.

A key dispute within the dispute over proposed oil and gas development in the Thompson Divide area involves dozens of leases issued in national forest roadless areas there in 2003.

That was two years after President Bill Clinton, in one of his final acts as president, declared a national forest rule to protect roadless areas from development.

Peter Hart, staff attorney with the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop conservation group, has some questions about the legality of leases issued without restrictions on surface disturbance after Clinton’s action.

“We’re in the process of sorting all that out,” he said.

Such leases in the Thompson Divide area and elsewhere have gained the nickname of “gap” leases because they were issued at a time when the legal status of the national roadless rule was in question because of prior court rulings later being upheld.

This seems odd to me (they are still “sorting it out”) as there are only so many of these… spreadsheets of them have been circulating since 2007 or so..it’s not clear that anything about the status has changed in the last five years except that the 2001 Rule came back. However, it does not seem to me that the issue is what are the rules now, but what were the rules when the lease was let (did the FS and BLM follow legal procedures correctly when leasing?).

I would argue that the legal status was not really “in question” as the 10th circuit had enjoined it being used…it seems relatively clear.

However not Hart, who said:

We think the 2001 rule has been the rule of law since 2001,” Hart said.

So how can the FS predict the ultimate outcome of court decisions, and follow the future rules rather than the current court decision at a time? It would have been illegal to not follow Brimmer’s decision. I have never really understood this line of argument.

He said a Colorado-specific roadless rule implemented this year “explicitly preserves limitations on surface use” for leases issued in roadless areas after 2001.

My understanding is that the Colorado Rule says “if it is determined that the leases’ restrictions or lack thereof were made legally, then they stand.”

Again, it seems to me like the simplest thing to do is just take the individual leases to court and get them clarified.

Another thing I don’t quite understand is:

Leased lands with no-surface occupancy rules would have to be reached by directional drilling. Hart said he’d like to see the Forest Service go further by not leasing for oil and gas at all in roadless areas, to prevent these areas from being ringed by well pads and other facilities, isolating wildlife habitat. A White River National Forest planning alternative the Forest Service agreed to also consider in response to the concerns of the Thompson Divide Coalition would allow for no new leasing in lands under the forest’s jurisdiction in that area, including in existing lease areas if those leases expire.

But if you don’t want leases inside roadless areas, because there would be wellpads going directionally from outside, you should know you could also have wellpads outside for leases on that land outside the roadless areas, so outside wellpads are not prevented. And the solution to “ringing” the area with wellpads would be looking at the impacts of each development during NEPA. It seems unlikely that wellpads would be cheek to jowl in a ring around the roadless area.

Also this is interesting..

Antero Resources has proposed drilling up to four wells on “gap” lease acreage in the northwest portion of the Thompson Divide, but under its proposal the well pad would be placed outside the roadless area. How any initial drilling on gap leases in the Thompson Divide area occurs will be important because of the precedential impact it will have on future drilling on such leases in the area, Hart said.

Antero wants to drill outside the roadless area, and that isn’t good because of …the precedent on drilling?

Gary Osier is a former Forest Service employee who served as forest minerals specialist for the White River National Forest,

For all the focus on roadless areas, Osier said Thompson Divide also has a lot of areas with roads, and “is probably one of the most multiple-use pieces of ground on the whole (White River National) Forest.”

He said he’s “walked virtually every foot” of the area, and it has high potential for natural gas and some oil development.

“What’s interesting to me is there’s only a little teeny bit of the whole (White River) forest that has high potential, and that’s the only part that we identified originally (for leasing), this whole Thompson Divide thing. I think most of the people who are screaming and hollering about it have never been there,” he said.

My instincts follow those of Gary.. it all doesn’t really add up. There must be more to this than meets the eye. For previous posts on gap leases, see this, this, and this, and my blog post here on the Range Blog of High Country News and especially the comments on that..

Forest Service Announces Renewable Energy Grants

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Here’s the link. Probably you can find out more by looking at the local newspapers for each project.

