The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views - Community Sourced, Shared and Supported

Forest Service Wildfire Strategy: Ideas from Bill Crapser

March 6, 2022 by Sharon

As part of the Region 2 Wildfire Strategy Roundtable presentations, Bill Crapser, the Wyoming State Forester, had some suggestions that struck a chord with me.

First, the “winners and losers” challenge. Bill says:

I believe we are setting up a world of winners and losers that will quickly devolve into battles that will erode political support for the programs, and destine us to failure. Competitive programs that rely on grant writing abilities rather than needs, do not do justice to our forests and rangelands, and are inherently biased toward traditionally underserved communities.

From what the FS reps said, I feel like they have a handle on this. There’s regular appropriations to fill in gaps, and there is the Admin’s concern for equity (although it’s not clear how exactly that will play out). It’s definitely something to watch out for though.. if we look at the pattern of CFLRPS and the Wildfire Strategy maps, there are many blanks.. usually where there aren’t many people and/or they didn’t make the proposal cut. And of course, the Wildfire maps are focused on areas with the highest risk of transmission to the most populated communities, with some kind of equity overlay applied perhaps in the future.

Second, and most of interest to me since the only aspect of ARRA I was involved with was one silly kerfuffle. A forest had a project to reroute a campground road partially into a Roadless Area. The project was approved for ARRA funds (and announced) and then questioned by the FS Roadless internal project review process. Awkward for the Admin at the time. Entirely unnecessary (the road was rerouted for environmental reasons) drama. I guess the lesson was “alignment of different priorities and programs at all levels and sooner rather than later.”

Here’s what Bill says:

Flashbacks of the 2010 Stimulus Legislation flash through my mind, with terms like “shovel ready”, and we need to show success early floating around. Some of you will recall that after the ARRA programs, came the audits that several of us suffered through, and where several State Foresters lost their jobs, due entirely on rushing into projects with no clear expectations or sideboards. This time around we need to take a breath, and make sure we all understand the rules of engagement before we dive in to the deep end.

Here are Bill’s suggestions:

First, we need to slowdown just a little and make sure we all understand what we are trying to do, how the different programs interface, what the rules are, what reporting guidelines will be in place, and what the expectations will be for measuring success.

Next, we need to remember the old saying ‘that a high tide raises all boats”. We need to avoid the winner- loser paradigm wherever possible.

We also have to collectively work on work force development, think about non-traditional partners, and look at more efficient ways to get the needed work done.

Here’s a link to Bill’s complete talk.

I’m sure TSW readers participated in and observed ARRA programs.. what did you learn from those that we might apply to the current Wildfire Strategy? Other ideas?

Science Friday: Research on EAs vs. EIS’s, Mortimer et al. 2011

March 4, 2022 by Sharon

We haven’t come back to Ryan Sabelow’s question for a while. He said

“I would love to see the results of a survey of district rangers, local forest NEPA people and biologists on the challenges of doing this work on a landscape level.”

Certainly there are plenty of financial and organizational challenges, as have been studied. But specifically about NEPA, the closest I could find was this Mortimer et al. paper from the Journal of Forestry in 2011, funded and developed through the NEPA for the 21st Century research project. There’s a great deal of interesting information in this short paper. I think it would be helpful for practitioners today to engage with this paper and its findings.

Let’s look at the methods first.

This article is an amalgam of three related research efforts, each with its own methodological approach. The first was a qualitative pilot study relying on primary environmental document analysis and subsequent in-depth personal interviews with 25 respondents in the US Forest Service (n = 8), the National Park Service (n = 6), the Bureau of Land Management (n = 9); and the US Army Corps of Engineers (n =2) in the winter of 2006-2007.

These numbers seem low (though I’m not a social scientist) and this was a while (15 years) ago.

On Mar. 20, 2008 an invitation to participate in an online survey was sent to all identifiable ID team leaders of recreation-related NEPA processes within the US Forest Service involving the issuance of an EA or EIS between December 2005 and March 2008.

Why recreation projects? The authors have a variety of reasons, including the importance of travel management at that time. Still, I would have selected vegetation management projects.

