Interior Announces “Significantly Reformed” Oil and Gas Lease Sales

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It’s surprisingly busy news day today, as many folks have vacations and religious holidays this weekend.  I thought we might want to take a look at this Interior announcement and guess how different groups will weigh in.

And of course, we’ll need some help from TSWites familiar with the issues to interpret it.

I guess the Biden Admin has a somewhat bifurcated attitude toward oil and gas folks.. “you shouldn’t produce”.and .”you should produce more.”  It seems like no matter what they do, they are wrong. It doesn’t actually seem like a rational policy, at least to me.

For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries above local communities, the natural environment, the impact on our air and water, the needs of Tribal Nations, and, moreover, other uses of our shared public lands.

This is an interesting statement since both Tribal leaders at the Interior Oil and Gas Leasing Public Forum (as I reported here) said they wanted “all of the above” energy strategies. It’s also somewhat ironic, as renewable energy infrastructure also may be also prioritized above the wants of these same folks. I get it ..the Admin doesn’t like the industry. And doesn’t believe that their dislike should influence investment decisions. Well, OK, then.

Note that these leases are released because a court ordered the Biden Admin to do so; they can’t just stop issuing them, despite hopeful (but questioned at the time) campaign promises.

On Monday, the BLM will issue final environmental assessments and sale notices for upcoming oil and gas lease sales that reflect this strategic approach. The lease sales will incorporate many of the recommendations in the Department’s report, including ensuring Tribal consultation and broad community input, reliance of the best available science including analysis of GHG emissions, and a first-ever increase in the royalty rate for new competitive leases to 18.75 percent, to ensure fair return for the American taxpayer and on par with rates charged by states and private landowners.

The BLM’s sale notices reflect the Interior Secretary’s broad authority to determine lands that are eligible and available for leasing. This pragmatic approach focuses leasing on parcels near existing development and infrastructure, such as gathering lines that can help reduce venting and flaring, and will help conserve the resilience of intact public lands and functioning ecosystems. The BLM has prioritized avoiding important wildlife habitat and migration corridors and sensitive cultural areas. As a part of its environmental analysis, the agency disclosed GHG emissions and the social cost of GHG emissions, which provided important context for the agency’s decision-making.

The BLM assessed potentially available and eligible acreage in Alabama, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. It began analyzing 646 parcels on roughly 733,000 acres that had been previously nominated for leasing by energy companies. As a result of robust environmental review, engagement with Tribes and communities, and prioritizing the American people’s broad interests in public lands, the final sale notices will offer approximately 173 parcels on roughly 144,000 acres, an 80 percent reduction from the acreage originally nominated.

I wonder .. (1) how did the social cost of carbon and emissions “provide important context”? Will some leases emit less carbon that others?

(2) It seems like they’re controversial (to say the least) among folks that were promised no new leases. But they are all EAs.. so again, what makes something controversial? Will folks litigate them, and they will have to go back and do EIS’s and tell the judge who thinks they should be leasing that they’ve tried, but they’re tied up in court?

(3) Can Interior pick royalty rates for each lease sale? Because it seems like that could go either way, a future Admin could lower them. It just seems like it should be perhaps a rulemaking kind of thing (with some of the other improvements in the report). But I’m not familiar with the legalities.

I suppose folks who are against onshore leasing will have to decide if the Admin picked a good way to honor the legal decision and also protect the environment, or they’re going to argue that they didn’t go far enough. Should be interesting to observe.

Chief’s Letter of Intent (Wildfire) Letter 2022

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Here’s is the letter. I’m going to focus on the WFWB (Wild Fire With Benefits) and prescribed fire section, since that seemed to cause the most controversy.

 

As we work to address immediate threats of uncharacteristic wildfire, it is important we continue to take proactive steps to reduce future risks of damaging wildfires when and where opportunities present themselves to employ fire in the right place, at the right time, and for the right reasons. In addition to mechanical treatments, extensive science supports using fire on the landscape and recognizes it as an important tool to reduce risk and create resilient landscapes at the necessary scale. I recognize that can be controversial and cause concern. Therefore, we must have a clear understanding of when, where, how and under what conditions we use this tool.

