Guest Post from Dr. Bob Zybach: Review of Wuerthner’s “Indian Burning Myths and Realities”

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This is a guest post by Dr. Bob Zybach.

https://rewilding.org/indian-burning-myth-and-realities/

 

This is probably more of a rebuttal than review. As I was reading through this essay when it was posted here a few weeks ago, I became struck with how familiar it all seemed. Sure enough, when I checked through my old emails, George and I had debated this exact same topic from the exact same perspectives in a series of detailed emails more than 12 years ago — in January 2009.

 

My first thought was that this was a dated article, but when I checked his post, there was no publication date. That caused me to try for several days to contact him to make certain I wasn’t responding to something he had written long ago, but after no response and noting that a few of his references were from 2020, I decided to continue with my review.

 

The problem is that Wuerthner has written something debatable in nearly every single paragraph, and there are a whole lot of paragraphs. Dozens of uncited opinions and questionable statements are presented as “facts,” supported by cherry-picked references and superficial citations to important materials that he seems unfamiliar with. The exact same problems I was pointing out when we were corresponding in 2009.

 

Wuerthner describes “8 Major Issues” with the “Indian Burning Myth” that he lists at the outset of his essay. In this regard, these do seem to be representative of the general thinking that still pervades his (and others) thinking on these issues today. So, my strategy in addressing these issues is to quote him directly on representative statements (which I put into italics), and then offer my own perspective or criticism on a mostly point-by-point basis. Sorry for the length. It was a long article with lots of misinformation.

 

Wuerthner’s “8 Major Issues”

 

  1. The claim that Indian burning precludes large fires feeds into the “fuels is the problem” narrative, which is increasingly discredited, as large wildfires in fact are driven by extreme climate weather.

 

I am not sure what “climate weather” is, but climate is a mathematical average of weather measurements over time — typically 30 years or more. When I discussed this issue with George in 2009, he said it was a “cheap shot” when I pointed out that wildfires can’t take place in a desert or on a lake, no matter the weather, because of lack of fuels. However, that argument still stands. Fuels are needed. How those fuels burn is determined in large part by the weather, but a large fire can create its own weather — including gale-force winds, “pyronadoes,” cumulus clouds, and even rain.

 

One thing that consistently weakens Wuerthner’s arguments are his uses of phrases such as “in fact,” which he seems to confuse with “in my opinion,” or something of that nature when it comes to qualifying statements. In mitigating wildfire effects, fuels are the main problem that can be addressed, along with human sources of ignition. We can’t control the weather, no matter how many “carbon credits” we might purchase. Topography is a given, and wildfire sources of ignition are mostly caused by people (year-round) or lightning (seasonal in some locations), with volcanoes and spontaneous combustion occasionally contributing to the mix.

 

  1. All large fires are driven by climate and weather conditions which include drought, low humidity, high temperatures, and high winds.

 

This reminds me of the joke that “all absolute statements are false.” This is an absolute statement in which the word “driven” takes on a much more general definition than when the word is usually associated with wildfire. Climate is an average and does not drive wildfires — I can only guess why George and others keep making this statement (“politics” and “potential funding” come to mind).

 

“All large fires” are not “driven” by drought, are usually driven by high winds (depending on fuels), and typically take place during weather conditions that include high temperatures and low humidity. Often, large fires do take place during periods of seasonal or prolonged drought. Heavy spring rains — not drought — can result in increased flash and ladder fuels that readily burn during seasonal dry spells.

 

  1. These conditions have always existed, and large blazes have always occurred despite Indigenous burning. However, they are being exacerbated today by human-caused climate warming.

 

Yes, these weather conditions have existed for a very long time (maybe not “always”), and large fires have likely existed from the time of the first dry land vegetation, volcanoes and lightning, but there is zero scientific evidence that they are being “exacerbated today by human-caused climate warming.” Putting aside the difficulty of warming a climate, it needs to be made clear that climate change modelers have been consistently wrong for the past 30+ years in their prophesies of “climate catastrophe” and its “proof” by increased numbers and sizes of wildfires, Florida underwater, melting glaciers, and widespread famine. Wildfires have been worse, as scientifically predicted since 1986, but those predictions have been based almost entirely on unmanaged fuels on federal lands, not climate.

 

  1. Indigenous burning resulted primarily in localized fuel reductions but seldom affected the larger landscape.

 

This is silly, and possibly even a little racist. George lives, or has lived, in Eugene, Oregon, which is in the southern portion of the Willamette Valley. This Valley is more than 3,000,000 acres in size and was entirely formed and maintained by Indian burning practices for thousands of years. Due south is the Umpqua Valley, with the Bear Creek Valley then extending further south nearly to the California border — and both with similar fire histories as the Willamette Valley. People usually settle in valleys, around lakes, along the coast, and at the mouths of creeks and rivers. Fire travels uphill and on the wind — human-caused fires will often get out of control, even if it is Indians that are setting them, if fuels exist along the hillsides. These fires, whether set purposefully or by accident, invariably “affect the larger landscape,” by definition.