As such, these projects typify the complexities of many other types of projects involving multiple stakeholders and are squarely within the dominant paradigm of multiple uses of the national forests.
The third study analyzed all federal court cases filed from Jan. 1, 1989 to Dec. 31, 2006, in which the US Forest Service was a defendant in a lawsuit challenging a “land-management” decision.

The authors focused on wins and losses on the NEPA claims.

Here are some quotes:

The interviewees presented several themes for preferring an EIS over an EA that went beyond the considerations outlined in the CEQ regulations: [4J
• The threat of litigation and the ability to withstand legal challenges:
“Our solicitors push us to, they would much prefer us to do an EIS because it’s easier to defend in court.”
“The decision with sometimes doing an EIS is whether it’s going to litigation or not …”
• The desire or ability to incur or demonstrate significant environmental impacts on the landscape with an E1S:
“If you really want me to have an EIS, then I’m going to go for the gusto and have some significant impacts.”
“We had no idea what the outcome was going to be, hut with an EI5 you can have a significant effect. And we wanted to have a significant effect on the landscape.”
• The level of public controversy:
“If you have more than a 30% suspicion that if you try to go the EA route someone is going to stop you or threaten to sue you, you’re better to … put your NOI out and circulate a draft EIS.”

I’m not sure that the above is still true, but it was in my day. In fact, we often have the “they should have done an EIS discussion” here on TSW.

Here’s what they came up with numerically:

Possibly discussion-worthy parts of the conclusions..

On the other hand, excessive analyses have delayed critical decisions and commonly produce unintelligible documents of little usefulness to any audience, which may often obfuscate rather than disclose or clarify agency decision making processes (Sullivan et al. 1996, US Forest Service 2002, Stern and Mortimer 2009). Our study suggests that a more detailed understanding of how ecological risks and social risks influence agency environmental analyses could further illustrate the extent to which process risk aversion influences the achievement of the intents of the NEPA and agency objectives concerning land management.

And:

Any assessment of risk particular to litigation and the NEPA process is inherently subjective and uncertain. For example, our findings contradict the prevailing wisdom among agency respondents that an EIS is more legally robust than an EA and, therefore, preferred when litigation over a project is expected. Although we focused specifically on travel management projects, data suggest that at a broader scale the pattern of document defensibility is similar (Table 7). As such, each of these behaviors may be contributing to the well-accepted notion that the agency’s resource management obligations have been compromised by excessive an.d unnecessary analysis (US Forest Service 2002) in efforts to strengthen certain areas of the NEPA document and the administrative record.

A point I would have made, had I reviewed this paper, is that there are other key actors that have a role in the EA/EIS decision; those being OGC for USDA or Solicitors from BLM. This is difficult, as with so many aspects of litigation, I’m not sure they are allowed to participate in surveys (?). It doesn’t really help to tell FS NEPA practitioners what the “data show” if the folks who need to be convinced are the in-house counsel. I would be very interested in hearing from those retirees; so far my efforts to rope them in to these discussions have been unsuccessful.

The World Turned Upside Down- Or Rightside Up?: Interior West Universities Get $20 Mill from the Infrastructure Bill

March 3, 2022 by Sharon

This is a screenshot of the New Mexico Vegetation Treatments Database

I heard a rumor that CFRI hadn’t asked for this funding in the Infrastructure Bill. Anyone who knows the backstory, please let us know. Personally, I like the fact that the money didn’t get apportioned via panels of scientists, nor go to the Usual Coastal University Suspects. One person’s pork is another person’s equity and justice, and all that. It makes sense to me that universities in dry forests are better positioned to study the problem, which is to a large degree, fires in… dry forest types.

Here are some excerpts from the CSU press release

In an effort to improve forest resilience and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in the Interior West, three organizations, including Colorado State University’s Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, are receiving $20 million from the U.S. government.
The funds are part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress with bipartisan support and signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, which will go to enhancing key systems and processes to mitigate the impact of forest fires.
The award will be made to the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes, which includes the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute as well as Highlands University’s New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute and Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute. The Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes were created through congressional legislation passed in 2004 and charged the three institutes with promoting adaptive management practices to restore the health of fire-adapted forest and woodland ecosystems of the Interior West.
……………..
The three institutes will work collaboratively on three key components with the funding. They will develop a national database of existing data on fuel treatments and wildfires, work with managers, planners, and policymakers to facilitate use and applications of the data, and research outcomes of forest management and wildfires to learn what works.
“The work we’re charged with developing under the Infrastructure measure will create opportunities for land and fire managers, scientists and community stakeholders to co-produce actionable knowledge to lessen the harmful effects of wildfire events to people and the environment,” said Tony Cheng, director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute and professor in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship.
……
“When land and fire managers, scientists and stakeholders work together to craft and apply science-based solutions, we can better realize this goal.”

