Recreation

How the Outdoor Industry Could Really Help the Forest Service and BLM- Disruptive Innovation

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I had an op-ed published in my local paper, the Colorado Springs Gazette, Saturday. My point is that we’ve been fighting about fees for recreation and federal budgets for (at least?) 30 years.. maybe it’s time to try something different? Below is an excerpt. Check out the whole thing here.

As veteran of federal public lands policy and politics over the last 40 years, I can tell you that the greatest threat to our federal public lands is not the Republicans or the Democrats. The “enemy” is us – the millions of people who hike, bike, ride, drive, hunt, fish, climb, camp, and everything else in the National Forests and BLM. The greatest problems have resisted solution by R administrations and D administration, R Congresses and D Congresses and all combinations thereof. Maybe it’s time to try something different.

The outdoor industry instead could choose, as Amazon, Buffett and JP Morgan are doing with health care, to just “do it,” as the shoe people say, instead.

What would disruptive innovation look like? Here in Colorado Springs, we can talk to a few people, and walk a few trails, and get a sense of the problem.

We all like to recreate on the Pike Forest. Some of us feel, like one colleague, “I don’t think it’s right for some taxpayer in New Jersey to pay to maintain trails where I walk my dog every day.” Others feel “Congress needs to provide what is needed, we shouldn’t have to pay to use our federal lands (except for National Parks).”

For decades there have been skirmishes between these different views, and the division is not at all along partisan lines. For decades, conditions have only become worse as more people flood the forests and the funding has not kept up. Agency employees do the best they can, but they are not getting the help they need. It seems to me that we the people need to step up and help them, and the outdoor industry could and should take a leading role. They have incredible assets and are in the right place at the right time. They have a network of local businesses, technological know-how, marketing and media skills, and unfettered creativity compared to agency employees (that’s in terms of fetters, not creativity).

So what if the outdoor industry put its financial, human and technical resources behind building nonprofit capacity to support Forest Service and BLM programs? They would be choosing a leadership role of uniting, not dividing, something our country greatly needs. What would this look like? Here’s one possibility. The outdoor industry could set aside some percentage of their profits to give back to public lands. The first step would be to support the development of nonprofit, nonpolitical (how countercultural is that?) Friends groups for each forest or unit of the BLM.

Comments?

“Outdoor Recreation” Industry Goes Political- What’s the Battle of Bears Ears Really About?

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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?

New mountain top radio tower causes static

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The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest has gone a century (or however long it’s been since they invented radios) without radio service on some of its lands, but has decided that it needs it now, and that it requires the use of a mountain top with no development on it yet, and that there is no impact on the environment of doing that.  They say it technically fits a categorical exclusion because it involves less than 5 acres of land, and there are no extraordinary circumstances.  But it’s on the top of a pristine scenic mountain, and there is apparently an alternative location that is already developed?  And it sounds like it might require a forest plan amendment (meaning they told the public they intended to keep the mountain top pristine).  No wonder people are complaining.  It sounds like the kind of tone-deaf action that makes the agency look bad.  Do the EA; consider alternatives.

Reducing Mountain Bike Access on National Forests: How Widespread?

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Photo thanks to Bitterroot Backcountry Cyclists

I’ve been researching access issues related to National Forests for outdoor recreation and other personal uses (think berry picking, or firewood cutting). In my efforts to give examples of the Forest Service reducing access, I found this piece by John Fisch in 2016.

Since I know many Montanans read and contribute to this blog, I’m especially interested in your opinions of this piece.

Anti-cycling forces have long used lobbying clout and legal action to close longstanding cycling routes to cyclists. Nowhere have they been as successful in doing so as they have in Montana, which has seen the loss of hundreds of miles of outstanding singletrack access to cyclists in recent years. In a state which already has Wilderness area totaling more than 3.4 million acres, including a single Wilderness complex as large as the entire state of Delaware, anti-cycling lobbies have teamed with sympathetic judges to remove quiet, human-powered, low-impact mountain biking from vast tracts of non-Wilderness land as well. The trend has carried over into recent United States Forest Service (USFS) travel plans governing non-Wilderness lands. The most recent losses come courtesy of the Bitterroot National Forest Travel Plan. The Bitterroot National Forest, which is already comprised of nearly 50% Wilderness, increases mechanized restriction to an additional 200,000 acres, all of which was previously accessible to motorized and mechanized travel.

Now, a consortium of affected user groups has sought to challenge this trend in court by bringing suit against the USFS for their “arbitrary and capricious decision.” Not just a mountain bike issue, the suit is brought forth on behalf of seven recreation groups with total membership in excess of 13,000 individuals, including the Bitterroot Ridge Runners Snowmobile Club; Ravalli County Off-road User Association; Bitterroot Backcountry Cyclists; Montana Trail Vehicle Riders Association; Montana Snowmobile Association; Citizens for Balanced Use; and Backcountry Sled Patriots. IMBA opposed the decision and coauthored a letter of objection to the USFS, but has not chosen to be a party to the recently filed suit.