 

And where is George getting the idea that pre-European peoples clustered into “localized” settlements and only had a rudimentary understanding of fire? Obsidian tools that originated in present-day Oregon were recently discovered at an underwater archaeological site in the Great Lakes. Historical Indian trade routes existed the entire length of the Columbia and Mississippi Rivers and numerous foot trails crossed the Rockies, connecting the two great basins. Indians traveled and traded extensively for thousands of years and mostly used fire expertly on a daily basis — same as people everywhere.

 

  1. There is historic, scientific, ecological, and evolutionary evidence that challenges the Indian burning narrative.

 

I’m sure that’s true, but the basic function of science (and probably ecology, too) is to challenge prevailing assumptions and stated hypotheses — so that would be normal and expected. Not too sure of the “historic” information that is being referenced, or what “evolutionary evidence” might exist. Not sure how this statement even qualified as a “Major Issue.”

 

  1. Large high severity fires are not “destructive” but essential to many healthy forest ecosystems.

 

Now we’ve devolved to semantics. Unfortunately, these fires are, indeed, “destructive” by almost any definition. Wildlife are killed, the air is fouled, homes are sometimes burned, and the results are often determined to be ugly and increasingly hazardous for years to follow. Then we have George’s additional opinion that these events are somehow “essential” to whatever he thinks “healthy forest ecosystems” are. Those are known as “value statements” that typically vary from person to person. They are not facts in any sense of the word, just overstated opinions — which, in my experience, many, many people do not agree with, including a significant number of forest scientists and forest managers.

 

  1. Implementation of a significant prescribed burning program has many obstacles.

 

That is true. I’m not sure there is any debate on this point.

 

  1. The way to protect homes is to start from the home outward, not to “treat” forests at the landscape scale.

 

Another of George’s opinions. Flames, sparks, and burning debris can travel hundreds of feet and miles in advance of a forest fire. A well maintained and irrigated homesite should largely be unaffected by these sources of ignition — unless the home is on the edge of a forest, then the formula changes dramatically. One size does not fit all, and all generalities remain false.

 

CHERRY-PICKING

 

After listing these “8 Major Issues,” Wuerthner then goes into lengthy examples and discussions as to why they are so important. Unfortunately, he uses a number of devises to support these assertions that only weaken his conclusions. His writing habits — that include “cherry-picking” the data, superficial references, and stating personal opinions as universal facts — should make the reader suspicious.

 

In 2009 I suggested that Wuerthner could balance his assertions by reading Robert Boyd’s book on the fire history of the Willamette Valley and Kat Anderson’s book, Tending the Wild, in order to become better informed on this issue. He replied that he would do so and thanked me for the suggestion, but neither one is cited in his essay or listed in his Reference section, 12 years later. My PhD dissertation is on the exact same topic and it’s not listed either — not that I expected it to be.

 

There are known experts on the Indian burning history of the US, and George is familiar with who they are. But they are not cited in his work, and further weaken it as a result. If he was serious about this topic, he would become far more familiar with the writings of Stephen Pyne, Robert Boyd, Henry Lewis, Omer Stewart and Kat Anderson. Vale, Knox and Whitlock need to be considered in context to these recognized experts in the field, not as the actual voices of “science” on this issue.

 

Wuerthner also claims that the pollen record is of importance. I agree, but he continues:

 

If Indigenous burning was so widespread as to influence landscape-scale vegetation, we would expect to find abundance pollen from species favored by frequent, low severity fires. For the most part, except in the immediate area around villages, this evidence does not exist.

 

More fiction, possibly based on the research of Whitlock or one of her students. Again, if Wuerthner wants to cite a single source to support his perspective, he should reasonably put that perspective in context to the established experts in the field. In that regard, Henry Hansen’s work has been available online since 2002,

SUPERFICIAL CITATIONS

 

The idea that tribal burning impacted the broad landscape is also asserted by some scholars (e.g. Williams, G.W. 2004), but often with scant evidence to back up these claims except for “oral traditions” of Native people.

 

Gerald Williams is an expert on Indian burning history and has written extensively on the topic. He never claimed to depend on “oral traditions” for his research — Wuerthner is just making that up to trivialize this work. I’m guessing he hasn’t bothered to actually read Williams’ article, or much else of his other writings on this topic.

 

Most “evidence” for the widespread influence of indigenous burning is based on oral tradition which is notoriously subject to variation of interpretation and misinterpretation.

 

This is just bullshit, and Wuerthner must know that. My MAIS degree from Oregon State University was in oral histories. These are not true statements and grossly misrepresent both Williams’ and my own research. My PhD study at OSU study focused on Indian burning and catastrophic wildfire patterns of the Oregon Coast Range, from 1491 to 1951. It has been readily available online for nearly 20 years, yet Wuerthner chooses to ignore this research and simply make things up, or else cite sources of dubious accuracy:

 

Here are a few sentences from my PhD Abstract, which in its entirety only takes a couple of minutes to read:

 

Archival and anthropological research methods were used to obtain early surveys, maps, drawings, photographs, interviews, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) inventories, eyewitness accounts and other sources of evidence that document fire history. Data were tabulated, mapped, and digitized as new GIS layers for purposes of comparative analysis. An abundance of useful historical evidence was found for reconstructing precontact vegetation patterns and human burning practices in western Oregon.