Here’s an interview with the New Mexico Highlands folks

Barton said SWERI will receive the funding over five years and he anticipates that they’ll begin building the national database by starting in the Southwest and expanding out from there.
“The hardest part of this is just identifying all the treatments and keeping up with all the new treatments,” said Barton. “Part of what we need to do is figure out how much of what we’ve done in New Mexico is going to be relevant to what people need elsewhere, and then find local partners who can keep that going.”
Katie Withnall and Patricia Dappen, GIS specialists with the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute, have mapped more than 50,000 vegetation treatment projects in New Mexico.
Withnall said several other states already have some form of a treatment database, though to her knowledge none are as comprehensive as New Mexico’s.
“There are a couple of national databases, but they are not nearly as complete and don’t have the same scope,” said Withnall. “We do need to see what else is out there though so we’re not reinventing the wheel.”

And here’s a link to an interview with Andrew Sánchez Meador of Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute.

It’s a national effort, you’ll be looking at all different types of forests, right?
Yeah, a national effort, all types of forests. We anticipate that the things we do in the Southwest as SWERIs may not work everywhere. We may have to engage entities in Florida or Alaska that we don’t normally engage in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. There’s a component in the beginning of this project that’s going to have to be around scoping, and ensuring that we have the right people at the table, and ensuring that this data product that will be put together and the outcomes from it will be useful for the largest group possible.

Variable-Density Thinning Research and Virtual Tour

March 3, 2022 by Steve Wilent

Kudos to the Stanislaus National Forest for its report that says “science shows that thinning and fuels treatments work” and a virtual tour of the project area on the Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest in California. The link is to an press release that explains the science findings on variable-density thinning and provides a link to a virtual tour of the area. Note the warnings about the virtual tour taking a LONG time to load — it does, even with high-speed Internet. They recommend using the Chrome browser, which I did.

I haven’t viewed the entire tour yet, but the opening scenes show a dense stand that is very much in need of treatment — a fire there would be intense. It’ll have to be mechanically thinned before Rx fire can be used. The scene is representative of many, many sites in the Sierras. Similar conditions, with different species, exist across the western US.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Stanislaus recently released the RoD for the Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape (SERAL) project. A news article on the project explains that “The project is planned on an area that totals 118,808 acres of public and private lands that include 94,823 acres in Forest Service jurisdiction….”

The Stanislaus aims to use variable-density thinning (VDT) in the project area. VDT is controversial in the eyes of some environmental groups. For example, a coalition of groups convinced a federal court that VDT is highly controversial, scientifically, as proposed for the Crystal Clear Restoration Project in Oregon; the court agreed, and ruled that the Mt. Hood NF erred in using an EA. The forest had planned to do an EIS, but the White River Fire burned much of the project area in 2020.

On VDT in the experimental forest, the Stanislaus says, “What they found was that during a recent severe drought that killed over 147 million trees statewide, the two thinned treatments came through relatively unscathed, experiencing far less tree mortality than the adjacent unthinned areas. By reducing competition, the remaining trees had greater access to sunlight, water and the nutrients found in soils. They also found that the addition of prescribed fire is key to a more vibrant and diverse understory plant community, similar to what these forests once contained.”

This photo shows before and after conditions:

It will be interesting to see if enviro groups challenge the SERAL project. The news article says SERAL was “born from an ongoing partnership between the federal Forest Service, the collaborative Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions group, and Tuolumne County. Other partners include Sierra Pacific Industries, the Tuolumne River Trust, and the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte.”

In any case, I recommend taking the time to experience the virtual tour.

National Wildfire Crisis Strategy Roundtables:I. What They’ve Heard and What You Think

March 2, 2022 by Sharon

The Forest Service via the National Forest Foundation is setting up a series of roundtables to get feedback and help on carrying out their Wildfire Strategy. Check out the NFF site here.

