Litigation

Putting Lawsuits Before Results: Missoulian Editorial on Colt Summit

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Thanks to Terry Seyden for this find (so glad you’re back!).

Putting lawsuits before results: Environmental groups suing over timber sale need to collaborate
Missoulian editorial | Posted: Sunday, October 2, 2011 8:00 am

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_f76db5d8-eb93-11e0-af9c-001cc4c002e0.html

Nearly everyone – environmental groups, timber companies, private landowners and public lands agencies – would agree that land management decisions are best made outside the courtroom. Years of bitter legal disputes have demonstrated that the vast majority of problems are best solved out of court, so forest lands can be managed in a more timely, efficient, and less costly manner.
This has been especially apparent in Montana, where a relatively new collaborative approach is increasingly gaining traction – and being watched carefully by others hoping to copy its success.
By bringing to one table all those with a vested interest in forest land management, collaboration has significantly cut down on the number of lawsuits concerning the Lolo National Forest, supervisor Debbie Austin told the Missoulian editorial board last week. What’s more, she said, it results in better management decisions.
But not everyone is on board. Certain environmental groups remain stuck on the old way of getting their way. Apparently, they continue to favor lawsuits over a seat at the table.
Earlier this month, several environmental groups filed suit against the Forest Service over a timber sale near Seeley Lake. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Wild Swan, Montana Ecosystem Defense Council and Native Ecosystems Council say the Colt Summit Forest Restoration and Fuels Reduction Project should have included a full environmental impact statement, and that the statement’s results should be compared to the provisions in the National Forest Management and National Environmental Policy acts. They also argue that the project ignores the potential impact on wildlife.
The groups involved in the project’s planning, of course, beg to differ. The Wilderness Society, for one, believes the environmental analysis performed on the project is sufficient – and certainly more expeditious than a cumbersome environmental impact statement. That is especially important given the risk of wildfire to the Seeley Lake community, said Megan Birzell, a Northern Rockies forest associate for the Wilderness Society.
The project now being challenged in court would both remove roads and thin forests on more than 4,300 acres of land over five years. The specifics of the project are the direct result of much hard work, debate and problem-solving by a group of people with diverse but intersecting interests – and a test, of sorts, for the Montana Forest Restoration Committee, to see whether collaboration can trump litigation.
It ought to. Lawsuits have an important role to play in protecting public resources from bad decisions. But they should be methods of last resort, used only after all other options have been exhausted.
Unfortunately, some environmental groups may be so used to slapping lawsuits on new projects that they are missing an opportunity to solve potential problems before they become actual problems. They are rejecting an open invitation to resolve their concerns during the planning process, instead of after the fact.
Regardless of whether they win or lose in court, that’s clearly not the best way to go about protecting Montana’s public lands.

EDITORIAL BOARD: Publisher Stacey Mueller, Editor Sherry Devlin, Opinion Editor Tyler Christensen, Sales and Marketing Director Jim McGowan

Lake Tahoe Angora Project Wins Appeal

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WatershedTour AngoraFire 2008

9th Circuit clears USFS logging at Lake Tahoe (here)

By SCOTT SONNER, Associated Press

A federal appeals court cleared the way Monday for the Forest Service to begin logging near Lake Tahoe, where a wildfire burned more than 250 homes four years ago.

In making its ruling, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected claims that the project violates environmental laws and will jeopardize the survival of a rare woodpecker.

The panel issued a two-page ruling denying an emergency injunction sought by two environmental groups.

The panel, including Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, gave no reason for its decision.

They said they will give the Earth Island Institute and Center for Biological Diversity until Oct. 3 to submit formal briefs so the case can be considered on a normal schedule in November.

Chad Hanson, executive director of the institute’s Sierra-based John Muir Project, said the group would continue to challenge the logging even if it is completed by November because an important precedent is at stake.

He said the argument by the Forest Service that it has no legal requirement to maintain a viable population of the black-backed woodpecker in the national forest at Lake Tahoe contradicts every previous administration’s interpretation of the National Forest Management Act dating to 1982.

“”The black-backed woodpecker is one of the rarest bird species in the entire Sierra Nevada and the Forest Service is pushing it toward extinction with its post-fire logging program,” Hanson told The Associated Press.

