More Federal Firefighters Moving On

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/firefighters-are-leaving-us-forest-service-better-pay-benefits-rcna93689

“The situation has grown so dire that the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California saw 42 resignations in 48 hours in May, officials said.”

 

I guess we’ll see Congress extend the extra pay, but the firefighters want other issues addressed, too.

Possible Salvage Strategy for Dixie and Caldor Fires

Since a battle for salvage projects is brewing, I think the Forest Service and the timber industry should consider my idea to get the work done, as soon as possible, under the rules, laws and policies, currently in force. It would be a good thing to ‘preempt’ the expected litigation before it goes to Appeals Court.

 

The Forest Service should quickly get their plans together, making sure that the project will survive the lower court battles. It is likely that such plans that were upheld by lower courts, in the past, would survive the inevitable lower court battles. Once the lower court allows the project(s), the timber industry should get all the fallers they can find, and get every snag designated for harvest on the ground. Don’t worry too much about skidding until the felling gets done. That way, when the case is appealed, most of Chad Hanson’s issues would now be rendered ‘moot’. It sure seems like the Hanson folks’ entire case is dependent on having standing snags. If this idea is successful, I’m sure that Hanson will try to block the skidding and transport of logs to the mill. The Appeals Court would have to decide if skidding operations and log hauling are harmful to spotted owls and black-backed woodpeckers.

 

It seems worth a try, to thin out snags over HUGE areas, while minimizing the legal wranglings.

Budd Falen: Standing Up for Rural Constituents

Salon

Karen Budd Falen was the Deputy Solicitor for Parks and Wildlife in the Department of Interior for three years, and she left with the rest of the Trump administration, capping off a notable career in opposing public lands.  She appears to come by that view honestly, being raised on a Wyoming ranch and representing ranchers as an attorney (including the Bundys).  She reflects in this short piece on her legacy of changing the Endangered Species Act regulations and National Environmental a Policy Act regulations to promote more “local control” (as well as with the Land and Water Conservation Fund).

I take issue with her arguments in both cases that the laws the regulations implement (ESA and NEPA) were intended to allow social and economic considerations to play the role she has provided for them.  These statutes are both clearly aimed at the “natural environment,” and not local “custom and culture.”  Remarkably, she appears to admit that, “the listing of a species should be based only on science,” but then she has made it harder to do that with various changes in the ESA implementing regulations (which go beyond those she describes here in relation to critical habitat).

My fundamental disagreement with her and those she represents concerns this statement (and I suspect it may be a reason for differing opinions on this blog):

In my view, local elected officials should have more sway on issues directly affecting them than someone from midtown New York who has never faced the realities of making a living from the land.

The major gloss-over here is that endangered wildlife and federal lands don’t belong more to local people and their elected officials.  Her view that local interests should have more influence is not supported by either of these laws, and it is not the view held by most of the people that these resources do belong to.  Should the Biden administration not reverse these regulations, courts will have another opportunity to slap down the misinformation from her, and organizations she has worked for like the Mountain States Legal Foundation, that has led to ideas like “county supremacy” limiting how national forests are managed.

(Here is a little background from just before Trump decided she could not get confirmed as BLM Director.)

Has the Helena-Lewis and Clark got jobs for you

source: gustavofrazao / Getty

The Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest revised forest plan was released recently and is now in the objection period.  A local newspaper decided to profile the benefits of the revised forest plan to “jobs” – 400 new ones are projected as a result of the revised plan.  As a former forest economist, I know how meaningless the economic analysis of forest plans can be, and this seemed a little far-fetched, so I thought I would take a look at it.

The EIS discloses the number of jobs resulting from recreation, grazing, timber, minerals, transfer payments and Forest Service expenditures.  That last item (which I think is mostly federal employees) makes up about half of the total employment benefit depending on alternative.  Actually, the number of jobs is the same for all of these categories in all alternatives, except for jobs related to timber harvest.  There, the preferred alternative (F) increases the timber jobs by five times over current levels (EIS Table 243, I get an increase of 497 from current levels), while roughly doubling the projected timber harvest volume over that resulting since 1980.  Elsewhere the EIS says, “An estimated 804 private industry timber jobs exist in this multi-county area.”  That doesn’t match the 119 shown in this table, but would mean the Forest would only increase industry employment by 50% or so, but still …  My point is just that this is suspicious and confusing.

The reality is that jobs created by Forest Service outputs are usually a very small part of a regional economy (the total number of jobs in this region is over 100,000, so that the total timber-related jobs is less than 1%) and the actual number of jobs will usually vary because of many factors that that Forest Service has no control over.  This is a good example of stuffing an EIS with information that does not help with the decision, and in fact may confuse it.

Then there is the question of why should we care.  The “regulatory framework” for social and economic benefits (p. 189 of the EIS) provides no authority for “creating jobs.”  (I doubt if there is one for doing something about “poverty levels” either, as Mac McConnell intimated here.)   The “findings required by other laws” included in the draft ROD do not include any related to social or economic growth.   And under NEPA, creating jobs would be a bad thing, since indirect adverse effects “may include growth inducing effects and other effects related to induced changes in the pattern of land use, population density or growth rate, and related effects on air and water and other natural systems, including ecosystems” (40 CFR §1508.8).