Fisch’s critiques of the decision are found later in the piece. I don’t really want to talk about the Bikes in Wilderness controversy here, but I’m interested in what you all know about this and other FS decisions (around the country) that have reduced mountain bike access.

Shoshone forest plan lawsuit leads to negotiated solution on pack goats

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The North American Packgoat Association’s lawsuit reversed a forest plan decision to restrict the use of goats for packing (because of risk of disease spreading to bighorn sheep) based on a procedural violation.  They then got together with the National Wild Sheep Foundation and other stakeholders to work out a new plan, which the Shoshone just adopted (presumably as a forest plan amendment, though the Forest website has no information about it).

The balance that was struck prohibits pack goats from territory used by core bighorn sheep herds in the Absaroka Range and Wind River Mountains. It was a concession the goat packers were willing to make, partially because of lack of use and the undesirable nature of the Absaroka as a goat packing destination.

“North of Whiskey Mountain is infested with grizzlies,” Jennings said. “Frankly I didn’t want to go in there anyway.”

Permits will required to bring the pack animals into the Shoshone in areas where they are allowed, which include the entire Washakie Ranger District and the southern reaches of the Wind River Ranger District. The Temple Peak Herd roams the area between the two pack-goat-friendly zones, but the Wyoming Game and Fish Department manage it as a lower-priority herd. The state agency agreed with the Shoshone that the Temple Peak sheep could be subject to a higher level of risk.

The Shoshone’s decision also calls for goat packers to abide by a strict set of rules, like stringing no more than three animals per person, leashing their goats and possessing proof of vaccinations.

Possibly in the background was the result of another lawsuit finding that extirpation of a “lower-priority” herd of bighorn sheep could be a violation of NFMA.

 

Recreational Shooting on National Forests- Bad Actors and the Urbanizing Forest

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Evidence of illegal recreational shooting in closed areas of the Pike National Forest, along Gold Camp Road. (thanks to the Colorado Springs Gazette).

Since I’ve been exploring the topic of personal-use recreational access to National Forests, I’ve thought about how different the discussion is compared to the others multiple uses. There are environmental issues, public safety issues and what we might call “annoying to neighbors” issues.  These issues, for the most part, don’t seem to attract the attention of the major environmental groups and tend to be ultimately local in solution. Thanks to all the public servants out there who deal with these issues day in and day out!  If you live near a National Forest, you probably see these kinds of issues in your local paper.

Some issues are a function of the Forests getting more heavily used, crowded and with more neighbors living cheek by jowl with the Forest.  We might call it the “urbanizing forest transition”, or I’m open to other expressions. But they are also related to people not following the rules that exist to protect the environment and public safety.

Recreational shooting has been an issue on the Front Range of Colorado for some time.. I remember being in meetings dealing with it when I was still working.  Here’s a recent article in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Bullet holes in the trees dotting the top of the ridge reveal shooters haven’t been following another rule requiring an earthen backstop. With Colorado 67 circling beyond the trees and houses nearby, the potential for loss of life is of paramount concern, he said.

“You have no idea where that bullet is going to land,” Martinez said.

This summer added yet another threat: fires.

In a three-month span, shooting ignited eight fires in the area, leading to renewed calls to close Turkey Track to recreational shooting.

Trash is another mounting concern. Shooters aren’t picking up their used shell casings or targets.

The Forest Service said rangers routinely pick up trash on patrols, but organized efforts twice a year have amassed two to three large dumpsters worth of garbage from each shooting location across the district.

“There’s no reason it has to look that way,” Martinez said.

While not expressly advocating to close the area, Martinez said conversations are needed about how to keep the area safe for the people who use it and the residents nearby.

“We’re at a crossroads,” Martinez said. “What it (recreational use) will end up looking like, I don’t know, but we’re going to need to have some solutions to all of this.”

For recreational shooting to continue, the Forest Service encourages people to follow its golden rule: “Keep it safe. Keep it clean. Keep it legal.”

 

Is this an issue on the Forests near you?

FS preparing for more timber wars?

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An interesting observation from an attendee at a meeting on the Medicine Bow National Forest (that may or may not have been “public”):

“During the meeting, the forest service representatives discussed a plan from Washington, D.C., to harvest more trees in national forests…”

Things do get lost in translation from meetings to attendees, to reporters, to print, but does anyone know anything more about this “plan from Washington, D. C.?”

Case on forest plan wilderness recommendations

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Ten Lakes Snowmobile Club v. U. S. Forest Service

(Mentioned by Brian Hawthorne here, with links to an article and the opinion.)

