Seriously. Bonner County, Idaho is holding an advisory vote on whether its residents want the Scotchman Peaks area to be designated as Wilderness. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, has indicated he will follow the advisory vote result.
One one hand, this is a good way to get information about policy preferences that opinion polls and candidate elections may not. But really, how much weight should one county’s vote carry in making decisions about national forests?
Here’s a detailed fact-check developed to help voters. Importantly, this area has been recommended for Wilderness in the Idaho Panhandle and Kootenai revised forest plans. Watch for the results of the referendum on the May 15 primary ballot.
The results of a new poll show that a majority — 57 percent — of Montanans wanted WSAs to continue to be protected, and another 24 percent said they wanted a more case-by-case review of how the areas should be used.
Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte, both Republicans, have introduced bills in Congress to open up areas now protected as WSAs.
The University of Montana’s Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone Initiative commissioned the poll of 500 Montana voters and hired both Republican and Democratic firms to conduct the survey. It found that only 11 percent of those polled favored Gianforte’s proposal to eliminate protections for 29 WSAs.
“They were opting for something other than what’s proposed in Congress,” said pollster Lori Weigel, who led the Republican half of the bipartisan polling team.
Daines and Gianforte discounted the poll, noting they had the support of local county commissions for their legislation.
Obviously the county commissions did not get this support from their constituents, and they have been accused of selective listening.
Daines’ staff challenged the validity of the poll.
David Parker, a Montana State University political science professor, said after reviewing the survey questions, “I object to the notion it’s a push poll. It’s pretty innocuous the way it’s worded.”
Parker said the UM poll appeared consistent with other regional surveys showing strong bipartisan support for public land protection.
I guess this is what happens when a popular issue is not a high priority for voters. You look the other way on the environment and vote for someone who’ll give you your tax cut.
Here’s a summary of some of the other findings of the survey – including:
When asked by the pollsters if they would support or oppose dedicating additional, existing public lands as wilderness areas in Montana, 57 percent expressed support and 35 percent said they would be opposed.
Grant County New Mexico ranchers have sued the Forest Service over grazing rights and the county commissioners are considering suing over a travel plan. However, they have recently aimed their fire in another direction, at the Air Force, apparently to protect the Gila National Forest from planned overflights.
The Air Force is in the early stages — what lead airspace analyst Alan Shafer called “the end of the beginning” — of developing an environmental impact statement, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, for three alternative areas in which to fly the F-16s. One of those alternatives is located over a vaguely defined swath of airspace over the Gila National Forest, near Grant County communities as well as over sections of the Gila and Aldo Wilderness areas.
When area residents discovered this alternative was being considered, hundreds quickly took up a call against the possibility. Shafer said so many Grant County residents commented, in fact, that their numbers overshadow those from anywhere else in the state — whether those commenters live near identified alternatives or not.
“We have, probably by a factor of ten, more comments from this area than any other,” Shafer told the large crowd on Thursday, which filled one of the ballrooms at the Grant County Veterans Memorial Business and Conference Center. “I understand what you’re saying and how important the Gila National Forest and wilderness area are to you.
It sounds like the Air Force was successful at getting a wide range of national forest interests to come together and fight a common enemy. (Or maybe the “airspace analyst” just wasn’t very good at reading the crowd’s interests.) Interestingly, there was nothing on the Gila National Forest website about it, including any indication of their role or whether they would take a position.
“In early 2016 the Wyoming County Commissioners Association (WCCA) organized the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative (WPLI). The WPLI is a collaborative, county-led process intended to designate WSAs as wilderness, multiple use, or other management. The result will be one state-wide legislative lands package that is broadly supported by public lands stakeholders in Wyoming.”
It always makes me a little nervous when a local “collaborative” (or local government) feels empowered to dictate federal land policies (especially where, as in this case, there is a county plan that purports to “guide … the management of public lands” – implicitly federal lands). On the other hand, it’s always helpful to land managers if those with opposing views can work out and recommend something they all agree on. With wilderness designation decisions there is the added layer of Congress having to take a national look before approving a decision. In this case there are also national conservation groups represented in the collaborative, as well as local ones. But there is also a lawsuit by other conservation groups, and apparently someone on the other side ran to the local Congresswoman who is meddling, so the county commissioners are asking for a “time-out.” Here’s the latest.
It looks like the Forest has at least two alternatives now for wilderness recommendations, with competing proposals from a local wilderness group and a “partnership”that includes a state wilderness group. (What should count more, local or collaborative?). An interesting comment from the local group:
“I recently met with the Custer/Gallatin National Forest supervisor regarding the forest plan revision available for public comment. She cautioned me to limit my comments to science-based concerns rather than value-based. I have a problem with that.”
That disagreement sounds like one we have discussed before.
Then you’ve got bison (and protesters). It’s a pretty unique situation, but triggers the standard requirement for the Forest to determine if there is substantial concern about their persistence in the plan area, which would require them to be formally treated as a species of conservation concern and maintain habitat for a viable population. They can’t just say they’ll do whatever the state wants, or whatever the Park Service wants, or assume that those other parties would ensure that the species persists on the Forest.