US Forest Service awards nearly $4 million for renewable wood energy projects
Projects funded in Mont., Calif., Vt., Alaska, Idaho, Ore., NH, Colo., Ga., Va., Wash., Kan., Utah

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2012 – The U.S. Forest Service today announced the award of nearly $4 million in grants for wood energy projects around the country to help expand regional economies and create new jobs.

The grants, totaling $3.92 million, will be distributed to 20 small businesses, community groups and tribes to develop renewable energy projects that require engineering services.

The projects will use woody material such as beetle-killed trees removed from forests to aid in wildfire prevention. The material will then be processed in bioenergy facilities to produce green energy for heating and electricity. The awardees will use funds from the Woody Biomass Utilization Grant program to secure the engineering services necessary for final design, permitting and cost analysis.

“The Forest Service works in more than 7,000 communities across the country to support projects that provide green jobs and boost local economies,” said USDA Deputy Under Secretary Butch Blazer. “These grants continue our legacy of improving access to affordable energy for rural schools, community centers, universities and small businesses.”

The grant program helps applicants complete the necessary design work needed to secure public or private investment for construction. Examples of projects include the engineering design of a woody biomass boiler for steam at a sawmill, a non-pressurized hot water system for a hospital or school and a biomass-power generation facility.

The Forest Service selected 20 small businesses and community groups as grant recipients for these awards in 2012. According to the requirements, all 21 recipients provided at least 20 percent of the total project cost. Non-federal matching funds total nearly $8 million.

2012 Woody Biomass Utilization Grantees

California Department of Forestry, Sacramento, Calif.
$124,875

City of Montpelier, Montpelier, Vt.
$248,556

City of Nulato, Nulato, Alaska
$40,420

Clearwater Soil and Water Conservation District, Orofino, Idaho
$110,000

Coquille Economic Development Corporation, North Bend, Ore.
$145,000

County of Sullivan New Hampshire, Newport, N.H.
$250,000

Evergreen Clean Energy, Gypsum, Colo.
$250,000

F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company, Columbia Falls, Mont.
$250,000

Greenway Renewable Power LLC LaGrange, Ga.
$250,000

Longwood University, Farmville, Va.
$250,000

Mineral Community Hospital, Superior Mont.
$190,000

Nippon Paper Industries USA Co. Ltd, Port Angeles, Wash.
$250,000

Oregon Military Department, Salem, Ore.
$250,000

Plumas Rural Services, Quincy, Calif.
$70,125

Port Angeles Hardwood LLC Port Angeles, Wash.
$250,000

Quinault Indian Nation, Taholah, Wash.
$205,000

Riley County Schools, Riley, Kan.
$90,000

Sanpete Valley Clean Energy LLC, Salem, Utah
$250,000

Southern Oregon University, Ashland, Ore.
$250,000

Yosemite/Sequoia Resource Conservation and Development Council, North Fork, Calif.
$134,225

The Forest Service Woody Biomass Utilization grant program has been in effect since 2005 and has provided more than $36 million toward various projects, ranging from biomass boilers for schools to helping businesses acquire equipment that improves processing efficiencies. During this time period, over 150 grants have been awarded to small businesses, non-profits, tribes and local state agencies.

Denver Post Editorial on Sierra Club and Natural Gas

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For those who may think that this is off-topic, there is plenty of natural gas produced on federal lands in the interior west, and much new controversy associated with development in the East, Midwest, and South.

Here’s an excerpt and here’s the entire op-ed:

It seems to us that as market conditions and technological advances have led to a boom in availability of cheap natural gas, the backtracking is born of fear — fear that this nation will come to rely on this “transitional fuel” as a long-term solution.

We happen to support continued subsidies and favorable government policies for renewables, but we cannot condone efforts to beat back all natural gas development.

First, the nation is ill-positioned to “leapfrog” over gas to move into wholesale reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Those are viable options to fulfill a growing portion of energy demands, but they can’t yet replace more reliable and often cheaper fossil fuels.

Second, burning natural gas releases about half the emissions of coal. That is clearly an improvement.

