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Added to all the other ones! Here is the whole shameful story!

Amidst active contract negotiations, and after months of urging the U.S. Forest Service to end flawed hiring practices that limit who can apply for jobs in the Agency, NFFE Exposes Shameful Hiring Practice by the U.S. Forest Service Amidst active contract negotiations, and after months of urging the U.S. Forest Service to end flawed hiring practices that limit who can apply for jobs in the Agency, NFFE’s Forest Service Council (FSC) decided they needed to take a new approach with negotiations. On June 7, 2016, the FSC took their fight to the streets of Olympia, Wash. to conduct an informational handbilling outside of a Forest Service hiring event—one that required applicants to be physically present to apply.

At the June hiring event, the Forest Service was hiring for jobs across the country— as far away as South Dakota and Kentucky. However, to be considered for the vacant positions, applicants were required to appear and submit their applications in person in Olympia, Wash. Applicants unable to attend in person were automatically not considered for these jobs, regardless of their experience. This requirement effectively eliminated interested current Forest Service employees—many of whom have a great deal of experience and are the most qualified to fill these vacancies—that simply did not have the means or were unable to get away from their current obligations to apply for these jobs in person.

“By requiring interested applicants to appear in person, the Forest Service has effectively eliminated applicants from the rest of the country,” said Lisa Wolfe, NFFE Forest Service Council Vice President. “That is not fair to current employees or other applicants living in those areas. It also makes it impossible for the Forest Service to field the best pool of applicants. Anyone who cares about healthy forests or having an effective government workforce should want to see this hiring practice stopped immediately.”

To make matters worse, in April, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell was asked about their practice of hiring events requiring applicants to appear in person in order to be considered for jobs in different states. Chief Tidwell assured Congress that applicants should be able to send in applications to be considered during job fairs. However, at the June hiring event, that simply was not the case. The Forest Service continued to use a closed process that eliminated from consideration some of the most qualified candidates.

“We cannot stand idly by as the Forest Service continues a hiring practice that is unfair to potential applicants, is bad for the agency, and ultimately short-changes American taxpayers,” said Wolfe. “People should not be expected to travel halfway across the country to compete for a job that pays less than 14 dollars an hour. This hiring practice is ridiculous, and it needs to stop.”

http://www.nffe.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/110462

Today the Seattle Times reports on a lawsuit FSEEE filed challenging the Forest Service’s failure to comply with NEPA before logging old-growth forests during the Wolverine Fire.

Happy to answer questions readers may have. I recommend reading the complaint, especially Exhibit A, which is an affidavit by a recently-retired Forest Service employee who lives in the area affected by the Wolverine Fire logging.

In the NY Times today, “As Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger Is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns.” Take a look at the video linked in the article of trash left on the woods in Colorado. I’ve seen similar trash heaps around encampments on the Mt. Hood National Forest, near my home. Some locals tell me that there are trails they no longer use, because they don’t feel safe. I have some sympathy for the folks who are homeless, but this kind of thing is getting out of hand.

Note that funding is an issue: “The service is spending more and more of its budget fighting wildfires, and has pared back on filling some law enforcement posts, said Chris Boehm, the agency’s acting deputy director for law enforcement and investigations.”

The Oregonian, Oregon’s largest daily newspaper, published a 20-page special section on Sunday, “Burned: How a Wildfire Devastated Lives in Oregon.” The online version includes several videos of the fire area. To its credit, The Oregonian allowed the USFS to respond to the article (page 15 or here).

The paper also has a “Fixes” section that addresses funding, forest restoration, and other factors. Under each of the “solutions” are the key folks who can make or influence change or reforms. For example, under forest restoration, several US senators, USFS Chief Tom Tidwell, and Oregon’s Gov. Brown are listed. In the online version, there are “Tweet” and Contact” links under each name.

The comments online are worth reading — 51, so far. One of them said, “I would suggest that these reporters spend a fire season out there so they might have some inkling of what they are talking about. Otherwise they are worse than arm chair quarter backs. They are dangerously uninformed and misinformed.”

I agree, to a point.

In the Fixes section, The paper suggest that “Congress also would need to hold the agency accountable for results, continue funding of collaborative groups and support “landscape level” projects that analyze restoration on 1 million acres, instead of 30,000-acre chunks. ” Here, too, I agree to a point: The agency should be held accountable, but so should the collaboratives and the groups that oppose forest management (not that Congress has any power to do so, except via funding, in the case of collaboratives).