The Forest Service says the logging of about half of the 3,000 acres that burned in June 2007 is part of an overall restoration project that will help speed regrowth of burned stands and reduce the threat of future catastrophic fires.

The $3 million project is not intended to produce any merchantable timber, only chips and scrap wood for biomass.

The opponents counter that they have no problem with cutting trees with a diameter of less than 10 inches, but the agency’s plan to log some trees nearly 2-feet thick and to remove dead standing trees that the woodpeckers thrive on will do nothing to reduce fire threats. They say the forest should be left to regenerate on its own.

“Their own fire analysis specifically concludes that this project will actually increase the fire hazard slightly relative to doing nothing,” Hanson said. “It will not protect the community, and they did not contest that in their reply briefs because they cannot.”

He said the project amounts to a $3 million subsidy for the biomass industry.

Forest Service officials did not immediately return telephone calls or emails seeking comment on Monday.

Lawyers for the agency said in legal briefs filed last week they don’t believe the woodpecker will be harmed by the logging.

They said U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. made it clear that he agreed with their interpretation in his July 13 ruling in Sacramento denying a similar injunction.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/07/25/state/n125152D63.DTL#ixzz1TLwIqP62

Here’s the CBD press release. It includes a critique of the use of woody biomass.

Although I am not an expert, this appears to be the rationale for doing it the way the FS chose (from the EA here).

Reduced Removal of Snags: There were concerns that the proposed action would remove
snags that are not necessary to meet the purpose and need. The following alternative was considered: leaves all snags >16 inches in diameter except where they pose an imminent health and safety hazard to forest users and works. An analysis was conducted to compare the amounts of downed fuel that would accumulate in three time frames: immediately after project implementation, 20 years after project implementation, and 50 years1 after project implementation. These values were compared with the desired conditions that are described in Chapter 1. In summary, these desired conditions are: reducing wildland fire behavior under
high fire weather conditions (hot, dry summer days), including flame lengths of less than 4 feet at the head of a fire; reducing the rate of spread at the head of the fire; reducing hazards to firefighters by removing snags from locations likely to be used for fire suppression; and doubling fire line construction rates. To meet these desired conditions for defense zones, average fuel loading should be less than 10 tons per acre of various size and decay classes of woody debris (see discussion under Section 1.3, “Overview of the Existing Condition”). The desired conditions are responsive to the need to ensure that fuel loadings do not create potential wildfire behavior conditions such that fire severity is excessive or that fire suppression
activities are ineffective or compromised in protecting communities or wildlife and watershed values.
The analysis of residual fuel loadings if dead trees >16 inches dbh were left (Project Record Document E20) revealed that fuel loadings would not meet the desired conditions over time as all of the remaining dead trees fall after project implementation (36 tons per acre, weighted) and hence would not meet the desired conditions (10‐15 tons per acre) nor would this alternative meet the purpose and need of reducing long‐term fuel loadings (see discussion under Section 1.5.1, “Fire, Fuels, Vegetation, and Forest Health”). In addition, leaving dead trees
>16 inches dbh would leave approximately 31 downed logs per acre, which would reduce
fireline construction rates. This condition also would not meet the purpose and need. A study by Brown et al. (Project Record Document E179) acknowledges that leaving high amounts of coarse woody debris leads to high or even severe resistance‐to‐control. The predicted fuel loading if all trees >16 inches dbh were left at 36 tons per acre would lead to high or even extreme resistance‐to‐control, which would mean slow work for line construction by dozers and hand crews and difficulty in holding control lines. These conditions would not meet the desired conditions for defense zones immediately adjacent to communities.

Here’s a previous post on this project from this blog.

For those of you curious about black-backed woodpeckers, here is an interesting write-up from Region 1. It seems like it thrives on post-fire trees, which it seems like there should be plenty of in the Sierra other than this 1400 acres, just based on reports of fires in the Sierra. Also notice the range of the species here in a South Dakota entry.

Based on reports of climate change effects and more frequent fires, and bug attacks, seems like their habitat should be increasing across the west. But I’m not a bird person; am I missing something?

Center for Biological Diversity on EAJA Bill

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Thanks to Matthew Koehler for sending this in..

I know it’s a press release, but I found some of the rhetoric to be rather off-putting. If the case is being made that your organization is “good,” a thought might be to try to refute others’ ideas in a respectful way. What partisans appreciate (vitriolic attacks) tends to dispel your credibility with the broader community- and can the end justify the means? I’ve italicized the most egregious examples.