It’s worth mentioning that between 2007 and 2010, the Sierra Club was so on board with natural gas that the organization took $26 million in donations from the industry. But then the group reversed course and stopped taking the money.

Talk about a change of heart.

We suspect Coloradans will be hearing more about this issue before long. The Sierra Club is preparing to launch a campaign in Colorado that will target oil and gas development, according to a story in The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction.

Joshua Ruschhaupt, director of the Sierra Club’s Rocky Mountain chapter, told the Sentinel his organization’s position is evolving as more is learned about problems associated with oil and gas development, including hydraulic fracturing.

The fears cited include groundwater pollution, which thus far has been all but non-existent from the fracking process itself — with one possible but highly disputed exception involving Pavillion, Wyo.

Another concern cited is air pollution, which should indeed be investigated further and may require additional policy solutions.

No energy source is without impact on the environment, though some clearly leave a bigger mark than others. The Sierra Club ought to be cheering the move toward cleaner natural gas, not condemning it because it’s not a perfect solution.

Why Lease Oil and Gas in National Forests?

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This rig is on the Pawnee National Grassland.
Here is an op-ed from the 21st, “Explanation needed: Why are we selling oil and gas leases in Talladega National Forest?”

Although the safeguards and regulations — if put in place and adhered to — do seem to promise that any drilling will be conducted as environmentally friendly as possible, this page is waiting for a better explanation of why the leasing is being done in the first place.

Considering the rising price of oil and gas, finding new supplies would seem a justification; however, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service told The Star that it was unlikely that much of the land would ever be drilled.

If that is the case, if there is not much chance oil or gas could be profitably extracted, then why lease the land and raise fears and concerns that are currently rising?

Is this a way to raise money for a financially strapped agency, or to help reduce the national deficit?

And why was there so little notification that the leasing would take place? Calhoun County Commissioner Tim Hodges, in whose district some of the land lies, did not know of the plan until it was announced. Courtesy, if nothing else, should at least require that local officials be told of what was in the offing.

As so often happens when a federal agency decides to do something, the need to explain those actions seems of little importance. This adds to the widely held belief that bureaucrats do things because they can, and the public be damned.

Rather than create another case of agency insensitivity, the BLM and the Forest Service need to step back, delay the sale and explain to the public why their plan is good for those who own the land — keeping in mind that a “National Forest” belongs to the nation, not to the agencies that oversee it.

Note from Sharon: I thought oil and gas leasing occurred due to Congress’s (elected officials) intentions, and the agencies are following through on the results of energy legislation. Apparently they decided that the leasing program is “good for those who own the land.” There does seem to be more controversy over energy uses of public lands in the east than the west, although there is plenty in the west as well.

Coal Mine Methane: Is the Better the Enemy of the Good ? Voltaire by Way of Allen Best

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A methane drainage well, or MDW, as they are known for short
What does this question have to do with the Forest Service, you might ask? Well, under Forest Service managed land lies some underground coal mines in Colorado, Utah and out East. Some of these coal seams require the methane to be removed to protect workers. Currently, it is vented into the atmosphere- a potent greenhouse gas. The problem the agencies have is that greenhouse gases are not regulated at this point in time. One idea was a surgical piece of federal legislation that would require capture for underground coal mines on federal land. Environmental groups have been convincing agencies to analyze capture of the methane in their NEPA documents. So we have longer NEPA documents but still no actual improvement in the environment. Here is apparently a potential solution- if it would work, good news for GHG reduction. So far there don’t seem to be a lot of competitive policy options on the table, unless I am missing something.

P.S. You gotta love someone quoting Voltaire in an article about Colorado coal mines!

The merits of methane harvesting
A proposal before the Senate seems like a no-brainer, but environmental groups are inexplicably against it.
Posted: 03/18/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT

By Allen Best

Allen Best, a journalist in Colorado for 35 years, publishes an e-zine called Mountain Town News (The Denver Post | handout)

The French philosopher Voltaire in the 1700s warned against letting the better, or perfect, be the enemy of the good. That advice would seem to apply to an attempt by environmental groups in Colorado to block a market mechanism that could yield immediate reductions in emissions of a powerful greenhouse gas.