The Ten Cent Community Wildfire Protection Plan led to a fuel treatment proposal on the Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests that included prescribed burning in the North Fork John Day Wilderness Area. Objections included alleged violations of the Wilderness Act. The objection decision included the following description of the process and requirements to conduct prescribed burning in wilderness.
The first two conditions that must be met are that “use of prescribed fire or other fuel treatment
measures outside of wilderness is not sufficient to achieve fire management objectives within
wilderness”. FSM 2324.22. A Minimum Requirements Decision Guide (MRDG) was prepared that determined that use of prescribed fire or other fuel treatment measures outside wilderness would not be sufficient. FEIS at 404. The second condition that must be met is that “an interdisciplinary team of resource specialists has evaluated and recommended the proposed use of prescribed fire”. FSM 2324.22. The proposal was developed by a team of interdisciplinary specialists. FEIS at 3. The third condition that must be met is that “the interested public has been involved appropriately in the decision”. FSM 2324.22. The public was provided opportunity to comment on the proposed action and draft EIS. Draft ROD at 8-9. The final condition that must be met is that “Lightning-caused fires cannot be allowed to burn because they will pose serious threats to life and/or property within wilderness or to life, property, or natural resources outside of wilderness”. FSM 2324.22. The MRDG documents the current situation in which natural ignitions in wilderness are suppressed to protect life, property, or natural resources outside of wilderness, including adjacent private residences and communities. FEIS at 403. The final condition to be met is that there must be objectives, standards, and guidelines for the use of prescribed fire specific to the wilderness area in a forest plan, interim wilderness management plan, or fire management area plan. FSM 2324.22. The North Fork John Day Wilderness Action Plan specifies that vegetative changes resulting from prescribed fire would not be considered unacceptable changes in forest cover or visual/scenic quality. LRMP at B-2, FEIS at 215.
Finally, policy specifies that manager-ignited fire should not be used where lightning-caused fire can achieve wilderness fire management objectives. FSM 2324.22. The history of fire suppression in the North Fork John Day Wilderness and resulting fuel loading have led to the current situation in which lightning-caused fires are not likely to achieve the second wilderness fire management objective (“Reduce, to an acceptable level, the risks and consequences of wildfire within wilderness or escaping from wilderness.” FSM 2324.21). FEIS at 403. Currently, these risks and consequences within wilderness include the likelihood that “when a fire does occur, it will be of high severity consuming most vegetation and soil cover” and “could potentially remove cover for big game, produce an influx of sediment into anadromous fish spawning habitat, and increase water temperatures due to loss of shade” as well as limit opportunities for primitive recreation. FEIS at 215, 403, 406 and 436.
The decision was then modified to eliminate the wilderness burning, and the rationale was “once areas outside the wilderness are treated, agency administrators may select to manage natural ignitions differently (e.g. confine and contain strategy) inside the North Fork John Day Wilderness to further meet the project purpose and need and improving the naturalness component of wilderness character.” The bottom line is that a “minimum requirements” analysis could allow intentional burning of a wilderness area without violating the Wilderness Act, but the objection process overruled those findings in this case and found that it was not necessary. Given that suppression is allowed in wilderness areas, I don’t automatically see a problem with using prescribed fire to offset that (so I guess I’m not a wilderness purist). (And someone might even say that logging could be good for wilderness.)
(Mentioned by Brian Hawthorne here, with links to an article and the opinion.)
This case was about the decision in the 2015 revised Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle National Forest plans to recommend (to Congress) areas for wilderness and to manage them to protect their wilderness values. The Montana district court upheld the forests’ wilderness evaluation methodology, and their decision that effects on several wildlife species warranted prohibition of motorized and mechanized activities in the recommended wilderness areas (RWAs). It also reiterated precedents that the Forest Service may choose to manage non-wilderness areas similar to designated wilderness. It found that the EISs included proper no-action alternatives, and that the Kootenai properly coordinated with the Glen Lake Irrigation District (and did not have to be consistent with their “Natural Resource Plan.”)
Existing policy is that areas recommended for wilderness designation will be managed to prohibit activities that would “reduce the wilderness potential” or “compromise the wilderness values” of the area. At issue is the role that Forest Service Region 1 policy played in the decision to exclude over-snow vehicles and mechanized use from these areas; specifically whether it improperly influenced the required site-specific analysis for each area. Plaintiffs argued that the policy “created an inflexible prohibition of all motorized and mechanized travel in the RWAs.” The court found this argument to be “unfounded and purely speculative,” and, “The record demonstrates that the FEIS in the Kootenai and Panhandle Forests considered site-specific impacts of motorized and mechanized vehicles.”
Plaintiffs also challenged decisions to manage areas as recommended wild and scenic rivers. The court found that the Forest Service violated NEPA by including two creeks that had not been considered in any alternatives in the planning process prior to the final Record of Decision, which was after the public objection process. It remanded the Kootenai plan for the narrowly defined purpose of providing an objection period for that decision for these areas. It did not require a supplemental EIS because the area involved was 0.1% of the national forest which constituted “a minor variation that was qualitatively within the spectrum of alternatives that were discussed in the FEIS.” It did agree with the Forest Service that the creeks meet the requirements of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to be considered eligible.
