Choosing a Fire Future: Lessons from Southwest Colorado

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Excellent story from the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network. While some of us think that NEPA via plan amendments would be good, the work that the San Juan is doing without a plan amendment is also good.

 Assessing local fire danger, weather data, and utilizing Risk Management Assistance (RMA) analytical tools, the Forest developed a plan to bring the fire out to the prescribed fire unit/POD boundary. The local team conducted a structured risk-based conversation using the Incident Strategic Alignment Process (ISAP) framework, where agency administrators and local stakeholders collaboratively evaluated critical values at risk, developed strategic actions, documented risks to responders, and determined the probability of success.

The story is worth reading in its entirety, I just excerpted the lessons learned below.

Key Lessons Learned

Identify windows of opportunity: Fuel and weather conditions and resource availability are dynamic. Thinking outside the box can help realize opportunities to manage wildfire differently. Additionally, this year’s large incident can be used as the next fire’s best holding feature – as demonstrated during Trail Springs. Incorporating new disturbances into pre-response planning can help maximize their potential as holding features.

Provide clear leader’s intent: Without clear intent from agency administrators, firefighters and IMTs default to their experience and often suppress fires at the smallest possible size and earliest possible opportunity. Clear intent is required to consistently execute an alternative approach, and ensure we leverage our highly skilled fire workforce in pursuit of strategies that will more effectively reduce long-term ecosystem, community and firefighter risk.

Invest in stakeholder engagement: Working with partners and local collaboratives well before a fire starts is imperative to fostering a sense of shared responsibility. Ongoing communication and dialogue with stakeholders before, during, and after fires is critical to a successful, long-term fire management strategy. These efforts build social capital to better support complex decisions both now and in the future.

Leverage analytics and facilitate risk-based dialogues: Using analytics to facilitate strategic, risk-informed, and transparent dialogues can improve alignment between incident leadership, land managers and firefighters on the ground, resulting in higher quality decisions and increased trust.

Be prepared: Facilitating and participating in collaborative pre-season strategic planning efforts, such as Potential Operational Delineations (PODs), can help prepare a landscape to manage fires more proactively by creating a common operating picture and institutionalizing local fire knowledge. Additionally, actively preparing for long-duration events, anticipating, and mitigating late-season workforce fatigue, and building local fire management programs with the needed skill sets to manage long-duration fires can help develop local capacity and evolve the fire management paradigm.

Communicate the “why”: Good decisions may come with considerable institutional and personal risk, but with thoughtful, inclusive, and transparent processes risks can be considered more holistically. Understanding the “why” behind decisions provides critical context and can help create alignment between land managers, incident teams, firefighters, and the local community.

Federal judge reinstates 21-inch rule east of the Cascades

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Thanks (again!) to Nick Smith for this link…. It’s an Oregon Public Broadcasting article from April 2 on the eastside screens, which we’ve discussed several times, such as here and here.

Federal judge finalizes protections for large trees east of the Cascades

A federal judge has finalized the return of national forest protections for large trees growing east of the Cascades.

The order brings back protections that had long prohibited logging trees larger than 21 inches in diameter from six national forests in eastern Oregon and Washington.

During the final days of the Trump Administration, the U.S. Forest Service amended its guidelines known as Eastside Screens. The amendment removed the agency’s 21-inch standard that had protected large trees across 8 million acres of forestland since 1994.

The agency at the time determined the change wouldn’t significantly impact the environment, and it bypassed procedures that would typically give the public opportunities to comment. The Forest Service claimed this sudden change was needed to thin forests and prevent major wildfires.

Six conservation groups sued the agency in 2022, arguing the policy change violated national forest and species protections laws. The following year, U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Hallman recommended the Forest Service restore the large tree protections, calling the agency’s decisions “arbitrary and capricious.” But his recommendations needed final approval from a U.S. district court judge.

On Friday, District Judge Ann Aiken issued an order agreeing with Hallman. Aiken concluded the Forest Service violated several federal laws and “failed to take a hard look at the amendment’s change and its impact on aquatic species.”

Aiken’s order calls on the Forest Service to prepare an environmental impact statement, which is required when a new policy could harm the environment. That process also requires the agency to collect public comments.

The Forest Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Conservation groups applauded Aiken’s decision, calling it a win for eastside forests where just 3% of trees are larger than 21 inches in diameter.

The nonprofit Greater Hells Canyon Council was among them.

“The amount of trees that this actually applies to is very few,” conservation director Jamie Dawson said. “So it’s very important that they stay standing and are providing that wildlife habitat value: Storing carbon dioxide, cleaning pollution from the air, influencing the water cycle, cleaning our drinking water, all of the stuff that large and old trees do.”

