workforce

Howdy, Folks

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I’m just going to drop this here. A side by side comparison of the land that some serial litigators insist is clear evidence of Forest Service salvage clearcutting in the Rim Fire. The caption reads, “Post-fire clearcutting on the Stanislaus National Forest in the Rim fire area, eliminated the wildlife-rich snag habitat and left only stump fields.” Where is the “wildlife-rich snag habitat” in that burned-over plantation on private land? The picture on the right is before logging started, from Google Maps.

Yes, the story is still up on their website, in all its slanderous glory.

Have a nice day!

Spi-comparison

Career Ladders for Temps?!?! Maybe Soon!

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More interesting news for “disposable” employees!

campbell_fire1-webhttp://nffe.org/ht/display/ArticleDetails/i/105694

NFFE-Backed Temporary Employment Reform Legislation Approved by Senate Committee

There may come a time when temporary employees actually have a career ladder!

“Thousands of wildland firefighters and other dedicated seasonal workers have been stuck for too long in dead-end jobs, not because of a lack of merit on their parts, but because of flawed regulations that do not recognize their years of service,” said Mark Davis, Vice President of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) and past President of the NFFE Forest Service Council.  “Many others leave and take their years of experience with them because of blocked career paths. After years of work, I’m optimistic that we are about to fix that.”

Of course, this is most directed towards firefighters, as so many timber temps have been jettisoned or have found “other employment”. Most temps would say that there is plenty of work to do, outside of their 1039 appointments but, that issue is not being addressed. The higher-ups choose to continue to embrace the 1039 appointments, thinking that policy is “good enough for Government work”. There really is nothing stopping the Forest Service from changing their policies on 1039 appointments. Truthfully, I’d like to see the temporary appointments scaled back to 800 hours, essentially forcing the Forest Service and other Agencies to hire more 13/13 permanent positions. Yep, make it too costly and “inconvenient” for them to continue using temps to do work that is needed, each and every year. It’s up to OPM to impose more rules, to stop the abuse of the temporary hiring authority.

Do we need national ‘forests?’

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Things seem a little quiet out there, so here is my response to Sharon’s asking what I  think about “disappearing districts” on June 12.  The problem I see with the approach of consolidating districts (and national forests) is that is an ad hoc and opportunistic response, and I haven’t seen much of an effort at long-term strategic planning for what the current and future agency should look like.

I think there are some good arguments for maintaining a local ‘face’ of the Forest Service responsible for implementing policies and programs.  I think that could be done with many staff specialists located elsewhere and in different places.  Something close to a “one person ranger district” might make sense again.

On the other hand, what purpose do national forest administrative units serve?  There is a need for someone at a higher level and with a broader view to develop policies and programs.  But is there really a need for a hundred-and-how-many different sets of policies?  There is a historic and legislative basis for national forest boundaries, but I think that the decentralization of authority that has been tied to that works hard against the need to reduce government costs (as well as creating artificial cross-jurisdictional management problems).

 

I think that the Clinton Administration had the right idea that the Forest Service can’t afford four layers of bureaucracy.  What would happen if we eliminated national forest supervisor offices?  Or if that’s too many districts for a regional office to handle, a more reasonable alternative might be to reorganize based on states or multi-state units (like the BLM, which would make it easier to eventually merge with the BLM).  This might even improve working relationships with the states.

 

 

Merry Packers of Yesteryear

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A good friend who worked in the Forest Service before the 1964 Wilderness Act asked me if I had heard of a Merry Packer. I had not heard of them. He then described this motorized contraption that ferried equipment up trails in remote areas. The full picture is here.

My friend Tom commented about their use:

“Look!”
I looked. It was hard not to. We had just broke camp and started down the trail when the morning fog boiling up out of the canyon burst a hole a couple of miles away across the gorge, and in that hole, perfectly framed in corpuscular rays, sparkled a waterfall. It was quite a sight… and possibly my last!
 
Landers stumbled on a raised root in the trail just as he pointed with his right hand at the waterfall. His left hand on the throttle squeezed involuntarily as he struggled for balance. The little engine revved, kicking the mechanical mule in the ass just as we came out of a switchback. We came WAY out. I was up front, leaning back on the handles, supposedly steering, hopping and tiptoeing over rocks and roots, my feet on the ground only now and then.
 
We were having way too much fun again with this thing, and, way out here in the Douglas fir forests of the Wind River District above the Columbia River Gorge, no one was looking….and we were getting paid, too! Without having to carry gear, we moved fast, almost effortlessly, and we cleared a lot of trail……until Landers spotted that waterfall. I was lifted in the air about two feet before going over the edge, followed by all of our stuff – chainsaws, axes, sleeping bags, raingear, food, canteens and mosquito nets. Only a sleeping bag landed on me as I tumbled. Thank God that machine missed me. Landers fell on his face in the trail, laughing.
 
 The adults in the Forest Service had declared us the Trail Crew, showed us how to start this thing, then sent us into the wilds. Its called a Merry Packer. They’re like those deer carriers, but motorized. Are they still around?”

I hadn’t seen one in all my years in the Forest Service. I’m sure they were used a lot, in trail construction, before the restrictions on “motorized use”. On a recent trip to Zion, I saw, maybe, its replacement, in this more modern world. I’m sure that they had to fly this machine up to this strategic spot on the East Rim Trail.

