The BLM will hold four scoping meetings the week of March 26 to identify key issues and planning criteria for two environmental impact statements (EIS) for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, “but monument supporters say the BLM should holster its planning process until the courts resolve lawsuits seeking the monuments’ restoration… Culver and other critics fear Interior is rushing to get lands holding fossil-fuel deposits back under lease to private industry quickly, before the courts have a chance to revoke Trump’s action and put the minerals off limits again… Those deposits were reopened to mineral entry beginning Feb. 2, but BLM officials say they cannot be leased for development until a new management plan is in place for the 862,000 acres removed from the monument.”
So there is a planning process for lands removed from the GSE monument that were discussed here. A new plan might authorize the chaining project that would be prohibited by the current plan, but it seems premature for the BLM to be developing that project assuming the plan would be changed to allow it.
The proposed vegetation management projects (apparently) targeted in the SUWA commercial we discussed here are part of the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative, a partnership effort with the State, BLM and private groups linked here.
Why is the State responding to an ad that attacks the BLM?
-The project depicted in the SUWA ad was funded and completed through the State of Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative (WRI).
-Funding for this project came from several different sources including: Bureau of Land Management (sage-grouse funds), State of Utah general fund (tax dollars), —
– State of Utah fuels reduction fund, Foundation for North American Sheep, The Mule Deer Foundation and Sportsman for Fish and Wildlife.
-The State of Utah issued contracts for the chaining operation, the aerial seeding, the seed purchase, the cultural resource surveys and many other parts of the project.
-State of Utah employees were involved in the planning and implementation of the project. Click this link for more information on the project shown in the SUWA ad.
What is Chaining?
-Chaining is a management tool used by WRI and the BLM to reduce pinyon and juniper trees to make way for more usable forage for wildlife and livestock.
-It involves the dragging of a large anchor chain between two crawler tractors.
-The chain rolls across the ground removing trees while simultaneously tilling the soil to prepare the seed bed for seeding.
-Chaining operations always involve an aerial application of seed to help the area recover and thrive following treatment.
-Chaining has been used by state and federal agencies since the 1950s.
Why do the BLM and WRI use this technique?
-One of the major threats to both Sage Grouse and Mule Deer is the ongoing increase of pinyon and juniper trees in Utah.
-Pinyon and juniper stands, like our higher elevation timber stands, need to be managed. Chaining and the seeding that follows helps to diversify these even-aged stands of trees and create areas that provide better habitat and forage for wildlife and livestock.
-Chaining breaks up the often continuous and dangerous fuels, this reduces the size and intensity of fires, saving millions of dollars in fire suppression costs.
-Chaining is not the only, or the most common, treatment technique we use to diversify these over-mature stands of pinyon and juniper trees but it is the least expensive and most useful for large project areas.
-Chaining is used in older stands of pinyon and juniper where the trees have almost completely driven out grasses, flowering plants and shrubs. We call these late succession or phase III stands.
-These older stands of pinyon and juniper provide very little usable habitat for wildlife or forage for livestock.
-Chaining reduces competition for water and nutrients to help seeded plants to better establish and grow. Similar to how we weed our gardens and till the soil before we plant each spring.
-Research and monitoring from across the west has shown the long term success of this treatment technique. Studies have shown significant increases in grasses, flowering plants and shrubs following chaining as well as increases in available soil moisture.
-Some anecdotal evidence exists showing an increase in stream and spring flows as well as ground water levels following pinyon and juniper removal projects. WRI is currently funding long term study with the Utah Geological Survey to confirm this.
Are Chaining projects currently being planned or implemented within the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (GSENM)?
-No green tree chaining projects are currently under consideration for FY2019 funding through DNR or Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative.
-The use of chaining as a treatment technique depicted in the SUWA commercial was specifically forbidden by the old GSENM management plan. The new management plan has yet to be written.
-The treatment polygons highlighted by SUWA depicts areas currently under consideration for future restoration treatments within the old and new GSENM boundaries.
It is our understanding that these highlighted future project areas represent pre-monument chaining treatments that are being considered for maintenance projects to remove any remaining and invading pinyon and juniper trees.
