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Sex in the workplace is a risky proposition at best. Between employees with different status positions, sexual relations are even less wise. When unwelcome or coerced, workplace sex is also illegal. While there’s room to debate whether Tooke acted illegally or broke workplace rules (I don’t think he did) by having consensual sex with a subordinate and supporting her professional advancement, there’s no disagreement that doing so showed very poor judgment. Because Tooke hasn’t been Chief long enough to know whether he’d be missed, I’m ambivalent about his continued tenure.

I’m more concerned with the collateral damage the retired Southern regional forester has done to the government’s confidential system for resolving sexual harassment and other employee-related conflicts and complaints. Ten years ago, the regional forester was Tooke’s superior, as far above him as he was above the employee he was sleeping with. She learned the facts of the Tooke affair, including the disciplinary action taken (a verbal reprimand — not good enough in her view) in the course of her official duties. The fact that Tooke received a reprimand at all is a confidential personnel matter. The fact that the Forest Service investigated Tooke’s sexual activities is a confidential personnel matter. Personnel information of this type is protected by law from disclosure. Whether retired or not, the regional forester had no right to disclose this confidential information to a U.S. Senator. That she could face criminal prosecution or civil damages for doing so is her brief, not mine.

It’s not just Tooke who has been harmed by the regional forester’s zeal to punish a Forest Service bad boy. The “young lady” she expresses concern for has had her privacy violated, too. The “young lady” did not ask to be a pawn in the regional forester’s #metoo tell-all. The “young lady” did not seek to out her former lover, nor did she claim harassment or harm. The government, and its agents (whether retired or not), are barred statutorily and constitutionally (4th Amendment) from investigating her intimate sexual relations or disclosing those facts to a politician or news media.

In her zeal to get Tooke, the regional forester has damaged the cause she claims to believe in. She has impeached the credibility of the Forest Service’s solemn promise that every employee’s personal and confidential information will remain secret — not spread all over tabloid pages, the halls of Congress, or this blog.

I await willieboat007’s response.

January 10 Washington Post story: “Interior plans to move thousands of workers in the biggest reorganization in its history.” In contrast to the OneUSDA initiative, this move would be consequential. The plan may require approval from Congress.

“The proposal would divide the United States into 13 regions and centralize authority for different parts of Interior within those boundaries. The regions would be defined by watersheds and geographic basins, rather than individual states and the current boundaries that now guide Interior’s operations. This new structure would be accompanied by a dramatic shift in location of the headquarters of major bureaus within Interior, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation.”

…

“If you look at the way we’re presently organized, all the bureaus under Interior have different regions . . . and are not aligned geographically,” Zinke said. For example, a single stream with trout and salmon can fall under the view of five separate agencies, one for each fish, another for a dam downstream and yet another to manage the water, and each generate reports that often conflict.”

It sure sort of, kind of, sounds that way.

Check out this piece from Outdoor Life:

The Sprague Fire that burned the [Sperry] chalet was part of a wider trend last summer that saw the worst fire season in Montana in 30 years. As we walk, Zinke points to the dense stand of Douglas fir on the slopes above [Glacier National Park’s Lake McDonald]. It’s an uninviting desert of same-aged trees, too thick to hike through, a monoculture unbroken by a larch or an aspen.

“Those trees are a fire waiting to happen. We spent $2 billion on fire suppression this year. We can’t afford to keep doing that. The first step in fire management has got to be prevention. The reality is that our climate is changing. We are having longer fire seasons, and fires are bigger and burn hotter. So we need to reduce the fuel load. We need proactive timber management, including using prescribed burns in times of the year when it makes sense.”

“Are you recommending that we log our national parks?” I ask Zinke. National parks are among the most restrictive of the many designations of land use in the Department of Interior’s 500-million-acre real-estate portfolio, a fifth of the nation’s land mass. You can’t hunt in national parks, there’s no resource development, and many other activities are categorically prohibited, including commercial logging.

His answer — I think — is contained in a looping, obtuse answer that characterizes much of our day-long conversation. The Secretary of the Interior tells me that in his meeting with Glacier’s administrators, he raised the question of timber management inside the park. Zinke wants to see more cutting and thinning, both to reduce the intensity of wildfire and to boost biodiversity in critical ecosystems.

“I had a parks administrator tell me that timber management wasn’t his priority, that his priority was managing visitors. I told him, ‘Then what do I need you for? If managing visitors is your only job, then all I need is a ticket-taker at the entrance gate.’ So many people get into park management because they’re preservationists. I’m a conservationist, and that means actually managing what we’re stewards of.”

In case you haven’t heard, bees are in serious trouble all around the world. If you like to eat food, that’s a big concern.

Turns out, researchers with Oregon State University are also finding that with increased wildfire severity they are also noticing a higher abundance of bees.

I have to wonder if that higher abundance of bees would also be found on corporate and industrial timber lands, which are often sprayed heavily with a cocktail of various pesticides and herbicides. My guess is not.