In January 2022, the USDA Forest Service released Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests. The Forest Service is working to develop a “living” 10-year Implementation Plan for working with partners across jurisdictions to change the trajectory of wildfire risk. The recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides an essential down payment on the resources needed to perform this work.
Everyone has a leadership stake in moving from small-scale, independently managed treatments to strategic, science-based, landscape-scale treatments that cross boundaries at the scale of the problem, starting initially with those places most critically at risk. Ongoing communication about the 10-year strategy and implementation plan among the Forest Service, States, Tribal entities, and non-governmental partners is welcomed and encouraged.

Here’s a link to the kickoff presentation.

Below are some of the summary slides of the info they’ve already received. What do you think? Anything you would add/delete or finesse?

Let’s Discuss: Sam Evans’ Observations re: the 2012 Planning Rule

March 2, 2022March 1, 2022 by Sharon

We’ve discussed various aspects of the Pisgah-Nantahala Forest Plan and Sam Evans’ post here and here. Also I posted specifically about the concept of “ecological integrity” and how a sample of partners talk about/use this concept. This discussion is about “what this plan says about the 2012 Planning Rule.” First, I’ll lift out some key observations that Sam made in his post. Then I’ll share my own views. Sam’s comments are indented.

Sam

For my part, I cannot believe that the 2012 Rule was intended to fund years-long, expensive processes that don’t produce decisions to solve problems. If we’re simply hoping that we can reach the same compromises again later at the project level, why not reflect them in the Plan now? Why did we accumulate ten years’ worth of analysis and consensus-building only to defer the decisions to the project level, where we can analyze and contest them again and again?

also..

Agency leaders must learn that setting limits during the planning process isn’t at odds with agency discretion but is instead an efficient way to exercise agency discretion

So, if you build much analysis (a full employment program for historic vegetation ecologists, among others) into a process, it’s going to be long and expensive. I don’t know of anyone who actually believed the Q&A around the rule that said plans would be completed more quickly. I also don’t think more analysis will necessarily make people agree. Although that’s a great question for our social science friends, “when does more info help?”. In fact, that reminds me of an old (20 years?) NEPA discussion about some topics being more appropriate for collaboration than analysis.

My own experience was that if you build restrictions into the plan, they were still up for grabs at the project level by people of a more protective bent (these include FS employees as well as ENGOs). Here’s what I’ve heard..”in this case it needs extra protection due to….” or “the latest scientific paper says” or “now we need to consider x about climate change, ” that wasn’t in the plan. Again, in my experience, people will require the FS to analyze at the project level. This actually makes sense on so many levels, as the analysis is both site-specific, and as current as possible (the best available science should get better through time, we would think.)

It sounds like what the collaborative group did is set a general direction or shared vision of what should happen where, with least disagreement. While that doesn’t have to happen in a Plan, it does seem like a very useful exercise. Did it need all the analysis? That would be a good question for the (hopefully there is one) team that is reviewing “Ten Years of the 2012 Rule: Lessons Learned.”

2 Sam

Identifying and ensuring progress toward restoration goals: It is possible to develop broadly supported reference conditions for ecological restoration in distinct ecological systems, even in highly altered eastern forests.

This is great news! However, there can be different views about the details of restoration as a target in the dry West, especially with regard to wildfire resilience and community protection. Also it will take quite a bit of management funds over time to develop wildfire resilience and to keep it up. Perhaps this is a simpler issue in mesic forests. However, the need for funding to do things and how that relates to what’s in the plan is still an issue.

3 Sam

Collaboration works best, however, when agency staff are willing to work toward solutions as participants. The agency should communicate better about its own institutional needs and limitations to support consensus-building around new approaches that will work for partners and the agency alike.But it is essential that planners understand they need the public’s help to find the right answer, and they must be willing to reflect consensus in the plan itself—to share decision space.

This goes back to what Jon often says about local people not making decisions about federal land. Even FACA committees are advisory. How much should collaborative groups’ agreements influence 1) the Plan itself, 2) PPPPD (post-Plan project prioritization and design)?