We do not have a “let it burn” policy. The Forest Service’s policy is that every fire receives a strategic, risk-based response, commensurate with the threats and opportunities, and uses the full spectrum of management actions, that consider fire and fuel conditions, weather, values at risk, and resources available and that is in alignment with the applicable Land and Resource Management Plan. Line officers approve decisions on strategies and Incident Commanders implement those through tactics in line with the conditions they are dealing with on each incident. We know the dynamic wildland fire environment requires the use of multiple suppression strategies on any incident; however, this year we will more clearly articulate how and when we specifically use fire for resource benefit. The Red Book will be updated to require that during National and/or Regional Preparedness Levels 4 and 5, when difficult trade-off decisions must be made in how to deploy scarce resources most effectively, Regional Forester approval will be required to use this fire management strategy.

This is commensurate with Red Book prescribed fire direction during these periods. I am committed to an ongoing dialogue with our partners to ensure safe and effective risk management principles are followed to protect communities, keep our firefighters safe, and produce results that mitigate current and future risks from wildfire. Working closely with our partners to engage in robust dialogue before and during incidents and effective pre-planning has been shown time and again to be a best practice that yields better outcomes when wildfires happen. It is my expectation that all line officers and Fire leadership will fully utilize pre-season engagement planning with their state, county, and local governments, community leaders, and partners, leveraging the best science available, including the Potential Operational Delineation (PODS) program led by Research and Development. When PODS are in place, agency administrators should ensure that incident management teams use them to inform suppression strategies; when they are not, every effort should be made to develop them real-time as part of strategic operations.

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I’ve been talking with people on both “sides” of the (now I can call it FRB, good-bye WFWB!) issue.  That is the “just stop it, this is not the time and it’s too dangerous with unprecedented fire behavior” school and the “trust us, we’ve got this” school. By implication (perhaps?) from this letter, prescribed fire is not included in this new acronymn, so we’re talking about managing wildfires for resource benefits.  Which seems enormously complex because there are other concerns, like safety and resource availability that also could look like FRB. I think that’s probably focused on making it clear what is FRB and the other reasons for choosing strategies and tactics.  So it seems like this approach of better communication and more clarity is an important step to building the necessary social license.

It also seems to me that if I were a person living in a fire-prone community (I am, but not surrounded by federal land), pre-season engagement would be vital. I also like the check that running it through the RF’s office provides.  Some people might worry that when a team is called in from say, Region 8, and the Ranger and FMO are new to the unit, line officers possibly less experienced with fire, or the current person is from somewhere else on detail, that something could slip through the cracks.  These are life and death worries, and raising them to a level where the RF can round up all the most knowledgeable people, at least would give me more confidence in the decision.

There is another more wonky concern, that I think Jon articulated, that if you are going to plan activities that will affect the environment, perhaps there should be NEPA involved.  Yes, there was in some cases with Forest Plans, and certainly with prescribed fire projects, but not necessarily talking about PODs or FRB. Since FRB covered 642K acres last year, and it pre-planned, it seems like some NEPA and public involvement couldn’t hurt.  It seems to me also that there is a narrow NEPA ridgeline of emergency and planning that the FS is navigating.  Which is not to say that 10 year EIS’s or plan revisions would be the solution.  There are lots of smart NEPA people within the agency who could figure out something useful and manageable, if left to their own devices. IMHO.

Anyway, the Fire People are great at formal lessons learned.. perhaps with the FS emphasis on pre-season engagement practices, next year there will be a report of interest on best practices.

I also thought this was interesting..

This year in fire camps you will see QR codes you can easily access on mobile phone to participate in a ThoughtExchange that will inquire into the lived experiences of wildland firefighters as it relates to harassment and discrimination in everyday work experiences. We need to hear from firefighters directly to learn and then correct harmful cultural norms. Together, we can create an environment where all are treated with dignity and respect.