Further, the piece starts out with an assertion that the bill keeps nonprofits from protecting veterans, etc. That doesn’t seem to be the case based on what Andy says here. And since Andy has not gone on record supporting psychological warfare against my kind (as has Mr. Suckling here), I am more inclined to believe him.

And if a press release starts out with an easily checked untrue assertion, how likely is it that I will take your word on things I don’t have the time to look up? Just sayin’.

Center for Biological Diversity: Our goal is to save species, not make money
by Kiéran Suckling

Industry-funded zealots are angling to prevent nonprofits from protecting veterans, children, workers and the environment. With the absurd argument that nonprofits are getting rich by making the government follow its own laws, they want to ensure that only the truly rich are able to take the government to court.

Even those who should know better are drinking the Kool-Aid, including outdoor writer Ted Williams, whose essay in the June 23 Tucson Weekly accused the Center for Biological Diversity of “shaking down taxpayers.” Cribbing from the Internet like a Fox News intern, Williams serves up industry propaganda with a side of his own trademark use of “anonymous” sources and dubious quotations.

Laws to make working conditions safe, ensure our water is clean and protect the rights of veterans and children only work when they are enforced. Often, they are not because of industry pressure. Witness the complete dominance of the U.S. Minerals Management Service by the oil industry.

American democracy guards against corruption by allowing citizens to sue the government. Now, taking on the government isn’t cheap. You have to go up against the entire Department of Justice. That’s easy for the oil industry, Walmart and developers who have money to burn. It’s not so easy for the rest of us.

To level the playing field, the federal government pays the legal fees of individuals, small businesses and nonprofit groups—if they win. If they lose, they pay their own way.

In its campaign to revoke this essential equalizer, industry has launched a public-relations war hinged on the big lie that nonprofits—especially environmental groups—are getting rich by ensuring that environmental laws are followed.

The current darling of the propaganda machine is Williams, who accuses the Center for Biological Diversity of filing petitions to protect hundreds of endangered species and then suing the government when it inevitably fails to rule on the petitions within 90 days. In Williams’ tightly scripted anti-environmental message, it’s a racket producing “a major source of revenue” for the center.

Nonsense. Between 2008 and 2011, the center received legal-fee reimbursements for an average of one case per year while challenging the government’s failure to process endangered-species protection petitions within 90 days. The average yearly total was $3,867—much less than the center spent bringing the cases. Not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme.

Rush to court? Every one of these suits was filed after the government missed its 90-day protection deadline by months, and in some cases by more than a year. I would submit that spending $3,867 of the federal government’s money to save the Mexican gray wolf, walrus and right whale from extinction is a bargain and a half.

Williams dives completely into the propaganda sewer when he quotes an “anonymous” government official complaining about a center petition to protect 404 rare Southeastern plants and animals. The “anonymous” source is allegedly outraged that the center will file a slam-dunk nuisance lawsuit because the government can’t possibly study all 404 species in 90 days.

In fact, the center didn’t sue, even after the government missed its deadline by 420 days. Instead, we developed a plan with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure all these rare species get reviewed for protection in a reasonable amount of time.

Without providing any supporting data, Williams goes on to charge that the center is raking in the cash by suing “for missed deadlines when the agency can’t keep up with the broadside of Freedom of Information Act requests.”

Hmm. In the past four years, the center received legal reimbursements for exactly one Freedom of Information Act deadline suit, and the amount we received ($3,031) was far less than we spent forcing the Department of the Interior to come clean with the public over its offshore oil leasing program in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The Center for Biological Diversity will keep expending vastly more resources ensuring the government follows its own wildlife protection laws than we’ll ever recoup. That’s fine with us, because making sure bald eagles, wolves, and even Tucson shovel-nose snakes and Arizona tree frogs have a place to live and grow is more important than money.

It’s why we do what we do.

Forest Service Paid $6.1M in Groups’ Legal Fees Over 6 Years

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Scales of Justice by Graham Ibbeson in Middlesbrough

This EE news story, printed in the NY Times here, is notable for among other things having a link to this Journal of Forestry article.

