Conservation group, agencies reach ‘understanding’ on spotted owl

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From the Santa Fe New Mexican…. Excerpt:

An environmental advocacy group has agreed to drop its pending lawsuit that accused federal agencies of planning forestry projects that could harm the Mexican spotted owl.

The bird’s nesting grounds on national forest land in New Mexico and Arizona have become hotly contested battlegrounds. A separate complaint alleging federal agencies failed to properly monitor the threatened owl prompted a federal judge to halt timber activities in owl habitat last year.

Framed as “a new understanding,” a truce was reached this week between the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the states of New Mexico and Arizona, and the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization.

In return for the Center for Biological Diversity scrapping its litigation, the Forest Service has ensured tree-thinning and controlled burns in six national forests in New Mexico and Arizona will better protect the Mexican spotted owl, which has been listed as threatened since 1993 under the Endangered Species Act. 

Greater Yellowstone Grizzlies to Stay on Endangered List

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Grizzly bear photo by Sam Parks.

One would suspect that this ruling will have a significant impact on many U.S. Forest Service forest plan revision processes currently on-going in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Here’s a press release from Western Environmental Law Center and WildEarth Guardians, which is also pasted below.

MISSOULA, Mont. —Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration and state of Wyoming’s appeal of a 2018 decision restoring endangered species protections for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of grizzly bears. The original decision halted states’ planned trophy hunts in the ecosystem, which would have harmed other imperiled populations of grizzly bears.

WildEarth Guardians, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, one of the plaintiffs and victors of the original lawsuit, played a central role in the appeal process, one of the first COVID-19 “virtual court hearing” scenarios.

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of grizzly bears in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana totals about 728 animals, up from its historic low of 136 when endangered species protections were enacted in 1975. In the original case, opponents of federal protections for grizzly bears argued that protections were no longer necessary and that a sport hunting season to effectively manage down the population was justified despite the fact that the population represents only a fraction of its historical abundance, and has yet to achieve connectivity to neighboring populations near Glacier National Park and elsewhere.

The recovery of other grizzly bear populations depends heavily on inter-population connectivity and genetic exchange. Absent endangered species protections, dispersing grizzlies essential to species recovery would have to pass through a killing zone outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks where Wyoming and Idaho rushed to approve trophy hunts.

“Grizzlies require continued protection under federal law until the species as a whole is rightfully recovered,” said Matthew Bishop, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “The best available science says not only are grizzly bears still recovering, but they also need our help to bounce back from an extinction threat humans caused in the first place. Misrepresenting the facts to promote killing threatened grizzly bears for fun is disgraceful. I’m glad the judges didn’t fall for it.”

The Ninth Circuit agreed with the original ruling that the delisting was premature, did not rely on the best available science, and improperly failed to analyze the impact killing grizzlies just outside the safety of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks would have on other imperiled populations in the lower 48 states. The Ninth Circuit wrote: “…because there are no concrete, enforceable mechanisms in place to ensure long-term genetic health of the Yellowstone grizzly, the district court correctly concluded that the 2017 Rule is arbitrary and capricious in that regard. Remand to the FWS is necessary for the inclusion of adequate measures to ensure long term protection [p. 45].”

“WildEarth Guardians applauds the decision of the 9th Circuit Court—a triumph of science over politics—in ensuring that Yellowstone grizzly bears are allowed to truly recover and thrive,” said Sarah McMillan, conservation director for WildEarth Guardians. “Grizzly bears are an iconic species whose very existence is intertwined with the concept of endangered species protection in the United States. This decision solidifies the belief of numerous wildlife advocates and native tribes that protecting grizzly bears should be based upon science and the law and not the whims of special interest groups, such as those who want to trophy hunt these great bears.”

Grizzlies in the Yellowstone region remain threatened by dwindling food sources, climate change, small population size, isolation, habitat loss and fragmentation, and high levels of human-caused mortality. The Yellowstone population is isolated and has yet to connect to bears elsewhere in the U.S., including to bears in and around Glacier National Park. Grizzlies also have yet to reclaim key historic habitats, including the Bitterroot Range along the Montana-Idaho border.

Hunted, trapped, and poisoned to near extinction, grizzly bear populations in the contiguous U.S. declined drastically from nearly 50,000 bears to only a few hundred by the 1930s. In response to the decline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, a move that likely saved them from extinction. The species has since struggled to hang on, with only roughly 1,800 currently surviving in the lower 48 states. Grizzlies remain absent from nearly 98 percent of their historic range.