P9034648_tonemapped-web

 

Urgent Action Needed to Save Sierra Forests

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This viewpoint shows more of the reasons why the desire to have larger and more intense wildfires, in the Sierra Nevada, is the wrong way to go.

In this picture below, fire crews were run out of this stand, and back into the “safety zone”, on this fire I worked on, back in 1988.

campbell_fire1-web

 

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/28/6737076/viewpoints-urgent-action-needed.html

Air quality the past two weeks has been several times worse than some of the most polluted cities in the world due to smoke from the King fire. Last year’s Rim fire emitted greenhouse gases equivalent to 2.3 million vehicles for a year.

Also, the lost habitat and recreational opportunities from major fires like these are significant. It is not an exaggeration to say that virtually all Californians are affected when these “megafires” occur.

The report points out that wildfires are getting larger and burning at higher intensity than ever before. The Rim fire burned at nearly 40 percent high intensity – meaning virtually no living vegetation is left – covering almost 100,000 acres. More acres have burned in the first 4½ years of this decade than in seven decades of the last century.

What can we do about it?

The main bottleneck in treating more acres is in implementation. The Forest Service is unwilling to increase the size of its Region 5 timber management staffs. They use some of the usual excuses, some of which are beyond their control but, not all of those issues are really significant, looking at the big picture. Yes, it is pretty difficult to implement extremely-complex plans when you are constantly training new temporary employees, hired right off the street.

Preparing For Rim Fire Logging Litigation

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The battle has begun!

The picture below was taken in April, within the Rim Fire, and shows how quickly the bearclover returns, after a fire. Even the manzanita and deer brush have difficulty when the bearclover is so entrenched. California Indians knew that old growth pine and bearclover were the best of their available land management outcomes. Those landscapes had great advantages for humans living in the mid elevations of the Sierra Nevada.

http://www.mymotherlode.com/news/local/221325/preparing-rim-fire-logging-litigation.html

P9202274-web

Deputy Stanislaus National Forest Supervisor Scott Tangenberg spoke before the Tuolumne County Supervisors this morning, and said the Forest Service has been contacted by several individuals, or groups, that will likely file litigation later this week.

Well, we all knew that was coming and who was opposing the project. While on the Rim Fire tour, and at the SAF meeting, it was funny to see the Forest Service tiptoeing their way around “those who shall not be named”. *smirk*

Rim Fire Salvage Logging, by SPI

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Bob Zybach and I went on a field trip to the Rim Fire. The first stop on the tour showed us the Sierra Pacific Industries’ salvage logging results. I’m posting a medium resolution panorama so, if you click on the picture, you can view it in its full size. You can see the planted surviving giant sequoias on their land which were left in place. You can also see some smaller diameter trees, bundled up on the hill, which turned out to be not mechantable as sawlogs. You might also notice the subsoiler ripping, meant to break up the hydrophobic layer. They appear to have done their homework on this practice, and it is surprising to see them spending money to do this. SPI says that their salvage logging is nearly complete, and that they will replant most of their 20,000 acre chunk next spring. They have to order and grow more stock to finish in 2016.

SPI-panorama-big-web

Best and Worst Federal Bosses

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A decision last year to extend health benefits to temporary firefighters but not to all temporary workers proved frustrating to many employees. “It just makes no sense to limit it to firefighters,” Davis said. The Forest Service hires thousands of employees who work a few months out of the year maintaining trails, clearing brush, running recreational programs and maintaining facility grounds.

http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20130331/PERSONNEL03/303310007/Feds-rank-worst-bosses-best-bosses?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Calaveras Bigtrees

 

www.facebook.com/LarryHarrellFotoware

 

Char Miller on the History of Conservation Corps, Including “ObamaCorps”

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Jobs Corps working in the Angeles National Forest in the late 1960s. | Photo: Courtesy Angeles National Forest
Jobs Corps working in the Angeles National Forest in the late 1960s. | Photo: Courtesy Angeles National Forest

Here’s a link to another excellent Char Miller post.

Questions:

1) Where does Job Corps fit into the taxonomy of these programs? and
2) Young people need to learn jobs, but old people often need jobs. As in this Department of Labor

SCSEP enhances employment opportunities for unemployed older Americans and promotes them as a solution for businesses seeking trained, qualified, and reliable employees. Older workers are a valuable resource for the 21st century workforce, and SCSEP is committed to providing high-quality job training and employment assistance to participants. We have an extensive network of service providers in every county in the U.S.

Iremember the FS used to hire people through this program, but not so sure it is used anymore.

Is it time to add a Senior Conservation Corps? Or a Mixed-Age Conservation Corps?

Group Hails Forest Cooperation

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View 88

I saw a local article about our part of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.

For the first time in many years, loggers and conservation groups are working together and the results have been stunning, according to Katherine Evatt, president of the Pine Grove-based Foothill Conservancy.

The Amador Calaveras Consensus Group has been working in the Stanislaus and Eldorado national forests on projects that are part of a larger national program called Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration.

The goal is to restore forests for people, water and wildlife, and a report released in December shows some of those goals are being met.

The ACCG Cornerstone Project is one of 23 national projects that split $40 million in 2012. According to the fiscal year-end report for the project, the two forests spent more than $658,000 in CFLRA funds this year, matched by more than $433,000 of other Forest Service funds. There was more than $67,700 in ACCG in-kind partner contributions and more than $1 million in leverage funds from ACCG members. Additional funds included a $196,000 grant from the Coca-Cola Company as well as $283,000 worth of in-service work under stewardship contracts.

The article is here