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Hastings releases draft bill to revive timber harvests, sets hearing

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Posted on behalf of an Anonymous Contributor:

1. FORESTS:
Hastings releases draft bill to revive timber harvests, sets hearing
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Published: Wednesday, April 3, 2013

House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) today released a draft bill to significantly increase timber harvests on national forests, part of a Republican push to wean Western counties off federal aid under the Secure Rural Schools program.

Hastings also announced his committee will hold an April 11 hearing to discuss his bill and five others that also seek to boost timber harvests on federal lands and reduce the threat of wildfires. They include a draft measure by Oregon Reps. Peter DeFazio (D), Kurt Schrader (D) and Greg Walden (R) that aims to resolve decades of conflicts over management of 2.4 million acres of timberlands in western Oregon, a measure they have pushed for more than a year.

Hastings’ bill, the “Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act,” comes more than a year after the committee passed an earlier version of his bill, H.R. 4019, requiring the Forest Service to vastly increase the revenue it generates from forest projects (E&E Daily, Feb. 17, 2012). That bill, which never passed the House, also aimed to transition counties off Secure Rural Schools payments.

Secure Rural Schools for more than a decade has allocated billions of dollars to counties dependent on federal timber whose economies suffered as a result of declining timber harvests in the 1990s. It was extended for a year as part of a transportation package last summer, but its future is fraught with political uncertainty.

While counties may receive 25 percent of the revenue generated from federal timber, current harvest levels would provide significantly less than Secure Rural Schools.
Hastings said the federal government for nearly a century had provided rural communities a stable revenue stream through active forest management.

“The federal government’s inability to uphold this promise and tie our forest lands up in bureaucratic red tape has left counties without sufficient funds to pay for teachers, police officers and emergency services; devastated local economies and cost thousands of jobs throughout rural America; and left our forests susceptible to deadly wildfires,” Hastings said in a statement. “This draft proposal would simply cut through red tape to allow responsible timber production to occur in those areas and make the federal government uphold its commitment to rural schools and counties.”

The new Hastings bill contains some substantive changes from his earlier proposal.
Namely, it would require the Forest Service to designate one or more “Forest Reserve Revenue Areas” on each of its units, where, beginning next fiscal year, it would be required to harvest at least half the amount of timber the forest grows annually, which is known as the sustained yield.
Also, while the previous bill would have exempted projects from the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act, the new bill keeps those laws intact, with key exceptions.

Under the bill, projects would have to be authorized under an environmental assessment that analyzes only the proposed activity and does not consider the impacts of future foreseeable activities. The reviews also could not exceed 100 pages and must be completed within 180 days.

Certain projects authorized in response to, or to prevent, wildfires, and those that are less than 10,000 acres, would be permitted through a categorical exclusion exempting them from full NEPA review, the bill states.

The bill also specifies how impacts to endangered species are to be considered and how interagency consultation should take place.

If last Congress is any indication, the bill will raise significant concerns among environmentalists who say NEPA and ESA are critical to ensuring impacts to wildlife and their habitats are fully disclosed. The bill would also significantly increase harvests above current levels, which will undoubtedly raise red flags for some.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who authored Secure Rural Schools and will be instrumental in its extension or reform, last Congress opposed Hastings’ proposal to set minimum harvest quotas.

New week’s hearing will also discuss H.R. 818, by Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), and H.R. 1345, by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), which both seek to streamline forest management to reduce the threat of severe wildfire. It will also include H.R. 1294, by Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), which would designate “community forest demonstration areas” on federal lands that would be managed by state-appointed boards.

And it will consider a proposal by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) aimed at reducing the risk of insect infestations, soil erosion and catastrophic fire.

Federal judge rules on murrelet habitat: work stops

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This just in from an anonymous source (“regular contributor”):

By The Associated Press Follow on Twitter
on April 01, 2013 at 6:35 PM, updated April 02, 2013 at 10:11 AM

SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has rejected a proposal by the federal government that would have dropped nearly 4 million acres of designated “critical habitat” for the marbled murrelet.

The consent decree proposed last summer would have partially settled a lawsuit brought by the American Forest Resource Council, southwestern Oregon’s Douglas County and the Carpenters Industrial Council against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The groups argued the agency inappropriately set aside habitat for the bird in 1996.

The threatened seabird nests in coastal forests in Oregon, Washington and California.