A copy of today’s ruling is here: http://pdf.wildearthguardians.org/support_docs/2020.07.08-Grizzly-Appeal-Decision.pdf

USFS Bioregional Assessment of Northwest Forests

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Received a press release today (below) and links to a Bioregional Assessment of Northwest Forests by the US Forest Service. Lots to read and discuss. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

Although there are benefits from consistent land management policy, land managers struggle with a one size fits all management approach that does not always fit the circumstances. For example, some plan direction hasn’t worked well in distinguishing between the dry and wet forest ecosystems across the national forests and grasslands in the BioA area, especially given the fire adapted ecology of some forests. The landscape-level amendments have focused on protecting and developing habitat for aquatic and old forest-dependent species, and they don’t necessarily reflect today’s understanding of dynamic landscapes. Some habitat types in the wetter parts of the region, such as vegetation that emerges after forest-replacing disturbances, are becoming scarce across the landscape. And, although the Forest Service is one of the largest suppliers of outdoor recreational opportunities in the area, the NWFP and other land management plans and amendments lack modern direction supporting sustainable recreation.

The BioA offers management recommendations to address some of these challenges. As the modernization effort moves into individual national forest and grassland assessments, analyses, and planning, we will use the BioA as a tool during conversations with diverse stakeholders to more fully address the social aspects surrounding natural resource management.

We acknowledge that land management planning alone won’t resolve conflicts in values or tradeoffs. We are committed to learning how and why stakeholders hold different values and to providing transparent public engagement opportunities throughout the entire planning process to increase shared learning and build trusting relationships. We believe that improving and maintaining trust among the Forest Service, Tribes, other agencies, local partners, and communities is essential to developing broadly supported land management plans, which help ensure that we’re moving toward the desired conditions on the lands we manage. With public and stakeholder participation, we’ll determine what current land management plan direction should be carried forward and what can be improved upon based on new information, today’s issues, and what best meets the needs of today’s communities and stakeholders.

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Press release, July 8, 2020:

Forest Service Releases Assessment of Current Conditions of Northwest Forests

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service released a Bioregional Assessment evaluating the social, economic and ecological conditions and trends covering 19 units across WA, OR and northern CA in a brief and easy-to-understand format. The assessment uses the best available science and focuses on capturing current conditions and changes on the national forests and grasslands. It provides recommendations on how the Forest Service could address the challenges facing forests, grasslands and communities in the plans that govern how land management decisions are made.

“The release of this assessment gives our region the data and scientific analysis to make future well-informed, landscape-level decisions that benefit our six northern forests,” said Randy Moore, regional forester for the Pacific Southwest Region in California. “Furthermore, we’re now able to move forward and prepare for updating land management plans to provide essential commodities and recreational opportunities, manage and reduce risk from wildfires through vegetative management and other proactive landscape efforts, provide clean air, water and habitat for plants and animals, and preserve our cultural resources, for present and future generations.”

The Forest Service and other federal land management agencies are required by law to develop plans that guide the long-term management of public lands. These plans are developed using public input and the best available science. They establish priorities for land managers and provide strategic direction for how the plan area is to be managed for a period of ten years or more. They may be periodically amended or revised entirely to address changing conditions or priorities.

“This assessment will make it more efficient to modernize our land management plans and reflect the new science, and changes to social, economic, and ecological conditions across this region,” said Glenn Casamassa, regional forester for the Pacific Northwest Region in Oregon and Washington. “It will also preserve the tenets of the Northwest Forest Plan that are working well, so that work can continue effectively and efficiently.”

The Northwest Forest Plan covers nearly 25 million acres of federally managed land in Oregon, Washington and northern California focusing on managing the entire landscape for long-term social and economic stability. The Bioregional Assessment is not a decision document and does not impact current forest management. Instead, it will be used to shape ongoing engagement with stakeholders, state, county, Tribal governments and Forest Service staff as they prepare for the next steps in the planning process together.

More information on Modernizing Forest Plans in the Northwest is available online, and subscribers will receive monthly updates.

Nevada Court Protects Bi-State Sage-Grouse From Off-Road Vehicles in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest

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The Bi-State sage-grouse population is isolated from all other sage-grouse populations in a unique area in the Mono Basin along the California-Nevada border. Photo by USFWS.