Two Sides to Every Story: What’s the Other Side? Housing for Employees at Seeley Lake

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Thanks to Nick Smith, I ran across this from Scott Snelson in the Hungry Horse News. I know there are many Region 1 retirees out there, so would appreciate any info you would be willing to share, either in the comments or by contacting me directly via email.. “sharon at forespolicypub.com”.
In my experience, there are always reasons for peoples’ actions.

The lack of vision from the U.S. Forest Service Regional Supervisor, as well as her staff, helped sink Pyramid Lumber, with it taking the livelihoods of over 100 Montanans along with rich opportunities to help the climate and reduce fire fuel hazard risk. Solid and innovative solutions to significantly help the housing issues in Seeley Lake and other communities have been presented to Regional Leaders for years without any meaningful action.

A group of U.S. Forest Service District Rangers from the Northern Region began meeting in 2021 to work on solutions to the housing crisis faced by existing and future USFS employees. It was painfully apparent to the rangers that our ability to attract and retain high quality employees and get the public’s work done was unreachable unless we found solutions to the high cost of housing.

At the same time, it was clear to the rangers that unless there was an expanded market for small diameter wood, our ability to treat meaningful acres of overstocked stands to reduce wildfire risk was also unreachable.

The nexus of these challenges also provided incredible opportunity for the communities in the Seeley/Swan Valley and the Flathead. An emerging small diameter cross-laminated timber (SDCLT) industry that utilizes the very type of wood we need to remove from our stands for fire hazard reduction, could have been further catalyzed by the purchase of “temporary” panelized houses. These units could be rapidly deployed on USFS administrative sites to give Forest employees and others an opportunity to transition into tight local housing markets. Should the housing crisis wane, the SDCLT units are designed to be easily dismantled and easily moved to other locations. This type of construction is wood (carbon) intensive and stores the carbon for the life of the panels (designed to last decades longer than traditional frame construction).

The District Ranger at Seeley Lake had identified approximately 20 acres of USFS lands that could have been rapidly developed for USFS and other community housing to meet the housing crisis. These concepts were presented to the Regional Forester and her team years ago and were met with the standard chorus of excuses why the status quo needed to be maintained.

Providing employee housing at administrative sites is far from novel. Until the 1980s, it was common for the USFS.

In my nine years as a USFS line officer in Region 1, I haven’t seen any indication there is meaningful leadership capacity in the USFS Regional Office to face the multiple crises we are encountering; climate, fire hazard, housing, and employee recruitment and retention. The guardians of the status quo have circled the wagons and armed themselves mightily against change and innovation.

Are Forest Products on the Way Out in Montana? And How Does the Wood Innovations Program Intersect With Struggling Producers?

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Roseburg Forest Products’ Missoula particleboard plant will close on May 22, the company announced Wednesday, March 20, 2024. Credit: Credit: Roseburg Forest Products

Before we dig into the timber details I talked about last week, and some examples of what I like to call “Post Timber War Convergence” (like my agreeing with Andy Kerr on something), I’d like take a look at the situation from the 30,000 foot level (as my former boss, Richard Stem, would say).

There have been many stories in the past few weeks about mills closing in Montana. Here’s an excellent one, thanks to a TSW reader.

Within the span of six days, both Pyramid Mountain Lumber in Seeley Lake and Roseburg Forest Products’ Missoula particleboard plant had announced they were shutting down permanently and eliminating a combined 250 jobs. The closures mark the final knockout punch locally to an industry that helped build Missoula and put food on tables here for over 150 years.

To put it another way: Sawmills were once as ubiquitous in Missoula as marijuana dispensaries are now.

There are smaller businesses in the area that still make wood products, there are still lumber mills operating in Montana, logging will still continue in the region and Pyramid Mountain Lumber’s facility could still be purchased and operated again in the future. But to many industry watchers, last week’s news was the final nail in the wooden coffin of the sector that’s paid the wages of tens of thousands of workers over the last century and a half.
“I mean, it’s huge, what’s happened to the wood products industry in Montana in the last five years,” said Zach Bashoor, the chair of the Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce, when asked how big of a deal last week’s news was. “Pyramid was the last sawmill in Missoula County and Roseburg was the last wood products manufacturing facility here.”
Bashoor has actually worked for both Roseburg and Pyramid in the past.

“When a mill closes there’s a whole contractor base built around those mills that’s going to be affected, too,” he explained. “There’s a contractor out of Seeley that told me he thinks he’s going to hang up his hat.”

