From High Country News (http://www.hcn.org), a look at how some environmental groups used “endless appeals and lawsuits, all based on fiction,” to block efforts to save a native fish from a non-native predator.

When poisoning is the solution

By Ted Williams/Writers on the Range

One of the more spectacular success stories of the Endangered Species Act is playing out in the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness of the Toiyabe-Humboldt National Forest, high in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Heroic and persevering managers of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service have prevailed in their 10-year legal battle to save America’s rarest trout — the federally threatened Paiute cutthroat. Its entire natural habitat consists of nine miles of Silver King Creek.

Cutthroat trout subspecies of the Interior West are being hybridized off the planet by rainbow trout from the Pacific Northwest, dumped into their habitat during the age of ecological illiteracy, which ended circa 1970.

In most cases, the only hope for the natives is rotenone, a short-lived, easily neutralized, organic poison rendered from tropical plants.

But a war on rotenone has been declared by chemophobic environmentalists, who refuse to learn about it, and by anglers who don’t care what’s on the other end of the rod so long as it’s bent. Although rotenone is essential to management as defined by the Wilderness Act, the group Wilderness Watch, for example, asserts that “poison has no place in wilderness.” And Peter Moyer, founder of the Orwellian-named Wild Trout Conservation Coalition, offers this mindless defense of cutthroat trout extinction: “I am a bit of a mongrel myself.”

State and federal fisheries managers are mandated by the Endangered Species Act to save the natives by poisoning the aliens. For years, however, this work has been impeded by individuals, publications and organizations that concoct and recycle horror stories about rotenone.  Apparently, they haven’t figured out that fish are wildlife, too.

The worst offenders have been Outdoor Life magazine, Range magazine, Real Fishing magazine, Friends of the Wild Swan, Beyond Pesticides, Defenders of Wildlife, two Sierra Club chapters, Wild Trout Conservation Coalition, Wilderness Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Rivers Council, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, Friends of Silver King Creek, and the Western Environmental Law Center.

The last six of these organizations managed to derail Paiute cutthroat recovery for a full decade. They accomplished this with endless appeals and lawsuits, all based on fiction. Typical of the absurd statements about rotenone was this proclamation by the pro bono counsel for the litigants, the Western Environmental Law Center: “Unfortunately, the chemical does not just kill the fish in the water but the entire ecosystem, including turtles, snakes, frogs, birds, terrestrials, insects and other animals that live in or drink from the poisoned water.”

Rotenone used in fish recovery has never affected an ecosystem except to restore it. And it has never killed a turtle, snake, frog, bird or any terrestrial organism. Aquatic insects usually survive treatment, and the few that don’t are swiftly replaced by natural recruitment. In fact, insects frequently do better after treatment because they don’t have to contend with fish they didn’t evolve with.

Appellants and litigants claimed a “link” between rotenone and Parkinson’s disease, basing this untruth on an Emory University study in which concentrated rotenone was mainlined into rats’ jugular veins via implanted pumps. (Rotenone used in fisheries management is applied at less than 50 parts per billion.) At the end of a year and a half no rat had Parkinson’s disease. The researchers knew they couldn’t cause Parkinson’s and never intended to. They wanted to establish a “Parkinson’s-like condition” — i.e. tremors — in an animal model.

Appellants and litigants also claimed that rotenone threatened the rare mountain yellow-legged frog. But it was extirpated in the watershed sometime in the 20th century, probably by the very alien rainbow trout that had been extirpating Paiute cutthroats. Rotenone doesn’t affect adult frogs but can kill tadpoles, though it usually doesn’t. If frogs are present, managers delay treatment until tadpoles transform. Ironically, rotenone is being used elsewhere in the Sierras to recover yellow-legged frogs by killing the alien trout that are eating them.

With each successful appeal and lawsuit, rotenone opponents boasted that they had “saved” Silver King Creek. But last August they ran out of legal options, and the managers applied about two quarts of rotenone to the entire treatment area. In case a few hybrids survived, two more quarts will be applied next August. Then, pure Paiutes will be reintroduced.