RENO, Nev. – In a decisive win for Bi-State sage-grouse, the Nevada District Court today denied off-roaders’ attempts to gut protections for the imperiled bird in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

Conservation groups had intervened to defend U.S. Forest Service measures that protected the bird’s breeding and nesting habitat from motorized rallies and contests by requiring  buffers and seasonal limits to racing in the area.

“The Forest Service restrictions preventing a 250-mile dirt-bike rally through the middle of sensitive Bi-State sage-grouse habitat in the middle of the breeding season were based in sound science and responsible land stewardship,” said Erik Molvar, executive director with Western Watersheds Project. “That kind of motorized mayhem isn’t multiple use, it’s wildlife abuse. Public lands are some of the last remaining habitat for the Bi-State sage-grouse, and the public interest is best served by prioritizing these habitats for sage-grouse conservation, not motorbike rallies.”

The lawsuit, brought by the Sierra Trail Dogs Motorcycle and Recreation Club (STD), sought to strike down a forest plan amendment that blocked motorcycle and off-road vehicle races and contests in sage-grouse breeding and nesting habitats during the spring and early summer, when those areas are most important for sage-grouse nest success and chick survival. Today’s ruling means the club must abide by the Forest Service requirements.

“It’s troubling that an off-road group tried to put its own convenience and hobby ahead of the survival of native wildlife,” said Scott Lake, Nevada legal advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Thankfully the court wisely struck down this attack on common-sense sage-grouse protections. The Forest Service is doing the right thing to protect these beautiful birds, which are teetering on the brink of extinction.”

The Bi-State sage-grouse population is isolated from all other sage-grouse populations in a unique area in the Mono Basin along the California-Nevada border. There are an estimated 3,305 total birds, far below the 5,000-bird minimum viable population threshold established by sage-grouse experts. Conservation groups are also in court to challenge the denial of Endangered Species Act protections for the Bi-State sage-grouse, citing plummeting populations and ongoing threats from livestock grazing, mining, habitat development, and other human activities.

“This is a rare and imperiled population of sage-grouse that deserves the strongest possible protections,” said Judi Brawer, Wild Places Program Director with WildEarth Guardians. “The Forest Service did the right thing by protecting them from motorized use and abuse, and we were happy to step in to support the agency’s decision and defend it from STD’s misguided and selfish challenge.”

The conservation groups who intervened in court to defend the Forest Service’s limits on motorized use in sage-grouse habitats were represented by attorneys from the Stanford Law Clinic and Western Watersheds Project.

USFS NEPA Study: Fast, Variable, Rarely Litigated, and Declining

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The July edition of the Journal of Forestry will have a paper of interest here: “US Forest Service Implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act: Fast, Variable, Rarely Litigated, and Declining,” be Forrest Fleischman et al. I don’t have permission yet to post the full text (it’s open to SAF members), but here’s the abstract and Management and Policy Implications — grist for the discussion mill. The last sentence in the Implications is perhaps the root of many of the agencies challenges: “This may suggest that USFS no longer has the resources to conduct routine land-management activities.” But of course there’s much more to the story.

Abstract
This paper draws on systematic data from the US Forest Service’s (USFS) Planning, Appeals and Litigation System to analyze how the agency conducts environmental impact assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). We find that only 1.9 percent of the 33,976 USFS decisions between 2005 and 2018 were processed as Environmental Impact Statements, the most rigorous and time-consuming level of analysis, whereas 82.3 percent of projects fit categorical exclusions. The median time to complete a NEPA analysis was 131 days. The number of new projects has declined dramatically in this period, with the USFS now initiating less than half as many projects per year as it did prior to 2010. We find substantial variation between USFS units in the number of projects completed and time to completion, with some units completing projects in half the time of others. These findings point toward avenues for improving the agency’s NEPA processes.

Management and Policy Implications

There has been much public debate on how the US Forest Service (USFS) can better fulfill its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) obligations, including currently proposed rule-making by the agency and the Council on Environmental Quality; however, this debate has not been informed by systematic data on the agency’s NEPA processes. In contrast to recently publicized concerns about indeterminable delays caused by NEPA, our research finds that the vast majority of NEPA projects are processed quickly using existing legal authorities (i.e., Categorical Exclusions and Environmental Assessments) and that the USFS processes environmental impact statements faster than any other agency with a significant NEPA workload. However, wide variations between management units within the agency suggest that lessons could be learned through more careful study of how individual units manage their NEPA workload more or less successfully, as well as through exchanges among managers to communicate best practices. Of much greater concern is the dramatic decline in the number of NEPA analyses conducted by the agency, a decline that has continued through three presidential administrations and is not clearly related to any change in NEPA policy. This may suggest that USFS no longer has the resources to conduct routine land-management activities.