-The treatment techniques being considered in these areas include hand removal, mulching, chaining, etc.
****************
And I will add: The monument management plan, which is the guiding document for land management for the lands both inside and excluded from GSENM, indicates that chaining is limited to areas that contain late seral stage sagebrush stands, and is restricted from being used on live pinyon and juniper trees. Also note that these projects are designed, in part, to improve habitat for sage grouse.
I guess I have to say I was a little suspicious that the SUWA ad brought up the Trump Administration. As many of you know, the wheels of Federal project planning move very.. very… slowly. So, for there to be a difference between Trump and Obama administration policies, the rules in the Plan about where and what you can do would have had to have been changed. And you don’t have to follow this stuff very closely to know that that takes a while (writing one, public comment periods, litigation and so on). Well, as it turns out, this kind of project was OK under the Monument management plan (approved 2000). You can look it up yourself here.
RM-2 The use of machinery (e.g., roller chopping, chaining, plowing, discing) may be allowed in all zones except the Primitive Zone. Chaining has been used in the past to remove pinyon and juniper prior to reseeding with perennial grasses. Due to the potential for irreversible impacts to other Monument resources, such as archaeological sites and artifacts, and paleontological resources, this treatment method will not be used to remove pinyon and juniper. It may be allowed to cover rehabilitation seed mixes with soil after wildfires only where:
• noxious weeds and invasive non-native species are presenting a significant threat to Monument resources or watershed damage could occur if the burned area is
not reseeded,
• it can be demonstrated that Monument resources will not be detrimentally affected (i.e., completion of full archaeological, paleontological, threatened and
endangered species and other resource clearance and consultation),
• it is determined that seed cover is necessary for the growth of the native species proposed for seeding, and • other less surface disturbing measures of covering seed are not available or cannot be applied in a timely manner.
Visual impacts of chaining will also be minimized near routes and other points of concern by covering the native seed mix with harrows or light chains. The GSENM
Advisory Committee will be consulted before the use of machinery for treatments is permitted.
I used the bold about the pinyon and juniper because that’s what it showed in the SUWA commercial. So SUWA says the Trump Administration is doing a bad thing that is different from what used to happen, but it’s really not. Now I don’t know if that is a “lie,” or an “inaccuracy” or a “shading of the truth.” The point seems to be to get people worked up about something that’s been going on for a long time, but was presumably OK under the previous administration. I’m going to call this Trumpfoolery. It’s worth asking, what’s in for SUWA to do this? Don’t they lose more in credibility than they gain in…whatever?
The people of Utah were using these vegetation practices long before President Trump entered politics, and they are incorporated into a Clinton Administration Monument plan. More on the practices in the next post.
Two years ago today, President Barack Obama created three new national monuments in the California desert: called Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains. Supporters held a community event to celebrate, noting that tourism to the area has increased significantly, as people come to see Joshua Tree National Park and then, go on to explore the new monuments.
Then there’s the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan.
Under Zinke, the Bureau of Land Management recently filed a notice of intent to reopen the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which sets aside land for conservation, recreation and energy development. “Lands that were set aside for conservation may now be open to inappropriate uses like mining and renewable-energy development, when there was already a consensus on areas where those sorts of uses would be appropriate,”
Another example of Trumpling the interests of locals in favor of reducing the “burdens on all domestic energy development.” Another case where the recreation industry (and others) will have to battle the resources of the energy industry (instead of working with the industry as they did in DRECP). Who is your money on?
Another piece worth reading by Jim Stiles of the Canyon Country Zephyr. Here’s the link.
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell came to Utah to hear both sides of the issue. But PLEASE…let’s be honest. No one thought Jewell would come down on the side of monument opponents. And as the presidential election approached and almost all the pundits were predicting a Hillary landslide of “historic proportions,” Bears Ears National Monument felt like a foregone conclusion. President Obama would make the proclamation, President Clinton would implement it.
Then November 8 happened.
Knowing that a Trump administration would be taking office in January and had already expressed its specific opposition to the monument, would Obama create the monument anyway?
He did. On December 28, the proclamation decreed a 1.35 million acre Bears Ears National Monument.