 

In addition to apparently being unfamiliar with Williams actual writing and misrepresenting his research, Wuerthner does the same thing with another expert on the topic, John Leiberg, and his USFS report on SW Oregon forests in 1899. Here is Wuerthner’s entire reference and citation for Leiberg:

 

Early timber surveys also record large high severity fires (Leiberg, J. B. 1903).

 

I am actually very familiar with Leiberg’s work (I don’t think he was ever aware of the term “high severity fire”) and developed an unfinished report on his detailed 1899 report in which I transcribed and organized his statements on old-growth, wildfires, logging, forest history, reforestation and Indian burning, with minor commentary, and put it online as a draft report in 2006. http://www.orww.org/History/SW_Oregon/References/Leiberg_1899/

 

Here are some direct quotes:

 

(p. 249) The forest floor in the [“yellow-pine”] type is covered with a thin layer of humus consisting entirely of decaying pine needles, or it is entirely bare.  The latter condition is very prevalent east of the Cascades, where large areas are annually overrun by fire.  But even on the western side of the range, where the humus covering is most conspicuous, it is never more than a fraction of an inch in thickness, just enough to supply the requisite material for the spread of forest fires.

 

(p. 277) The largest burns directly chargeable to the Indian occupancy are in Ts. 30 and 31 S., Rs. 8 and 9 E.  In addition to being the largest, they are likewise the most ancient.  The burns cover upward of 60,000 acres, all but 1,000 or 1,100 acres being in a solid block.  This tract appears to have been systematically burned by the Indians during the past three centuries [ca. 1600 to 1855].  Remains of three forests are distinctly traceable in the charred fragments of timber which here and there litter the ground.

 

FACTS & OPINIONS

 

Finally, although Wuerthner’s cherry-picking and misrepresentations make his conclusions suspect, his habit of stating his personal opinions as if they are actually facts only serves to further erode his credibility. Here are some examples, with occasional commentary:

 

The second highest biodiversity, after old-growth forests, is found in the snag forests with down wood that results from these blazes. These high severity habitats would not exist if such Indigenous burning were as widespread as advocates suggest.

 

Not sure where George is getting his “biodiversity” measures from (or why they are important to him), but he is apparently unfamiliar with tropical forests, the ocean, and deciduous woodlands.

 

Most cultural burning, like the prescribed fires set today by state and federal agencies, was practiced in the spring and fall when fire spread was limited by moist fuels, high humidity, cool temperatures, and when winds are calm.

 

Actually, at least in western Oregon, most Indian burning took place in late summer or fall (“fire season”), as documented by many, many eyewitness accounts. More misinformation, based on personal bias.

 

Native people were wise enough not to purposely set fires in the middle of extreme fire weather. Setting a blaze under conditions with variable high winds and during a drought would be a recipe for disaster because it would lead to uncontrollable fires that would threaten villages and life.

 

Bullshit. Wuerthner’s biases do not equal “Indian wisdom.” More self-serving fiction.

 

For instance, in Oregon’s Willamette Valley most large trees were established after large, high severity fires that occurred long before Euro-American influences on native populations. The 1865 Silverton Fire burned more than a million acres of the western Cascades. The 1853 Yaquina Fire burned nearly a half-million acres. 

 

Jeez. There is zero evidence that the scattered large oak and Douglas fir documented by Euro-American settlers in the Willamette Valley followed a “large, high severity fire.” Not sure where Wuerthner got this nonsense.  The “million-acre” Silverton Fire is one of the “myths” that Wuerthner says he is challenging. This became a popular fiction at some point and seems to be referring to one or more Civil War-era wildfires in the Silverton area of western Oregon that likely totaled no more than 100,000 acres. I have personally completed thousands of acres of reforestation projects in the Yaquina burn. This fire took place in 1849 or 1850 at the latest and was expanded in size with a second (or third) major fire in 1868. I studied this fire on-and-off for 30 years and my research is summarized in my dissertation.

 

Another study found that the mean fire interval in Oregon’s Coast Range was 230 years and the presence of fire-sensitive species like Sitka spruce indicates a lack of frequent fire (Knox and Whitlock 2002).

 

This is another instance where Knox and Whitlock (and Wuerthner) show their lack of understanding of actual western Oregon fire history. The “230-year fire interval” is total nonsense and difficult to determine who made this up. The famous “Six-Year Jinx” of Tillamook Fires took place in 1933, 1939, 1945, and 1951 — following major fires in the 1890s and 1918. The 1868 Coos Fire followed two or three major events in the 1700s, at least one major fire in the 1840s, and was followed by the 1879 “Big Burn.” There are more examples.

 

Even if prescribed burning could reduce large blazes (which would not be good for forest ecosystem health), multiple problems would result if prescribed burning were to ramp up significantly.

 

Apparently, George wants his readers to believe that “large blazes” are “good” for “forest ecosystem health,” whatever that is. His arguments and supposed “evidence” remain unconvincing and unlikely.

 

SUMMARY

 

Perhaps the biggest problem with the “Indigenous burning will preclude large blazes” argument is that it feeds into the narrative that “fuels” are driving the large fires we see around the West. To reiterate, large fires are and have always been primarily climate-weather driven events.