A New Book on Wicked Problems by Professor Brian Head: With Flashbacks to Dave Iverson

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Some of you may remember Dave Iverson talking about “wicked problems”, in his Eco Watch Dialogues? At that site, I found this link to a 1999 article by Bruce Shindler and Lori Cramer of Oregon State University. In which they say:

many forest professionals were introduced to the term wicked problems in a provocative 1986 Journal of Forestry article by Allen and Gould who borrowed the phrase from the systems analysis research of (Rittel and Webber, 1973)

And of course, that was a while back.

In my hunt, I discovered that the EcoWatch Dialogues go all the way back to 1990, still on the web. Many fascinating articles and discussion. And here’s a link to a post by Dave on the topic on TSW in 2011.

So here we are in the 2020’s and the London School of Economics “Impact of Social Sciences” blog has a post by Brian Head discussing his new book “Wicked Problems in Public Policy“.  Head is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Queenland, Australia.   TSW readers are invited to review this book, which is open access (yay!). Some quotes from his blog post:

First is the well-known critique of rationalist claims that the policy process should be substantively based on rigorous ‘evidence’. In rebuttal, critics state that stakeholder interests and experience are crucial, that public policy decisions are ultimately political, and that accountability must rest with elected governments. Underpinning this are five common claims:

  • evidence is always incomplete, especially for complex and evolving issues;
  • evidence includes many forms of knowledge, which are often inconsistent;
  • evidence is always subject to value-laden interpretations, hidden or overt;
  • evidence is inevitably “cherry-picked” by governments and stakeholders to support their preferred positions; and
  • reliance on specialized expertise implies technocratic and undemocratic styles of decision-making.

The second key reason for the malaise is the rapid rise of mass communication channels that propagate misinformation, personal beliefs, and vilification of opponents. Polarisation intensifies in-group bias and provides excuses for ignoring alternative information. Partisan polarisation undermines community confidence in procedural fairness and legitimacy, which are crucial for trust in public institutions. In the face of this tsunami of propaganda and incivility, the enlightenment model of reasoned debate in the public sphere has been deeply wounded. In responding to this wave of ‘post-truth’ anti-science, the defenders of evidence-informed debate and civic education have created new networks to discuss strategy, share information, improve their communication of evidence-informed policy ideas, and develop new tools for fact-checking or reviewing the claims of partisan advocates.

(I think the humble Smokey Wire might be one of those “new networks”).

The third key reason for concern about the future of evidence-informed policymaking is that so many policy problems are intractable, controversial and turbulent. This is the domain of ‘wicked’ problems

The third key reason for concern about the future of evidence-informed policymaking is that so many policy problems are intractable, controversial and turbulent. This is the domain of ‘wicked’ problems, as outlined in Wicked Problems in Public Policy. Wicked problems are characterised by complex interactions, gaps in reliable knowledge, and enduring differences in values, interests and perspectives. Unfortunately, ‘more science’ cannot resolve these conflicting views, and therefore more data cannot directly help to de-politicize the partisan divide. Wicked problems include long-standing, yet continually evolving problems such as: refugees and immigration, human rights and inequalities, climate change, food security, water and energy security, biodiversity protection, terrorism, and the peaceful resolution of major disputes.

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Finally, it is true that there are no neat and correct answers to wicked problems. They might not be solvable in the short term. But there are ways to better understand and manage them. For example, inclusive processes for considering the nature of the problems and possible paths toward improvement are often more beneficial than ideological solutions imposed by government. Good quality knowledge and analysis are always useful, but information alone cannot transform complex problems into simple solutions. Information-based strategies are only one important thread in the policy mix required to enable us to tackle the wicked features of complex and contentious problems.