Study: Forest Service Paid $6.1M in Groups’ Legal Fees Over 6 Years
By LAWRENCE HURLEY of Greenwire

The Forest Service paid $6.1 million in legal fees to groups that sued it over a six-year period, according to an academic study that casts new light on a politically charged issue.

At issue is the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), which requires the federal government to pay attorneys fees when it loses cases under statutes that do not specifically call for such fees to be paid by the government.

Some Republican lawmakers argue that environmental groups have taken advantage of a lack of oversight on such payments and file numerous lawsuits they know they can win on procedural grounds.

Recently introduced legislation (pdf), the “Government Litigation Savings Act,” would amend the statute. The measure’s lead sponsors are two Wyoming Republicans, Sen. John Barrasso and Rep. Cynthia Lummis (E&ENews PM, May 25).

The new report (pdf) — published in the latest issue of the Society of American Foresters’ Journal of Forestry — includes data from the Forest Service and Justice Department obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The payments cover the period 1999 to 2005.

The researchers were Michael Mortimer, an assistant professor at the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech University, and Robert Malmsheimer, a professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

They found that of the $6.1 million that the Forest Service reported paying, $3.2 million went to environmental groups. DOJ reported a different total, $3.5 million.

Frequent litigators included the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, the Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice.

In reaching conclusions about the findings, Mortimer and Malsheimer conceded the difficulty of making sweeping generalizations, especially due to the discrepancies in the data.

While the law could be seen as encouraging litigation, they wrote, some groups are likely to litigate, regardless of whether they can win legal fees.

“Even if EAJA were completely repealed, these organizations would likely continue to sue land management agencies,” the researchers wrote.

Some of the bigger environmental groups, they wrote, “are quite well financed and therefore not the class of plaintiffs for which the law was designed to provide access to the expensive federal litigation system.”

Although there are repeat players, they wrote, “the vast majority of parties” are only involved in one lawsuit.

Responding to the study, John Buse, legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said he disagreed with the researchers’ suggestion that EAJA is a “positive incentive” for litigation because it reduces the risk for groups filing suit.

Although “it may be true” that the law reduces risk, it does not follow that it encourages people to sue, he added.

The study also downplays the law’s role in “incentivizing agencies’ compliance with the law,” Buse said.

The Republican-backed bill (H.R. 1996 (pdf)) to reform the law would restrict reimbursements for each entity to no more than three in a calendar year and would prevent payments to any group that has a net worth of more than $7 million.

The maximum payment for each case would be $200,000.

Separately, there is language in the House appropriations bill for the Interior and U.S. EPA that would require tracking and reporting of EAJA payments.

Click here (pdf) to read the paper.

Paul Gosar on Forests, Fire and Litigation

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Congressman Paul Gosar, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, represents Arizona’s First Congressional District.

Column: Forest policy must be proactive, sustainable
By U.S. REP PAUL GOSAR
Special to the Courier

This year, our communities have been victims of the largest forest fires in recorded history. The Wallow fire on the Apache-Sitgreaves Forest grew to over half a million acres, charring in its wake some of the most treasured parts of ponderosa pine country. In total, over a million acres of Forest Service lands, as well as another 600,000 acres of federal, state, and private lands have burned across the American Southwest.

The frequency of fires, and the magnitude of the acreage burned, has exponentially increased since 1990. It is time for us to be honest about the problem as well as the solution. We must re-evaluate our forest management policies at all levels of government because the status quo is detrimental to our safety, Arizona’s ecological health, and the local and national economy.

The current federal system continues to give funding priority to suppression. Although the need to suppress fires is never going to go away, it is clear we must shift priority toward pro-active forest restoration management. It is estimated that long-term restoration and rehabilitation generally amount to two to 30 times the reported suppression costs.

There is roughly 80 million acres of forests across the West that are overgrown and ripe for catastrophic wildfire, according to the Landfire multiagency database. We simply cannot afford to use taxpayer dollars for 100 percent of the large-scale restoration work necessary to prevent unnatural fires like Wallow, Rodeo-Chediski, or Schultz. Empowering private industry is going to be the key to the future of forest management.

The Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4-FRI) is a proposal that will restore 2.5 million acres of ponderosa pine forests on the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab, and Tonto national forests and revitalizes the Arizona logging industry. Instead of relying on the Forest Service to pay all of the costs for restoration thinning, 4-FRI recognizes the fiscal reality and puts forth a proposal that calls for the Forest Service to partner with private industry to restore proper forest health.