 

Fuels do not drive large blazes. Climate/weather does.

 

I still don’t know what “Climate/weather” is, but I do know an anti-active management agenda when I see one. I would caution students to avoid citing Wuerthner as any kind of authority on fire history, forest management, or wildfire mitigation.

 

Chad Hanson’s New Book: “Debunking” Myths or Generating Them?

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Mullen Fire difference in treatment of thinning lodgepole pine. From Co/Wy SAF virtual field trip.

We picked this up in the High Country News, but it was originally published in The Food and Environment Reporting Network. Since that organization is based in New York, and Dr. Hanson is based in California, we might expect a somewhat Coastalist perspective. That is, folks who want to do fuel mitigation treatments to help with fire suppression efforts motives are really are all about making money from logging. Of course, there is no market for the products for many of these treatments on private or federal lands in, say, Colorado or New Mexico, so that argument on its surface wouldn’t fly in many places.

So let’s look at this book review (the book was published by the University of Kentucky Press) and the claims therein (with the caveat that this is a review, and perhaps those are the reviewer’s words and not Hanson’s):

But the logging industry and those who stand to benefit from it – especially the U.S. Forest Service, which pockets most of the profit from its timber sales and “functions like a logging corporation,” Hanson argues – have long been preying on society’s pyrophobia, pedaling a host of now popular myths to garner support for additional logging on both public and private lands. For example, “thinning” is often promoted as a means of reducing the fuel load in supposedly “overgrown” forests, thereby decreasing both the likelihood and intensity of wildfire. And yet extensive research has proven otherwise.

“Thinned forests often burn more intensely in wildland fires,” he writes, “because thinning reduces the windbreak effect of denser forests, allowing winds to sweep through more rapidly, while also reducing the shade of the forest canopy and creating hotter and drier conditions.”

In fact, the deadliest wildfire in California history, the notorious Camp Fire of 2018, began on several thousand acres that had been heavily logged – thinned in some areas, clear cut in others — following a lightning fire in 2008.

I especially like the idea of the Forest Service functioning like a “logging corporation” despite the best intentions of the Clinton, Obama and now Biden Administrations.. who, whoops, just offered this testimony about increasing fuel treatments a few weeks ago. Clearly the FS must be telling political appointees what to do.. or, more likely, environmental NGO’s who have the ear of political appointees disagree with Dr. Hanson.

Hanson keeps saying this, despite peoples’ experiences of fuel treatments working, and of places where material is not sold, (such as the PODs or any of the other voluminous information about fuel treatment effectives, both research studies and monitoring).

Given that, it strikes me that “ecological hate speech” is an interesting characterization:

“A kind of ecological hate speech has developed around the issue of wildland fire and forests,” Hanson writes, “and it is perpetuating the removal of massive amounts of carbon from forests worldwide under the banner of benign or benevolent-sounding terms, exacerbating climate change, and pushing at-risk wildlife species and ecosystems closer to the brink.”

Perhaps in the writing of the day, you can’t disagree with other people anymore.. you must “debunk the myths” of what they’re saying. Yawn. And you don’t disagree with other people, if they say something you disagree with, they are engaging in “hate speech.” And if people disagree with you, their claims must be “spurious.”

The vitriol ramps up and the opportunity for rich discussion and finding areas of commonality ramps down.

“Nor can fires be stopped by fire suppression tactics during extreme weather, regardless of how much money is spent or how many firefighters and water tankers are employed. In the era of climate change, we can no more stop weather-driven fires than we can stand on a ridge and fight the wind,” he adds.

I’d argue that these claims may only seem compelling to people who don’t live in areas likely to be impacted by wildfires.

NOT the NFS Litigation Weekly July 2, 2021

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The Forest Service has had “nothing to report” the last two weeks, but so you don’t feel like you’re missing something, here is what apparently didn’t make the cut.  (Links are primarily to news articles.)

SETTLEMENTS

In response to the lawsuit summarized here (Conservation Northwest v. U.S. Forest Service), on April 30, 2021, the Colville National Forest withdrew its action that changed the vehicle use class designations for 26 road segments from open to highway legal vehicles only to open to all vehicles, which opened those roads to use by all-terrain vehicles.  On June 7, the court dismissed the case.

On April 20, Central Oregon LandWatch and Oregon Wild filed a lawsuit challenging the Black Mountain Project on the Ochoco National Forest (introduced here).  On June 14, the court approved a settlement which, according to plaintiffs, will require the Forest Service to “exclude sensitive riparian habitat…”

ACCESS

(New lawsuit, between private parties.)  On June 1, a group comprised of hikers, hunters, fishermen and other users of the Jefferson National Forest sued a private landowner under a state statute in a Virginia county court for blocking historic access to the national forest.  The Forest Service had chosen to not pursue the matter in 2008.

On June 21, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the ownership of an abandoned railroad right of way near Noxon, Montana reverted to the federal government under the National Trails System Improvement Act.  An adjacent private landowner had brought a quiet title action against the Forest Service.