By contractors, Bashoor is referring to loggers who have a contract to sell logs to Pyramid. Oftentimes, they’re doing forest thinning for wildfire risk management or forest ecology restoration projects that require thinning.  “They make a living out of selling timber to the mill, that’s how the system was built,” he said. “The demand of land management has changed to much more of a restoration aspect.” Bashoor owns a company called Montana Forest Consultants that services landowners and agencies doing forest management work.
“Without those (loggers), there’s no way to get our work done,” he said. “If they’re not around we can’t do things like watershed restoration projects or thinning small trees for hazardous fuels
reduction.”

In places in the West, say with Blue Mountains Forest Partners, or the Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions folks, sawmills and their downstream ilk are thought to be useful partners. In my own neck of the woods, an entirely private fuelbreak project is being supported by landowner donations, state grants and .. selling logs.

Without forest products industry around, we can expect fewer fuel projects to be done on federal land, they will cost more to the taxpayer, and less private mitigation is likely to be done. That’s just the cost element. What else will be done with the material removed? Will it be burned in piles, giving off smoke and carbon? And perhaps the old “fuel treatments and creating openings for species diversity are just an excuse for logging” argument will be at rest (as it currently is in places without mills). How would that change the litigation environment?

Meanwhile, the Congress/USDA/Biden Admin (wherever bucks come from) is giving out funding to help:

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service is making nearly $50 million in grant funding available for proposals that support crucial links between resilient, healthy forests, strong rural economies and jobs in the forestry sector. Made possible by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, a key pillar of Bidenomics, this funding will spark innovation, create new markets for wood products and renewable wood energy, expand processing capacity, and help tackle the climate crisis.

“A strong forest products economy contributes to healthier forests, vibrant communities and jobs in rural areas,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are investing in rural economies by growing markets for forest products through sustainable forest management while reducing wildfire risk, fighting climate change, and accelerating economic development.”

This announcement is part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to generate economic opportunity and build a clean energy economy nationwide. The grants are made possible by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment in history and a core pillar of Bidenomics, as well as President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, an historic investment to rebuild America’s aging infrastructure.

The above paragraph may take the prize for number of mentions of President Biden per word.

The open funding opportunity comes through the Forest Service’s three key grant programs to support the forest products economy: Wood Innovations Grant, Community Wood Grant, and Wood Products Infrastructure Assistance Grant Programs. The agency is seeking proposals that support innovative uses of wood in the construction of low carbon buildings, as a renewable energy source, and in manufacturing and processing products. These programs also provide direct support to expand and retrofit wood energy systems and wood products manufacturing facilities nationwide.

(Note that 2023 funded proposals are listed here.

Let’s compare Colorado, Montana, and Oregon.

I just looked at these three states and noticed grants to the Endowment and the Gates Family Foundation in Colorado.  It seems like the USG is giving grants to.. traditionally grant-making groups. I also wonder if there is a bias toward “starting new things” vs. “helping keep existing things going” perhaps something like a “forest products facility rescue” as in reality TV.

Maybe our economist friends can help me here, if there isn’t a way for the USG to help keep sawmills open rather than letting them close and starting over with something new in the future. I think of nurseries.. we wanted them, we got really good at them (and reforestation), then we assumed natural regen would take care of everything, so we lost the capacity and the know-how and basically have to start over, now that the people have retired and the infrastructure has been sold off. Resilience, it seems to me, requires some redundancy and keeping skills and some infrastructure on board. Though that’s not actually redundancy in the engineering sense. Maybe it’s more like making sure that useful skills. knowledge and workforce are maintained at some level.

The ‘Mother Tree’ idea is everywhere — but how much of it is real? And Variable Tree Retention as a Current Practice, But Maybe Not in BC

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After experimenting with different approaches to retention, the Plum Creek Timber Company found aggregated retention, as seen here on the Cougar Ramp Unit, was an effective approach to integrating environmental and timber management objectives. This cutting opened the senior author’s mind to the potential of aggregated retention, which today is generally viewed as the most important approach for conserving a broad array of biota (according to Franklin and Donato (2020)

It’s always fun to look at another scientific controversy around trees and forests.  TSW had posts on various facets of this issue, here, here and here. Thanks to Nature for making this article open source!

A brief recap:

Their concerns lay predominantly with a depiction of the forest put forward by Suzanne Simard, a forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, in her popular work. Her book Finding the Mother Tree, for example, was published in 2021 and swiftly became a bestseller. In it she drew on decades of her own and others’ research to portray forests as cooperating communities. She said that trees help each other out by dispatching resources and warning signals through fungal networks in the soil — and that more mature individuals, which she calls mother trees, sometimes prioritize related trees over others.