Get the full scoop here. Below are some snips:

“We’re looking at a few different (habitat) characteristics. And one of the big ones is canopy cover. In the moderate-high and high fire severity categories, there’s pretty low canopy cover. So you get more flowering plants that come in,” Oregon State University researcher Sara GalbraithGalbraith says.

In these places where more than 50 percent of the canopy burned, it’s also warmer and there’s potentially more nesting habitat. These aren’t hive-dwellers; these bees look for mineral soil to burrow into.

“The story so far has been pretty straightforward,” she says, “in that we’re finding that with increased disturbance at our sites — so increased fire severity — we get higher abundance of bees. And we also get more bee species.”…

“We have millions of acres of forests in Oregon that we’re managing. And at this point, we don’t have really good information about how those management practices influence bees. If I do ‘X’ how does that influence the number of bees and the species composition?” – Jim Rivers of the OSU Forest Animal Ecology Lab…

Study lead Sarah Galbraith is beginning to think about this possibility. She thinks there could be a critical link between native bees that live in forests and nearby farmland.

“By protecting our pollinators in the forest, we are potentially protecting our food security now and into the future.”

Yesterday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue abolished, in name only, the U.S. Forest Service. Also APHIS, FSA, NRCS, and every other agency under his purview: “From today forward, you will hear all of USDA leadership, from the Office of the Secretary on down, begin to refer to us as OneUSDA. Not as APHIS or as the Forest Service… not as Rural Development or as FAS… and not as distinct agencies sitting in the same office, like FSA, RMA, and NRCS.”

Turns out there is more than one OneUSDA. There’s the 2014 human resources One USDA, which “tries to keep it simple” with “a breath of fresh air that reminds us that sometimes simplicity is the way to go.” And the 2013 “One USDA speaking with One Voice” communications strategy. Then there’s the OneUSDA Digital Strategy, which will:

Ensure that data is open, accurate, clearly described, structured, machine-readable, and digital services are optimized for mobile use . . . Establish more agile acquisition and budget processes that support the procurement and management of digital technologies. . . . Develop additional guidance through policy to address open data, digital signatures, performance and customer satisfaction measurement, and mobile optimization . . . Refine and expand the use of enterprise data taxonomy to standardize commonly used data for business intelligence purposes . . . Develop open data strategy that addresses the framework for sharing critical information at key decision points throughout the entirety of the enterprise . . . Identify, prioritize, and modernize existing data that are not currently available to the public . . . Deploy a virtual dynamic inventory of open data at usda.gov/data, populated by digital agency data inventories . . . Deploy a virtual enterprise geospatial reference repository to promote data quality with metadata best practices, templates, conventions, and other USDA branding standards . . . Provide guidance and training to data SMEs to develop web APIs, structure unstructured content or information, and to incorporate customer feedback for product improvements.

Uh . . . okay.

Here at FSEEE (there is only one) we’ve started an office pool for the date on which a Forest Service receptionist answers the phone “OneUSDA.” You can join the fun by submitting your date in the comment section.

With so many participates of this blog living in Oregon, figured this presentation at the Eugene Garden Club on January 11 might be of interest.

The mission of the Coast Range Association is “To build just and sustainable communities that provide for people and the natural world.”

We’ve been discussing CO2 emissions from logging and wildfires. Now here’s an excerpt from Washington Post article, via the Yakima Herald, “Research shows smoke from wildfires could be surprisingly deadly.”

“Just like smokestacks and tailpipes, wildfires fill the air with the byproducts of combustion, including very dangerous small particles known as PM2.5, which can get into the lungs and bloodstream. A growing body of research has demonstrated that these particles degrade health and contribute to thousands of deaths each year in the U.S. alone by causing respiratory, cardiovascular and other health problems.

“So just how deadly is the smoke from wildfires? While the numbers presented are definitely preliminary, they suggest the cost could be severe indeed.

“Pierce presented the highest numbers at the meeting. He estimates that 5,000 to 25,000 people in the U.S. may die each year from PM2.5 that specifically comes from the smoke of wildfires burning in the U.S. and nearby countries such as Canada.”

FWIW, some perspective. In 2014, the World Health Organization reported that “Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year” primarily through malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, and heat stress. However, in that same year WHO also reported that “indoor air pollution was linked to 4.3 million deaths in 2012 in households cooking over coal, wood, and biomass stoves.” [emphasis mine]

Article from a radio station in Montana….

Summer Wildfires Severely Affected Montana Recreation Industry

Last summer’s wildfires made for big headlines in the media, but the resulting destruction and smoke combined to keep out-of-state visitors away, and with them, millions of dollars in lost income.

Director of the University of Montana Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research, Norma Nickerson said the fires had a significant negative impact on tourism.

“In terms of our nonresident visitation, those fires potentially made us lose up to 800,000 out of state visitors to Montana with an equivalent of about $240 million dollars their spending around out state,” said Nickerson, who was also surprised to discover how most of those who chose not to visit found out about the wildfires. “It was a wide range of outlets, but the majority of them were saying that they looked at air quality reports. So, they obviously knew about the fires, and so they wanted to check and see how it affected the air quality. There was also a little bit of talking with friends and relatives that they had in the state, and that was a significant part of their decision.”