MARIJUANA

Four California conservation groups filed a formal notice of intent to sue the Forest Service for failing to clean up hazardous waste associated with trespass cannabis grows on Forest Service lands in California.  While trash and other solid waste is often removed from grow sites after law enforcement, deadly pesticides are routinely left at the former grow site because of the cost and complexity of removal.

Meanwhile, on June 29, a grower pleaded guilty to cultivating marijuana on the Sierra National Forest.

ESA

(Court decision.)  On June 22, the Montana federal district court upheld the Bull Trout Recovery Plan in Save the Bull Trout v. Williams.  The court held the content of recovery plans is largely discretionary, and that the Fish and Wildlife Service could use a matrix addressing management of threats to bull trout instead of population numbers to determine recovery.  (That could raise the stakes for what forest plans should do to protect bull trout.)  (The article includes a link to the opinion.)  Plaintiffs have filed an appeal to the 9th Circuit.

(New case.)  Following up on their notice of intent to sue in March (provided here), five conservation groups sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for listing only a Missouri distinct population segment as endangered rather than the entire species.  The species occurs on several eastern national forests.  Additional background and a link to the complaint are here.

  • Listing actions

Following a petition and lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the beardless chinchweed will receive protection as endangered.  One of the remaining populations is found in the area that would be affected by the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine on the Coronado National Forest.  (Litigation related to the mine is discussed here.)

On June 15, the USFWS delisted the water howellia, an aquatic plant, citing (among other things) the protective measures in the Flathead National Forest revised forest plan and the Mendocino National Forest plan.  The delisting notice also states, “The USFS anticipates that water howellia will be given the status of ‘‘species of conservation concern’’ in both plans when the species is delisted.”

On June 24, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed downlisting the smooth coneflower from endangered to threatened.  It is found on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in VA, Sumter National Forest in SC, and Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in GA.  The listing notice emphasized that, “there are currently 16 protected, resilient smooth coneflower populations, and, “These populations are protected on Federal lands from the threats of ecological succession or destruction due to development, primarily because Federal partners are vested in the protection of the species under their management plans.”

A Comprehensive Article on Cross-Laminated Timber: And the Views of Some Environmental Organizations

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Clemson’s Outdoor Recreation Center made with CLT  https://www.structuremag.org/?p=17338

This Vox article by David Roberts is the best comprehensive view of CLT I’ve run across, well worth the read.  As you know, I’m working on a project about “potential areas of agreement in fuels reduction/restoration efforts”.

It seems, at least from the responses to the Climate Smart Forestry and Ag request,  that many ENGO’s put biomass at the bottom and want woody material to go to a higher value product. More on that later.  So it seems like CLT has the ability to build bridges between the formerly maligned timber industry and environmental concerns, plus the issue seems to not be partisanized.

If you wonder what makes CLT, how small the material can be and so on, I recommend you read all of this article.  There’s even a video of blast testing! And this from the Public Lands Commissioner in the State of Washington.

Forests in the West have become tinderboxes, in part thanks to climate change and in part thanks to years of poor management. They are filled with trees dead or weakened from pine beetle infestations. Decades of overzealous fire protection have left them choked with closely clustered, small-diameter trees. Lately, with all this kindling around, “there’s so much fuel, the intensity of the fire wipes out everything,” says Hilary Franz, commissioner of public lands in Washington state. The land is being permanently scarred.

The forests on public lands badly need thinning, but there’s never enough funding. This has given Franz an idea: use weak and small trees, for which there is no other market, for mass timber. (Logs with tops as small as 4.5 inches will work.) A sufficiently large market for mass timber would create funding for thinning those trees out. As a bonus, Franz wants to use mass timber to build low-cost affordable housing on publicly managed land.

Numerous environmental groups, led by the Sierra Club, signed an open letter to California state officials in 2018, urging caution about mass timber. Notably, they did not oppose it outright. They argued that, thanks to current forestry practices, its climate benefits have been exaggerated. “CLT cannot be climate-smart unless it comes from climate-smart forestry,” they said.

The letter provides a short list of principles that should guide climate-smart forestry, including: “Logging of the world’s remaining mature and primary forests, as well as unroaded/undeveloped and other intact forest landscapes, should cease.” And: “Tree plantations should not be established at the expense of natural forests.”

While it is not perfect, they concluded, “FSC certification of privately owned forestlands can support progress in the right direction.”

“There’s no question that [FSC] is the gold standard,” says Jones, “but it’s all better than not doing anything.”

Now you might find this puzzling, as the Sierra Club seems to be against the FS becoming certified to FSC. At least that’s what 15 year old rumors said.  So I noted that the link to the letter from the Sierra Club site was broken and asked Roberts for a copy.  The letter is now hosted by another site the Pacific Northwest Building Coalition, which seems to be an organization of concrete producers (competitors in the building sector).

The principles in the letter sound very much like how the Forest Service manages. Which is not surprising, given studies like this from the Pinchot Institute.

“Therefore, we should permanently protect those forests that are the most carbon-rich, including U.S. federal public forestlands” Except that they are not all (all FS lands) carbon rich, as we know; and doesn’t directly address the fuel treatment/restoration “the alternative is burning in piles” question, as articulated by this WSU Civil Engineering Professor, Don Bender.