The idea has enchanted the public, appearing in bestselling books, films and television series. It has inspired environmental campaigners, ecology students and researchers in fields including philosophy, urban planning and electronic music. Simard’s ideas have also led to recommendations on forest management in North America.

What’s the role of scientists in presenting their and others’ work?

Then, a third academic, mycorrhizal ecologist Justine Karst, took the lead. She thought speaking out about the lack of evidence for the wood wide web had become an ethical obligation: “Our job as scientists is to present the truth, as close as we can get to it”.

…………….

Simard says of her critics.. “They’re reductionist scientists,” she says when asked about criticism of her work. “They’ve missed the forest for the trees.” She is concerned that the debate over the details of the theory diminishes her larger goal of forest protection and renewal. “The criticisms are a distraction, to be honest, from what’s happening in our ecosystems.”

It seems to me that there are robust and fun scientific discussions to be had.  As depicted by this journalist (Simard might not have been quoted accurately), Simard thinks having discussions about science distracts us from what seems like advocacy. 

Roger Pielke Jr. has written (much, here’s one example) about what he calls “stealth issue advocacy” in the scientific community.  This doesn’t seem stealthy at all. It seems like sometimes you have to pick a lane between science and advocacy; and I’d prefer if scientists picked science.
************
There’s a description of the differing scientific views. There are technical differences, and even apparently emphasis or focus differences.

Johnson’s view is that it “makes complete sense” that there are CMNs linking multiple forest trees and that substances might travel from one to another through them. Crucially, he says, this is not due to the trees supporting one another. A simple explanation, compatible with evolutionary theory, is that the fungi are acting to protect the trees that are their source of energy. It is beneficial for fungi to activate a tree’s defence signals, or to top up food for temporarily ailing trees. Pickles, who spent six years working with Simard before moving to the University of Reading, UK, says Simard’s ideas are not incompatible with competition, but give more weight to well-known phenomena in ecology, such as mutualism, in which organisms cooperate for mutual benefit. “It’s not altruism. It’s not some outrageous idea,” he says. “She certainly focuses more on facilitation and mutualism than is traditional in these fields, and that’s probably why there’s a lot of pushback.”

**************

Simard maintains that her critics attack her in the academic literature for imagery she has used only in public communication: “I talked about the mother tree as a way of communicating the science and then these other people say it’s a scientific hypothesis. They misuse my words.”

She argues that changing our understanding of how forests work from ‘winner takes all’ to ‘collaborative, integrated network system’ is essential for fixing the rampant destruction of old-growth forest, especially in British Columbia, where her research has focused. Indigenous cultures that have a more sustainable relationship with forests have mother and father trees, she says — “but the European male society hates the mother tree … somebody needs to write a paper on that”. “I’m putting forward a paradigm shift. And the critics are saying ‘we don’t want a paradigm shift, we’re fine, just the way we are’. We’re not fine.”

But does a “network system” “Indigenous culture-based” worldview lead us anywhere different in practice than the “ecological forestry” of the lower 48? Can the same kinds of practices be invoked, or even carried out, without a what we might call a “myco-centric” worldview? And if everyone used VRH, what would the scientific controversy be about.. would it be more theoretical (how important is mutualism vs. competition generally?) or more specific (more mycological experiments in the field?).

But what about variable retention harvesting as espoused by Jerry Franklin? In this open-source paper by Franklin and Donato (2020) (from the abstract):

Variable retention harvesting evolved in the Douglas-fir region of the Pacific Northwest gradually in response to increasing dissatisfaction with the ecological consequences of clear-cutting, from the standpoint of wildlife habitat and other important forest functions. It is a harvesting technique that can provide for retention (continuity) of such structures as large and old live trees, snags, and logs. Variable retention is based on the natural model of the biological legacies that are typically left behind following natural disturbances, such as wildfire, wind, and flood

This approach actually sounds more holistic (plants, animals, viruses) than one solely focused on CMNs, while providing opportunities for CMNs. Franklin seems to be in the camp of aggregated variable retention rather than dispersed. Conceivably the Mother Tree approach would be dispersed, which might be good for CMNs and possibly not so good for other ecosystem values.

According to Franklin and Donato’s historical narrative, aggregated retention was seen to be effective at conserving a broad array of biota around 1987 with experiments by the Plum Creek Timber Company. Perhaps these ideas did not migrate north to BC? But later in the history there is mention of the Clayoquot Sound Science Panel.

