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June 12 press release:

USDA Proposes Bold Moves to Improve Forest, Grassland Management

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service (USFS) released proposed changes to modernize how the agency complies with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The proposed updates would not only give the Forest Service the tools and flexibility to manage the land and tackle critical challenges like wildfire, insects, and disease but also improve service to the American people. Revising the rules will improve forest conditions and make it simpler for people to use and enjoy their national forests and grasslands at lower cost to the taxpayer. The revised rules will also make it easier to maintain and repair the infrastructure people need to use and enjoy their public lands—the roads, trails, campgrounds, and other facilities.

While these proposed changes will save time and resources, they are ultimately intended to better protect people, communities and forests from catastrophic wildfire and ensure a high level of engagement with people and communities when doing related work and associated environmental analyses.

From the FAQ:

The CEs covered in the proposed rule fall into three general categories: (1) those covering restoration activities, (2) those covering infrastructure activities, and (3) those covering special uses. Some examples of the types of work that could be approved, based on hundreds of analyzed environmental assessments, are listed below.

Restoration projects— Removing trees affected by insects or disease through commercial timber harvest in combination with stream restoration in a 4,200-acre area to improve forest health and watershed conditions is one example of a restoration project. Restoration projects could also include reducing overgrown areas around a community and improving wildlife habitat through mechanical thinning and use of prescribed burning. 

To read the full article from Dr. John Talberth, President and Senior Economist at the Center for Sustainable Economy, click here. Below is Dr. Talberth’s intro:

Extractive industries have proven adept at generating record profits, then using those same profits to protect themselves from any responsibility for cleaning up the mess they leave behind. Oregon’s timber industry is a case in point: it is the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state, the biggest threat to clean drinking water supplies, and the biggest source of wildfire risk as climate change unfolds. Yet, as Oregon’s “Clean Energy Jobs” bill (HB 2020) moves out of the House and heads to the Senate, the timber industry has not only shielded itself from any restrictions, it is now being rewarded with new subsidies to add to the several hundred million dollars a year it already receives.

On June 13, 2019, the timber industry secured a late stage amendment to HB 2020, introduced by Senate President Peter Courtney (D-District 11), that ensures “wood products manufacturing facilities” do not suffer any “permanent or temporary” reductions in the “supply of wood fiber” in the carbon offsets protocols of HB 2020. This amendment is a supply side subsidy that will keep log prices down and wood to mills flowing at roughly the same pace as now. Any reductions in logging associated with forest carbon offsets would have to be made up for by increased logging elsewhere. In the technical language of offset markets, this phenomenon is called “leakage,” and is a basis for invalidating any offset proposals that do not actually result in less logging.

Slowing down the pace of clearcutting to let forests grow longer and their soils mature so they can soak up more carbon, scientists say, is one of the most important natural climate solutions we have at our immediate disposal. Yet Courtney’s amendment does the opposite: It will make our forest offsets program even worse and more ineffective than California’s.

UPDATE: ‘Militia threat’ shuts down Oregon statehouse

SALEM — A “possible militia threat” is shutting down the Oregon statehouse amid an ongoing walkout by Republican lawmakers who are blocking a vote on landmark climate change legislation with their absence.

A spokeswoman for the Senate President confirmed late Friday that the “Oregon State Police has recommended that the Capitol be closed tomorrow due to a possible militia threat.”

Gov. Kate Brown has deployed the state police to round up Republican senators who fled the Legislature — and in some cases, the state — to thwart passage of a climate proposal that would dramatically lower fossil fuel emissions by 2050.

Right-wing militia groups said they would protest at the Capitol on Saturday as lawmakers convened.

It’s unclear if the “militia threat” was related to the protest or is something additional.

Mike Archer had this item in his Wildfire News Of The Day newsletter on June 18, from High Country News:

The rise of wildfire-resilient communities
As fire seasons become longer and deadlier, communities turn to urban planning to combat dangers.

The 2017 fire season, at 665,000 acres burned, was the worst Oregon had seen, according to the Oregon Forest Resources Institute. The next year, a community coalition of city council members, fire managers and city planners from Sisters enrolled in the Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire program (CPAW), a federal program designed to reduce wildfire risk through improved land use planning.

Through a coordinated team of land-use planners, foresters, economists and wildfire risk modelers, CPAW, funded by the U.S. Forest Service, integrates land-use planning with fire management to help communities draft a customized plan to reduce wildfire dangers.

Community fire adaptation has been one of the more popular approaches the Forest Service has funded and promoted in the past decade, according to Pam Leshack, the national program manager of the agency’s fire-adapted communities and wildland-urban interface programs. The federal government has moved away from solely educating communities about fire dangers and towards a holistic, localized approach, she said.