This first of its kind large-scale treatment will reduce damaging wildfire impacts, as well as provide forest jobs, markets for wood products, and ecological restoration. It has garnered my support, as well as colleagues in the Arizona Congressional Delegation, Gov. Jan Brewer, leaders in the state Legislature, the affected counties and cities, and an unprecedented range of environmental groups and industry partners.

When the federal government partners with local government, stakeholder groups, and private industry, together we can create much needed jobs and a safer environment for our citizens. Landscape-scale, fiscally responsible forest restoration treatments are the only way our state and the country is going to make real progress toward proper forest health.

I am also looking at a wide variety of legislative initiatives that will improve federal law affecting natural resources management. I am reviewing environmental laws in need of reform to make the process more streamlined, efficient and fair. Compliance has become muddled and overly bureaucratic, leading to project-killing delays. The goal is not to dismantle important environmental protections, but to ensure they are working with us, not against us.

I am also looking at reforming the Equal Access to Justice Act, a law that is frequently misused to obstruct important conservation and economic development initiatives. While some lawsuits are important to ensuring our environmental laws are upheld, some groups sue federal agencies excessively, tie up the process for years, and then submit a bill to the taxpayers via EAJA.

I am a cosponsor of HR1996 the Government Litigation Savings Act, which will put a halt to these abuses by reinstating tracking and reporting requirements and instituting reforms that will reduce the taxpayer’s burden to pay for the attorney’s fees. These reforms will return the law to its original intent – to help individuals and small businesses during a once-in-a-lifetime need to battle the federal government in court.

Our forest and natural resources are a way of life in Arizona. I remain saddened by what has happened to my constituents who have been adversely affected by this fire. I think if we look forward and work collaboratively in stewardship, we can address the desperate forest maintenance crisis and other natural resources-related issues facing our state.

Here is the link to HR 1996

FS Win on Grazing: Pike San Isabel

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Photo is from Cimarron National Grassland, couldn't find photo of grazing on PSI
From Agjournal.com here:

The Colorado Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) announced June 17 that the U.S. Forest Service, the Chaffee County Board of Commissioners, CCA, and most importantly – 13 livestock producing families – prevailed against a lawsuit filed by Western Watershed’s Project (WWP). In 2009, CCA and Chaffee County joined ranchers in protecting their right to multiple-use grazing of public lands by intervening in a lawsuit filed by the anti-livestock grazing WWP, which sought to deny renewal of grazing in the Pike and San Isabel National Forests.

“This is a huge win for our family and cattlemen in this part of the state,” stated Ken McMurry, grazing permittee. “Through the support of ChaffeeCounty, other local cattlemen’s associations and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, we’ve come to realize how significant this ruling is statewide to all cattlemen, whether grazing on private or public lands.”

The appeal by WWP objected to the renewal of the grazing permits, which had been approved after a thorough environmental review. The Forest Service grazing decision also incorporated adaptive management principles to improve environmental conditions in the forests. The ranchers and the Forest Service worked together to develop management steps that would address resource issues and still be cost-effective. Upon reviewing the briefs and the administrative record, the court affirmed the decision of the Forest Service and allows continued livestock grazing under the adaptive management that everyone committed to do.

As CCA counsel Connie Brooks explained, “This decision is especially significant because Western Watersheds had objected to the fact that the Forest Service had worked closely with the grazing permittees to develop management plans that made sense and would achieve the Forest Service’s objectives. While federal law calls for these grazing plans to be written in coordination with ranchers, this litigation would have undone the cooperation and consultation that has characterized the grazing program on the Salida Leadville Ranger District of the Pike San Isabel National Forest.”

Tim Canterbury and his family are also thrilled with the courts decision. “We are happy to see that the court ruled this way. It shows that the courts recognize all of the hard work the permittees and agencies put into the Environmental Assessment.”

The WWP argued that the decision made by the Forest Service was inconsistent with the Forest Plan; more specifically, it violated the Forest Plan in various ways including wildlife protection, protecting soil productivity, protecting water quality, and protecting archaeological resources. The court found that the Forest Service properly addressed each of these issues. Some of the measures included in the Proposed Plan were changing the stocking rate, limiting grazing to certain seasons, rest rotation, and active herding – all of which permittees will conduct to protect the public’s natural resources. After further review, the court strongly disagreed with WWP, stating the court may not assume that the Forest Service will fail to implement these actions in their Proposed Plan.