. This was part of a governmental response to major social disorders over the logging of old-growth forests in this region led by Native Americans (known in Canada as First Nations) and participated in by other Canadian citizens. The science panel conducted its activities and completed its report over the next year (Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound 1994). The Clayoquot Sound Science Panel recommended adoption of the “variable-retention silvicultural system” for all timber harvesting on Crown Lands in the region. The panel actually created the term “variable retention” to reflect the reality that the amount and other details of retention should vary depending upon management objectives and the nature of the stand being harvested. The panel recommended that harvests should “retain a minimum of 15% of the original stand on all cutting units … [excepting] very small cutting units” and that the retention should “retain a representative cross-section of species and structures of the original stand.” In areas with very high values for resources other than timber (such as wildlife habitat, slope stability), the panel recommended retention levels of at least 70%. Hence, the Clayoquot Sound Science Panel contributed significantly to the concept as well as the name “variable retention.” The panel’s recommendations also helped set the stage for MacMillan-Bloedel Corporation’s decision to replace clear-cutting with variable retention a few years later (Beese et al. 2019).

Anyway, this post started out by being about mycological networks and the scientific controversies therein, and that article is certainly interesting. But I also thought the Franklin/Donato paper, being historical in perspective, also deserves a look by those among us involved during those time periods. And am I the only person who remembers “big messy clearcuts”? Was that the same as “variable retention” or different?

Hidden stories of fire: tree rings reveal fire histories of Pacific Northwest rainforests: FS Webinar April 25

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Historical fire regimes and the 2020 Labor Day fires on the west side of Oregon and Washington with locations of large (>10,000 ha) and small fires (<10,000 ha), b) Reburns following the 1902 Yacolt Fire in 1902 in the western Washington Cascades,

Historical fire regimes and the 2020 Labor Day fires on the west side of Oregon and Washington with locations of large (>10,000 ha) and small fires (<10,000 ha), b) Reburns following the 1902 Yacolt Fire in 1902 in the western Washington Cascades, c) Reburns following the 1933 Tillamook Fire in the Oregon Coast Range.

2020 fire perimeters and mapped extent of “stand-replacing fire” in 1902 and perimeters of known large westside fires.

2020 fire perimeters and mapped extent of “stand-replacing fire” in 1902 and perimeters of known large westside fires.

I know many folks are interested in this topic…here’s the link.  We might have talked about these studies before. Thanks to Nick Smith !

Hidden stories of fire: tree rings reveal fire histories of Pacific Northwest rainforests

Webinar Date
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Andrew Merschel and colleagues at the Pacific Northwest Research Station and Oregon State University have constructed dozens of new fire histories in the western Cascades of Oregon and Washington. These histories refine our understanding of historical fire regimes in Pacific Northwest rainforests. For the first time, this research pairs direct evidence of historical fires with precisely dated tree establishment data. The novel fire and forest development histories reveal tremendous diversity in the tempo of historical fires and their influence on forest development and conditions.

Contrary to conventional theory, many old trees and forests in the Pacific Northwest were shaped by recurrent low- to moderate-severity fires. Across these landscapes, variation in the number of fires, their timing, and their effects increased diversity in forest successional conditions (e.g., ages) and diversity in tree structure and species composition. Many of the remarkable and beloved features of old forests in the Pacific Northwest including old trees with enormous and complex crowns, multi-layered canopies, and a diverse mixture of tree species developed with fire, not without fire.

In some study locations, exceptionally high fire frequency prior to European colonization is indicative of Indigenous fire stewardship practiced for millennia by Indigenous cultures. This highlights the critical role that Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest had in stewarding and shaping the old trees and forests that contemporary forest management is aiming to restore and conserve. Merschel’s innovative research is sparking a shift in how we think about fires in the Pacific Northwest. Tune in to this webinar to learn some surprising things that we are learning about historical fire regimes and forest dynamics, and how this information might inform restoration of old-growth forests, fire mitigation, and adaptation to a warmer and drier climate.

Federal Lands Litigation – update through March 22, 2024

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An Easter egg for this morning, but I’ll be running a little behind for awhile.

FOREST SERVICE

I started the last litigation update with this, before discussing a district court opinion in the Rio Grande case: “I believe the Rio Grande revision is one of only two developed under the 2012 Planning Rule that have been litigated (the Flathead being the other).”   Within a couple of days there were new opinions on both the Rio Grande and the Flathead revised forest plans.

Court decision in Defenders of Wildlife v. U. S. Forest Service (10th Cir.)