4. Sam

Although the planning rule’s fiscal capability requirement is important, it should not be a straitjacket forcing planners to choose between(a) trying to justify doing the wrong things because they can pay for themselves and (b) doing nothing at all. Surmounting this problem requires a willingness to innovate beyond the planning rule’s text. Tiered objectives and adaptive management triggers offer a platform to justify additional funding, incentivize partner contributions, and get more done. But doing more is not an end in itself. A pacing mechanism is essential to ensure that the easiest or most commercially viable work does not displace higher priority work or get ahead of mitigation needs. Both of these innovations can be incorporated into traditional plan components.

It seems to me that both tiered objectives and adaptive management triggers are about PPPD, and somewhat about trust. It sounds like folks want to help match the budget and target needs with what projects go forward. This makes a lot of sense, perhaps via an annual input session into a proposed plan of work. I still am having trouble seeing the added value of putting something,. which seems like it should be flexible with changes in needs and conditions, into the Plan. Which, if history holds, will be outdated sooner than updated. Here’s a very helpful comment from Sam from a previous discussion that explains how they got to these concepts (it was partially about the need to get agreement on both more intensity of management and more protection). Still, other non-involved ENGO’s could still hold up any projects via litigation. That seems to be one of the apples vs. kumquats of doing deals where tradeoffs are not equivalent, nor can be made so (I could be wrong) “not doing things” and “possibly doing things if no one else objects” tradeoffs. Think of the matrix in the NW Forest Plan.

4. Sam

Can the agency commit to work for better outcomes, build trust, and demonstrate its relevance to a public that is increasingly worried about the climate and biodiversity crises? Or will it teach the public that restoration is just another euphemism for business as usual? The next few months will tell.

I think the agency can, and does, do all that outside of the NFMA planning process. Are we laying too much responsibility on a cumbersome process for the FS to move toward those goals? Are mesic forests that fundamentally different from dry forests? I don’t think anyone has questioned the “relevance” of the FS in our neighborhood… fire suppression, recreation, and so on.

Readers: What did you expect from the 2012 Planning Rule, and the plans based on it? If you were pleased by or disappointed in aspects of a plan, please share your story here. People who were involved in TSW (NCFP) as the 2012 Rule was being developed, feel free to link to your expectations as described at that time.

Some Smokey Wire Follow-ups: Old Growth and “Mature” ENGO Campaign and Employee Search Back Online

March 1, 2022 by Sharon

Employee Search Back Up!

This was pointed out in a comment but for those not following that thread, the Forest Service employee search website is back up! Many thanks to the FS folks who made that happen.

Old-growth/Mature Forest Campaign

I posted a link to the WaPo article on a new campaign by some ENGOs about protecting old and mature trees for climate change. Here’s a link to the campaign itself.

Kirin Kennedy, Director, People and Nature Policy at Sierra Club. “By making protections for mature and old-growth trees and forests across America’s public lands a cornerstone of US climate policy, he can fulfill this promise and set an example for the world.”

So I wrote the contact at the Sierra Club and asked some questions.:

1. Do you have a definition of what you mean by old or “mature” trees? We’re not familiar with the latter term.
2. Would you be willing to share the funding source for this campaign?
3. Are there specific projects (other than the Tongass) that are of concern?

Here are the answers:

1. Mature trees are the stage prior to become old-growth. If we let them grow, they will become old-growth and provide even greater carbon benefits. Mature forests are starting to show the characteristics needed for old forest habitat to maintain biodiversity. There are trees of different sizes and ages, including some dead trees. And of course, they’re full of mature trees, which are absorbing a lot of carbon dioxide. Not all tree species grow to be the same size or age and there are many different types of forests in the U.S., so a mature forest looks different depending on where you are. But somewhere around the age of 70-90, most tree species will have hit maturity when it comes to absorbing carbon dioxide.
2. So the campaign is a coalition of grassroots organizations. There’s no funding uniquely for this campaign; we all just carve out time from our daily work with our respective NGOs to work on the campaign.
3. It’s not solely limited to the Tongass. There are national forests and forests on Bureau of Land Management land all across the United States. So these types of trees and forests are in 42 of the 50 states.

Then I asked this question, to which I have not yet received an answer and it’s been a few weeks.

