Planning

2016 election consequences for Colorado federal lands

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The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management over the last several years have been developing long-term Resource Management Plans for more than 3 million acres of BLM lands in Eastern Colorado and the Uncompahgre Plateau and in the Rio Grande National Forest.  According to this article, the state and local communities are not happy.

The Trump-driven shift toward more oil and gas development on public lands worries Colorado politicians and conservation groups that are steering the state toward increased protections. Agencies within the same department seem in conflict. Long-studied plans are changing between between draft and final reports, with proposed protections fading away and opportunities for extraction growing…

“What we are seeing is the full effect — in proposed actions — of the 2016 election at the local level,” Ouray County Commissioner Ben Tisdel said.

The article goes into detail about the effects on the Uncompahgre Field Office’s proposed plan:

County commissioners from Gunnison, Ouray and San Miguel counties have filed protests with the BLM over the Uncompahgre Field Office’s proposed plan. The counties have been involved with the planning for eight years. In 2016, the counties submitted comments on the plan outlining concerns for the Gunnison sage grouse and listing parcels the agency should protect and retain as federal lands.

“Alternative E proposed doing all the things we specifically asked them not to do,” said Tisdel, the Ouray County commissioner, adding that lands his county wanted protected were listed in the 2019 plan for possible disposal by the agency. “We thought we had a pretty good product in 2016 and now we have this new alternative, Alternative E, that goes way beyond anything we had seen before and is awful in ways we never thought of before.”

With regard to the Rio Grande National Forest revised forest plan:

The move from that September 2017 Draft Environmental Impact Statement to the final version released in August has riled conservationists and sportsmen. Goals established for air quality, designated trails, fisheries management, fire management, wildlife connectivity and habitat were scaled back in between the draft and final versions.

Colorado’s governor has weighed in on the BLM plan (in language consistent with the Western Governors Association policies):

The resource management plan’s “failure to adopt commitments consistent with the state plans, policies and agreements hinders Colorado’s ability to meet its own goals and objectives for wildlife in the planning area,” Polis wrote.

The BLM had an interesting response:

“There is room to adjust within the RMP, which has a built-in adaptive management strategy,” he said. “We are ready to respond as the state’s plans are complete.”

So they plan to do whatever the state wants them to do later?  “Room to adjust within the RMP” appears to mean that they don’t have to go through a plan amendment process with the public, which seems unlikely to be legal for the kinds of changes the state appears to want.  (It definitely wouldn’t work for national forest plans.)

The Western Energy Alliance blames the governor for being late to the game:

It doesn’t get a complete do-over just because something new happens, like Gov. Polis issues a new order.”

But it does apparently get a complete do-over because a new federal government administration says so.  There may still be some legal process (e.g. NEPA) questions this raises.

This week in forest planning

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There just seemed to be a lot of forest planning news …

The Rio Grande National Forest plan revision objection period ends soon (article).

Some of the major changes that will be implemented once the 60-day objection period is complete will include going from 17 management areas to nine, larger management areas. The purpose of the decrease in management areas is so that the Forest Service can manage areas in a more organized manner. The plan also altered the Southern Rockies Lynx Amendment to include the dead tree habitat. The original amendment only included green and healthy forest. This change would now include the dead and beetle kill tree habitat in the Rio Grande National Forest. The plan also includes two wildfire management areas, a smaller portion of new recommended wilderness areas near the Sangre De Cristo Mountains and tree harvesting plans that will be spread out over several years to help utilize the beetle kill in the area.

The Inyo National Forest is releasing their final revised land management plan and environmental impact statement for review and possible objections (press release).

The plan recognizes that fire is integral to forest health, while still taking proactive measures to protect communities and mitigate smoke impacts, which affects residents, visitors, and tourism. The plan also strikes a balance of treating fuels, protecting our communities from wildfire, and allowing fire to provide ecological benefits, including fuel reduction, when safe to do so.

The Sierra and Sequoia National Forests are in the last week of public comments on their second draft revised plan and EIS (announcement).

Earlier versions of these draft documents were released in 2016. We have since revised the draft documents to address changed conditions across the landscape, including extensive tree mortality, and other concerns brought up through public participation.

The Carson National Forest is taking comments on its draft plan and EIS (commentary from New Mexico Wild).

The protection and restoration of watersheds, wetlands and riparian areas will ensure that our forests continue to provide cold, clean water. It will benefit our fish and wildlife and maintain habitat connections across the landscape. This is one place where the draft forest plan falls short – protections for wetlands and riparian areas are too few and fail to fully recognize the benefits of intermittent and ephemeral waters and their intimate connection to water that flows on the surface.