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Each problem has a unique history, even though many problems closely interact with others (such as poverty, housing, health and education). Solutions are provisional and contingent. They are temporary political accommodations, depending not only on best available evidence but also on stakeholder perceptions and the capacity of leaders to negotiate shared goals.

……………

The case for using social experimentation and co-design processes is mainly pitched at the local level, rather designing mainstream national programs. These collaborative agendas and methods are very diverse. Choices need to be ‘fit for purpose’, working with relevant stakeholders and adapting to the nuances of each challenge. Collaborative and coordinated approaches are widely recommended, but the difficulties of successfully implementing such approaches are well known and skilled leadership is needed.

 

What struck me about this post is the fact that science folks are rewarded (by journal articles, media, and other professional rewards) for generalizing (does my study relate to a Ranger District in the Sierra? the Sierra? California? Dry western forests? North America? Global forest change or biodiversity?  As science becomes more models than empirical, more satellite data than on the ground, related to abstractions (defined by academics generally) such as climate change or biodiversity or regenerative agriculture.. does it drift away from having utility in solving wicked problems?

Politicians often prefer a quick fix or a simple ‘solution’ for managing a complex policy problem. In many cases, government leaders will attempt to impose their own preferred solution, either to appease their own supporter base (‘keeping promises’), or to close down the debate. This is often ineffective and sometimes counter-productive. In the long run, differences in stakeholder values and interests need to be acknowledged, and methods found to accommodate diversity and equity. This is a challenge for political leadership, as much as a challenge for evidence and expertise.

In the case of our issues, it is interesting that how many of these are seen through a national lens.  And as we often discuss, certainly federal lands belong to all people, but still perhaps the national or international view is not the best way to manage the set of wicked problems therein

First Ten Wildfire Strategy Landscapes Announced by Forest Service

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Interesting description of these efforts here. You can click on either image (above and below) and they will be large enough to read (at least on some devices).

Here are the considerations that led to those choices:

These considerations are on page 26.  I think the social justice discussion would have been interesting to sit in on.  Thinking about the Colorado Front Range, for example, there are certainly poor people in cities that could be influenced by smoke.  There are more people who could be harmed in cities, for sure, by their very nature of being concentrated human populations.  And, of course, many parts of the Front Range have exceedingly high income folks in the forests or the edge (think Boulder) and the less-well-off tend to spread to the grasslands east. But if we’re thinking cumulative impacts of smoke as air pollution, it would be worse where there is already pollution problems (like the Denver Metro area).

Nevertheless,  most of the landscapes selected were not near large cities.  Anyway, not that I think that there is a “right way” and a “wrong way” to do social justice, as it’s quite complex, it would be interesting to know more of the details.  I also wonder whether the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture think about it the same way.  Does anyone know?

 

Washington State DNR Launches First-in-the-Nation Carbon Project

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This is from a press release by Washington DNR (Department of Natural Resources).

These are state forests that could be logged for timber,  but won’t, to be used as carbon offsets.

Although this is a bit confusing..

Of the 3,750 acres protected during the project’s first phase, 2,500 were part of planned harvests and will now be utilized for carbon credits. The remaining 1,250 acres are being protected through existing DNR policies. Areas included in Phase Two will be announced within the next year.

 

I don’t know how people in Western Washington feel about timber harvesting on state lands, but if enough folks are against it, then it seems reasonable for the State to go with the flow and get the credits instead.

The 10K acres involved are in Western Washington so that fires are less likely to interfere with carbon sequestration, and the trees probably grow like weeds (not a silvicultural term).

So forests will be left alone, and make money for the State (the best of both worlds, in the eyes of some).

It will be interesting to observe if everyone supports this effort. I haven’t located any opinions published either way.

There seem to be two main categories of thoughts on this topic:

A. Offsets are never OK, companies should just stop doing things that product carbon.  (I don’t think that this is realistic in any 10 year or so time-frame, but peoples’ views don’t have to be realistic.)

B. Offsets are OK when certain practices are followed. These may include a variety of concerns.

Perhaps we need an FSC- like third party verification of forest offsets? Perhaps there already is one and I haven’t heard of it?