The proposal going before the Colorado Senate this week is whether to expand the state’s renewable portfolio standard to include electricity generated by burning methane emissions being vented from coal mines, both active and abandoned. The current legislation already allows electricity produced by burning methane emitted by landfills.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. The Environmental Protection Agency says the heat-trapping properties of methane are 21 times greater than that of carbon dioxide, the more common greenhouse gas. That means generating just minor amounts of electricity from coal-mine emissions could substantially reduce Colorado’s emissions of greenhouse gases.

Energy analyst Randy Udall, who has been working the numbers of coal-mine methane for a decade, calculates just 5 megawatts of electricity generated from coal-mine methane emissions, at a capital cost of $10 million, would offset more carbon than all the solar so far installed in Colorado as of 2010, which has cost roughly $700 million. Total methane harvesting from coal mines near Paonia could produce 20 megawatts, using fairly simple technology, say advocates, and, with more challenge, up to 50 megawatts.

That’s an important point to digest. In terms of reducing the risk to our climate during the next century, just a few megawatts planned at the West Elk Mine could have as much impact as all the solar panels erected on rooftops at DIA and everywhere else in Colorado so far. As Udall puts it, renewable energy is the means, not the end unto itself. The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This bill’s politics has the bewildering aspects of a Mobius strip. Introduced by one of the most conservative members of the legislature, Rep. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs, House Bill 1160 passed the House by a 34-29 vote. Only Rep. Wes McKinley, the self-described cowboy from southeast Colorado (that’s what it says on the legislature’s website), bucked fellow Democrats to join Republicans, who were unanimous in support.

Now, in the Senate, it is sponsored by Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, whose base includes some of the most diligent global warming warriors in the state.

Udall has to be considered one of those warriors, and it’s a further irony that he is aligned in this case with Bill Koch, owner of the nearby Elk Creek Mine and a member of the family that has been stirring the undertow of opposition to climate-change action. However, there’s no evidence that Koch has been involved in this case. <note Allen Best corrected this story to clarify that Koch is the owner of Elk Creek Mine and not the West Elk Mine>.

Are you confused? You’re not alone. Del Worley, general manager of the Glenwood Springs-based Holy Cross Energy, an electrical cooperative that provides electricity to the Aspen and Vail areas, says he’s baffled. “The politics are mind-boggling to me,” he says. “If you’re truly trying to stop global warming, this is one of the best bills out there. It’s not a giant resource, but why waste it? It should be a no-brainer.”

Regardless of whether HB 1160 passes, Worley’s co-op has agreed to buy 3 megawatts of electricity produced by burning coal-mine methane near Paonia. Like other co-ops in Colorado, Holy Cross is required to provide 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Holy Cross exceeded that mark last year. Now, directors have adopted an internal goal of 20 percent by 2015. Although terms have not been disclosed, they are apparently willing to pay a higher price to achieve that, both with a biomass plant proposed at Gypsum and with purchase of the methane-produced electricity.

Driving this bill is Tom Vessels, a Denver-based entrepreneur who now heads North Fork Energy. He was stirred to innovate by what he saw in Germany, where coal-mine emissions are harnessed to produce electricity. The same is true in Australia and China. But in the United States, almost nothing has happened, he says.

This is despite a 2004 EPA report that found active mines contributed 10 percent and abandoned mines 5 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. (This is from emissions of methane, not from burning coal).

While he is also tapping methane from an inactive mine in Pennsylvania, Vessels argues that Colorado can demonstrate how to tap the existing resource — and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

To make the numbers work, however, Vessels needs more customers than Holy Cross who are willing to pay a premium for electricity. He approached more than a dozen utilities. All rejected him — because they couldn’t count it toward their renewable portfolio standard mandate.

His other income stream would be carbon offsets, mostly generated by the California market.

Vessels charges that the existing renewable portfolio standard has now become the “business as usual” model. It’s thwarting innovation and stifling opportunity.