The Salmon-Challis National Forest is going to prepare separate revised forest plans (article).  NFMA requires a forest plan for “each unit of the National Forest System,” so there may be a reason the forest supervisor “can’t think of another forest that’s gone this route.”  I think NFMA might also answer his question about “whether a full-on revision of both plans needs to occur or whether revisions can be made by amending the plans” (the former).

Mark said he has learned that some people on the Challis end of the forest feel that “they were left behind,” when the forests were combined and there was no longer a forest supervisor based in Challis. The supervisor is based in Salmon, with two district rangers based in Challis. Some people have said they feel the emphasis on the forest and its management is focused on the Salmon side because of where personnel are based.

The Custer Gallatin National Forest plan revision is implicated in a private land development (article).

While the public has little recourse to protest what happens on private land in the high Crazies, Cleveland said, the Forest Service could incorporate protections for public lands in the range into the revised Custer Gallatin Forest plan…  It would be a lot less likely for them to build a road if the public sections get recommended wilderness designation.

The National Forests and Grasslands in Texas are proposing to amend their forest plan to identify areas available for oil and gas leasing (press release).  This will be done in accordance with the amendments to the 2012 Planning Rule that will likely require them to address ecological integrity and species viability.

The USDA Forest Service, National Forest and Grasslands in Texas (NFGT), is beginning the preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) to analyze and disclose the effects of identifying NFGT lands administratively available for oil and gas leasing. The proposed action will identify lands available for leasing, leasing stipulations, and necessary amendments to the 1996 NFGT Forest Plan.

Forest planning for wildlife corridors

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The 2012 Planning Rule requires that forest plan revisions address wildlife habitat connectivity. In fact it is one of the “dominant ecological characteristics” that must occur with the “natural range of variation” in order to meet the substantive regulatory requirement for “ecological integrity” and the NFMA statutory requirement for “plant and animal diversity.” The Rio Grande National Forest doesn’t seem to want to take this seriously in its revised forest plan, as recounted here:

“At the federal level, New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall and others have proposed a Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act to create more tools for protecting migration routes. Our neighbors in New Mexico passed a state wildlife corridors act earlier this year. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has emphasized the need to ratchet up awareness and protection of corridors. And even former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke issued an order to conserve big-game migration corridors and winter range.

“Hence, with all of this activity agitating for increased concern and elevated action to protect wildlife corridors, the new management plan just announced by the Rio Grande National Forest is astonishingly tone deaf. Our national forest neighbors to the east finalized their long-awaited 20-year vision and ignored widespread calls for action to elevate wildlife corridors.

“It’s a disappointing example of compartmentalization taken to the extreme. Immediately adjacent across the state line in New Mexico, the Carson National Forest unveiled its draft plan and highlighted extraordinary wildlife values there around San Antonio Mountain with a dedicated Wildlife Management Area.  But it’s as though an administrative wall exists at the state line.”

“Having the Interior Department and state wildlife agencies and elected officials and some national forests all calling for action to protect wildlife corridors isn’t enough if one critical player, like the Rio Grande National Forest, is missing in action.”

It only takes one bad actor to ruin a wildlife corridor. That is a reason why connectivity was given such a high profile in national forest planning for diversity (I was there). The Rio Grand is currently taking objections to its final revised plan, which will be reviewed by someone at the regional level to determine if the Forest is meeting its connectivity/diversity obligations.  However, this is a cross-regional problem (Region 2 and Region 3), which is why the national office of the Forest Service needs to look at why forests in two regions can’t get their acts together on what conditions are needed for connectivity.

Maybe they should also take a look at a recent example in Region 4. This is a case where a state-recognized wildlife corridor led to changes in a trail project on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

“The now-scrapped trail could have interfered specifically with the Red Desert-to-Hoback mule deer migration corridor, which was the first route designated by the state of Wyoming. An estimated 4,000 to 5,000 deer pass through the narrow bottleneck at the Fremont Lake outflow, according to a 2016 assessment of the migration path.”

‘The “desired future conditions” — a U.S. Forest Service equivalent for zoning — for where the trail would have gone are “developed and administrative sites” and “special use/recreation.” Those classifications would have allowed for new trails, and the Bridger-Teton’s forest plan easily predates the discovery of the migration route, which wasn’t until 2013. Outside of those processes, the forest sought input before proceeding with the plans.”

It’s great that the project decision is considering this new information and the new state designation.  I hope the Forest also recognizes the implications for any future projects in this area where it looks like they have decided that the desired condition is now something else.  The discovery of the migration route should have led to another look at the forest plan desired condition, and a plan amendment if they are deciding that it is no longer appropriate based on this new information.