On March 11, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court opinion upholding the Rio Grande National Forest revised forest plan’s compliance with the Endangered Species Act for Canada lynx.  The circuit court did not directly offer an opinion on what the district court called “fundamental flaws” in the plaintiff’s arguments, but found that the determination of no jeopardy by the Fish and Wildlife Service was supported by the record and not arbitrary.

However, the circuit court did imply that there is no point in formally consulting on lynx on the Rio Grande because there are not enough lynx.  The court first established that, “When the record shows a subpopulation is particularly important to the species, the FWS may need to consider how the agency action affects that subpopulation to give a reasoned jeopardy opinion” on the listed species as a whole.  It then found that to not be the case for the subpopulation on the Rio Grande.   It found that the Species Status Assessment for lynx showed that the “Colorado subpopulation was a fraction of the estimated DPS population” (the population south of Canada), and pointed out “the RGNF’s small lynx population relative to the Colorado population.”  (The NFMA requirement for viability in a plan area is more protective of such “dispensable” populations.)

The court nevertheless proceeded to find that there was sufficient information in the administrative record about lynx habitat and use in the northern portion of the Forest (designated in the plan as a “low use” area for lynx) to uphold the FWS discounting of effects there.  This included discussion of the applicability of three research efforts, and the agency’s determination of what was the best available science for them to use (which was given considerable deference by the court).  It also upheld the analysis of effects on lynx in the low use areas, which it pointed out meant only looking at the effects of the revised plan, and did not require a comparison to the former plan.  It found that the FWS made reasonable assumptions about the amount and location of future vegetation management and deferred to its recognition that “complete analysis is not possible at this time” (but additional consultation would occur on specific projects).  (The court noted that “Defenders’ petition for review did not challenge the USFS’s design of the (new) VEG S7 standard,” but instead this case was about  the FWS effects analysis.)

Magistrate recommendations in Swan View Coalition v. Haaland (D. Montana)

This is the second lawsuit on the Flathead plan.  In the first, the district court remanded without vacatur to the agencies to reconsider how to comply with ESA, and the 9th Circuit dismissed an appeal as moot because the FWS had issued a superseding Revised Biological Opinion.  On March 12, in this lawsuit on that BiOp, the magistrate judge recommended another remand without vacatur to address the following ESA violations (the article includes a link to the recommendations):

“(T)he Revised BiOp failed to adequately consider the impact of ineffective road closures on the 2011 baseline and on grizzly bear populations as a whole. The Revised BiOp further failed to consider that the new take statement regarding culvert removal does not apply to roads rendered impassable under the Revised Plan. Therefore, the Forest Service violated the ESA to the extent it relied on the Revised BiOp’s flawed road density determinations and culvert removal analysis.”

A 2020 analysis of road closure devices found an average of 92% of them to be effective, and the Revised BiOp included a new section addressing illegal or unauthorized motorized use of closed roads in the environmental baseline.  However, the BiOp did not attempt to determine the actual effect of the failures and account for unauthorized use, instead stating that unauthorized motorized access is unpredictable, and its effects on grizzly bears are unknowable.  This reasoning had already been found insufficient in a prior case.

The Revised BiOp also included a new incidental take statement for bull trout, which assumes a take will result from road decommissioning in bull trout watersheds that did not remove culverts (referred to as “impassable” or “barrier” roads, which were expected to be more common than fully decommissioned roads).  The magistrate found, “given that removal of culverts is an effective sediment-prevention method for both barriered and decommissioned roads, it is inexplicable why FWS limited its analysis to the Forest Service’s abandonment of culvert removal requirements for decommissioned roads.”  Omitting the effects of leaving these culverts in place for these other roads was arbitrary and capricious.

The magistrate would uphold the Forest Service against other claims.  By not vacating the portions of the forest plan identified by plaintiffs, they point out, “while we appreciate that the judge has since sent them back to the drawing board, they’re still out there building roads on grizzly and bull trout habitat…”

New lawsuit:  John Muir Project v. U. S. Forest Service (E. D. California)

On March 22, John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute and the Plumas Forest Project asked the district court to require an EIS (rather than an EA) for a logging and burning project on the Plumas National Forest.  Plaintiffs say the 217,000-acre Central/West Slope Project will be among the largest logging authorizations in the forest’s history, and it will include cutting old-growth trees up to 400 years old.  The Forest Service says the project is intended to reduce wildfire impacts in several communities.