Of course, considering a specific effect on a specific industry or employer, might be a reasonable and relevant factor to consider for a long-term planning decision, if it were related to meaningful criteria about the “right” number of jobs and why, and properly disclosed in a record of decision.  I’m just not seeing that here, in this draft ROD:

The Plan also contributes to social and economic sustainability by providing plan components that collectively support an array of public benefits including jobs and income, … (p. 20)

This statement would have been true for any alternative, so the economic analysis contributed nothing.  It’s unfortunate that this was picked out as “news,” giving the wrong message about what our national forests are for, as well as raising questions about what is really going to happen.

Sierra Nevada Logging Examples

Back in 2012, I worked my last season with the Forest Service, on the Amador Ranger District of the Eldorado National Forest. In particular, I led the crew in marking the cut trees in this overcrowded unit.

The above picture shows the partially logged unit, as well as the sizes of logs thinned.

This part of the same unit shows a finished portion, and two other log landings.

Here is a link to the larger view.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6022239,-120.3284245,1019a,35y,90h/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

There are also other completed cutting units in the area, which I worked in. Most of those were also cut in 2018, six years after they were marked. The existing plantations were cut back in the 80’s. At least one new goshawk nest was found, and the cutting unit was dropped.

Headwaters: Lessons from the Timber Transition

 

Lessons from the Timber Transition

“Performance is shaped more by current challenges and opportunities in the regional economy affecting all types of communities than it is by changes in the timber industry alone.”

“Counties doing better than average leveraged natural amenities; took an active, collaborative approach to planning; embraced adaptability; and took advantage of access to metropolitan markets.”

WA murrelet strategy should “meet only minimum federal standards for protections”

At least that’s what the Washington state politicians are urging their Department of Natural Resources to adopt for its lands.

The DNR is currently considering five different proposals to protect the bird species. A final decision is expected within the next few weeks. Walsh has come out in favor of “alternative B” which he says would meet minimum federal standards for species preservation while ensuring the least amount of negative impact on local economies.

A press release noted that Walsh, and his peers who signed off on the letter to the DNR, believe that reduced timber sales in coastal communities would “create significant economic hardship on counties and communities that can least afford it.”

In other words, let’s manage this species so it stays on the edge of extinction.  This is why we have endangered species (and a federal Endangered Species Act).

Federal lands and transitional economies

Headwaters Economics has released this update to a report discussed at length here last year:

 “Rural counties in the West with more federal lands performed better on average than their peers with less federal lands in four key economic measures.”

“This update of research from last year finds that from the early 1970s to the early 2010s, population, employment, and personal income on average all grew significantly faster—two times faster or more—in western rural counties with the highest share of federal lands compared to counties with the lowest share of federal lands. Per capita income growth was slightly higher in counties with more federal land.”

An article on “transitional communities” adds:

“Rural decline is a large and complex issue that appears to be accelerating. According to the Pew Charitable Trust, during the period between 1994–2010, 38.4 percent of U.S. rural counties lost population; since 2010, over two-thirds of rural counties lost population.  This level of decline has far-reaching national and international implications for food and energy production, tourism, and national culture and identity.”

Putting them together, it looks like public lands can be an important asset for minimizing or avoiding rural decline, if communities can get their act together to embrace this potential and plan for it.

“Particularly in declining communities where long-established residents remember the charm of life in simpler times, residents can have considerable resistance to change. This connection and preservation of the past, while a rural virtue, can impede its adaptation into the future. Resistance to any proposed solution that “hasn’t been done before” simply impedes innovation or positive transition.”

History of logging in Montana

The Missoulian is running a series of articles on this subject.  The one in Sunday’s paper asks these questions about the future:

“Banishment from the national forests would doom many Montana timber towns to welfare status, according to advocates in the wood-products industry. But if they’re dependent on access to public timber, isn’t that another form of welfare? Does my family’s tradition of working in the woods entitle it to public subsidy, especially if the commercial market finds Montana’s wood products uncompetitive? Does rescuing Montana’s timber industry justify rewriting some of the nation’s bedrock environmental protections, changing access to its court system, and spending millions of its tax dollars?”

Federal lands support diverse economies

Recent research by Headwaters Economics asked whether federal lands are an economic liability or an asset to rural communities (summarized in this opinion piece).

On average, we find that from 1970-2014, rural counties with the most federal land grew much faster than similar counties with the least federal land: population grew four times faster, employment grew three times faster and personal income grew twice as fast. Per capita income grew slightly more in places with more federal lands.

This analysis suggests that, in general, federal lands do not inhibit a community’s economic growth. On the contrary, the research suggests these lands have the potential to contribute to a prosperous rural economy.

You can always pick on the details of economic analysis, but here is what this tells me about the big picture.  While there will always be winners and losers, it’s hard to argue that the presence of federal lands is a big reason for the losers.