“I’d like to dive a little deeper. As you know the Infrastructure Bill has much funding for wildfire mitigation including forest thinning. Is the position of this group that forest thinning should not occur if the trees taken are over 70 years old? or ??? Please explain how your campaign’s position and forest thinning/fuel treatment efforts link together.”

I suggested to various journalists that this might make an interesting story if they could get answers from the campaign ENGO’s on this. Maybe I picked the wrong one? Any help to get an answer on this would be appreciated.

Managing For Ecological Integrity and Other Choices Made by Forest Service Partners

February 28, 2022February 28, 2022 by Sharon

I’m going to take a quick break from discussing Sam Evan’s ideas about the 2012 Rule in practice to focus on the concept of “ecological integrity”. We had a good discussion in the comments on our previous post. Here we can talk about the ways FS partners (in the interest of “all lands, all hands”) look at the same issues, and what abstractions and concepts they use.

It seems to me that the Forest Service is sticking out a bit- abstraction-wise among its partners. So I thought I’d review a few partners and see what they use as abstractions. Interestingly, I found that they tend to be more focused on utility going forward and responding to climate change than patterns from the past. The words seem to be more.. well.. pragmatic. I still think we haven’t adequately explored the landscape between a perhaps neurological or education-based inclination toward the concrete or the abstract and how that plays out in policy development.

Here’s what Jon said in this comment

The definition they are supposed to use is in the Planning Rule: “Ecological integrity. The quality or condition of an ecosystem when its dominant ecological characteristics (for example, composition, structure, function, connectivity, and species composition and diversity) occur within the natural range of variation and can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental dynamics or human influence.” “NRV” is not defined in the Rule, but (despite the Planning Handbook) is generally conceived as being sustainable considering both past and future conditions.

It won’t be a surprise to anyone that I was not a fan of putting this into the Rule. Mostly because it’s a concept that “if we went back to the past, then systems would be sustainable” as Jon says in his last sentence. One problem with this, abstraction-wise, is that you could just stop with “sustainable” then and not move on to “integrity.” But that would perhaps lead us down the stream channel of historical Planning Rule Abstraction Artifacts into the eddy of the Committee of Scientists disagreements about the preeminence of “ecological sustainability” or not. I don’t think anyone wants to go back there.

The second problem is that someone has to pick which past, as per influence of Native Americans, and that some things can go back (vegetation structure, perhaps?) and others not so much (genetics). And those problems have been discussed quite a bit in the literature. So there are quite a few value judgments cloaked under the mantle of “it’s science!”.

The third difficulty is that it seems to me that the concepts “climate change will cause devastating unknown responses in ecosystems” and “what used to be will be sustainable in the future” are fundamentally in conflict.

The Forest Service made “ecological integrity” more or less a target (how legal that is in an NFMA regulation remains to be seen). Other agencies use it as a construct for one thing they do (habitat or watershed), and sometimes it’s an assessment to inform decisions with another set of goals. Sometimes it’s just a word that could be substituted with “health” with little loss of meaning.

So let’s take a look at how some other agencies are handling this.

First, the 2020 Washington State Forest Action Plan. It mentions integrity by my count seven times in a 128 page document.
“health and integrity of many species and habitats”, “water quality and habitat integrity (Habitat Condition Index), ” “integrity of rivers and streams”, re the Chehalis Basin “Climate change, invasive species, land conversion, and fragmentation threaten the ecological integrity of forests throughout the watershed,” “Ecological Integrity Assessment,” and “fish habitat integrity”. As I think Anonymous said, it’s different to use the concept of EI as an assessment tool than a target.

In her cover letter, Commissioner Franz says: “Collectively, the priorities and goals identified in this plan enhance and protect ecosystem resilience, promote healthy and vibrant urban and rural communities, and strengthen the partnerships required to address the pressing threats facing forests today.”

Next we’ll turn to our own fellow multiple-use agency, the BLM. This is from the Uncompahgre RMP completed in 2021. I picked it at random.

Alternative B emphasizes improving, rehabilitating, and restoring resources and sustaining the ecological integrity of habitats for all priority plant, wildlife, and fish species, while allowing appropriate development scenarios for allowable uses, such as mineral leasing, locatable mineral development, recreation, rights-of-way (ROWs), and livestock grazing. Goals and objectives focus on environmental and social outcomes achieved by sustaining relatively unmodified physical landscapes and natural and cultural resource values for current and future generations.