Conservation groups opposed the proposal, saying the birds are in decline and it was important to keep habitat protections in place.

Judge John H. Bates denied the consent decree last week but also suggested that a modified proposal could be acceptable.

A Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman said Monday the agency is reviewing the ruling.

— The Associated Press

Here’s how Oregon Public Broadcasting saw it: http://www.opb.org/news/article/environmental-group-fights-delay-in-marbled-murrelet-habitat-protections/

Here’s how the Kansas City “infoZine” saw it: http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/55497/

 

New Mexico’s Pearce Releases Derr Fire Report w/Recommendations

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Ruidoso, NM (April 2, 2013) – Today, U.S. Congressman Steve Pearce released a report he requested last summer on recent fires in New Mexico.

“Today’s report is a step toward the transparent, locally-driven approach to forest management that New Mexico needs,” said Pearce.  “New Mexicans have expressed anger and frustration over the handling of recent fires, which needlessly cost hundreds of millions of dollars, destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat, and killed countless plants and animals.  By understanding thoroughly what has gone wrong with fire management in past summers, we can work to improve our fire prevention and forestry policies, starting now.”

The report was sponsored by the National Institute for the Elimination of Catastrophic Wildfire, and authored by Bill Derr, who retired as special agent in charge of the California Region for the US Forest Service.  The report, which was completed at no cost to taxpayers, details what went wrong with the suppression efforts of the Whitewater-Baldy Complex and Little Bear Fires last summer.  It recommends that the Forest Service manage our nation’s forests in accordance with the Organic Act of 1897, review the National Fire Policy, calculate the total cost of wildfires beyond suppression, and that Congress should reform the Equal Access to Justice Act to prevent special interest groups from dictating forestry policy in an unscientific manner at taxpayer expense.

The full text of the report is here: http://pearce.house.gov/firereport

Effects of the sequester and rural counties. FS demands SRS money back.

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 Story here:  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-29/business/38123010_1_counties-pilt-taxes-program

The U.S. Forest Service’s demands that rural timber counties pay back millions of dollars in federal subsidies under automatic budget cuts have outraged members of Congress from both parties and caused concern in those counties with struggling economies.

Thirty-one members of the House this week sent a letter to the Obama administration protesting demands that they return $17.9 million in revenues that pay for schools, roads, search and rescue operations in rural counties as well as for conservation projects.

Letter from Congress:  http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/03-28-13lettertosecvilsack.pdf

Depending on where you stand on idea of States taking over federal land and the “community forest trust” notion, press like the above is either a blessing or a curse.  Here in Idaho the idea, for better or worse, it’s gaining traction, regardless of the idea’s ultimate legality.

As an (almost) lifelong resident of a small community I’m torn.  I have kids just entering the school system and have already seen and dread the future effects of the budget cuts.  As a forester, I can understand the sex-appeal of tapping into the vast acreages of timber to offset  to the loss of SRS.  Unfortunately, I’m stuck in the middle as a practioner of the NEPA and all the other environmental regs. that need to be adhered to in order to cut a tree off the National Forests these days.   The regs aren’t necessarily confictling, per-se, but they aren’t easy to navigate either.  Darned if you do, darned if you don’t. 

It was a little disheartening for me and some colleagues to see the above press making the front page splash, especially after years of efforts to satisy both sides (more timber harvested in an environmentally benign fashion).  Unfortunately, the locals (and certain members of Congress) will continue to blame the FS for a lack of management, and the discontent for the FS and enviro’s (after all they’re the root cause – right!?!)  will continue to grow.  

I’m starting to think that Andy’s suggestion of  a “diabolical plot” to squash the FS might not be so off-the-mark after all.       

 

Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Survives Greenpeace Misinformation Campaign

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Interesting post from Forest2Market’s blog about Greenpeace’s activities after the 2010 Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. Suz-Anne Kinney includes a few excerpts from Patrick Moore’s book, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout:

http://www.forest2market.com/blog/canadian-boreal-forest-agreement-survives-greenpeace-misinformation-campaig

“Ironically, [Greenpeace’s] retreat from science and logic was partly a response to society’s growing acceptance of environmental values. Some activists simply couldn’t make the transition from confrontation to consensus; it was as if they needed a common enemy. When a majority of people decide they agree with all your reasonable ideas the only way you can remain confrontational and antiestablishment is to adopt ever more extreme positions, eventually abandoning science and logic altogether in favor of zero-tolerance policies.”