And who signed the letter? A bunch of organizations that are the usual suspects in our line of work, as well as others.
Jason Grant, Sierra Club
Rolf Skar, Greenpeace USA
Debbie Hammel, Natural Resources Defense Council,
Jim Ace, Stand
Dominick DellaSala, Ph. D., Geos Institute
Chad Hanson, Ph. D. John Muir Project
Denis Hayes, Bullitt Foundation
Peter Goldman, Washington Forest Law Center
Adam Colette, Dogwood Alliance
Bill Barclay, Rainforest Action Network
Lisa Remlinger, Washington Environmental Council
Randi Spivak, Center for Biodiversity.. and many more

So it seems like support depends on landownership, and not anything to do with the ecosystem or the science. And of course, one of the difficulties with FSC is that it’s ultimately based on a forest management for forest products model, and not a fuels treatment/restoration model. That might require the development of a different certification system.  But that might lead to equity concerns in which a broad national system might exert power-over the informed decisions of collaboratives on the ground.

But perhaps I’m misinterpreting the sentence in the letter. I have tried to clarify with folks from the Sierra Club, but have not received any clarifying replies, including the media desk. If anyone has a good contact there, please let me know.

Recent forest plan litigation

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Litigation about the validity of a forest plan doesn’t happen very often, but two revised forest plans have been in the news for that lately.

Flathead court decision

The Montana District Court has decided the first case reviewing a forest plan revised under the 2012 Planning Rule, and it rejected decisions made in the Flathead plan related to roads because of the Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service had not adequately analyzed the effects of roads on grizzly bears and bull trout.  The court held that the process of revising the forest plan violated the Endangered Species Act; plaintiffs did not challenge compliance with NFMA or the Planning Rule. The court found no violations of NEPA and travel planning requirements.  The revised plan remains in effect pending additional analysis, but additional analysis will also be required for ongoing projects.  I haven’t read the opinion yet, and it’s not clear to me why these projects should not also be required to comply with the old plan direction for roads, which would have limited road construction, unless/until the revised plan complies with ESA.

This article quotes the judge on the crux of the case regarding grizzly bears:

“The mere fact that the (NCDE) population was increasing from 2004-2011 does not justify moving away from the existing management requirements of Amendment 19. In effect, by recognizing that Amendment 19 laid the foundation for recovery of the NCDE population and then using that recovery as justification for getting rid of the existing access conditions, the Fish and Wildlife Service eschews Amendment 19 precisely because it was working. This action is arbitrary and capricious,” Molloy wrote.

Additionally, the article continues:

Molloy agreed the choice of conditions in 2011 was arbitrary. Even had the choice been acceptable, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should have analyzed whether the new Forest Plan would have exceeded the 2011 baseline, which was a reflection of conditions existing while Amendment 19 influenced the plan. But the agency didn’t do that.

The USFWS also didn’t explain why it didn’t recommend culvert removal as part of road abandonment to aid bull trout survival. Molloy pointed out that the agency’s 2015 Bull Trout Recovery Plan emphasizes the importance of culvert removal and road decommissioning. But then the agency backed off, saying culvert removal wasn’t necessary in its 2017 biological opinion on the Flathead National Forest plan. Molloy acknowledged that part of the reasoning is because the roads aren’t being accessed, but evidence showed that at least two-thirds are being used.

Finally, Molloy said the Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to analyze how the new plan would harm grizzly bears on Forest Service land outside of the NDCE core area. So the biological opinion is flawed, as is the agency’s calculation of bears killed or affected by the plan, and the Flathead National Forest erred in basing its plan on a flawed opinion, Molloy wrote.

A key factor in the decision was apparently evidence presented by plaintiffs that requirements for road closures in the forest plan would actually result in continued public use of the closed roads.

This article quotes timber industry intervenors:

“It’s a pretty thorough and nuanced opinion,” said Lawson Fite, an American Forest Resource Council attorney representing the Montana Logging Association.

Colville new lawsuit

There may be more legal action ahead involving NFMA in new litigation filed on the recently revised Colville Forest Plan, which was summarized here (this plan was revised using the 1982 planning regulations). Most of the attention is probably on the Sanpoil Project, where plaintiffs raise issues related to the site-specificity of the analysis (see condition-based NEPA). They also make a NEPA claim related to our many discussions of historic/natural variability (versus an alternative that “was actually focused on maximizing timber revenue”); more on the forest plan aspects of that below.

One of the forest plan issues is old growth – specifically the elimination of the Eastside Screens which imposed a diameter limit on trees harvested, and whether the revised plan direction adequately provides for viability of old growth species in accordance with the provisions of the 1982 planning regulations, which require that old growth be “well-distributed.”  The revised plan also eliminated pileated woodpeckers and American marten as management indicator species for old growth and did not replace them with anything.

The Forest prepared an “issue paper” on old growth as part of the objection process, which I will highlight below (you might want to keep in mind our recent HRV vs NRV discussions, though this is not an explicit requirement of the 1982 regulations):

The proposed Forest Plan replaces Eastside Screens with a series of desired HRV conditions (described in FEIS, Vol. 1, pp. 92-94, 99-132) but allows cutting of individual large trees when needed to meet desired conditions for structural stages, along with several other exceptions (FEIS, Vol. I, pp. 28-30). It provides a desired condition for forest structure (FW-DC-VEG-03) that provides for a diversity in forage and wildlife habitat. Additionally, forest-wide desired condition (FW-DC-WL-03 and FW-DC-WL-13) state that habitat conditions should be consistent with the historical range of variability.