Stiles then goes back and talks about a Bush administration last-minute group of lease sales in 2008.
“The Salt Lake Tribune noted that: ” DeChristopher won bids on 22,000 acres in Utah’s red rock country, near Arches and Canyonlands national parks.” Environmentalists had accused the Bush administration of trying to ram through the sale of the environmentally sensitive land before President Obama was sworn in.”
Later, in January 2009, as Obama took the oath, environmentalists without exception believed that the new administration should not be bound or conflicted by the “last minute” efforts of the previous administration to impose its will on the next and contrary to the stated environmental objectives of the new Interior Department.
And months later, as expected by everyone, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that, “Obama’s Interior Department eventually ruled that its predecessor had incorrectly administered the lease sale and yanked the parcels off the auction block.”
In 2008, Republicans were doing what they’re philosophically bound to do. In 2016. It was the Democrats playing the exact same strategy, with the shoe on the other foot.
The idea that there is a fundamental difference of opinion as to how public lands should be utilized is no secret. The fact that so many environmentalists are acting shocked and outraged is a tad silly.
Of course they aren’t really shocked- they are telling that story to make political points and attract donations.. to feed political campaigns to elect more friends to get more of what they want next time. I don’t blame them. In fact, I don’t really blame anyone, because the way the world has gone it’s very hard to find both sides of any given story when you are not an expert (except in the areas we cover in this blog). This environment is a petri dish into which partisanites (or partinsanities as I call them) are uniquely adapted to flourish. The secret that partinsanities won’t tell you in their media (and almost all non-local media is theirs nowadays, whether they admit it or not) is that there are many things about public lands that people agree on, and not every idea of the “other” party is bad.
Anyway, Stiles has an interesting take, and what I didn’t understand until now was that both of these last minute deals were in the same area..maybe it’s some kind of revenge scenario for the lease sales of 2009? How did the area become “winner takes all until next election” instead of “let’s work it out?”. I wonder how that dynamic gets started and how it can be turned around.
Pileated Woodpecker made this comment here on this post about the Outdoor Industry and Bears Ears.
There is, I think, a very critical reason why the issue now is not the same, or at least is not perceived that way: the water produced by damming Hetch Hetchy benefited a great many people. The profits produced by uranium, coal and other public lands resource extraction do *not* benefit a great many people. (Or so the perception goes; I’m not going to try and adjudicate those claims in this space.)
A few working-class people and locals get the crumbs that fall off the table, so to speak, but most of the money is going to upper management and capital holders. Meanwhile the environmental and opportunity costs get sloughed onto the public.
If public lands are being used to support prosperous, fair, resilient rural economies, most people — including most environmentalists — have no problem whatsoever with that. If they’re used to support the economics of the Zinke class, it’s a different story.
Well, maybe we should discuss those claims..
Woodpecker’s point was that reservoirs benefit many people, and compares that to profits produced by resource production/extraction. But public benefits and profits are two different things. Maybe I’ve reviewed too many coal and oil and gas EISs and lawsuits, but I would argue that providing heat and electricity is indeed a public value. Producing energy domestically has security and resilience advantages. This report quotes:
“Oil and gas production from federal lands accounted for $1.6 billion in total state revenue last year — a whopping 26 percent of New Mexico’s total budget.”
You can look up your own state’s and national contributions here’s from this 2016 DOI report.
Everyone can also look up the source of their state’s energy in this very nice EIA website. Here’s a link to Colorado’s and you can change to your own state. If you are in Denver, for say, a trade association meeting, you are fueled by coal, much of which comes from the feds in Wyoming (the surface is some federal, some state, some private, but all the minerals are federal). You can watch the coal trains come through Denver, seems like almost continuously, on their way to power plants.. So it wouldn’t be too much to say that today, coal and oil and gas keep the lights on in Colorado. You might think “well they should produce oil and gas and coal on private land, not public surface.” But if you were in Colorado, you would see that some of that oil and gas development is close to town, which causes its own issues. And minerals tend to be where they are.. you either get them or you don’t, you can’t move them to where it’s convenient. If you live around here, your neighbors may work in the energy and supporting businesses, office jobs, field jobs, driving trucks, geologists or executives and they are generally paid better than other industries. That’s why people work there despite the boom and bust nature of the business. Certainly all of that is not from federal land in a given state, but you can check this BLM report to see how much the federal portion contributes.