IMHO, this applies to some, but not all, “ENGOs” in the US, such as the Center for Biological Diversity.

Spotted Owls: The Clinton Plan Revisited

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Paul Fattig has written a nice summary on the NW Forest Conference of 20 years ago — the effects of which have continued to be felt to the present day:

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130331/NEWS/303310330

My favorite quote is Jack Ward Thomas’s memory of Clinton’s summary speech: “When it ended, I remember being overwhelmed with his eloquence but I can’t remember what the hell he said.”

Missoula’s Roseburg Forest Products to pay $130k for repeated air pollution violations, mill manager fired

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Breath Deeply? The Missoula Valley has some of the worst air quality in the country. Pictured here is a view of the University and downtown area from a Stage 2 air pollution warning day in January 2013. Photo by Chad Harder.
Breath Deeply? The Missoula Valley has some of the worst air quality in the country. Pictured here is a view of the University and downtown area from a Stage 2 air pollution warning day in January 2013. Photo by Chad Harder.

People are always somewhat surprised when I tell them that the air quality in Missoula, Montana – especially during the winters months – is right up there with the worst air in the nation.  To say Missoula has a fragile ‘air-shed’ would be a significant understatement.

In fact, a 2011 American Lung Association “State of the Air” report, gave Missoula’s air quality a D grade, which doesn’t sound too great, except that the grade for the previous few years was an F.   From time to time the air gets so bad in Missoula that the Missoula City-County Health Department has to issue a Stage 2 air pollution warning, alerting the public that particulate pollution in Missoula’s air exceeds national limits.  Yep, this is basically Missoula’s ‘dirty’ secret, as Missoula ranks 59th among the 230 most-polluted American cities for short-term particle pollution.

Clearly the geography of the Missoula Valley and our wintertime weather patterns are a big reason why our air is so bad.  The valley is prone to some pretty severe inversions, which can last for weeks, and weeks.

Today, the Missoulian is reporting that Roseburg Forest Products – one of the more vocal supporters of Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act – will be paying $130,925 for “numerous permit violations over the previous five years at its Missoula particleboard plant.” Here’s more information from the article:

“State officials say that in 2011 Roseburg submitted revised air pollution monitoring reports that revealed numerous permit violations over the previous five years at its Missoula particleboard plant.  Violations included improperly certifying that the company was in compliance with its air quality permit, failing to inspect equipment and not using gasoline vapor control equipment.”

Apparently, the $130,925 will go towards a wood-stove change-out program up in community of Seeley Lake, which sits an hour north of the Missoula Valley and during the winter-months may have even worse air quality than Missoula.

Finally, it should also be pointed out that while Roseburg Forest Products was repeatedly violating air pollution standards, they were also part of a $30,000 statewide newspaper ad campaign calling for more logging of our national forests by exempting many Montana timber sales from judicial review and the citizen appeal process.

UPDATE: The Missoulian is reporting that the mill manager was fired as a result of these air pollution violations.

Dead Forests Release Less Carbon Into Atmosphere Than Expected

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According to new research, lead by researchers at the University of Arizona, trees killed in the wake of mountain pine beetle infestations in Colorado have released less carbon into the atmosphere than expected.  Read about the research and hear from the scientists in this article from the University of Arizona, excerpts of which are also highlighted  below.  And High Country News wins the award for best headline of the day, “Good news for people who love bad news,” which contains even more information about the new research.  What does this new scientific research say about the validity of the oft-repeated claims from the timber industry and others that we have to cut down our forests so that we can”lock up” that carbon in 2 x 4’s?
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Massive tree die-offs release less carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought, new research led by the University of Arizona suggests.  Across the world, trees are dying in increasing numbers, most likely in the wake of a climate changing toward drier and warmer conditions, scientists suspect. In western North America, outbreaks of mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) have killed billions of trees from Mexico to Alaska over the last decade.

Given that large forested areas play crucial roles in taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis and turning it into biomass, an important question is what happens to that stored carbon when large numbers of trees die.

“The general expectation we had was that when trees die on a large scale, it would lead to a big pulse of carbon into the atmosphere through microorganisms metabolizing all that dead wood,” said David Moore, an assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and one of the lead authors of the study, which is published online in the journal Ecology Letters.