Sixty-nine percent of adults in Montana said the smoke affected their outdoor activities. This included 90 percent of those respondents saying activities such as hiking and fishing were occasionally or frequently affected and 75 percent who indicated their outdoor fitness activities were impacted due to smoke.

Nickerson said the information in her report is being passed on to other state officials who are closely involved with forest management.

“This was a long fire season, and that was probably the scariest part of it,” she said. “The climate scientists are saying that this is going to be our future, the ‘new normal’, so what can we do? That’s the discussion that needs to take place.”

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
Contact: (202) 205-1005
Twitter: @forestservice 

Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture reflects on year of progress

WASHINGTON, Dec 20, 2017 — The Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, today highlighted some of the agency’s accomplishments during 2017 to improve the productivity, uses, and sustainability of national forests and grasslands.

“Our accomplishments this year demonstrate the Forest Service’s strong commitment to improving the economic health of rural communities; ensuring lands and watersheds are sustainable, healthy and productive; and mitigating wildfire risk,” said Forest Service Chief Tony Tooke. “As the Forest Service moves into 2018, our priorities will continue to tie directly to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s strategic vision for the Department.”

Here are a few highlights of Forest Service accomplishments during 2017, derived from and inspired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s strategic goals:

Improved the Conditions of America’s Forests

• Employed the full suite of treatments and tools to improve conditions on more than 2.7 million acres of forestland. This work helped reduce fire severity and increase resilience;
• Harvested more than 2.9 billion board feet of wood, leading to improved forest conditions and contributing wood products to local economies;
• Used Farm Bill authorities to work on 60 projects addressing insect and disease infestations and partner with 35 states on restoration projects.

Worked toward a Fix to Fire Funding

• USDA informed members of a national coalition on the impacts of the high costs of suppressing wildfire totaling $2.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2017 alone.
• Built bipartisan support with key Congressional leaders to develop innovative options that fix the two-pronged problem of fire transfer and growing suppression costs;

Implemented the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy

• Treated more than 1.3 million high priority acres nationwide to reduce fire risk and improve forest conditions. Agency personnel focused on areas with communities, areas of high fire potential, and areas where risk could most effectively be alleviated;
• Increased wildfire mitigation efforts in high-risk communities through partnerships with organizations such as the Fire-Adapted Communities Coalition and The Nature Conservancy;
• Improved 1.33 million acres of wildlife habitat, and treated over 73,600 acres for noxious weeds and invasive plants;

Responded to Record Wildfires and Hurricanes

• Confronted wildland fires that started in the Southeast and continued through the year in the Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Intermountain West and Pacific Northwest.  At peak season, more than 28,000 personnel were dispatched to fires, along with aircraft and other emergency response resources;
• Responded during three hurricane events; Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Dispatched highly skilled crews, incident management teams, and Law Enforcement Officers to Puerto Rico to rapidly clear roads, remove debris and protect public safety in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

The mission of the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.

My first experiences with difficulties accessing Forest Service land occurred while hiking and camping. A road would look on the map as if it were a public road, but there would be signs that said “private road.” I never thought of it as a broader issue, but once we were invited on a rare and wonderful field trip from the Regional Office to the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, to a district where this happens quite a bit. I wrote about this in a previous blog post here in 2011.

What I heard from folks on the AR was:

If you talk to them, you will find out some of the problems facing public lands-neighbors attempting to cut off access to the public, through
land exchanges, trespass and subsequently being granted the land through efforts of their Congresspeople, putting gates on public roads, signing public roads as private, removing Forest Service signs, and probably other approaches I have not yet heard about.

On the field trip, we heard about a couple of different issues:
Neighbors trying to keep people from legally accessing federal land through signage and illegal fencing.
Land exchanges and trespass settlements that effectively cut off public access.

But there are also issues that I heard about later from reading:
Access roads not existing in the first place.
Owners of property not agreeing that the FS access is legally OK.

Here is a quote about capacity to deal with access issues in Montana in a 2015 High Country News article here:

But the bad news is that partnerships are becoming more necessary as the Forest Service is hit with tighter budgets and staff reductions. Dennee can remember a time, as recently as a decade ago, when each of Montana’s eight national forests had a lands specialist dedicated to improving and safeguarding public access. Now only three staffers oversee access issues for the national forests and grasslands extending over the greater part of Montana and into North and South Dakota. Meanwhile, younger staffers coming up through the ranks lack the necessary expertise, he says.

“We have (many) willing landowners who want to work with us to resolve access needs,” Dennee told me, “but we can’t keep up with the demand.”

I’ve also previously written about this Montana group, the Public Lands and Waters Association, that specifically works on this issue.

Finally, I found this 2013 report “Landlocked: Measuring Public Lands Access in the West” from the Center for Western Priorities, which includes the map above.

So here’s my question: everything I’ve found so far is about the Rocky Mountain or intermountain west. Do these kinds of access issues (especially those with adjacent landowners) with National Forest land occur in California, Oregon, Washington or in the North Central, Eastern or Southern States? I am looking for personal experiences or studies, from employees, retirees or the public. Any help would be greatly appreciated!