This will be the first time humans have restored a threatened or endangered fish to 100 percent of its historic range. Maybe it’s a turning point in the war.

Ted Williams is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He writes for Fly Rod & Reel magazine. Read more on this issue at: www.flyrodreel.com/blogs/tedwilliams/2014/january/big-win-for-our-rarest-trout

This is from The Bulletin

“state foresters reviewed maps and data showing how severe the fire charred the soil and how intensely it burned along creeks”

“forest managers should continue efforts to lower the likelihood of big, intense fires through forest thinning and prescribed fire efforts”

One more example of the fact that Sound Forest Management is a Force for Good.

Here’s a link to the report.

The following article and photographs were published yesterday in Char-Koosta News, “the official news publication of the Flathead Indian Nation”: http://www.charkoosta.com/2014/2014_02_27/McGinnis_Cabin_Stewardship_Project_deemed_a_success.html

On the surface this sounds like an excellent example of the intentions of the Tribal Forest Protection Act of of 2004, but it also raises some questions: Why did it take so long to treat so few acres? What were overhead costs compared to income? And, of course: Will it work as anticipated should a wildfire (or bug infestation?) strike the area?

The article claims there are still brush piles to burn, roads to build, and roads to decommission before the project is complete. Would a good test of the project’s success be to conduct a broadcast burn through the area, too? Or is that a capability not structured into the project’s design?