…

But this combination of land-use planning and forest management can be an effective tool for mitigating the wildfire damage to a community, according to John Bailey, professor of fire management at Oregon State University. Communities can be at the mercy of fires without local urban planning and forest management, with support from the state and federal level, Bailey said. “We’re going to have to make changes,” he said. “You have to acknowledge that’s where you’re living and plan for it. Then we can adapt.”

The article from Sacramento TV station KCRA is about the French Meadows project on the Tahoe National Forest. I think we’ll see many more such collaborative projects aimed at protecting water supplies.

Work is scheduled to begin this week on a first-of-its-kind partnership to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire around essential drinking water supplies stored in the Sierra.

“This is the first time Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds from the state’s carbon tax are being put back into a watershed to reduce emissions from catastrophic wildfire,” said Andrew Fecko of the Placer County Water Agency.

The partnership includes a unique collaboration between public agencies including, the U.S. Forest Service, Placer County Water Agency, the County of Placer, community organizations like The Nature Conservancy and private business, including Coca-Cola and Anheuser Busch.

…

Researchers from UC Merced are providing information about optimal forest densities for current and future climate conditions.

The Nature Conservancy is also leading research to monitor the impact of forest thinning on future fire behavior.

The decision notice and FONSI states that the project involves “a variety of forest restoration treatments, including mechanical thinning, mastication, hand thinning, reforestation, and use of prescribed fire, will be conducted on a total of approximately 12,183 acres in specific locations. Treatments are designed to reduce potential wildfire intensity and severity, reduce accumulation of surface and ladder fuels, improve forest health and resiliency, and enhance structure and function of forested lands across a broad landscape on National Forest System lands in the French Meadows Project area.”

Yes, commercial harvesting is one element of the plan: 8.4 MMBF of sawlogs and 7,000 bone-dry tons of biomass, and all live conifers 30 inches dbh and larger would be retained.

It’s more than lumber markets and trade. Article in Canada’s Financial Post yesterday:

Trouble in timberland: How pine beetles and fires are gutting B.C.’s forestry sector

Deep in the tree-studded interior of British Columbia, the tiny town of Clearwater is facing a problem that’s sweeping across the province: Surrounded by nothing but trees, somehow, there isn’t enough timber to support a local sawmill.

This summer, for the first time in decades, the town of around 2,000 people — about a five-hour drive northeast of Vancouver — won’t have a mill to anchor its local economy, as Canfor Corp. plans to mothball its nearby Vavenby operation in July.

It’s a situation that’s been years in the making, as the ravenous mountain pine beetle population exploded thanks to warmer winters, which in combination with record fires, destroyed huge swaths of forests. Now, there are too many mills in B.C. and not enough supply to feed them all.

Also, “A new bill by the B.C. government has added to the industry’s woes.”

“…in May, after B.C. legislators passed Bill 22, which creates a new obligation for companies to demonstrate a “public interest” before they can sell or transfer their licenses to harvest timber from provincial land in a specific geographic area.”

Below is part of a press release from Enhancing Montana’s Wildlife & Habitat and others concerning an issue that’s been getting lots of attention in Montana.

HELENA, Mont. – A coalition of conservation-based groups filed a lawsuit on June 10 against the U.S. Forest Service to maintain traditional public access opportunities in the Crazy Mountains of Montana.

The groups’ challenge hinges on the Forest Service’s continued lack of progress and unresponsiveness in maintaining the public’s right to access public lands and waters in the Crazy Mountains. In February, the coalition submitted a letter to the Forest Service summarizing concerns over public access in the Crazies and notifying the agency of its intent to sue should access issues fail to be resolved.

“The upper levels of the Forest Service chose not to respond or address our local public access concerns and repeated complaints of obstruction,” said Brad Wilson of Friends of the Crazy Mountains, a retired Park County assistant road supervisor and deputy sheriff. “Due to the Forest Service’s negligence, we had no choice but to appeal to the court.”

The coalition contends that the public, has longstanding and permanent public access to Montana’s Crazy Mountains. The lawsuit charges that until recently the Forest Service supported and maintained the public’s access to the trails, but certain Forest Service leaders now are abdicating their duty to protect and preserve public access there. The suit specifies four trails, two on the west side and two on the east side of the mountain range, that are mapped as public trails, are well known and have been traditionally used by the public but where certain landowners now are illegally and impermissibly attempting to deny public access (Porcupine Lowline #267, Elk Creek #195, East Trunk #115/136 and Sweet Grass #122).