“The good guys won!,” exclaimed Chaffee County Commissioner Frank Holman. “The Western Watersheds Project is ignorant of the positive impact ranchers have on the land, and that these same ranchers leave the forest in an improved state. This verdict by the government keeps WWP from running over the little guy. This finally proves that cattlemen do not have to put up with invasions to our Western way of life.”

It’s also interesting that this story from the local newspaper, the Pueblo Chieftain mentions that WWP is from Idaho in the headline..

Grazing can continue in forests
Federal judge ruled against Idaho environmental group.

More on Psychological Warfare, Litigation, and Morale

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Check out this op-ed by Ray Ring in last month’s High Country News. It sounds like something I would have written, were I a better writer. I italicized the quote below- that quote pretty much creeps me out. If it is accurate, I need some kind of ritual to dissipate the negative energies (perhaps a burning of the quote in a bonfire at Solstice?).

Op-Ed – From the May 30, 2011 issue by Ray Ring

I have a friend named Gina who is a great marriage counselor. Gina is roly-poly and effervescent — her mere presence disarms uptight people. With a Ph.D., an M.D. and decades of experience, she’s an empathetic listener, expressing just enough of her own opinions to create a genuine conversation and strive for breakthroughs. She’s very effective in advising people on how to get along.

Contrast Gina’s interpersonal strategy with that of Kierán Suckling, the director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which endlessly cranks out lawsuits to enforce the Endangered Species Act:

“(Lawsuits) are one tool in a larger campaign, but we use lawsuits to help shift the balance of power from industry and government agencies, toward protecting endangered species,” Suckling told HCN in 2009. “By obtaining an injunction to shut down logging or prevent the filling of a dam … we are in the position of being able to powerfully negotiate the terms. …”

Suckling’s group often wins in court. But instead of helping various parties come to an agreement, as Gina does, Suckling wants to steamroll opponents: “New species listings and new bad press take a terrible toll on agency morale. When we stop the same timber sale three or four times running, the timber planners … feel like their careers are being mocked and destroyed — and they are. So they become much more willing to play by our rules. … Psychological warfare is a very underappreciated aspect of environmental campaigning.”

Suckling’s warlike strategy doesn’t characterize the environmental movement as a whole, but it’s shared by enough groups to shape the general public misperception that all environmentalists are determined to get their way regardless of the costs to other people’s livelihoods and lifestyles.

Our cover story by seasoned wildlife writer Hal Herring explores the drawbacks of the lawsuit strategy, through the example of wolves in the Northern Rockies. Many groups pushed lawsuits for two decades to help wolves get re-established in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, but they caused a new surge in anti-wolf — and anti-environmentalist — anger. So politicians of both parties united to strip Endangered Species Act protections from most Northern Rockies wolves, effective May 5.

Meanwhile, one Western group that has filed lawsuits on behalf of hundreds of species — WildEarth Guardians — reached an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on May 10: That group offered to limit further ESA legal actions for six years, to allow the agency time to decide the fate of 251 wait-listed species. Predictably, Suckling’s group has challenged the compromise.

Does the future of wolves seem iffier than ever? Hunters in Montana and Idaho will probably reduce the wolf population initially. I’m betting that, as the locals feel they have more control, the anger will recede and more people will accept wolves as natural wonders, creating a community spirit that can preserve them. Gina would approve.

UPDATE: further research shows that the quote was from an interview with HCN here. Don’t know how I missed this originally, must have been observing Winter Festival. More on other aspects of the interview later.

Also I ran across this interesting piece by Ted Williams.

And here’s a letter in response to the HCN interview.

Letter – From the January 11, 2010 issue by Mike Ford

After reading the recent interview with Kieran Suckling, it occurs to me the one reason we’re having so much trouble advancing meaningful conservation opportunities is we’re spending too much time, energy and money fighting each other (HCN, 12/21/09 & 1/4/10).