February 27, 2014 McGinnis Cabin Stewardship Project deemed a success Road construction/maintenance and pile burns were some of the tasks the CSKT Forestry Department executed for the McGinnis Cabin Stewardship project. The project started in 2009 and will be coming to a close in December 2014. (Photo courtesy of Jim Durglo of the CSKT Forestry Department) HOT SPINGS — Since 2000 nine large forest fires have burned near or across the border of the Flathead Indian Reservation – eight started off the reservation and burned onto the reservation. Nationally over twenty Indian reservations faced wildland fires in 2002 and 2003 that originated off reservation and moved onto the reservations. These fires brought up issues of threatened tribal resources, lands, and collective health of residents. To address these threats, the TRIBAL FOREST PROTECTION ACT OF 2004 (TFPA) was passed and allowed the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to give special consideration to tribally – proposed Stewardship Contract projects, on United States Forest Service (USFS) or Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, bordering or near Indian trust lands; this would enable tribes to better protect their lands from threats like fire or disease. After the bill passed, the CSKT Forestry Department proposed a project on the Lolo National Forest near the western reservation border. By 2009, the funds became available to start the project, titled “McGinnis Cabin Stewardship Project”. CSKT Forestry Department conducts a slash pile burn to clear out the extra logged timber material. Pile burns are one of the few things left on the “to do” list for the McGinnis Cabin Stewardship project. (Photo courtesy of Jim Durglo of the CSKT Forestry Department) The McGinnis area, located west of Hot Springs near the border of the Flathead Reservation and the Lolo National Forest, covered 998 acres. In 1960 the area had been logged, then between 1961 and 1966 undergone a controlled burn and was replanted with trees. Between 1973 and 1976 the Forest Service conducted pre-commercial thinning to the area. The McGinnis Cabin Stewardship Project began in 2009 as a joint project between the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Lolo National Forest. The project entailed thinning trees on 998 acres, road maintenance, road construction, and road decommissioning near the border of the Lolo National Forest – Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger district and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Reservation. The goal of the project: by reducing tree density and debris, and underburning in the 998 acres, the consequences of future severe wildland fires should be reduced. CSKT would also sell the timber products as mostly pulpwood and small sawlogs, allowing some economic benefits for the tribe, and employing CSKT members. The project is coming to a close and CSKT, the Intertribal Timber Council (ITC), the (USFS and BIA are deeming it a success. Pre-commercial thinning and commercial thinning in the McGinnis Creek area was an important part of the McGinnis Cabin Stewardship project. The CSKT Forestry Department thinned 998 acres in order to diminish the consequences of future severe wild land fires. (Photo courtesy of Jim Durglo of the CSKT Forestry Department) The McGinnis project has provided additional employment opportunities for tribal loggers during a period when the timber market was low. CSKT faced several obstacles during the project. The tribe had a new role as a contractor, assuming all of the risk, which had not been done before. Jim Durglo says, “There was a large learning curve for the CSKT Forestry staff.” There were multi-layers of managers and administrators in the USFS, and a high rate new personnel in administrative positions. Working with all of the parties took time; the contract was complex and required working closely with the Plains-Thomson Falls District Ranger and Lolo Forest Contracting Officer. CSKT managed to overcome the hurdles and started the project. The McGinnis Cabin Stewardship Project began in 2009, and entailed thinning trees on 998 acres, road maintenance, road construction, and road decommissioning near the western border of the Lolo National Forest – Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger district and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Reservation. (Photo courtesy of Jim Durglo of the CSKT Forestry Department) Thirty percent of the work had finished when Smurfit Stone Container Mill of Missoula shut down. CSKT had been selling the pulpwood to Smurfit Stone. CSKT was forced to suspend the contract until reliable markets could be found for both the pulpwood and small logs. Finally in the fall of 2013, Willis Enterprises entered into a delivery agreement for the pulpwood delivered to the Bonner Mill site with CSKT, the Plum Creek mills in Evergreen and Columbia Falls and Tricon Timber Inc. mill near St. Regis purchased the small sawlogs, and the project resumed. The project ends in December 2014 Jim Durglo says, “We still have work to do. We still need to do burn the slash piles, complete road maintenance and decommission other roads within the project area. We plan on completing these tasks in the summer and fall of 2014. The most important aspect of the project, under the TFPA is that we are creating employment and economic opportunities for tribal members and are reducing the impact of large fires to tribal resources.” The McGinnis Cabin Stewardship Project began in 2009, and entailed thinning trees on 998 acres, road maintenance, road construction, and road decommissioning near the western border of the Lolo National Forest – Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger district and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Reservation. (Photo courtesy of Jim Durglo of the CSKT Forestry Department) Eight years after the enactment of the TFPA, only ten Tribes and eight National Forests have implemented projects under the TFPA authority. Of the ten projects, only six have been deemed a success so far – CSKT being one of them. Jim Durglo says, “A lot of our success needs to be credited to Tribal Forestry Department staffers, Duane Plant, Project Planning Program Manager, and to Rod Couture, Project Administrator and CSKT timber sale administrator, and to Forest Service employees, Randy Hojem, Plains-Thompson Falls District Ranger and Loren Ebner, the Forest Service Contracting Officer.” Also, the following tribal loggers; Dupius Logging, Three Mor Enterprises, Bras Logging and Wheeler Logging were instrumental in the success of this project. After the completion of this project, the CSKT Forestry Department has no further plans for the area, but wants to maintain a good working relationship with the Lolo National Forest and propose additional hazard fuel reduction type projects near the reservation border.

Sometimes, things are just stranger than anything you could make up. I think someone else may have posted some of this, but I can’t find it so my apologies to those who’ve seen it before.

From South Dakota’s Capital Journal article, “Study: Large percentages of healthy trees cut in effort to fight mountain pine beetle”, you can find it here: http://www.capjournal.com/news/study-large-percentages-of-healthy-trees-cut-in-effort-to/article_94301608-66e0-11e3-affb-0019bb2963f4.html

“Reports obtained by the Capital Journal suggest earlier efforts to control mountain pine beetle in the Black Hills may have killed more healthy trees than diseased trees in areas of some counties….In two counties, Lawrence and Meade, the majority of the trees marked and cut were not infested, meaning within these treated stands the crews caused more tree mortality than the beetles, said a report obtained by the Capital Journal from the office of the South Dakota state forester.”   That’s a report from the state forester, not some tree-hugging hippies. What happened? Isn’t the cut-and-chunk approach (in which presumed MPB-infested trees are cut into small chunks to stop beetle development) based on repeatedly proven facts based on unquestionable science? Apparently, some “facts” were open to interpretation, and asking a few questions about the “science” involved might have been appropriate:

 “Of the 191 total trees studied by the group in those areas, only 36 percent of trees cut in Lawrence County and 22 percent in Meade County were infested with mountain pine beetles.”  oops…. how could that happen?  It turns out that  “Scott Jacobsen, a spokesperson for the forest service, said the contract between the forest service and Meade County did not include a definition of an infested tree.” (this from another article, “Beetle battle: Logger defends ID methods in Black Hills”, http://www.capjournal.com/news/beetle-battle-logger-defends-id-methods-in-black-hills/article_bb4a3058-9475-11e3-8bf8-0019bb2963f4.html  Turns out, those charged with putting sound forest management into practice perhaps didn’t actually know what a MPB-infested tree looks like, or at least couldn’t agree on it. In that knowledge vacuum, most any tree was fair game, apparently including many with no MPB presence but with one or two turpentine beetle pitch tubes (close enough?)

Of course, the side story is that Meade County commissioner Alan Aker, who has been “involved in overseeing the work of the county”, just happens to also own a logging company, Aker Woods, which has been “responsible for determining which trees to cut.” Commissioner Aker has also been a leader in the “The Bug Stops Here” campaign (their slogan: “Enough talk.  It’s time for action. Donate Dollars. Kill Beetles)” http://www.meadecounty.org/thebugstopshere/  Again from the Capital Journal: “As money was being collected, Meade County began to hire workers to begin waging war against the beetle. Records indicate that in August 2012, Aker Woods was hired to mark trees that were infested with pine beetles. In seven months of work, Aker Woods was responsible for marking 1,960 trees that the company determined to be infested – on the basis of the verbal agreement with the U.S. Forest Service.”

Here is testimony to some effective steps that can be taken to reduce the impact of Mountain Pine Beetles. This is an example of what sound forest management based on a fundamental scientific principle from plant physiology can do to improve our forests. That principle is that stand density impacts tree vigor/health which impacts the susceptibility of trees to insects and disease. Warmer temperatures and drought only make the need to apply this principle more critical. Contrary to the opinion of some on this blog site, Sound Science Based Forest Management can improve the forest ecosystem and all of the living components of the ecosystem (both endangered and not). It is a repeatedly proven fact explained by unquestionable science. Ignoring this information by excluding sound forest management is a very large part of why our national forests are being eaten up and burning up at an exponentially increasing rate in the last two decades since national forest harvests were cut by 80% out of fear and viewshed greed.

Prevention – Thinning

Control – “Cut-and-Chunk” – a variation of the process used very effectively in the south to stop Southern Pine Beetle hot spots before they break out. It requires frequent aerial observation to catch hot spots when they are small and then aggressively get the infested timber on the ground ASAP before the beetles can spread to the surrounding trees.

Key observations include: “Other than the tree-thinning, Weutke said a “cut-and-chunk” approach has helped stem the beetle infestation, especially at Custer State Park. Infested trees are cut into about two-foot lengths, which cause them to dry out and starve the beetles.

“These initial signs of growth of the population tapering are hopeful,” Wuetke said. But “it’s a lot like taking antibiotics. If you stop now, it can come back in spades.””

A federal grand jury has indicted a Forest Service fleet manager and a retired police officer Forest Service volunteer for their alleged conspiracy to patrol the Los Padres national forest boundary to prevent trespassing onto a private ranch in-holding. The local news story is here.

The fleet manager, Scott Alguire, served our nation for 20 years as an Air Force mechanic before being hired by the Forest Service four years ago. Although the alleged conspiracy occurred in 2011 and the indictment issued in September of last year, Mr. Alguire continues to work as the Los Padres fleet manager, which suggests the Forest Service has not seen fit (yet) to take any administrative personnel actions.

The case is going to trial next month.

If I were a juror, the first thing I’d want to know is how much did Mr. Alguire and the volunteer profit financially from their alleged crimes?