 

 

 

 

Forest Plan Revision Update

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Since planning is where this blog started, and is arguably where most of the things discussed here should be addressed and resolved at a national forest level, and is what I did in the Forest Service, I would be remiss if I didn’t provide an occasional status update, especially because three national forest are at key points in their plan revisions (below).  Here is the the summary provided by the Forest Service in March.

Most of the interest going forward is in how the 2012 Planning Rule would be implemented, and there are three national forests that have completed their revisions under that regulation:  Francis Marion, Flathead and El Yunque.  The Flathead has two pending lawsuits.

The Inyo has completed is objection process and the Forest is completing the assignments from the reviewing officer.  Here is the reviewing officer response to the objections.  The wildlife section illustrates what I think is a problem with the objection process – where the reviewing officer identifies a problem there is no follow-up to determine if what a forest says or does actually fixes the problem; even though the record is inadequate, the regional forester basically trusts the forest supervisor.  Examples:

Finding: The ROD states that the plan components meet the diversity requirement, but it does
not appear to meet the planning rule requirement to provide an explanation of how the plan
meets the diversity requirements of 36 CFR § 219.9.

Instruction: Include a summary in the ROD that provides an explanation of how the plan
components meet the diversity requirements.

What if the explanation reveals that the plan doesn’t actually meet the diversity requirements?

Finding: The record lacks scientific rationale for why 3 years of surveys are sufficient to determine that PACs are no longer occupied (SPEC-CSO-GDL 02).

Instruction: Clarify the record related to removing PACs.

Finding: Much of the management direction from the lengthy Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Land Management Plan Amendment related to sage grouse are reflected in the Revised Inyo Plan, but several standards and guidelines were not brought forward into the Revised Plan. While the record states that the revised plan is consistent with the Humboldt-Toiyabe Amendment regarding sage grouse, some Humboldt-Toiyabe Amendment plan components were not included, and there is a lack of rationale for which plan components were and were not included.

Instruction: Clarify in the record how the sage grouse related plan components from the Humboldt-Toiyabe Amendment were incorporated, or were not incorporated, and why.

What if the rationale is arbitrary, and the plan components are wrong?

Sometimes the Forest could actually change a decision, with apparently no recourse for the public but to sue:

Finding: It is not clear in the project record why the Destination Recreation Area is exempt from the California Spotted Owl plan components.

Instruction: Unless a clear rationale can be provided, remove the Destination Recreation Area exemption language.

And what if a “clear rationale” is not provided in the other examples where the instructions were to “clarify the record?”

And then there’s this “suggestion for the responsible official.”  “Consider including the list of species of conservation concern in the plan.”  Since the monitoring plan program must be explicitly tied to SCC (36 CFR §219.12(a)(5)(iv)), how could the plan not mention the relevant species?

The next forest expected to complete its revision is the Rio Grande.  It has released its final EIS and draft ROD and is in its 60-day objection period.  Here’s some more about that.

The plan also altered the Southern Rockies Lynx Amendment to include the dead tree habitat. “The original amendment only included green, healthy forest habitat, so we modified it to include our dead tree habitat which allowed for better management strategies,” said Perez.

The “original amendment” was also based on the best available scientific information about lynx and their habitat.

The Sierra and Sequoia national forests have issued a revised draft EIS and its public comment period closes September 26.  Maybe they have addressed the “burning” issues we’ve discussed on this blog?

 

Political Appointees, The Good and the Bad: Guest Post by Jim Furnish. II. Jim Lyons, the Committee of Scientists, FS R&D and the 2001 Planning Rule

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This is perhaps the first chance (in history) to synthesize a group history from the ways different people remember it. As such, this is an invitation for all of us to give our perspectives from that time period, and see how or if they fit together. And if it only covers a piece of our own humble Forest Service history rather than say, the Cuban Missile Crisis, well then so be it. Now, back to Jim Furnish and his experience with Undersecretary Jim Lyons. For those of you who don’t remember that period, there was a Committee of Scientists which included a lawyer (I think they really meant a “committee of scholars”). Note as different groups of scientists and scholars are brought in to give advice, disagree (at least the COS) internally, and are used to support essentially the answer to a non-science question (which thread of sustainability should be dominant in forest planning). Is that a question that should be resolved by “eminent scholars”? For newbies to all this it’s not hard to draw a line between the “sustainability is #1” esoteric discussion, as Jim terms it, and the concept of “ecological integrity” in the 2012 Rule.