The litigation and lawsuits advanced by the Center for Biological Diversity are having the exact opposite effect from that suggested by Mr. Suckling. They have cost taxpayers countless millions and not a single dime of that money is making its way to the ground where it is needed most to protect forests, wetlands and other wildlife habitat. The CBD may think it is forcing agencies to be responsive while achieving results not possible in the absence of litigation, but the vast majority of concerned conservationists may disagree. Many of us feel the money would be better spent on the ground rather than responding to multiple lawsuits and countless petitions.

Agency personnel are paralyzed by the lawsuit frenzy and they are no longer willing or able to exercise any level of risk or innovation, even when it will serve important environmental and conservation objectives. Agency personnel have traditionally seen themselves as entrepreneurial but the vast majority have grown so wary of potential litigation they are unable to take risks. Sadly, balancing reasonable economic and environmental objectives has become virtually impossible without threat of litigation.

Not that long ago we tried to work out our differences face-to-face instead of through lawyers. Our continued desire to protect land, plants and animals should be driven by the desire to cooperate — not because we might get sued.

Mike Ford
Las Vegas, Nevada

More on the Green Mountain Lookout

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Here’s an opinion piece in the Everett Herald Net.

Now I will be the first to confess that I don’t know what side if any is “right” in this debate. However, there are a couple of themes that are found more widely in various discussions around the West.

First,

Defending against petty lawsuits will likely divert most of the Forest Service’s dwindling wilderness budget from the mountains to the courtroom.

and second,

We encourage Wilderness Watch to drop the lawsuit. We also encourage people to make your voices heard. Congressional representatives need to hear from the public why this lookout needs specific legislative protection from humorless people who would tear it down.

The themes that I hear are:
(1)Why this battle?: Local person to group- “Out of all the environmental issues in the world, especially given that you are not from our area, it’s not clear why you would pick this particular battle. What’s this really about? Can we talk? ”

(2) Why this tactic (litigation)?

a) If you choose litigation as a tactic, others can choose to try to get legislation (a la wolf, see Baucus quotes here). I would think that this is a necessary constitutional co-evolutionary trend, but how optimal for everyone concerned?

(b) Forest Service budgets are not going up- is its possible that other uses of FS funds (like wilderness rangers) may lead to more environmental protection than copying documents or other litigation activities? What are the environmental “opportunity costs” of choosing litigation as a tactic?

Below is the opinion piece in full.

Lookout belongs right where it is
By Leah Tyson

In response to a pending lawsuit by Wilderness Watch to force the U.S. Forest Service to take down the Green Mountain fire lookout, the Darrington Historical Society would like to explain why the lookout does, in truth, belong there.

Contrary to an opinion expressed in these pages several weeks ago by George Nickas, the executive director of the Montana-based Wilderness Watch, the fire lookout on Green Mountain is not a “new” lookout. It is not a “replica.”

It not only looks like the old lookout — it is the old lookout. We know this because the Darrington Historical Society, and many other local volunteers, participated in the restoration project, which started in the 1990s.

The lookout was carefully restored with at least 70 percent of its original materials from 1950 (when the 1933 lookout was fixed because of snow damage), and the project was originally completed onsite. The only substantially new aspect to the lookout is the foundation and catwalk, which were redesigned to meet modern safety codes. This is a standard legal requirement in historical restorations.

Unfortunately, the new foundation design failed, and engineers determined that the lookout might not survive the heavy snows of the coming winter. Faced with a difficult decision, Forest Service officials decided to save it by removing the lookout with a helicopter. With a better design for the foundation, the old lookout was hauled back up and secured to the peak.

Despite the overblown rhetoric of critics, this was not an “egregious” act. The Forest Service was caught between the dictates of the Wilderness Act on one side and, simultaneously, the National Historic Preservation Act, which required the agency to do its best to preserve the lookout because it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

The Wilderness Act is not as cut and dried as Wilderness Watch would have folks believe. It includes some administrative discretion for managing agencies. While Wilderness Watch certainly has the right to file suit, we question their judgment. The lawsuit is entirely out of proportion to the infraction of procedure they allege and to the aesthetic value that is supposedly harmed. Defending against petty lawsuits will likely divert most of the Forest Service’s dwindling wilderness budget from the mountains to the courtroom.

Very few fire lookouts remain. The Glacier Peak Wilderness is an area almost the size of Rhode Island. The 14-by-14-foot cabin on top of Green Mountain is dwarfed by the landscape, a blip on the radar, really. Staffing lookouts with volunteers has, in fact, helped preserve some fragile alpine areas.