“It has been said that (renewable portfolio standards) were originally passed with the goal of supporting the new energy technologies of the legislature,” Vessels said. “The legislature a few years ago decided that solar and wind were the technologies of the future. But the Germans kept their eye on the ball and said, ‘If we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we do it by building up wind and solar — and these other things.’ I think here in Colorado we missed the ‘and other things.’ ”

Among the powerful environmental groups opposing HB 1160 has been Western Resource Advocates. John Nielsen, the group’s energy program director, argues that the existing legislation is not well thought out. While the goal of reducing methane emissions is a worthy one, he says, it’s not clear the bill will actually achieve it — and might hinder better efforts in the future. “Are there better tools out there to get this done?” he asks.

But there’s another possibility that seems to bother Western Resource Advocates and other groups. If coal-mine emissions can be considered as renewable, he says, then does that mean that fugitive emissions of methane from natural gas drilling and pipeline transport can similarly be tapped someday to produce electricity under renewable portfolio standards?

Nielsen agrees that this tempest in Colorado can be considered a forerunner of a broader national debate about the clean-energy standard proposed by President Barack Obama in his 2011 State of the Union address. That debate will be about whether technology should be agnostic in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At its heart, the debate is whether we can realistically hope to completely eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels anytime soon. Most sober assessments have concluded that it will be impossible. That point is even more emphatic if the Chinese, Indians and Indonesians are brought into the conversation, as they absolutely must be.

Can we someday wean ourselves entirely off fossil fuels? Perhaps, but we’re going to have to live with coal for a few more decades, possibly longer. The current pushback by environmental groups and their Democratic allies smells of a litmus test of ideological purity. It confuses battles with the war.

If the war is against dangerous accumulations of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, this is a bill that should land on the desk of Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Allen Best, a journalist in Colorado for 35 years, publishes an e-zine called Mountain Town News.

Read more: The merits of methane harvesting – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_20183852/merits-methane-harvesting#comments#ixzz1pVs0TxbS

India’s panel price crash could spark solar revolution

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Price, not efficiency, will make solar panels more widespread (Image: Joerg Boethling/Alamy)

I know this post doesn’t really fit NCFP. But David Beebe’s comments below reminded me of this piece. We often hear about climate change, but if you believe as I do that cheap low-carbon energy technologies are the only answer, you might appreciate this article, in New Scientist, one of my favorite magazines.

India’s panel price crash could spark solar revolution

02 February 2012 by Michael Marshall

Price, not efficiency, will make solar panels more widespread

SOLAR power has always had a reputation for being expensive, but not for much longer. In India, electricity from solar is now cheaper than that from diesel generators. The news – which will boost India’s “Solar Mission” to install 20,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022 – could have implications for other developing nations too.

Recent figures from market analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) show that the price of solar panels fell by almost 50 per cent in 2011. They are now just one-quarter of what they were in 2008. That makes them a cost-effective option for many people in developing countries.

A quarter of people in India do not have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency’s 2011 World Energy Outlook report. Those who are connected to the national grid experience frequent blackouts. To cope, many homes and factories install diesel generators. But this comes at a cost. Not only does burning diesel produce carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change, the fumes produced have been linked to health problems from respiratory and heart disease to cancer.

Now the generators could be on their way out. In India, electricity from solar supplied to the grid has fallen to just 8.78 rupees per kilowatt-hour compared with 17 rupees for diesel. The drop has little to do with improvements in the notoriously poor efficiency of solar panels: industrial panels still only convert 15 to 18 per cent of the energy they receive into electricity. But they are now much cheaper to produce, so inefficiency is no longer a major sticking point.

It is all largely down to economies of scale, says Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at BNEF. In 2011, enough solar panels were produced worldwide to generate 27 gigawatts, compared with 7.7 GW in 2009. Chase says solar power is now cheaper than diesel “anywhere as sunny as Spain”. That means vast areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia could start adopting solar power. “We have been selling to Asia and the Middle East,” says Björn Emde, European spokesman for Suntech, the world’s largest producer of silicon panels. Over the next few years he expects to add South Africa and Nigeria to that list.