“The Good: Along with the Roadless Conservation Rule, the FS was revising NFMA planning regulations (remember?). To be blunt, Dombeck loved the Roadless issue; Planning, not so much. But Jim Lyons was another matter. He was totally into the planning regulation, and behaved very hands-on throughout the process. Regrettably, almost anything Lyon said when the national leadership team met to process sections of the new regulation (even if credible) was met with skepticism, owing to a lack of trust. Sally Collins, later to become Assoc Chief, had joined my staff from Deschutes NF in OR as my Assoc Dep Chief. We both had abundant planning experience, and had each served on a planning advisory group appointed by Lyons to prep for the new regulation. Sally and I concluded that Lyons needed to allow the regulation to proceed without his direct intervention; his efforts were counterproductive as he was not the right messenger.
We approached Lyons with our assessment, and asked that he trust us to shepherd the regulation through to its publication as a draft rule in the Fed Register. We promised to keep him abreast of progress, and would see to it that his concerns were addressed along the way. Bear in mind that the planning regulation was “his baby”, but he weighed the matter seriously and begrudgingly agreed. This was a difficult regulation, as it forwarded concepts and ideology at odds with past practice, but we got it done after smoothing out the process. I give credit to Lyons for harnessing his ego to serve a cause he cared deeply about.

A brief sidebar: the concept of sustainability fostered heated debate while preparing the planning regulation, the crux of the matter being whether economic, social, and ecological sustainability were indivisible, or could be viewed as unique but related features. This topic devolved into a largely esoteric argument between research station directors and Lyons, while regional foresters seemed dull to the topic. Researchers argued for indivisible, tilting at the notion that ecological sustainability become the “guiding star” for the Forest Service, as was articulated by the Scientific Committee headed by Norm Johnson (OSU). Lyons and Dombeck decided the sustainability issue emphatically at a national leadership meeting for one “3-stranded rope” made up of unique and separable economic, social, and ecological parts. End of story! Remarkably, FS science leaders then created a 21-page “encyclical” making their case yet again. Lyons had had enough. He asked Oregon St Univ to empanel a group of eminent scholars to tackle the question. They sided with Lyons. End of story, again.

I use the planning regulation, which was achieved toward the end of Lyons’ 8-year tenure, to make the argument that Lyons learned some valuable lessons along the way about how to work effectively with the agency. He behaved arrogantly and could be condescending early on, and few could forget his handling of the firing of Robertson and Leonard, and appointment of JW Thomas. I found him to be dedicated, thoughtful, and supportive, all things which Tenney was not.

And here’s my main point about the intersection of politics and resource policy: the days of the FS being relatively immune from political tampering are long past (if they ever existed). Each administration will make personnel changes (i.e. fire Chiefs and others) to suit their aims, in hopes that “their people” will be compliant. The illusion that a “career Chief forester” is an essential ingredient to an independent agency is sort of laughable today. That said, because the FS has a trust relationship with the public and their lands, they have an obligation to engage in “principled dissent” when necessary to blunt ill-advised political machinations. Any Chief might lose a tough argument, but every Chief should fight for what’s right by the land. And fight hard!”

Mountain bikes – off the beaten path

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Nobody bit on my late comment on the Tenmile South litigation (Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest):

One piece of this decision is new to me: “My decision also includes restricting bicycle travel to system roads and trails.” Prohibiting bikes off-trail seems obvious, but it was criticized, and I wondered if this is commonly being addressed in travel planning.

I know there’s some readers with opinions on this, so I’ll try again.  Here’s the same decision on the Arapahoe-Roosevelt National Forest, captured in this headline “New rule in Arapaho National Forest limits bikes to designated trails:”

On Monday, the Forest Service announced that bicycles will no longer be allowed off designated trails and roads in the Sulphur Ranger District, which covers the Arapaho National Forest. The restriction applies to all kinds of bikes in both the summer and winter.

“A key aspect of this project is to balance all these trail improvements with the conservation of wildlife habitat, watersheds and other natural resources we value,” Ranger Jon Morrissey said. “Part of finding that balance is curbing the proliferation of user-created routes and keeping the impacts to the trails system so that wildlife and other resources can thrive.”

Off-trail use is how user-created trails are created, right?   (And I’ll argue it takes a lot fewer bike users – like maybe one – to create a trail than foot users.)  And the impacts of user-created trails seem like they would be not wanted on public lands just about everywhere.  Yet there is no specific requirement for the Forest Service to address this problem like there are regulations for motorized use that require travel planning and designation of routes.  So while there are designated system trails, there is apparently no requirement for bikes to stay on them.  Should there be a national prohibition?  Should forest plans identify areas where off-trail use is a desired condition?