CEQA Tweaks For Wildfire Mitigation Projects Apparently Not Helping Much So Far: Lessons?

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A California Conservation Corps crew works on mitigating small diameter trees and branches off Spring Creek Road atop the Ridge in the Sherwood Corridor to help provide a safe exit to Highway 101 in case Sherwood Road is impassible on Feb. 6, 2022.Mathew Caine/Willits Weekly

Thanks to one of my fave reporters, Sammy Roth of the LA Times, for retweeting this story by Scott Rodd of Capital Public Radio.  California seems to be at the forefront of so much in terms of wildfire and climate change, and is such a gigantic force, it’s always interesting to see what they’re up to. I’d be particularly interested in any experiences TSW readers have had with this process. Note the link with our week’s theme of acronyms.

Some excerpts below, but the whole thing is worth reading.

Area residents, who had to evacuate before, are worried about the slow progress.

“It makes me very angry, very cynical, [and] frustrated,” said Brooktrails retiree Luis Celaya, 85. “This is something that is so important and the potential is so high that a fire could happen.”

A monthslong investigation by CapRadio and The California Newsroom found that projects across the state, like the one in Brooktrails, are encountering a bureaucratic bottleneck before shovels can even break ground. The state’s byzantine environmental approval process, required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), is slowing projects from Mendocino County to the Sierra Nevada to the Central Coast. The landmark environmental law was intended to protect ecologically and environmentally sensitive landscapes. But foresters worry that the glacial pace of environmental approvals under CEQA may lead to a much worse outcome — extreme wildfires obliterating these areas.

To combat this, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration launched a program more than two years ago that promised to break the logjam, by fast-tracking environmental reviews. But that program, called the California Vegetation Treatment Program (CalVTP), hasn’t led to the completion of a single project so far. This stands in stark contrast to projections by the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, which anticipated CalVTP would lead to 45,000 acres of completed work in its first year.

Keith Rutledge, project manager for Sherwood Firewise Communities in Brooktrails, told CapRadio and The California Newsroom that he had never heard of CalVTP. The nonprofit instead used the established system to satisfy CEQA to clear the first few miles of road, which took over a year. When they later asked a Cal Fire representative about using CalVTP on the rest of the project, the representative discouraged them from using the new program, cautioning it would be even more burdensome, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

In interviews, foresters and fire prevention experts around the state said they still don’t fully understand how the program is supposed to work. Others were turned off by the large amount of unfamiliar paperwork required under the program. CalVTP’s official workflow template, published on the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection’s website, includes a dizzying decision tree of acronyms.

 

Fire prevention project managers who’ve tried to use the program have faced unforeseen hurdles. For example, the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association wanted to use a single CalVTP application for a series of controlled burns across Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties. The 10 prescribed burn sites would help protect homes and ecologically sensitive habitats, including freshwater wetlands. The threat of fire isn’t hypothetical in this area — just two years ago, the 48,000-acre River Fire burned within 15 miles of one project site.

But the projects straddle two Cal Fire units, according to Nadia Hamey, a forester and environmental consultant working with the burn association. She said each unit wanted a separate CalVTP application for the proposed burns in their area. Completing two versions of the new, unfamiliar paperwork proved too burdensome.

So the burn association decided to use the traditional environmental review process. That required 10 separate project applications. As of this winter, two burns had been completed, with the rest moving through the development and approval process.

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And of course, litigation-induced uncertainty..

Although two years had passed since Newsom formally launched the program, Kerstein told lawmakers that “it’s very early days” for CalVTP.

There are other potential complications. A lawsuit brought by two groups opposed to CalVTP’s expedited environmental review — the California Chaparral Institute and the Endangered Habitats League — could invalidate CalVTP completely or introduce more burdensome and timely hoops for forest managers to jump through, according to a memo from the Board of Forestry.