The one thing stopping households buying a solar panel is the initial cost, says Amit Kumar, director of energy-environment technology development at The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India. Buying a solar panel is more expensive than buying a diesel generator, but according to Chase’s calculations solar becomes cheaper than diesel after seven years. The panels last 25 years.

Even in India, solar electricity remains twice as expensive as electricity from coal, but that may soon change. While the price drop in 2011 was exceptional, analysts agree that solar will keep getting cheaper. Suntech’s in-house analysts predict that, by 2015, solar electricity will be as cheap as grid electricity in half of all countries. When that happens, expect to see solar panels wherever you go.

Firewood for Charity, Rio Grande National Forest and Others?

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PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/MATT HILDNER Craig DenUyl, a volunteer for the San Luis Valley charity La Puente, hauls fire wood that will later be handed out to people who need help heating their homes.

Foto asked about volunteers and firewood, and I found this one from the Rio Grande National Forest. I bet this happens all over the west. Please comment and link to other articles if you know of them. Many people on this blog disagree on many things, hopefully this is something people can all get behind, a “Thing we Agree is Good”?.

By MATT HILDNER | [email protected] | 0 comments

BIG MEADOWS — In a region where the size of a home’s wood pile is no laughing matter, the U.S. Forest Service and a local nonprofit are teaming up to make sure those in need stay warm this winter.

Employees from the Rio Grande National Forest and volunteers with La Puente, a San Luis Valley charity, spent a day last week cutting and hauling wood from this campground near Wolf Creek Pass.

The wood, in the neighborhood of four cords, will be handed out through the charity’s utility assistance program to families whose homes are heated primarily with wood.

“It really helps us to keep people warm,” said volunteer Craig DenUyl after unloading an armful of wood.

A portion of that wood also will go to La Puente’s homeless shelter in Alamosa.

Keeping warm in the San Luis Valley is no small task.

Alamosa, which annually does battle with places such as Fraser and Gunnison for the coldest spot in the state, had three days earlier this month where it was the coldest spot in the lower 48 states, according to USA Today.

Many homes are heated with natural gas, but firewood remains a common source of fuel in the Valley.

Last year the Rio Grande sold permits for cutting of roughly 6,000 cords of wood.

The project also served a useful end for the Forest Service, which has undertaken thinning the insect-laden trees crammed into the campground.

“These are dead and dying trees that we knew were going to fall over eventually,” said Mike Blakeman, a public affairs officer for the Rio Grande National Forest.

The trees, which are in a stretch of forest that has been hit hard by spruce bark beetles and the western spruce budworm, represented a threat at Big Meadows, which is the busiest campground in the 1.9 million-acre national forest.

The agency’s volunteer coordinator Rob Santoro said the thinning work at the campground, which had included the cutting of the wood into small sections, made contributing it to charity an obvious choice.

“When I came out and saw it was all bucked up, it was a no-brainer,” he said.

Forest Service Rules Just a Waste of Wood

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From Tom Bean Photography

There’s probably more to this situation than meets the eye…wish we had a way to hear the other side of the story. From the Payson Roundup here.

Forest Service rules just a waste of wood
February 17, 2012

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Now, we don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Lord knows, we don’t want to fall into the category of a fella whose wife buys him a nice new Jeep and then complains that it does not have leather seats.

Still, as we paused this week to choke on the smoke from burning piles of debris off Houston Mesa Road, we couldn’t help but lament the waste of all that perfectly good firewood.

Mind you, we’re awfully grateful for the millions of dollars the Tonto National Forest has spent thinning fire break buffer zones around almost all of the endangered communities in Rim Country. The Payson Ranger District has done a marvelous job of getting those projects ready then jumping on every possible source of funding to hire thinning crews. Those buffer zones may well save the community from destruction should the next Wallow Fire come roaring at us out of the dangerously overgrown forests of Rim Country.

Still, we also agree with the indignant complaint of residents this week who were dismayed to see all of that oak and juniper set to the torch.