“A question we are looking to answer is, ‘How does the carbon dioxide released from the forest into the atmosphere change as you have large scale tree mortality over time?”’ said second lead author Nicole Trahan, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

According to co-author Russell Monson, who is the Louise Foucar Marshall Professor in the UA School of Natural Resources and the Environment, forests affect the carbon budget of the atmosphere through two dominant processes: photosynthesis, by which plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and lock it up in organic compounds, and respiration, by which plants and soil microbes release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. The balance of these processes determines whether a particular forest is a carbon source or a carbon sink.

After a massive tree die-off, conventional wisdom has it that a forest would go from carbon sink to carbon source: Since the soil microbes are still around, they are expected to release large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it is thought to accelerate climate change.

“Surprisingly, we couldn’t find a big pulse,” said Moore, who is also a member of the UA Institute of the Environment.

Trahan added: “In the first few years after beetles have come in and killed trees, the carbon release from the surrounding soil actually goes down.”

Large amounts of dead trees, it turns out, hold on to their carbon for a long time and prevent it from quickly being released into the soil or the atmosphere. According to Moore, this might be due to several reasons: First, while trees take up carbon dioxide during the day during photosynthesis, they release some of it at night when they switch to respiration.

“Once the trees are dead, respiration by the trees goes away,” Moore said. “In addition, if you cut off the carbon that a tree put into the soil while it was alive, you reduce the ability of the soil microbes around the roots to respire.”

“After five or six years, there is a buildup of some dead plant material, leaf litter and so on, and that seems to drive the rate of respiration up again. But it never recovers to the point it was before the beetles killed the trees, at least over the span of a decade,” Moore said.

Finally, the trees studied in this project grow at higher elevations, where cooler temperatures slow the decomposition process and thereby carbon-releasing respiration.

“Overall, we discovered that after a tree die-off, the loss of carbon in the soil results less from increased respiration by microbes but more from the fact that trees are no longer sequestering photosynthesized carbon into the soil,” Moore said. “There seems to be a dampening of the carbon cycle rather than a big pulse of carbon release. So even if the forest now goes from a sink to a source of carbon dioxide, it’s not as dramatic of an effect as we thought it would be.”

Wallowa-Whitman road closures still on hold one year later

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Actually, more than 6 years. Excerpt from an article in The Oregonian today:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/03/wallowa-whitman_road_closures.html

LA GRANDE — The U.S. Forest Service was on the verge of banning vehicles from 4,000 miles of road in Oregon’s largest national forest last April when fierce opposition from locals ground the plan to a halt.
A year later, there’s been little progress replacing the controversial “Travel Management Plan” for Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, which took six years to prepare. Jodi Kramer, a spokeswoman, said federal foresters want to head back to the drawing board but have set no timeline.

The folks in eastern Oregon who don’t want any roads or “roads” closed are probably thinking that they have at least another 6 years of open access. Makes one wonder about why the planning process took so long, and why the agency scrapped all that work in the face of complaints that were heard loud and clear during that planning process.

I wrote about “travel management planning” on the Wallowa-Whitman and other forests around the nation in the June 2012 edition of The Forestry Source, here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/saf/forestrysource_201206/index.php

The photo is courtesy of Richard Cockle/The Oregonian.

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“We’ve always done travel management, so it’s not something new,” said Forest Service associate deputy chief James M. Peña. “But we’re putting more focus on travel management to be more comprehensive and certainly to be more inclusive in how we make these decisions.”

 The agency felt some urgency to tackle Subpart B [of the travel-management planning rule] before taking on the other subparts, not only to slow an epidemic of unauthorized cross-country travel, but also to identify which existing roads and trails are open to travel and to specify which type of vehicles may use them and when they may do so.

 “One of the important things we’re trying to do with Subpart B—showing where it’s okay to go with off-highway vehicles—was to stop the proliferation of unauthorized roads,” Peña said. “In many areas the terrain is such that anybody can just drive cross country, and if people follow that route enough times, then you have a rough road. It’s not designed or established for the purpose—it just happens to be there because folks could go there.”

 Once the designations are completed, the forests have a basis for identify a minimum road system and roads that were unneeded or too expensive to maintain.

FWIW, I was mighty disappointed when the Mt. Hood NF closed and ripped a road I and many others used for camping, hunting, etc. It didn’t seem to be causing, of the cause of, any environmental damage, except for the trash some campers left.