Bottom line: The Oregonian deserves much credit for devoting to much time and effort to the issues.

This National Park Service story map of the Fuller Fire, near the Grand Canyon, shows part of the fire in a previously burned area, possibly the 2012 Range fire (see this map of the area’s fire history. On Inciweb, other photos show that the fire burned in a variety of fuel types. See also the fuel break, a cleared area, but likely without commercial timber harvesting.

Kudos to the Park Service for providing a wealth of info, photos, maps, and GIS story maps.

MISSOULA, MONTANA – Wilderness Watch has released a new, detailed analysis of the Wilderness provisions found in the “Utah Public Lands Initiative Act” (H.R. 5780), which was introduced in Congress on July 14, 2016 by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).

Wilderness Watch’s full analysis is here.

“Despite designating 41 Wilderness areas in seven counties, H.R. 5780 contains numerous special provisions that depart from the Wilderness Act and severely compromise the protections that would normally be afforded to areas designated as Wilderness,” explained George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch and a long-time Utah wilderness advocate.

The analysis points to provisions making livestock grazing the dominant use of the Wildernesses, despite its impacts to wildlife, watersheds, or recreation values as well as provisions requiring the federal government to maintain ranchers’ fence lines and trails as just two examples of destructive provisions never before included in a wilderness bill. H.R. 5780 also includes provisions on wildlife management, motorized access, buffer zones, military overflights, and wildlife water development projects (“guzzlers” and dams) that would weaken wilderness protections and harm wilderness values.

“The sheer number and types of special provisions in H.R. 5780 are unprecedented and ensure the Wildernesses designed by the PLI would lack many of the protections afforded by the Wilderness Act. They would become what are referred to as WINOs—Wilderness In Name Only,” added Nickas.

“Some of those provisions have appeared previously in other Wilderness bills, but H.R. 5780 seems to take nearly every bad idea of the last 30 years as well as some new ones and combine them into one colossally bad bill,” said Kevin Proescholdt, Wilderness Watch’s conservation director.

“We should protect real, wild, authentic Wilderness in Utah,” added Proescholdt. “We shouldn’t be designating fake Wildernesses that rob the citizens of Utah and the nation of the real thing.”

“Unfortunately, the PLI mandates so many incompatible uses, and so compromises wilderness values, that in many ways the areas designated as Wilderness by the PLI can be better protected now with the status quo than if the PLI were to pass. There’s really nothing in this bill for those who love the wild,” Proescholdt concluded.

Wilderness Watch’s analysis also points out that H.R. 5780 also warrants concern with regard to where Wilderness boundaries are drawn, the size of proposed Wildernesses, cherry-stem boundaries that fragment the proposed areas and compromise their remoteness for humans and wildlife, the release of several wilderness study areas, and the potential for innumerable roads to penetrate or dissect the wildlands surrounding the Wildernesses as a result of RS-2477 claims. These concerns deserve much attention in the ensuing debate over H.R. 5780, but are not a part of Wilderness Watch’s analysis.

# # #

Wilderness Watch is a national wilderness conservation organization with offices in Missoula (MT), Moscow (ID), and Minneapolis (MN). The organization focuses on the protection and proper stewardship of Wildernesses in the National Wilderness Preservation System, and has developed extensive expertise with the implementation of the 1964 Wilderness Act. See www.wildernesswatch.org.

This article in the Seattle Times, “Collateral Damage,” is subtitled, “Rushing to stop a fire that never came, Forest Service logged miles of big trees, critical habitat.” The story is about a “shaded fuel break” created as part of fighting the Wolverine Fire in 2015. As you scroll down, a series of maps appear — but keep scrolling, the story continues below that.

Lots to discuss here, including the fact that some trees larger than the 20-inch limit were cut. The article says “many” larger trees were cut. However, the photos of logs show that the vast majority of the logs are less than 20 inches.

I wish the article had included photos of the harvested area. I found these 2 images elsewhere, and the treated area looks like a shaded fuel break.

Residents protested a project designed to reduce fire threats, and then a fire hits the area, reports the Montana Standard. The “project that’s been in the works for nearly five years has gone up in smoke as a result of the Roaring Lion Fire.”