A federal judge in Reno ruled against rural Elko County this week — again — and closed the 18-year-old case stemming from a sometimes volatile feud over the road in remote wilderness near the Idaho line.
It began in 1999 when the Clinton administration filed suit against then-Nevada Assemblyman John Carpenter, one of the leaders of a “Shovel Brigade.” They had vowed to rebuild a washed out road near threatened fish habitat along the Jarbidge River in defiance of the government. Carpenter and one of his lawyers, Grant Gerber, have since died.
The county claimed it owned the road under a Civil War-era law that granted state and local governments’ rights of way to existing roads in places where national forests and parks later were established.
The so-called “R.S. 2477 roads” — named after the statute number — became a lightning rod for property rights advocates and anti-federal forces in the 1990s, with similar court battles in Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon and New Mexico.
Like other cases, the federal government denied Elko County’s claim it owned the road before the Humboldt National Forest was established in 1909.
But the Nevada case is unique because, despite the government’s position, the Forest Service signed an agreement with the county in 2001 that said it wouldn’t challenge the county’s alleged right of way.
It looks like the court held that 1) the county did not prove that it owned the road prior to the establishment of the national forest, and 2) the Forest Service could not violate the law by giving away federal land rights though a settlement agreement. (Of course the county could again appeal this ruling to the 9th Circuit.)
Severe blowdown in the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness and adjacent areas.
It might be illustrative (and encouraging!) to look at landscape scale fuel treatment strategies that did work- when all the forces are aligned- and what it takes to get things done and the effects. It’s also interesting to take the discussion (with the same elements, prescribed fire, mechanical fuel treatments, wildfires) away from the western US. Oh, and this one has Wilderness to add to the complexity.
Let’s look at a success for an All of the Above Strategy and how it happened. Remember 1999 and the 500,000 acres blowdown event that occurred in Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness?
The obstacles to preparing and planning for the fire seasons to come were formidable. First, they needed to develop an entirely different set of suppression responses. The sheer scale of downed timber made it difficult to move around in the blow-down. This created conditions that negated the effectiveness of most direct attack strategies. The fire management personnel had to develop a set of ‘check and hold’ techniques. Also, the potential size of a blaze and the threat it could pose to communities and lands outside the forest meant that emergency response would
involve local, State, and federal resources. Extensive planning and coordination was required.
Second, the Forest needed to implement large-scale, landscape level fuel treatments and they needed to do it as quick as possible. This was made more difficult by the fact that most of the blow-down was in the nation’s most popular Wilderness area with a local economy dependent on uninterrupted access to the backcountry. There would have to be new levels of cooperation and communication established with the
local communities that would be the most impacted by the fuel treatments.
The fuel loading was beyond the experience of the land managers and fire personnel on the Superior; and they needed a quick upgrade in skills and training to do able to do the large-scale fuel treatments, primarily large acreage prescribed burns. Again, they had to develop interagency and public/private partnerships that were only loosely organized at the time of the blow-down.
The Forest quickly requested and received alternative NEPA procedures from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the White House allowing expedited salvage logging, mechanical fuel treatment, and prescribed fire in the area around the Gunflint Corridor. This allowed the land
management staff to get a quick jump on the work that needed to be done. The National Forest staff made a conscious effort not to short-circuit any of the regular public involvement procedures. They held tours. They conducted pubic meetings. And, they established a monitoring board to oversee the fuel reduction efforts. But, most importantly, they got to work.
Here’s a description of how it worked and the results in the Cavity Lake Fire in Advances in Fire Practice. Here’s the a fuel treatment effectiveness report.
Here’s a couple of possible observations of why things worked so well:
(1) Alignment among federal agencies (and state and local)
(2) Sense of urgency
(3) Budget
(4)”Leadership” (this is in quotes because it’s a bit fuzzy wuzzy for me, would like to understand more about what this means and how it plays out).
(5) Focus (a bit like fire suppression, a clear sense of priorities)
I’d be very interested to hear from people who participated in this project and their views.
Taking this story about the Pisgah National Forest at face value, it raises the question of what kind of management is appropriate while a national forest is revising its forest plan. We just looked at another example of how the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest appeared to be anticipating changes that would result from its revised plan, possibly requiring a plan amendment to do so if the proposed project is not consistent with the current plan.
Here, let’s assume that the project to log an area that the locals want to be wilderness is consistent with the current plan, but it would be inconsistent with alternatives being considered for plan revision (normally there would be a forest plan alternative with all potential wilderness areas recommended for wilderness). NEPA addresses this situation: “Agencies shall not commit resources prejudicing selection of alternatives before making a final decision” (40 §CFR 1502.2(f)). However, for a “program environmental impact statement” that is in progress, it implies an exception for where activities are “covered by an existing program statement” (40 CFR §1506.1(c)); it actually restricts actions where they are NOT covered by a plan EIS and is silent on where they are.
I have sometimes wondered if the project planning teams and the forest planning team are talking to each other. It certainly doesn’t look good when they seem to be working at cross-purposes, and it could be illegal.