BLM

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (D. Arizona)

On March 12, the Center and Maricopa Audubon Society sued the BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service over unauthorized cattle grazing in the Agua Fria National Monument, and its effects on critical habitat for the endangered Gila chub and threatened yellow-billed cuckoo.  Plaintiffs specifically challenge the ESA consultation process for five grazing allotments, and also failure to develop and implement a program to conserve listed species impacted by BLM’s grazing program and unauthorized grazing, pursuant to §7(a)(1) of ESA.  A prior lawsuit was settled, but plaintiffs allege the settlement has not been properly implemented.  (The article includes a link to the complaint.)

Preliminary injunction denied in BlueRibbon Coalition v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (D. Utah)

On March 20, the district court denied plaintiffs a preliminary injunction against the Labyrinth Rims/Gemini Bridges Travel Plan, finding that they had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of any of the four claims, discussed earlier here.  Per some of that discussion, the court found, “neither the law nor the record supports Plaintiffs arguments that BLM was creating a buffer zone or closing routes due to noise within the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness.”  Additional background is provided here.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. D.C.)

On March 11, plaintiffs filed suit against the 2019 decision to not list the Arkansas mudalia, a freshwater snail, as threatened or endangered.  According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, four of the nine recently documented populations occur on the Ozark and Mark Twain National Forests.  They say, “Habitat modification and degradation is highly unlikely in these areas, as the USFS restricts many of the land practices that can be a threat or, when allowed, follows strict BMPs to reduce the impact of the practice on the environment.”  (Presumably these restrictions are in the forest plans so that the FWS can consider them “regulatory” in the listing process.)

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. Arizona)

On March 19, plaintiffs sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect additional critical habitat for Mount Graham red squirrels.  Original critical habitat for the squirrels was destroyed by construction of mountaintop telescopes and fires. A petition to designate the additional habitat was filed in 2017.  Part of the alleged problem is Forest Service special use permits for recreation cabins and an organizational camp in remaining habitat on the Coronado National Forest.  (The article incudes a link to the complaint.)

Court decision in Center for Biological Diversity v. Little (D. Idaho)

On March 19, the district court found that Idaho’s rules for trapping wolves violated the Endangered Species Act because the traps and snares are likely to harm grizzly bears.  The decision stated, “There is ample evidence in the record, including from Idaho’s own witnesses, that lawfully set wolf traps and snares are reasonably likely to take grizzly bears in Idaho.”  The court enjoined trapping and snaring during the non-denning season on public and private lands unless the State obtains an incidental take permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service for harm to grizzly bears.  (The article includes a link to the opinion.)

New lawsuit:  WildEarth Guardians v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (C.D. California)

On March 20, plaintiffs sued the FWS for its 2023 decision to not list two species of Joshua trees as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.  The same court ruled in 2021 that a prior decision to not do so lacked scientific support.  Plaintiffs again claim the FWS did not properly account for the effects of climate change and wildfires on recruitment of young trees.  Agriculture and human developments near Joshua Tree National Park are also threats to the species.  (The article includes a link to the complaint.)

OTHER

New lawsuit (D. D.C.).

Three individuals have sued the National Park Service over its policy of not accepting cash payments at some of its sites across the country.   The suit asks the court for a declaratory judgment that the Park Service is in violation of U.S. law that “legal tender”—U.S. currency—is suitable “for all public charges.”  For those with only cash, “Go buy a gift card.”  This article also cites an example of a BLM site with a “no cash” policy, its Virgin River Recreation Area in Arizona.  (Coming to a national forest near you?)

 

Two Projects, One Litigated

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Two stories about forest management in SW Oregon.

Helicopter logging project to begin in Ashland watershed and Siskiyou Mountain Park

Background on Ashland’s Forestland Climate Adaptation Project in its city watershed:

The first phase of work to help forests transition and adapt to the changing climate is reducing wildfire fuels that threaten our community and the forest’s ecological integrity. Phase 1 will utilize a helicopter to remove dead, dying, and crowded trees from Siskiyou Mountain Park and City-owned land in the lower Ashland Watershed. Helicopters have been used extensively in the Ashland Watershed over the past 20 years due to their low impact on resources. Phase II, expected to last several years, will involve replanting with species adapted to drought, heat, and frequent fire, along with ongoing use of prescribed fire for wildfire safety and ecosystem benefit. 

IMHO, Ashland is being very proactive — a great example for other communities.

The Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center objects and plans a rally outside the courthouse next week:

“Integrated Vegetation Management” Is Not What It Sounds Like

It sure sounds benign, doesn’t it? The words “integrated vegetation management” evoke visions of thoughtful fuel reduction efforts designed to restore and protect public forests and surrounding communities. There’s no doubt the name was chosen for a reason. Unfortunately, BLM timber planners are using their new Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) project to target old-growth forests within Late Successional Reserves for conversion into “open seral” stump-fields devoid of trees.