“Hearing about attempts to obstruct public access in the Crazy Mountains, I began over 1,100 hours of documentation, FOIA requests to the Forest Service, and historical research that verified these trails are public,” said Kathryn QannaYahu of EMWH. “Especially compelling were the county railroad grant deeds of private land, containing the words ‘easement in the public.’ What I found angered me, because the public has easement interests on these four trails, which the Service isn’t protecting on our behalf. On the contrary, they’re allowing certain landowners to attempt to obstruct public access and undermine my and the public’s ability to access historic trials in the Crazy Mountains.”

In a response to Sen. Steve Daines dated Oct. 2, 2015, Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson wrote, “The Forest Service maintains that it holds unperfected prescriptive rights on this trail system, as well as up Sweet Grass Creek to the north based on a history of maintenance with public funds and historic and continued public and administrative use.”

“The Forest Service is bound to do its job and maintain access to these trails,” said Matthew Bishop of the Western Environmental Law Center. “It’s just that simple. This means managing and maintaining the trails, replacing and reinstalling national forest trail markers and signs, and ensuring public access on our public trails in the Crazy Mountains.”

In the words of the Forest Service’s own attorneys regarding one of these trails: “Indeed, it would be irresponsible of the Forest Service to simply abandon these easement rights or fail to reflect their existence in the travel plan simply to avoid the souring of relationships between landowners and recreational groups.”

Photos and maps of the trails are available here.

Crazy Mountains Public Access FAQs

Op-ed in the Eugene Register-Guard. Several points are worthy of discussion, such as this one:

“The BLM Shotcash timber sale violates the spirit of the 1937 O&C Sustained Yield Act….”

The spirit of the O&C Act was — and still is — sustained yield. That is, the sustained yield. BLM isn’t coming close to that level of harvest. Some would say that is a violation of the spirit of the act.

A Good Neighbor Authority story from Montana Public Radio.

The Lolo National Forest wants to partner with the State of Montana on a pair of so-called Good Neighbor Authority projects to log about 5,000 acres of Forest Service land near Seeley Lake.

A photo with the article shows a Pyramid Mountain Lumber billboard that reads, Now Hiring. Starting wage $16.08.

E&E  News today:

The Western Governors’ Association today adopted a resolution urging Congress to simplify federal-state land exchanges and circumvent the “complex regulatory requirements” of existing laws including the National Environmental Policy Act.

The measure is one of four resolutions the association, which represents 19 states and three U.S. territories, approved at its annual meeting. The coalition also addressed invasive species, the National Park Service’s deferred maintenance backlog, and conservation of fish and wildlife migration corridors.

In its new policy statement on land exchanges and purchases, WGA called for new laws to ease the impact of “checkerboard land ownership” across Western states.

“Federal and state land managers, land users, the environmental community and the public all agree that the checkerboard land ownership pattern is a major hindrance to effective and ecologically sound management of both federal and state lands,” the resolution states.

From my experience as a county forest advisory group member, I applaud efforts to make relatively small transfers easier. Trading similar parcels — say, of up to 640 acres, usually less — can take years, or is virtually impossible. It’s a bit easier with the BLM.

Here’s the latest press release from the San Juan Citizens Alliance, Wilderness Watch and Great Old Broads for Wilderness. It’s an update from the post on May 22, which can be viewed here.

Conservation Groups Applaud Forest Service Decision Rescinding Approval of Chainsaws in Wilderness

For Release: June 11, 2019

Denver, CO – Conservation organizations that filed a lawsuit against the United States Forest Service for their secretive approval to allow chainsaws in two southwestern Colorado Wilderness areas this summer are pleased that the agency has officially rescinded the ill-advised policy.

The Wilderness Act prohibits the use of motorized equipment except for in emergency situations. The groups argued that the inconvenience of obstructed trails did not qualify as an emergency and the policy would set a dangerous precedent, paving the way for future exemptions from the law. Current and former wilderness rangers for the agency spoke out against the policy, stating it was illegal and unnecessary. Heavily obstructed trails have been cleared using crosscut saws for more than 50 years.

“We’re pleased that in light of overwhelming public opposition the Regional Forester decided to withdraw his unlawful decision to use chainsaws in these Wildernesses,” stated George Nickas of Wilderness Watch. “We encourage the Forest Service to use its time between now and next year to develop a plan that comports with both the letter and spirit of the Wilderness Act.”

The groups expect the Forest Service to re-evaluate how it can clear Wilderness trails in a manner that complies with the Wilderness Act and explore available volunteer and community resources to help them succeed.

“The Weminuche and South San Juan Wildernesses are wild and remote landscapes cherished by countless visitors and local residents. We urge the Forest Service to embrace management that elevates the defining wilderness character of these special places,” said Mark Pearson with San Juan Citizens Alliance.