This case was about the decision in the 2015 revised Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle National Forest plans to recommend (to Congress) areas for wilderness and to manage them to protect their wilderness values.  The Montana district court upheld the forests’ wilderness evaluation methodology, and their decision that effects on several wildlife species warranted prohibition of motorized and mechanized activities in the recommended wilderness areas (RWAs).  It also reiterated precedents that the Forest Service may choose to manage non-wilderness areas similar to designated wilderness.  It found that the EISs included proper no-action alternatives, and that the Kootenai properly coordinated with the Glen Lake Irrigation District (and did not have to be consistent with their “Natural Resource Plan.”)

Existing policy is that areas recommended for wilderness designation will be managed to prohibit activities that would “reduce the wilderness potential” or “compromise the wilderness values” of the area.  At issue is the role that Forest Service Region 1 policy played in the decision to exclude over-snow vehicles and mechanized use from these areas; specifically whether it improperly influenced the required site-specific analysis for each area.  Plaintiffs argued that the policy “created an inflexible prohibition of all motorized and mechanized travel in the RWAs.”  The court found this argument to be “unfounded and purely speculative,” and, “The record demonstrates that the FEIS in the Kootenai and Panhandle Forests considered site-specific impacts of motorized and mechanized vehicles.”

Plaintiffs also challenged decisions to manage areas as recommended wild and scenic rivers.  The court found that the Forest Service violated NEPA by including two creeks that had not been considered in any alternatives in the planning process prior to the final Record of Decision, which was after the public objection process.  It remanded the Kootenai plan for the narrowly defined purpose of providing an objection period for that decision for these areas.  It did not require a supplemental EIS because the area involved was 0.1% of the national forest which constituted “a minor variation that was qualitatively within the spectrum of alternatives that were discussed in the FEIS.”  It did agree with the Forest Service that the creeks meet the requirements of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to be considered eligible.

Another September case

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Wild Wilderness v. Allen seems to have not shown up on the Forest Service litigation reports, but here is a newspaper version.  On Sept. 8, the Ninth Circuit found that the decision to build the Kapka Sno-Park, a parking lot for snowmobile users on the Deschutes National Forest, was consistent with the forest plan and did not require an EIS.  I found a couple of points interesting.

One was the court’s treatment of forest plan “standards and guidelines” that were prefaced with language indicating discretion.  The court said, “But nothing in this provision mandates closure of any area to motorized use. It merely outlines steps that “will generally be taken” in the event of user conflicts. The Forest Plan outlines “an aspiration, not an obligation” and therefore “there is no law for us to apply in second-guessing the agency.””  It similarly dismissed language from the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum as “nonbinding guidance.” Note to the public participating in forest planning – if the plan doesn’t say “must” or “shall” the Forest Service won’t have to.  (Recreation, unlike wildlife, doesn’t have any substantive requirements that a plan must meet using mandatory language.)

On the NEPA side, the court held that the forest didn’t have to explain why it changed from an EIS to an EA, as long as it justified the EA.  It rejected the comparison “to cases in which agencies failed to provide reasoned explanations for changes in their position on matters of policy or factual findings.”  The court stated, “The Forest Service here, however, never changed its mind on any factual or policy matter but only on how it planned to comply with its own procedural requirements. There was no agency decision to reverse, as a draft EIS is not an agency decision at all.”  An EIS is not a decision, but this holding only makes sense to me if an EIS also does not represent a finding that there are significant impacts, which is would be a “factual finding.”  In fact, an EIS may be prepared by an agency even if effects are not significant, so changing from an EIS to an EA doesn’t necessarily trigger an additional burden of explanation for the agency.

R.I.P. Shovel Brigade?

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The Jarbridge Road in Nevada is back under the control of the Forest Service.

A federal judge in Reno ruled against rural Elko County this week — again — and closed the 18-year-old case stemming from a sometimes volatile feud over the road in remote wilderness near the Idaho line.

It began in 1999 when the Clinton administration filed suit against then-Nevada Assemblyman John Carpenter, one of the leaders of a “Shovel Brigade.” They had vowed to rebuild a washed out road near threatened fish habitat along the Jarbidge River in defiance of the government. Carpenter and one of his lawyers, Grant Gerber, have since died.

The county claimed it owned the road under a Civil War-era law that granted state and local governments’ rights of way to existing roads in places where national forests and parks later were established.

The so-called “R.S. 2477 roads” — named after the statute number — became a lightning rod for property rights advocates and anti-federal forces in the 1990s, with similar court battles in Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon and New Mexico.

Like other cases, the federal government denied Elko County’s claim it owned the road before the Humboldt National Forest was established in 1909.

But the Nevada case is unique because, despite the government’s position, the Forest Service signed an agreement with the county in 2001 that said it wouldn’t challenge the county’s alleged right of way.

It looks like the court held that 1) the county did not prove that it owned the road prior to the establishment of the national forest, and 2) the Forest Service could not violate the law by giving away federal land rights though a settlement agreement.  (Of course the county could again appeal this ruling to the 9th Circuit.)