The slash piles left by the thinning crews have been sitting out there for months. The Forest Service does allow people who purchase a permit to trudge out to the piles and haul armloads of wood back to the road. But rangers have also threatened to arrest people who try to get wood without a permit.

That’s a waste — a waste of wood and a waste of good will.

Instead, we think the Forest Service should make every possible effort to let locals gather up as much firewood from those slash piles as possible. The Forest Service should advertise the locations of the piles and then host a firewood day so residents can take their quads, pickups and Jeeps out to the piles to haul off everything they can before the contractors set fire to what remains.

Residents struggling to pay their extortionist propane bills would get a welcome break. The Forest Service would earn the local love it so sorely needs.

And all of us would have to choke down less smoke when it comes time to burn the wood that’s left behind.

Don’t get us wrong: We appreciate the shiny new fire break. But that doesn’t mean we can’t also dream of leather seats.

So while I was searching for a photo, I found this from the Dolores Ranger District here.

Dolores Public Lands Office Plans to Burn Slash Piles

Release Date: Nov 10, 2011

The Dolores Public Lands Office plans to begin burning slash piles in several locations on Haycamp Mesa as early as next week, beginning Monday, November 14th. The slash piles are a result of fuel reduction projects completed earlier this season. The public was allowed into the project areas after the work was completed to collect firewood from the pre-cut and stacked decks of ponderosa pine. The left over slash in these project areas will be piled and burned.

Pile burning operations will take place:

• In the Chicken Creek area along the Millwood Road (FS Rd. 559), north of Joe Moore Reservoir, on 104 acres treated for fuels reduction.

• In the Rock Spring area along the Grouse Point Road (FS Rd. 390), on 61 acres treated for fuels reduction.

• In the Little Carver area, south of the Indian Ridge Road (FS Rd. 557) on 11 acres treated for fuels reduction.

All three burn pile locations are located in ponderosa pine forests and will be monitored by a local staff of qualified firefighters. The projects are contingent on weather conditions that will help to assure predictable fire behavior and maximum smoke dispersion.

Can’t tell if driving off road to the piles is the issue, or needing a permit or ??

Wind Turbine Approved on Green Mountain National Forest

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stock photo of wind turbines from Bennington paper

I have heard (but cannot say for sure) that this is the first commercial wind project approved on national forest land. If you know of others, please comment and let us know.

Here’s the link.

KEITH WHITCOMB JR.
Staff Writer
SEARSBURG — The U.S. Forest Service has decided to approve 15 of the 17 wind turbines proposed on public land by Deerfield Wind, LLC, a subsidiary of Iberdrola Renewables.

Together the turbines will produce 30 megawatts of power. Eight turbines will be located on a ridge line to the west of Route 8 in Readsboro, while seven will be built to the east in Searsburg. The project area will take up around 80 acres, with the turbines painted off-white and spaced half a mile apart. At roughly 400 feet high, each will have flashing red lights in the nighttime.
The decision was issued by Colleen Pelles Madrid, forest supervisor for the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forest, who said it is consistent with a decision made in 2009 by the Vermont Public Service Board giving the project a certificate of public good.
The decision comes with the approval of 4.5 miles of new roadway and the upgrading of 1.03 miles to existing roads, which will impact 47 acres of forest.

The decision is being criticized by Vermonters for a Clean Environment, which according to its website is a non-profit group that promotes environmental health.

“Conflict of interest”

“The decision is based on a process plagued with conflict of interest — experts were working for Iberdrola, the developer on a wind project in New Hampshire, at the same time they prepared the supposedly independent analysis for the Forest Service,” said Annette Smith, executive director of VCE, contending the project adversely affects the nearby George D. Aiken Wilderness.

The group says the project also impacts bear habitat and does more damage than it prevents in terms of offsetting carbon emissions.

Ethan Ready, spokesman for the Green Mountain National Forest, said the forest service has been working on the phases of the environmental impact assessment since 2004. He said a draft statement was issued in 2008, then a supplemental draft in 2010. The final assessment is over 400 pages and can be found at http://data.ecosystem-management.org/nepaweb/fs-usda-pop.php?project=7838.