Instead of fixed reserves in the current Forest Plan the proposed Forest Plan would have late structure contained throughout the landscape and all actions that affect forest vegetation would be assessed and compared to HRV, with the goal of moving the overall landscape toward HRV.

The proposed Forest Plan will result in approximately 780,592 acres of late forest structure in 100 years, which is slightly less than the current Forest Plan (810,583 acres). The proposed Forest Plan would, however, allow structure classes to shift around the landscape in response to disturbance and may result in more resilient forest landscapes.

The effects analysis described in the FEIS shows that maintaining a 21″ diameter limit reduces the ability to attain the desired future condition of having a majority of most vegetation types in late structure.

It’s great that they actually projected the amount of late forest structure.  Based on the planned/expected reduction, I would have to conclude that their assessment told them they had too much of this compared to historic conditions.  I think that would be fairly unique and create a burden to demonstrate that using best available science (which plaintiffs seem to be disputing).  The last two paragraphs are a little hard to reconcile since the current plan would produce more old growth, but maybe there is too much of some old growth vegetation types and not enough of others?

The forest structure desired condition (FW-DC-VEG-03) includes an evaluation of the historical range of variability (HRV) and vegetation treatments at the project level will need to show movement toward this desired condition. This means that until the desired condition is reached, existing late structure would need to be maintained on the landscape.

This is an important interpretation of what they think their forest plan requires.  Hopefully it says something close to this in the plan itself, but regardless, their EIS effects analysis would have been based on it and they should be held to it when project consistency is evaluated.

More Pace and Scale and Wildland Firefighter Pay: Senate Hearing with Chris French

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Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today has a great summary of a recent committee hearing .  Excerpt below.

Chris French recommended an increase in pay for firefighters and boosting fuel management projects by 200% to 400%management projects by 200% to 400%

Chris French, Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service
Chris French, Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, testifies before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources June 24, 2021.

It is not often that I watch a Senate or House committee hearing in which wildland fire was a topic and later feel positive about what I heard. The June 24 hearing before the full Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources was different. Chris French, Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service gave citizens of the United States hope that the agency has a realistic view of the world for which the agency is responsible, and most importantly, can speak honestly to Senators about what they can do to help.

Mr. French answered questions about wildland fire and other topics from several Senators during the two-hour session. You can see the entire hearing at the Committee’s website — it begins at 32:50.

 

The Princeton Study, Solar and Wind Buildout and Landscape Transformation (Including Federal Lands)

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Retired Smokey Bear commented about the proposed buildout of wind and solar in Virginia, which reminded me of the Princeton study. There’s a good New York Times article, which probably has a paywall but I included some maps and excerpts from there.  You can check out the Princeton study itself here.  It’s jam-packed with information of all kinds.

The Princeton study has several scenarios, and the maps here are based on the “Princeton Net-Zero America High Electrification scenario, which assumes that the United States will essentially phase out coal use and drastically reduce natural gas and oil use. The scenario also assumes the United States will use geologic sequestration to capture and store one metric gigaton of carbon each year by 2050. It also assumes there will be widespread adoption of electric vehicles in 2050 and high levels of building electrification.”

I believe you can scroll down on the maps to see your own part of the country, but I couldn’t figure out how. That’s why I’m using the NY Times maps below, for which wind is blue and solar is orange. Note that western forested areas in the PNW and northern California don’t have much to speak of, but for the interior West is looks like overlap with sage grouse terrain. Also note the midwest and east coast.  It seems that the brunt of this buildout will not occur on the coasts (except offshore) so there could be an element of Coastalism that crops up as the buildout occurs (if it does). If you read the comments, it looks like many think alternatives are rooftop and along existing highways and other previously manipulated habitat. If you didn’t think decarbonizing is ultimately an engineering/construction practical problem, this discussion might lead you there. Or back to nuclear. Which reminds me of this effort in Wyoming, which is being built to access the infrastructure and workforce of an existing coal mine.

Wind and solar needed by 2050 (NY Times map)
Solar and Wind today (from the NY Times)

Getting the permits

And back to our federal landscapes concerns.

Many of the places with the best sun and wind resources in the United States are on public land in the southwest and along the Rocky Mountains, so some energy will still need to come from remote areas in the West.

Getting approval to build on federal or state land can be a much longer process than what’s required for private land.

The Interior Department currently has a goal of approving permits for 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on federal land by 2025, but some of the Princeton models propose nearly five times that amount on public land in the coming decades.

How much energy is allowed on public land, and where projects are built, will depend on how the Biden Administration updates the solar and wind energy plans developed during the Obama administration. Those projects allow fast-tracked permitting for renewable projects on certain parcels of federal land for projects.

The existing plans, nearly a decade old, will need to be updated to account for advances in solar and wind technology that allow projects to be built on steeper terrain or to have less of an environmental impact.

Conservation

The question of whether to strictly conserve land for environmental purposes or make exceptions for clean energy is a thorny one.