The other project is on BLM land in neighboring Josephine County.

Three conservation groups challenging BLM forest plan in Medford federal court

BLM Late Mungers project info:

Why is the BLM conducting commercial treatments in Late Successional Reserves?

Fifty-one percent of all forests in southwest Oregon are overly dense and our area has the highest need for restoration, via thinning and prescribed fire, in all of Oregon and Washington. The Southwest Oregon Resource Management Plan identifies active management objectives for Late Successional Reserves (LSR), including commercial thinning/group selection harvest on 17,000 acres in LSR per decade. These commercial treatments are designated to develop, maintain, or promote northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) nesting-roosting habitat. In addition, the BLM manages LSRs to: 1) enable forests to recover from past management measures, 2) respond to climate-driven stresses, wildfire and other disturbance events, 3) ensure positive or neutral ecological impacts from wildfire, and 4) contribute to northern spotted owl recovery.

How is BLM protecting large, fire resilient trees in the Late Mungers Project Area?

Late Mungers is designed to protect and culture large, old trees. The project protects large trees by removing adjacent trees and fuels. Clumps of fire tolerant legacy trees would be retained. Conifer trees (pine [Pinus spp.] and Douglas fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii] greater than or equal to 36-inches DBH) and hardwoods greater than 24-inches DBH would be retained. In non-conifer plant communities, large conifers and hardwoods (often greater than 24-inches DBH) would be retained. Thinning also creates growing space for the next generation of legacy trees.

Does Anyone Have the Rest of the Story? Navajo Nation Lawsuit Over Forestry Management Program

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Hopefully someone out there has more information on this one from Law 360. I can’t access it.

Law360 (March 27, 2024, 7:09 PM EDT) — The Navajo Nation claims the U.S. Department of the Interior unlawfully withheld more than a million dollars in funding for its contracted forestry management program, telling a D.C. federal judge the department should be forced to provide the money and accept the funding ..

That’s all we get.

If we look at the past, we have this..from Holland and Knight in 2020:

Native American Law Partner Philip Baker-Shenk is representing the Navajo Nation in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) claiming the department is illegally holding back money for the tribe’s forestry program that the government owes under a self-determination contract. In its complaint, the Navajo Nation said that the DOI’s Bureau of Indian Affairs violated the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act by failing to deliver over $700,000 under a funding agreement for the tribe’s forestry management program, even though a representative for DOI Secretary David Bernhardt had recommended that the tribe’s proposal be approved.

Now if the DOI Sec at the time recommended it.. and the government isn’t sending it.. there’s an interesting story of some kind out there.  Does anyone have access or further info? If so, please share in the comments.

NW Forest Plan Advisory Committee Meeting, April 16-18, Weaverville, CA 

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FYI, plan watchers….

Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee’s  Next Meeting April 16-18 in Weaverville, California  

PORTLAND, Ore. (Mar. 26, 2024) – The Northwest Forest Plan Area Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) will meet April 16-18 at the Redding Rancheria Trinity Health Center, 81 Arbuckle Court, Weaverville, California. This will be the fourth meeting for the Federal Advisory Committee to provide the Forest Service with recommended updates for the Northwest Forest Plan Amendment.     

The Secretary of Agriculture established this committee to support ongoing efforts to amend the Northwest Forest Plan. The Federal Advisory Committee brings together representatives with diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise — including community, tribal, government and other interest groups from across the Northwest Forest Plan landscape to inform the plan amendment.  

This group is helping the agency identify ways to effectively conserve key resources while considering social, ecological, and economic conditions and needs.  

FAC meetings are open to the public with an opportunity to submit comments. Details on meetings, including how the public can provide information to the committee is posted on the regional website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/landmanagement/planning/?cid=fseprd1076013.

The Federal Advisory Committee does not replace the public involvement process or the public’s opportunity to engage directly with the Forest Service regarding Northwest Forest Plan amendment efforts during the planning process.  

The Northwest Forest Plan covers 24.5 million acres of federally managed lands in northwestern California, western Oregon, and Washington. It was established in 1994 to address threats to threatened and endangered species while also contributing to social and economic sustainability in the region. After nearly 30 years, the Northwest Forest Plan needs updated to accommodate changed ecological and social conditions.  

Additional information about the Northwest Forest Plan: www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/landmanagement/planning/?cid=fsbdev2_026990

Federal Register Notice: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/

For more about USDA Forest Service, visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/r6.