While the lawsuit isn’t preventing any projects from moving forward right now, the board memo cautions that project managers should consider the “uncertainty” posed by the litigation before using CalVTP.

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The agency did not provide current figures on the number of project acres approved through CalVTP. In December, it told CapRadio and The California Newsroom that the program had approved 28,000 acres.

“This is not enough by any stretch of the imagination,” said Char Miller, professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College, who has monitored the development of CalVTP. He says California has millions of acres in desperate need of forest management and fuel reduction.

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I think we mostly agree with Miller’s observation.

TSW readers may remember that Miller also wrote in 2018 in an op-ed with Chad Hanson in the LA Times and other outlets.

The science is clear that the most effective way to protect homes from wildfire is to make homes themselves more fire-safe, using fire-resistant roofing and siding, installing ember-proof vents and exterior sprinklers, and maintaining “defensible space” within 60 to 100 feet of individual homes by reducing grasses, shrubs and small trees immediately adjacent to houses. Vegetation management beyond 100 feet from homes provides no additional protection. Subsidizing logging in remote forests won’t protect us; we need to live with fire, the way we do with earthquakes.

Here’s Matthew’s  TSW post about that op-ed and associated comments.

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Anyway, if you were the State, what would you do to fix this?

Trade-offs and opportunities for forest carbon and wildlife

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A few months ago we discussed a paper by Law et al that suggests establishing “Strategic Forest Reserves” to increase CO2 sequestration.

There are several arguments against this proposal, such as the likelihood of fire or other disturbances eliminating some or all of the CO2 in the reserves. A new open-access paper in Conservation Science and Practice offers another view: “Identifying trade-offs and opportunities for forest carbon and wildlife using a climate change adaptation lens.” In short, there are resources and values beyond CO2 that ought to be factored in. An article about the paper explains:

“The importance of diverse habitat conditions across the landscape may be increasingly overlooked, especially by the public, as forest carbon storage takes center stage,” said lead author Caitlin Littlefield, a recent research associate in the UVM Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources (RSENR). “As more attention is focused on maximizing forest carbon, we risk unintentionally compromising the long-term sustainability of other objectives, such as maintaining important habitat for at-risk wildlife species.”

Abstract

On a warming planet, a key challenge natural resource managers face is protecting wildlife while mitigating climate change—as through forest carbon storage—to the greatest extent possible. But in some ecosystems, habitat restoration for imperiled species may be incompatible with maximizing carbon storage. For example, promoting early successional forest conditions does not maximize stand-level carbon storage, whereas uniformly promoting high stocking or mature forest conditions in the name of carbon storage excludes species that require open or young stands. Here, we briefly review the literature regarding carbon and wildlife trade-offs and then explore four case studies from the Northern Forest region of the United States. In each case, human activities have largely dampened the influence of natural disturbances; restoring or emulating these disturbances is typically required for habitat restoration even when doing so equates to less carbon storage at the stand level. We propose that applying a climate adaptation lens can help managers and planners navigate these trade-offs and steer away from maladaptive practices that may ultimately reduce adaptive capacity. Instead, critically evaluating the consequences of stand-level management actions on both carbon and wildlife can then facilitate landscape-scale climate adaptation planning that supports a diversity of habitats alongside opportunities to invest in maximizing forest carbon.

These POD People Are Friendly: Check Out the RMRS PODs Website

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No, not those Pod People!  I mean these POD people: the WRMS team (apparently pronounced “worms”) and the PODs User Community.

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John Marshall had a good suggestion that we not use acronyms without explaining them.  I had used PODs, and when I went looking for a good explanation, I found this excellent Rocky Mountain Research Station site that has everything about them that a person might want to know in one place.  Kudos, applause and mega-appreciation to RMRS and the PODs people!

 

We had also been talking about why more panels and media don’t involve fire suppression folks..  here is a video from RMRS that does just that.. about PODS.