The final document at the bottom of the page is the decision and record.
He said the public comment period was also extended, netting over 1,000 comments and prompting the forest service to directly respond to about half.

Ready said once a legal notice is posted in the Rutland Herald, the service’s paper of record, there will a 45-day appeal period. Ready said anyone who expressed an interest in the project during a formal comment period can appeal the decision.

It will be interesting to follow the appeal and points raised, if an appeal is filed.

What’s the Right Source of Energy for Now? And Who Does the Analysis When?

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A truck hauls 447 tons of coal at Peabody Energy’s North Antelope Rochelle coal mine in Wyoming. Environmentalists are suing the U.S. Forest Service over actions that would allow one of the world's largest surface coal mines to expand. (Courtesy photo/WesTech)

This news story reminds me that some people are against oil and gas development, some against coal, some against wind, biomass, and solar (and nuclear). It also reminds me that some agencies have argued that the right place to do NEPA on the GHGs from coal-fired power plants (or other plants) is when the plant is permitted. Not when the material is mined nor when the power lines are permitted. And certainly not to analyze the same GHG impacts several times..

Seems to me like the decision lies with the power plant owners who buy coal (since they are likely to buy it from somewhere else, if not Wyoming). This is from a person who may be paying higher electric bills because my utility wants to switch to natural gas fired power plants.

Environmentalists renew attack on Wyoming coal that fuels LES plant

By staff and wire reports | Posted: Saturday, December 10, 2011 10:45 pm

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Environmental groups last week took their legal fight to rein in carbon dioxide produced from burning Wyoming coal to a new agency, the U.S. Forest Service.

Their effort is directed at the potential expansion of a mine served by both the Union Pacific and BNSF Railway, and from which comes fuel for the Laramie River Station, a generating plant that is owned in part by Lincoln Electric System.

The Forest Service oversees national grasslands and in October signed off on expansion of the North Antelope Rochelle Mine farther into the Thunder Basin National Grassland. The surface coal mine there is among the world’s largest.

Three groups — WildEarth Guardians, the Powder River Basin Resource Council and Sierra Club — say the Forest Service didn’t adequately consider how burning the additional mined coal would affect the climate. They sued the Forest Service in U.S. District Court in Colorado.

The groups are opposing the agency’s OK of plans to lease the South Porcupine coal tract. The five-square-mile tract near Wright, Wyo., holds 402 million tons of coal and is owned by Peabody Energy Corp. of St. Louis.

Burning the additional coal beneath more than 1,600 acres of national grassland would release more than 600 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the annual output from more than 150 coal-fired power plants, the lawsuit said.

The Forest Service seems to have taken climate change seriously in other contexts, Jeremy Nichols with WildEarth Guardians told The Associated Press.

“They’ve said things like global warming is a serious threat to national forests and grasslands. Well, that’s great. Now do something about it,” Nichols said.

U.S. Forest Service spokesman Steve Segin said the agency is reviewing the complaint. A spokeswoman for Peabody pointed out that the company is not party to the lawsuit and declined to comment.

Environmentalists are seeking all possible avenues to attack the coal industry, said Marion Loomis, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association.

“They’re just throwing everything they can at the wall and seeing what sticks. Hopefully the industries and the consumers will be successful in countering their arguments and will continue to rely on coal for many years in this country. Certainly the rest of the world will rely on coal,” Loomis said.

Two concentric loop tracks at the mine connect with the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific railroads’ joint trackage, according to Peabody’s website. Coal from the complex is currently delivered to more than 40 electricity generating customers operating more than 80 power plants throughout the United States, the website says.

Other recent lawsuits linking Wyoming coal and climate change targeted the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Citing federal figures, environmentalists say that more than 40 percent of all U.S. coal comes from Wyoming, making the state the original source of about 13 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

The BLM has been planning to lease the coal that is the subject of the lawsuit in February, said BLM spokeswoman Mary Wilson.

The lawsuit also said the coal mine expansion would disrupt wildlife habitat, land used for ranching and recreational opportunities.