Planning

More on monetizing public lands

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The latest on Montana, giving credit where credit is due (i.e. there’s nothing ‘grassroots’ about it):

“The American Lands Council is leading the charge on this. I’m not a member, but I do appreciate that they’re helping elected officials get better educated on this,” Fielder said.

I’m sure that education includes these facts:

ALC bases much of its justification for lands transfer on sections in the Western states’ Enabling Acts that say the federal government “is obligated to extinguish title to additional lands.”

But a University of Utah legal analysis published in October found that phrase applied only to Indian lands, not public lands. The analysis also outlined several laws and Supreme Court decisions that firmly establish federal control of public lands.

“As the owner of public lands, the United States holds the public lands ‘in trust for the people of the whole country,’ not solely for the benefit of adjacent landowners,” the report said.

Someone came up with a new financial twist – give states the land, federal tax dollars keep paying for the upkeep:

Fielder said the state wouldn’t need that much money if the federal government were required to pitch in.  “This catastrophic wildfire condition has grown on their watch. So keeping the federal government on the hook for helping with fire suppression is something we ought to look at,” Fielder said.

And these folks don’t like to collaborate:

But Fielder dismissed collaboratives as ineffective.  “Citizens have very little chance to get their objectives inserted in federal land management plans because paid lobbyists are there at every meeting. They pretty much drown out the local community’s voice,” Fielder said.

I’m sure that’s based on a good set of facts, too.

 

 

Forest road pollution back in court

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Sometimes winning a lawsuit doesn’t get you anywhere.

“EPA has concluded that forest roads are a “major source of erosion from forested lands, contributing up to 90 percent of the total sediment production from forestry operations.

“In 2003, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered EPA to strengthen and correct rules for urban runoff that flows through small municipal storm sewer systems, and examine the evidence on forest road runoff to determine whether it is necessary to regulate that water pollution source.

“More than a decade later, EPA has failed to comply with the Court’s order on both issues. NRDC and EDC have filed a petition in the same Court that issued this order to enforce the duties it imposed on EPA.”

Aside from showing the difficulty of making the government so something, there are some forest planning implications.  EPA will comment on forest plans, and the Forest Service should be paying attention to what EPA thinks is needed in the plans to mesh with their non-point source pollution permitting process (current or as influenced by this litigation).

Francis Marion revised plan

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One of the first of the new century (that started in 2012) of forest plans: “A summary of the proposed changes for the revised Francis Marion Land and Resources Management Plan.”

I just rediscovered this in the ‘drafts’ file.  I think I was intending to share this as a concise example of how the Forest Service tends to view the changes from old plans to plans under the new planning rule.  It does a better job of explaining ‘why’ than most.  (Hopefully these explanations come from the required assessment.)

There is a summary of key changes on p. 2.  Here are some things that I thought were noteworthy:

  • “All-lands” approach to cross-boundary issues, like connectivity
  • Focus on ecosystem units and their key characteristics
  • Identifying management areas where fire would and would not be used as a management tool
  • Also zoning based on recreation
  • More thoughtful, but continued, use of standards and guidelines (vs desired conditions)
  • Adaptive management ‘alerts’ as part of monitoring

Planning for fire

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A pretty good layman’s overview of the issues in “the war against wildfire.”

I’m interested how planning can help, including for both regulation and restoration.  On the latter, this comment on the Nature Conservancy suggests a realistic approach:   “the Nature Conservancy and its partners are looking at a lot of different factors that will help them determine which 15 percent (at most) they’ll actually try to restore. The key, he says, will be choosing the land strategically.”  I wonder what weight is given to the factors of effectiveness vs. ecological implications vs. cost-recovery.  And I think the Forest Service ought to be having a discussion of these strategic considerations in a public forum when it revises its forest plans.  I’ve often gotten the impression that the agency intends to restore everything everywhere without the budget to do so, so it puts a priority on cost-recovery.

Local planning and forest planning

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I think this article was an offshoot of the recent surge in discussion of transferring federal land to Montana (and other western states).  (A number of the articles linked in the sidebar are about that.)

This article ends up making an important point, but also shows how people can take that point and run the wrong way with it.  The important point is that a local land use plan is essential for having a discussion with the Forest Service about how a forest plan may affect local land use (and vice versa).  NFMA requires the the Forest Service planning process be “coordinated with the land and resource management planning processes of State and local governments and other Federal agencies.”  The 2012 planning rule requires the forest supervisor to “review the planning and land use policies” of other governments.