They did mention ecological integrity.. but of “habitats for all priority plant, wildlife, and fish species”…This seems a bit more concrete (first you prioritize species, then you check their habitats) than the FS “composition, structure, function, connectivity, and species composition and diversity.” Also “sustaining relatively unmodified..values”. I like how they just come out and say it..”we want things not modified to stay unmodified, at least relatively unmodified.”

This scientific paper says after the authors studied EIAs on BLM lands in Nevada:

We suggest that ecological integrity assessments for multiple-use lands be grounded in existing policies and monitoring programs, incorporate resource- and stressor-based metrics, rely on publicly available data collected at multiple spatial scales, and quantify both natural reference and societally desired resource conditions.

But if they are everything (societally desired?) are they really EIA’s? And note that this study says you can assess EI for “multiple use lands”. Again, a measure of potential interest and value, not a target.

Another interesting one is this post-fire plan by American Forests and the BLM for the Camp Fire Restoration Plan.

The Camp Fire Reforestation Plan will improve forest health and resilience, enabling ecosystems to better withstand environmental stressors and recover from disturbances; reduce hazardous fuels and increase community safety; improve wildlife habitat and riparian/wetland functionality; improve plant community diversity and forest structural diversity; identify feasible, cost-effective strategies and plans that can be maintained long term; and protect soils by reducing sedimentation, preventing erosion and promoting a vegetation community that will stabilize soils.

In 67 pages, I ran across one mention of ecological integrity: “Fuel treatments, like prescribed fire and mastication, can be used to reduce fire risk while maintaining the ecological integrity of chaparral.”

Of course, post-fire is different from forest plans or RMPs, but if we believe the UNEP study then much of future forest management will be exactly that.

It seems to be that “climate adaptation and resilience” is something that people can discuss how -to’s and pros and cons of different approaches, including what the past tells us about how to move forward, perhaps more among all the future possibilities and mechanisms of adaptation, than simply moving toward NRV. As if we know “within the natural range of variation and can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental dynamics or human influence.” As if we know there is even is an overlap in that Venn Diagram, and as if we know in advance what can recover and what cannot from the human influence of climate change.

NFS Litigation Occasional February 18, 2022

February 25, 2022 by Jon Haber

The last “weekly” we received was January 18, so I’ll try to fill in the gap (but mostly not today)

The Forest Service summaries are here: Litigation Weekly February 18 2022 Final

Links are to court documents.

COURT DECISIONS

001_20220204_MountainCommunitiesForFireSafety-etal_v_Elliott_etal_20-55660_9thCir_CuddyValley_LosPadres_opinion

Mountain Communities for Fire Safety v. Elliott (9th Cir.) — On February 4, 2022, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a favorable decision to the Forest Service allowing use of categorial exclusion 6 for thinning of larger commercially viable trees to reduce fire hazard for the Cuddy Valley Project on the Los Padres National Forest. The court also found the project was consistent with forest plan aesthetic management standards.

002_20220204_LosPadresForestWatch_etal_v_Elliott_etal_20-55859_9thCir_TecuaRidgeProject_LosPadres_opinion

Los Padres Forest Watch v. Forest Service (9th Cir.) — On February 4, 2022, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mixed decision to the Forest Service regarding the Tecuya Ridge Shaded Fuel-break Project on the Los Padres National Forest. It ruled that the use of CE-6 was proper but that the Forest had not provided adequate substantiation for its determination that 21-inch diameter trees are “generally small diameter timber” within the project area, as required to meet the exception in the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The court also found that the Forest Service was not arbitrary or capricious, based on the rationale it provided, for choosing to locate part of the project outside of the “threat zone” in the Mt. Pinos Community Wildfire Protection Plan. While there was no violation of ESA, the plaintiffs say the ruling protects 1,100 acres of old-growth forest that is actively used by endangered California condors.