PODs are being used right now based on what folks have, roads, old fires, and so on.  They also “being used by resource managers to proactively define meaningful projects, plan
fuels management, and conduct prescribed fire.”  So it appears that operational (fire) folks are in the driver’s seat, with concerns about values at risk, and is also collaborative. 

At the same time, PODs also carry with them, or at least seem to be related to, the idea “if you design them well you can do more WFWB (wildfire with benefits; sorry my own acronym, there are currently too many floating around to pick one; this one was obviously selected due to its resemblance to the commonly used expression “friends with benefits”).

As Dan Dallas says in the video, fire people have never seen these kinds of fire behavior before.  At the same time, there is a story that “we know what we’re doing, trust us when we want to use WFWB.”  This seems a bit of a paradox, but it’s altogether possible that I’m missing something (or many things).  Hopefully a fire person out there can enlighten us on this.

There are interesting videos (with amazing GIS stuff)  describing how PODs were used on the Dixie Fire,  the Twenty Five Mile Fire, and the Balsinger Fire in 2021. Now, fire people are notorious for acronyms, and concepts that sound like standard English but mean something else.  So if you run into any of these let me know, and we can ask around as to what they mean.

 

 

What Others Think About Wildfires: Society of Environmental Journalists Panel 2019

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I’ve been interested in how stories get covered by various journalists and press entities.   In 2019, I attended a session for journalists learning about wildfires at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Fort Collins. There were many fascinating differences between their culture and that of, say, SAF, including high quality free food, drink, and swag from ENGOs.

I think it’s worth listening to the recording, of the session to get an idea of how others think and talk about what’s important about wildfires.  Some seem absolutely sure of things that we all know are contested among both scientists and practitioners. But maybe it’s just a cultural way of making statements and sounding sure.

It’s especially interesting to listen to these 2019 ideas with our current knowledge of how Congress, California, and Colorado are currently putting megabucks into fuel treatments.

At the beginning, the moderator, Michael Kodas, introduces the speakers and says that George Wuerthner’s book is an “excellent resource for covering wildfire issues.”

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Here’s a quote from a recent op-ed of Wuerthner’s from July 2021:

Today, with regards to wildfire, we should be saying over and over, it’s the climate stupid! The heat, drought and other variables caused by human climate warming is super-charging wildfires. Yet the response of most agencies and politicians is to suggest more logging/thinning as a panacea.

The proponents of active forest management assert that these tactics can reduce fire intensity and thus is a beneficial policy to reduce large blazes. However, fuel reductions do not change the climate or weather. And most of the scientific support for thinning/logging is based on modeling of fuel loading, not real-life experiences.

By promoting “active forest management” as a panacea for wildfire, we trade inevitable negative consequences of logging/thinning that occur today and get only a tiny chance that any fuel reduction will influence a wildfire.

There are so many interesting things about these statements.

“most of the scientific support for thinning/logging is based on modeling of fuel loading, not real-life experience”

This is probably one of the reasons the group of scientists wrote the 10 Common Questions paper.

“get only a tiny chance that any fuel reduction will influence a wildfire.”

But we’ve seem FTEM numbers that don’t agree with that (plus our own experiences).

Do any of us think that if we stopped producing GHGs today our fire problems would go away?

Marc Heller of E&E News also quoted  Wuerther last month in the article mentioned here:

A debate over the practice continues to play out.

One of the skeptics is George Wuerthner, a Bend, Ore., ecologist and director of Public Lands Media, part of the environmental group Earth Island Institute. Wuerthner told E&E News he’s not convinced of the main argument behind prescribed burning — that decades of total fire suppression have led to overstocked forests that need to be cleared in part with fire.

Wuerthner said that in his view, increased wildfires aren’t being driven so much by too much fuel as by climate change.

“Fuels are not what is driving large blazes,” Wuerthner said in an email. “Climate/weather that includes low humidity, drought, high temps, and most importantly wind. And prescribed burning does nothing to change those major influences.”