Here are the problems.  A local consultant states that, “federal land management must be consistent with local plans to the greatest extent possible.”  There is no such requirement; coordinating the process does not mean consistency with the results.  A county commissioner says, “more tangible issues, like whether a forest road gets maintained or how energy exploration and wilderness designations get decided, are what residents really care about.”  Local land use plans have no jurisdiction over federal lands and should not be addressing management activities that occur there.  Putting that kind of thing in a local plan does not bring it within the NFMA coordination requirement.  On the other hand, there may be need of coordinated planning of connected infrastructure like roads (or where subdivisions occur in relation to NFS management).

I’d like to think that whatever it takes to get local planning to occur is a good thing.  But I think that circulating the idea that local land use plans can govern federal land use will do more harm than good.

 

BP makes the FS look bad

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An interesting story of “all lands” planning (or not).  BP has filed a lawsuit against a large residential development adjacent to its forested property, and also adjacent to a national forest.

“Along two miles of Cainhoy Road, the plantation’s eastern border is shared by the 250,000-acre Francis Marion National Forest, which is home to numerous threatened and endangered species as well as miles of hiking, biking, and canoeing trails. Perhaps the single most important forest management tool that BP and the Forest Service have is prescribed burning.”

“There is still time for everyone – the developers, the city, BP, the Forest Service, and the local community – to agree on an outcome that benefits the region for decades to come.”

The Francis Marion is revising its forest plan by the way.  Should it write off ecological integrity in this area?

It will be interesting to see what BP’s arguments are in court.  Perhaps the Forest Service will at least submit an amicus brief explaining how its national resources will be affected by this development.

You say ‘HRV,’ I say ‘NRV’ …

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Dave Skinner asked, “has anyone besides me noticed the change away from “historic range of variability” terminology to “NATURAL range of variability” in USFS planning processes?”

This terminology is pretty important, but I don’t think the Forest Service has handled it very well. The best source of the Forest Service perspective on this is in the EIS for the planning rule, Chapter 3, pp. 88-91. It recognizes that shortcomings of HRV as a management objective (including the role of climate change), and concludes that, “HRV provides an informative benchmark or reference for understanding landscape change.”

On the other hand, NRV (natural range of variation) is a requirement of the planning rule. A plan must include plan components that maintain ecological integrity (36 CFR 219.8, 219.9). Ecological integrity occurs when “dominant ecological characteristics (for example, composition, structure, function, connectivity, and species composition and diversity) occur within the natural range of variation and can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental dynamics or human influence” (36 CFR 219.19).

The draft planning directives say that there is no difference between HRV and NRV: “’Natural range of variation’(NRV) is a term used synonymously with historic range of variation or range of natural variation. The NRV is a tool for assessing ecological integrity, and does not necessarily constitute a management target or desired condition” (1909.12 FSH Zero Code definitions).   However, if NRV=HRV and NRV is required, then there is a mathematical principle that says plans must plan for historic conditions.

The draft directives then try to create exceptions to the requirement in the regulations that conditions occur within NRV. I think it would be more defensible if the directives define NRV as conditions that would allow an ecosystem or species to “recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental dynamics or human influence,” and require an explanation of the rationale (based on best available science) when this is different from historic conditions, or when information about historic conditions is not available.

(Glad you asked?)

Citizen forest planners using GIS

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This seems like a strange source for hearing about evolution in forest planning policy, but here is what the Region 6 regional forester is telling the world.  It’s not something I remember serious discussion about when the 2012 Rule was developed, nor have I heard of it being done anywhere.  Has anyone participated in something like this in forest planning?  (I’ve added the bold type.)

Connoughton: Public policy for each national forest is set by law. The national forest plan follows the procedures of the National Environment Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and a few other pieces of legislation. The advantage of collaborating on a GIS platform is that people have data, tools, and maps that give them greater insight, and they can ask design questions. On the platform, you are in a spatial environment that allows you to display the problem, query one another’s ideas, and look at the logical outcome. This type of dialog becomes a mechanism for designing alternatives. Instead of forest service specialists putting together alternatives that are mandatory under the National Environmental Policy Act, they could collaboratively engage in setting public policy and ask design questions.

Boy, what an advance that is. Otherwise, we are drawing public policy from inside the government and the outcome does not capture people’s interest. Why not turn the ability to design public policy over to them. The foundation of policy is spatial. Its design is largely supported by sets of spatial information. This is very liberating to people who otherwise have had to depend on the government to create the forest plan.

Turning forest information over to people in a way they can understand is empowering. The responsibility of government is to be faithful and trusting to the people. The people then use tools for designing alternative solutions and public policies.