If this lawsuit succeeds, it could create an interpretation of the rules so narrow as to force the loss of a few remaining historic lookouts across the Northwest. It could also be interpreted to prevent the repair of washed-out trails and bridges. This may seem extreme, but it is the stated intent on the Wilderness Watch website.

It is not necessarily the stated intent of the Wilderness Act, which recognizes that preserving the wilderness character of a place can include “recreational, scenic, scientific, educational, conservation and historical use.”

The aesthetic Puritanism expressed by people who would tear down the Green Mountain lookout leads to spiritual satisfaction for a few at the exclusion of the many. We should acknowledge the reality of U.S. Navy jets running almost daily, low-altitude training sorties over the Glacier Peak Wilderness. In contrast, obsessing over tiny aesthetic complaints makes no sense.

We are not arguing for a return to the past, when fire lookouts dotted the backcountry and roads cut deep into the headwaters. We are simply calling for the maintenance of a historical icon that still has some life and lessons to pass on. For many of us, the rarity of such structures enhances appreciation of the enduring nature of wilderness.

We encourage Wilderness Watch to drop the lawsuit. We also encourage people to make your voices heard. Defending against petty lawsuits will likely divert most of the Forest Service’s dwindling wilderness budget from the mountains to the courtroom.

Defending against petty lawsuits will likely divert most of the Forest Service’s dwindling wilderness budget from the mountains to the courtroom.

Angora Restoration- Much Ado About Relatively Little

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Watershed Tour of Angora Fire (photo by Steven McQuinn)

Today this story was in the AP “Burned forest value central to Tahoe logging fight.”

So far, I have seen it in a Bellingham Washington paper and the San Jose Mercury News. I wonder about the timing, as the lawsuit was filed in February (11th?) as per this press release.

As with all vegetation management lawsuits, I hunted around to get the acreage of the project. It was a bit hard to tell from the article since it seemed to be focused on “why fire is good” but not so much on “why whatever the project is proposing is bad.”

I found the EA and DN here, and the appeals here.
I decided to take a look at the John Muir Project appeal decision since those folks were interviewed in the AP story. Here is what that appeal decision says about the project (my apologies for the quality of Adobe to blog conversion):

Alternative 2 includes activities on approximately 1,416 acres of the approximately 2,700 acres on National Forest System lands. The modification included:

Hand thinning and piling/burning will be used instead of aerial logging approximately
447 acres where slopes are over 30%.

The prescription will change in Units 1, 3, 6, 8 and 11 to remove 16 inches and less live
trees and 20 inches and less dead standing and downed trees (See final EA Figure 2-2).
Piles would primarily include woody material 14 inches and less. The portion of tree
boles over 14 inches would be left on the ground.

Alternative 2, as modified, includes the following activities:
Fuel removal of standing dead and downed wood and thinning of live trees on
approximately 1,411 acres.
Within the 1,411 acres:
o 6 acres of conifer removal for aspen stand enhancement;
o approximately 77 acres of treatment proposed in wildlife snag zones (39 acres in
SEZ; 38 ac Subdivision);
o 13 acres of conifer removal for meadow restoration/aspen enhancement in the
Gardner Mountain meadow.

A ground-based logging system on up to 964 acres (including 13 acres of Cut-to-Length
mechanical thinning in Gardner Mountain Meadow) located in areas with slopes under
30%.
New construction of new roads (up to 7.7 miles) and landings to facilitate fuel removal.
Reconstruction or opening of existing roads, trails, and landings to facilitate fuel removal.
Decommissioning/restoring 1.9 miles of road and 16.7 miles of trail.
Existing and new landings and staging areas would be utilized to facilitate removal of
fuels for ground-based operations.
Reconstruction of 1,200 feet of Angora Creek.
Treatment of the following noxious weeds: bull thistle, field bindweed, St. John‘s wort,
tall whitetop, and oxeye daisy.

But here’s my favorite appeal point..(I couldn’t easily find the appeal itself, so I am assuming that the appeal point was accurately summarized; if anyone can point me to a copy of the appeal, I will post it here.)

Contention A: The CO2 emissions from the Angora project will have a significant impact on climate change. (Appeal #10-05-00-0102-A215, pp. 12-13)

I’m hoping that something got lost in translation between the appeal and the appeal decision.