Mark Twain to eliminate hunting at request of state

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Source

Of feral hogs that is.  In kind of a turnabout from typical conflicts between states and feds, this is a disagreement between the state and counties (and the hog hunting segment of the public).  (There was some discussion of federal regulation of hunting on the Kisatchie National Forest here.)

The State of Missouri is undertaking a trapping program, which they say that hunting interferes with.  The Forest Service is proposing to use its federal land management authority to issue a closure order to prohibit hunting of feral hogs on the Mark Twain National Forest.  From the Forest Service website linked to this article:

Mark Twain National Forest is proposing a Forest Closure Order to support interagency efforts to eliminate feral swine (also known as feral hogs) in Missouri. The Forest Closure Order would prevent the taking, pursuing or releasing of all feral swine on the forest. The only exception would apply to feral swine elimination efforts conducted by the interagency task force.

The proposal is in response to a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) request to make policies consistent across all public lands in Missouri to halt the spread of feral swine and the resulting damage they cause. The State of Missouri feral swine elimination program bans all taking, pursuing or releasing of feral swine on state lands. The State asked the Forest Service and National Park Service for support as part of the Missouri Feral Hog Partnership. The proposed closure order would align lands managed by the Forest Service with the efforts of Missouri and other federal agencies, including USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

On the Kisatchie, the Forest Service used a forest plan amendment to provide long-term direction.  Here, the forest plan is not mentioned, so presumably the closure is viewed as short-term – until the hogs are gone, but from what I hear, good luck with that.

Good Fire

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Forest Service file photo

Headline:  “Officials showcase site of Bacon Rind Fire 1 year later” (on the Custer Gallatin National Forest in Montana).

Their main message was that, despite the fire’s size, it was ecologically beneficial to the landscape, exposing bare soil and giving way to the forest’s regeneration.

It’s good that they are showcasing this, presumably as a way to sell wildfires as a potential management tool – still, even with climate change and no “mechanical preparation.”  It’s too bad that these kinds of fires don’t get the same kind of media coverage as the “bad fires.”   Someone might start to think that maybe fuels reduction shouldn’t show up as the purpose for every thinning/logging project everywhere.  And that forest plans should provide guidance for where it is or isn’t desirable (such as desired fuel loads).

 

 

Research: eastern forest old growth more resilient to climate change

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“Analyzing large amounts of field data from 18,500 forest plots – from Minnesota to Maine, and Manitoba to Nova Scotia – the study identifies priority regions for forest climate adaption efforts.”

A study funded by the Forest Service found that older forests in eastern North America are less vulnerable to climate change than younger forests in terms of the sensitivity of carbon storage, timber volume and species richness.  From the abstract (linked to this news release):

We found the strongest association among the investigated ESB indicators (ecosystem services and biodiversity) in old forests (>170 years). These forests simultaneously support high levels of carbon storage, timber growth, and species richness. Older forests also exhibit low climate sensitivity of associations among ESB indicators as compared to younger forests. While regions with a currently low combined ESB performance benefitted from climate change, regions with a high ESB performance were particularly vulnerable to climate change. In particular, climate sensitivity was highest east and southeast of the Great Lakes, signaling potential priority areas for adaptive management. Our findings suggest that strategies aimed at enhancing the representation of older forest conditions at landscape scales will help sustain ESB in a changing world.

Some of this sounds a little contradictory (maybe someone with more expertise and/or who reads the full article could explain), and I wonder if it has any application at all to more fire-prone forests.  But it is a different way of looking at climate change adaptation that could be incorporated into forest planning.

New Forest Service research confirms that today’s wildfires moderate future fires

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“The research results clearly indicate that wildland fire regulated the ignition and spread of later wildfire in all study areas.” This might tend to produce a “duh” response, but apparently nobody had really studied it.  Here is the Forest Service overview of their research project.

Here is what I found most interesting – the Forest Service recognizes that, “Those responsible for managing wildland fires often face extreme pressure to quickly extinguish blazes due to short-term impacts such as smoke pollution or lost timber resources,” and “Parks’ research serves as a reminder that wildland fire, under the right fuel and weather conditions, can act as an effective fuel treatment to improve forest health and prevent future blazes from becoming large, costly and more dangerous” (my emphasis).

It should also be a reminder that when the Forest Service designates an area as suitable for timber production, and bases timber targets on that, it creates an incentive to put fires out, which increases the likelihood of more costly, dangerous fires.  This cause and effect relationship needs to be disclosed in the environmental analysis for forest planning, where the timber suitability decision is made.