Here’s a bit of good news for those who value Wilderness in general, and specifically the Frank-Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho, the largest contiguous Wilderness area in the lower 48 states.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Idaho issued an order declaring that the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of the Golden Hand Mine – an extensive drilling, bulldozing and road construction project within the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness – violated the Wilderness Act, the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Below is a press release from the coalition of groups that filed the lawsuit. – mk

Boise, ID – The U.S. District Court ruled in favor of conservationists, finding that a Forest Service decision approving a mining company’s plan to deploy bulldozers, dump trucks and drilling rigs miles inside the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness violates the Wilderness Act, the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The court decision invalidates the company’s mining plan and requires the Forest Service to conduct further analysis of the proposed mining exploration and evaluate less invasive alternatives for activities in the Wilderness.

The lawsuit was filed by the Idaho Conservation League, Earthworks, The Wilderness Society, Friends of the Clearwater, and Wilderness Watch.

The lawsuit challenged the final decision by the Payette National Forest, issued on June 22, 2015, to approve American Independence Mines and Mineral’s (AIMMCO) proposal to conduct additional mineral sampling to determine if two mining claims within the Frank Church Wilderness are valid mining claims. Validating these claims is a necessary step for the mining company to proceed with any mineral development or production plans.

The mining claims are located three miles inside the Frank Church Wilderness in the headwaters of Big Creek, a tributary to the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The Forest Service decision, which the court invalidated, would have allowed AIMMCO to make 571 truck trips into and back out of the Wilderness each summer during the three-year project. AIMMCO would have also used dump trucks, bulldozers and drilling rigs to open roads, clear drill pads and excavate trenches within the wilderness.

“Wilderness areas are afforded the highest level of protection of any federal public land in our nation,” said Bryan Hurlbutt, attorney with Advocates for the West. “Even when a mining company has some rights within wilderness, its workers can walk through the wilderness like the rest of us, and any mining activities must be limited to the absolute minimum.”

“The law requires special protections from mining operations in congressionally-designated Wilderness, and the court correctly ruled that the Forest Service failed to meet these high standards,” noted Roger Flynn, attorney with the Western Mining Action Project which represented the groups along with Advocates for the West.

“Thousands of people who hike, hunt, fish and float in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness spoke out against this project,” said John Robison of the Idaho Conservation League. “The Court ruled that the Forest Service has to find a better balance and work harder to protect the public’s rights and Wilderness values.”

“The Frank Church Wilderness is a national treasure that deserves the utmost protection against needlessly destructive mining activities,” said Bonnie Gestring of Earthworks. “We’re pleased the court is requiring a more thorough analysis of less harmful measures.”

“The court has granted a necessary reprieve to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness”, stated George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch. “Now it’s up to the Forest Service to show a far greater concern for the Wilderness if or when it completes the court-ordered reanalysis of this terribly destructive mining plan.”

Gary Macfarlane of Friends of the Clearwater said, “This is good news for the wild heart of Idaho. The Forest Service must do a better job in protecting the remarkable character of the this large and amazing Wilderness.”

The federal 1872 Mining Law holds precedence over public land, even though it has not been significantly revised in nearly 150 years. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, and others have introduced H.R. 963, the Hardrock Mineral Reform and Reclamation Act of 2015. The act would empower state, local and tribal governments to petition federal authorities to withdraw lands from mining to protect drinking water, wildlife habitat, cultural and historic resources, or other important values.

The coalition of conservation groups is represented by attorneys Bryan Hurlbutt of Advocates for the West and Roger Flynn of the Western Mining Action Project.

A copy of the court decision is available here.

News of a study in a press release today from the U. of Wisconsin-Madison:

Giant forest fires exterminate spotted owls, long-term study finds

“We had this long-term demographic study, we knew all the owls in the 137 square mile study area,” says Peery. “The fire burned almost half the study area. On one side was the treatment, a large, high severity fire, and on the other side was the control, with little or no fire. Almost all the owl territories within the megafire went from occupied to unoccupied. We can now say that megafires have a significant impact on the spotted owl, and so we think that forest restoration through fuel reduction benefits both the forest ecosystem and the spotted owl.”

I hesitate to think that the researchers were surprised that the owls had left the burned area….

The study, “Megafires: an emerging threat to old-forest species,” is (behind a pay wall).

Exterminated? Well, maybe, but all they know is that the burned area is unoccupied — the owls likely flew off. Some chicks may have been killed — but I speculate.

Some folks will point out that the fire area studied, the King Fire in Calif., burned in 2014, so it’s too soon to say that those owls won’t come back at some point. They will come back, eventually. But that doesn’t mean that “mega fires” are desirable. The researchers got one thing right: “…forest restoration through fuel reduction benefits both the forest ecosystem and the spotted owl.” We have plenty of snag forest habitat.