003_20220209_Klamath-SiskiyouWildlandsCenter_etal_v_Grantham_etal_18-2785_ED_Cal_Seiad-HorseReductionProj_KlamathNF_order

Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands v. Grantham (E.D. Cal.) — On February 9, 2022, the Eastern District Court of California issued a favorable decision to the Forest Service regarding the Seiad-Horse Risk Reduction Project on the Klamath National Forest. The court upheld the decision to not prepare an EIS based on effects on connectivity, scenery, recreation and roadless area values. It found compliance with the Northwest Forest Plan’s snag retention requirements and its Aquatic Conservation Strategy objectives for water quality, sediment, and in-stream flows. In the latter case, it found that the Forest Service adequately explained how short-term adverse effects would be outweighed by improvements due to riparian planting and large wood placement, and it adequately explained how the impacts would fall with the natural range of variability for water quality, sedimentation, and stream flows.

NEW CASES

004_20220209_NewMexicoCattleGrowersAssociation_etal_v_Vilack_etal_22-86_D_NM_AerialGunningCattle_GilaNF_complaint

New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association v. Vilsack (D. N.M.) — On February 9, 2022, the plaintiff filed a complaint in the District Court of New Mexico against the Forest Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for violating numerous requirements in permitting the use of helicopters to shoot feral cattle on the Gila National Forest within the Gila Wilderness. A temporary restraining order was denied. At least 67 unbranded cattle have been killed so far.

005_20220204_CottonwoodEnvironmentalLawCenter_v_Erickson_etal_22-05_DMont_ClimateChange_CusterGallatinNF_complaint

Cottonwood Environmental Law Center v. Erickson (D. Mont.) — On February 4, 2022, the plaintiff filed a complaint against the Forest Service for violating the National Environmental Policy Act with regard to the effects of the 2022 Revised Custer Gallatin Land Management Plan on the Custer Gallatin National Forest and three “old growth timber sales” in conjunction with climate change. The Plaintiff specifically objects to failure to consider a 2017 National Academy of Sciences article stating, “when thinning is combined with the expected warming, unintended consequences may ensue, whereby regeneration is compromised and forested areas convert to nonforest.”

OTHER AGENCY CASES

006_20220203_AppalachianVoices_etal_v_DOI_etal_20-2159_4thCir_MVP_FWSBO_JeffersonNF_order

Appalachian Voices v. U.S. DOI (4th Cir.) — On February 3, 2022, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had violated the ESA with regard to its biological opinion and Incidental Take Statement for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The FWS failed to adequately evaluate the environmental baseline and impacts of climate change on the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter. (See more on the Mountain Valley Pipeline below)

007_20220208_CascadiaWildlands_etal_v_BLM_22-204_DOregon_ArchieCreekProject_NorthwesternCoastalOregon_complaint

Cascadia Wildlands v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management (D. Oregon) — On February 8, 2022, the plaintiffs filed a complaint in the District Court of Oregon challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s authorization of the Archie Creek Fire Salvage Harvest and Hazard Tree Removal Project in late successional reserves in the North Umpqua Watershed in Oregon. Some additional background is here.

BLOGGER’S BONUS

Mountain Valley Pipeline – Jefferson National Forest

Wild Virginia v. U. S. Forest Service (4th Cir.)

The court decision against the Mountain Valley Pipeline above was the second this year. On January 25, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Forest Service had violated NEPA and NFMA when it amended the Jefferson National Forest Plan to except this project from 11 forest plan standards (the second time these amendments had been reversed).

With regard to NEPA, the Forest Service did not adequately consider sedimentation and erosion impacts because it failed to address USGS monitoring data on effects of the pipeline outside of the national forest showing water turbidity values that were 20% higher downstream from the Pipeline’s construction than upstream — a significant difference from the 2.1% increase in sedimentation the hydrologic analyses used in the EIS predicted. It also improperly authorized the use of a conventional bore method of crossing streams that had not yet been evaluated by FERC in their EIS.

The court also found that the amendment violated 2012 Planning Rule requirements that a forest plan “must include . . . components . . . to maintain or restore the ecological integrity of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and watersheds in the plan area” (emphasis supplied by the court). This followed from the failure to adequately assess the impacts of the Pipeline on sedimentation, which is necessary to demonstrate that they would comply with the specific language of the substantive regulatory requirement (rather than a generic conclusory statement).

This article includes a chronology and some maps.