And prescribed burning and other fuels-reduction work doesn’t necessarily diminish wildfires when they do come, Wuerthner said, although the Forest Service pointed to several examples from 2021 suggesting the opposite.

Wuerthner pointed to the Camp Fire that destroyed thousands of homes in Paradise, Calif., in 2018. In that case, he said, the fire burned through areas that had been treated through logging and prescribed burns, thanks to high winds.

So Wuerthner is actually against prescribed burning, as well as the less popular thinning.  Which I think makes him an outlier, although an apparently popular one.  When are outliers worth reporting on and when are they purveyors of “misinformation”? (Rhetorical question)

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A couple of other observations:

Rod Moraga was the only fire suppression person presenting.. it makes me wonder why more current IC folks aren’t out and about telling their stories. are they not available, or don’t moderators ask? Or don’t they know whom to ask? Is there a communications plan for the Interagency Fire folks? Or each agency’s fire folks? It seems like that would be increasingly important as social license is developed  for prescribed and MFRB fires.

One of the speakers, Chela Garcia of the Hispanic Access Fund, at about 18:46 talks about an experiment the Forest Service is doing working with the acequia system to pay a mayordomo and leñeros to thin 275 acres. They have a year’s time to finish the blocks and are paid $300 on completion according to this interesting article on the Kiowa-San Cristobal WUI (Carson NF).

There’s a lot there, so please share your observations. It looks like you can listen to any of the other presentations as well (climate, Indian Country, solutions journalism and so on.

Global Warming & Oregon Wildfires: History Repeats Itself, Again

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My current article/editorial on Global Warming and Oregon Wildfires was just published: http://nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Articles/Magazines/Oregon_Fish_&_Wildlife_Journal/20220401_Global_Warming/Zybach_20220401.pdf

This article documents predictions of western Oregon wildfires over the past 30 years, including newspaper and magazine articles, photos, maps, websites and radio interviews. I’ve posted the illustrations, table, cartoon, and captions below.

CONCLUSIONS: 1) From 1952 until 1987 there was only one (!) fire in excess of 10,000 acres in western Oregon — during the past nine years alone, there have been 33 (!) such fires;

2) Of these 33 wildfires, 30 began on, and were mostly confined to, federal forestlands;

3) These fires have been clearly predicted for more than 30 years, based entirely on changing federal land management practices, and have nothing (“zero”) to do with Global Warming — fire seasons (July and August) have remained about the same for more than 200 years;

4) These fires remain predictable into the foreseeable future and could be largely mitigated by a return to active management of our public forests, beginning with the salvage or treatment of millions of highly flammable snags remaining from these fires on federal lands.

Bottom Line: To fix this mess, in my opinion, we just need the legal ability to return to the active management of our public forests.

Figure 1. September 3, 1994 front-page Salem Statesman Journal article describing 90,000 acres of beetle-killed Douglas fir along Highway 20 and Santiam Pass.
Figure 2. Excerpt from March-April 1994 interview with Jim Petersen, Evergreen Magazine, with predictions of catastrophic wildfire on beetle-killed trees on Highway 20 and the Santiam Pass, and fire-killed trees from the 1987 Silver Complex Fire on the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. The 2002 Biscuit Fire reburned the Kalmiopsis and the 2003 B&B Complex Fire burned through Santiam Pass. Both fires were the largest in history for those locations.
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Figure 3. Fall 2003 cover to Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal, references 1994 Highway 20 beetle-kill as background to current article on B&B Complex.

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Figure 4. Map on the left is from the 1994 article showing Highway 20 beetle kill; map on the right is from March 2004 ORWW educational website focused on the predicted B&B Complex Fire. Note common Abbot Butte, Metolius River, Black Butte and Cache Mountain landmarks.
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Table 1. Western Oregon large-scale wildfires following topical 2013 and 2014 articles and radio interviews with Lars Larson regarding wildlife habitats and forest fires.  
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Figure 5. 2022 cartoon by Tom Toro, Portland, Oregon, has gone viral on Internet.