Some species, like the desert tortoise and sage grouse, are being pushed to the brink of extinction by global warming and development, including oil and gas extraction, in their habitats. Without careful planning, adding vast solar panel arrays or hundreds of wind turbines where they live could push them over the edge. But so, too, could the continued burning of fossil fuels and rising global temperatures.

Renewable energy developers are required to conduct environmental impact studies and can sometimes offset the harm from new projects. A developer hoping to build wind turbines, for example, could pay to retrofit older, existing transmission lines in the area to make them safer for birds, balancing the toll on the species.

I think solar and wind installations are out for any 30 x 30 initiatives, so those efforts will also reduce the acres available. Perhaps it would make sense to start a national discussion now and delineate zones for solar and wind and transmission, and then start 30×30 ing.

New Battery Supply-Chain and Federal Lands Mining Law Task Forces

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Tiehm’s buckwheat grows in Nevada above lithium-rich soil.
Photo: Nevada Natural Heritage Program

Supply chains aren’t something you usually read about in our world, but are relevant to mining on federal lands. This piece is from Mining News North and talks about Biden administration efforts including 1) a task force to identify sites where critical minerals (read batteries) can be responsibly produced and processed in the U.S., 2) and another to propose new legislation for mines on federal land, and to 3) fully explore “opportunities to reduce time, cost, and risk of permitting without compromising strong environmental and consultation benchmarks”.

It sounds like a good thing for BLM and possibly the FS that this task force will identify sites…it also sounds like the Administration will have to walk a challenging line between projects being developed “at the highest standards for environmental protection” and streamlining permitting. Perhaps they will figure something out that can be applied to other kinds of projects.

There have been some lithium mine controversies already. There’s lithium mine vs. endangered buckwheat in the press. Also the Thacker Pass potential mine has generated controversy..

Below are some excerpts:

The administration addressed the battery metals and other critical minerals needed in a June report that followed a 100-day assessment of the vulnerabilities to America’s supply chains.

In preparation for the “sustainable sourcing and processing of the critical minerals used in battery production all the way through to end-of-life battery collection and recycling,” the White House is assembling a working group of federal agencies led by the U.S. Department of Interior and supported by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to identify sites where critical minerals can be responsibly produced and processed in the U.S.

“This working group will collaborate with the private sector, states, Tribal Nations, and stakeholders – including representatives of labor, impacted communities, and environmental justice leaders – to expand sustainable, responsible critical minerals production and processing in the United States,” according to a statement outlining the administration’s strategy to strengthen supply chains.

The White House, however, wants to ensure that any such critical mineral projects are developed at the highest standards for environmental protections.

To identify gaps in mining-related statutes and regulations that may need to be updated by Congress, the White House is assembling a second federal interagency team composed of staff from DOI, USDA, EPA, and others with expertise in mine permitting and environmental law.

Information collected by this group will be used for an expected push for U.S. lawmakers to establish a whole new mining regulatory framework with strong environmental standards throughout the entire mine life, from development to reclamation.

“We recommend Congress develop legislation to replace outdated mining laws including the General Mining Law (GML) of 1872 governing locatable minerals (including nickel) on federal lands, the Materials Disposal Act of 1947 to dispose of minerals found on federal lands, and the Mineral Land Leasing Act of 1920 among others,” the Biden administration wrote. “These should be updated to have stronger environmental standards, up-to-date fiscal reforms, better enforcement, inspection and bonding requirements, and clear reclamation planning requirements.”

The three laws cited by the White House, however, are not related to the environmental regulations governing mining in the U.S. Instead, they detail how federal lands are prospected and staked (Mining Law of 1872); how minerals on federal lands are sold or leased (Materials Disposal Act of 1947); and royalties on mineral products on federal lands (Mineral Land Leasing Act of 1920).

Much of the federal regulations relating to environmental standards and permitting process for mining projects in the U.S. are found within the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act.

The NEPA process is both renowned for its strong environmental protections and infamous for the nearly a decade it takes for a large domestic mine in the U.S. to gain permits under its process.

“Mine permitting in the U.S. takes on average seven to 10 years, and often longer,” National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan wrote in a February column for RealClearEnergy. “In Canada and Australia, nations with comparably robust environmental standards, permitting is achieved in just two to three years.”

Earlier this year, the Biden administration indicated that it would look to these jurisdictions with more efficient mine permitting processes to feed much of the needed minerals and metals into American supply chains.

….

As such, the White House is directing the federal mining regulation working group to fully explore “opportunities to reduce time, cost, and risk of permitting without compromising strong environmental and consultation benchmarks.”

Nat Geo on NSO

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National Geographic has an article published yesterday, June 24:

Despite massive effort, spotted owl populations at an all-time low

A threatened owl could disappear from much of its range unless old-growth forests are protected and invasive barred owls are controlled.

“Inhabiting older coniferous forests in the Pacific Northwest, the federally listed northern spotted owl species has been on the decline across its range, triggered by habitat loss. The two leading threats to its habitat are competition from increasing barred owl populations and decreasing forest area, due to wildfires and logging. Without strong intervention, northern spotted owls may face extirpation.”