You can rate also industries by 1) the intrinsic goodness and necessity of the product 2) How many jobs do they provide and how much do those jobs pay? 3) How much of the profits do the shareholders keep for themselves? How much are their execs paid? 4) Are they environmentally and socially responsible? But you would have to find the data and compare them, and I suspect that there is a great variation within an industry as well as between industries.
The Outdoor Retailer and Snow Show held its first event in Denver this week at the Colorado Convention Center. Thanks to Jennifer Yachnin/E&E News
For those of you who haven’t been involved in Interior West public lands drama, the Outdoor Industry decided to move their annual trade show to Denver from Salt Lake City because of a disagreement with elected officials about Bears Ears.
As it turns out in this E&E News story, apparently that industry has decided to become more politically active:
Peak politics
Roberts said OIA will aim to maintain that newfound engagement among its members in coming months, vowing to hold members of Congress accountable on public lands positions as well as unveiling new programs — including a congressional scorecard and a voter education program.
“I think our opportunity is to go into those areas where we know voters are really concerned about these issues and talk about the importance of the outdoor recreation economy to their state, the opportunity in building an economy that’s built on outdoor recreation, especially for rural areas,” Roberts said. “I think we have a responsibility to raise awareness … so that voters are thinking about that when they go to the polls, and they think about who best represents them.”
Roberts pointed to the latest Conservation in the West Poll released by Colorado College this week, which shows more voters self-identifying as conservationists (Greenwire, Jan. 25).
During a panel discussion on the poll’s results, Roberts also said OIA members will focus more on congressional primary contests, which has not been a priority in past election cycles.
“We have to think as an industry, in districts where it’s likely a Republican is going to be elected, what’s the opportunity in a primary there?” Roberts said. “We know that voters who are identifying as Republicans also care about conservation issues.
This sounds like a full court press (with conveniently released Colorado college polling figures we’d discussed here) and op-eds released at the same time, this one by a Winter Olympian (really?), published by the Colorado Springs Gazette here.
Hearing that the Trump administration has opted to shrink some of our nation’s most treasured national monuments is deeply upsetting to me.
On top of this, lawmakers recently introduced legislation to further secure these reductions to our monuments. These actions are so shocking to me, especially given that the public is so clearly opposed to the idea. Many of these public lands play a critical role in our history, and I can’t imagine getting rid of these protections.
I don’t get the linkage between Bears Ears and their industry. Usually industry folk want reduced tariffs for items they import, and reduced regulation (like streamlining NEPA for guided recreation), but it seems like there is a preference for Monuments and Parks over Forests and BLM.
Is “access” a codeword for Parkification? Who is leading this full court press? Why did they pick Bears Ears, and why are they still going after it? Do current Forest Service and BLM visitors not buy enough Patagonian doo-dads?
22 plaintiffs filed 200 pages of allegations in 3 complaints against Trump et. al. for modifying the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah (partly on the Manti-La Sal National Forest). (All cases were filed in the D. C. District.) Stay tuned for more!!
Because of the implications for USDA Forest Service land stemming from any future executive actions regarding national monuments, please promptly respond to the following questions:
Do you plan to recommend removal of Forest Service acres from the current boundary of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah?
Do you plan to recommend removal of Forest Service acres from the current boundaries of any of the four California national monuments under review containing Forest Service acres?
If the answer to question one or two was yes, please explain why you plan to recommend removal of Forest Service acres where USDA did not recommend removal of Forest Service acres from these monuments.
To Shrink or Not to Shrink? Presidential Authority Over National Monuments
Monday, November 20, 2017
University of Denver Sturm College of Law, Room 165
6:30pm – 8:30pm
This year’s Carver Colloquium will debate the ability of standing presidents to diminish or abolish national monuments created by past presidents. The authority to expand national monuments has always been included in the Antiquities Act, but recent controversy has questioned the legal authority for presidents to shrink the size of some monuments.