Forest Service Stories: A Story from a Regional Office, by Cathy Dahms

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(Note from Sharon: the first paragraph may not make any sense until you read the original request for stories I posted two weeks ago. Like all the stories, it’s from 1997 or so.  Here’s a link to the document the team produced, front page in the image above.)

by Cathy Dahms, Southwestern Region

I’d like to tell you about my team. Sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it “my” team, as if a Forest Service team was like a baseball team that has an owner. But I’m the team leader have been for 3 years now and when you’re working with folks that long, you tend to get personal about it. My team is mostly a Southwestern Regional Office/Rocky Mountain Station team. As a team, we haven’t gone on long rides in green rigs (or even short rides together in our own personal vehicles). We haven’t had lunches in the woods; I don’t even recall us eating lunch together in local restaurants. This isn’t going to be a story of any “on the ground” experience, so I’m not going to be insulted if you decide that a paper pushing team of RO/Station folks isn’t representative of Forest Service culture. But the team cared enough to get the job done, and gave it their best. There’s a lot of teams in the Forest Service that aren’t working in
the field: in regional teams, in interregional teams, in national teams, in interagency teams. The story of my team is the story of their teams, too, and that’s why I want to share it with you.

My team was given the charge of consolidating all the information that was floating around on forest ecosystem health in the Southwest into one report. We had documents on fire and forest health, insects and disease and forest health, analysis of changing conditions from forest inventories, etc., but each document was typically used only by folks in that specific functional area. Our report was to give folks the bigger picture. This report was to provide “one stop shopping” for resource managers of any discipline wanting to know more about forest ecosystem health in the Southwest.

Initially, we had each resource staff put together a report on forest ecosystem health. We batched them up into one document and sent it out for review. Most of the reviewers didn’t have any heartburn over the contents, but they didn’t like how the report was structured. There was too much duplication of material between chapters and the document was too functional. My team had a hard decision to make we could publish the document as is, or we could completely rewrite the document as a holistic ecosystem health assessment rather than a collection of individual reports. It was not an easy decision. A year had passed, and most of my team members’ supervisors had, by this time, other projects that they wanted their staff to work on. It would mean doing a lot more work than the first document: researching additional references to fill in gaps in characterizing historic and current ecosystem health, addressing the human dimension of forest ecosystem health, developing scenarios of possible management strategies, pulling together a cohesive strategy for improving forest ecosystem health in the Southwest, and meeting guidelines for Station publication. Even more daunting was that each section of the report would ultimately need to be a team effort, since each section needed to be written as
an integration of all disciplines.

The team voted unanimously to rewrite the report. Thus began a two year cycle of meetings, research, writing, and cycling through the process over and over again. Meanwhile, some team members retired or moved from the Southwest and were replaced by others who had to be brought up to speed with the project. The technical advisor from the Station moved to Alaska; with his departure, the team recruited Brian Geils, from the Flagstaff office, and Dale Brockway, from the Albuquerque office. Dale contributed his ecological expertise to the scenario

development and in various sections throughout the report. Brian started out acting as a consultant to the team, but ended up writing sections of the report and serving as technical editor to the entire effort. John Shafer, Ron Moody, Doug Shaw, and Bryce Rickel were on the team from its inception. David Conklin, Lorene Guffey, Jill Wilson and Rod Replogle became members of the team during the second rewrite. All team members worked together in the assessment process. Even though at times it seemed that the assessment would never be finished, their enthusiasm never waned.

Keeping the project moving forward was always a challenge. Team meetings had to worked around full schedules and unexpected events like the furlough and health emergencies. In a typical team meeting, we would work through lunch and continue working long after most people had gone home for the day. We also kept discovering additional information that was needed to improve the assessment. Often that meant going to other forest and Regional Office specialists for help. Even though everyone had an overflowing plate of work already, they always made time to provide the information requested. Judy Propper and Frank Wozniak even offered to review the entire document from a human dimensions perspective and suggest appropriate additions and clarifications. At one point, we had to go outside the Forest Service for help; Raymond Lee from the Arizona Game and Fish Department and Wally Haussamen from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish volunteered to research information on game populations through time.

Team members made many personal sacrifices to get the assessment completed. The agency doesn’t give medals to employees who give up their weekends to work on a project because there simply isn’t enough time otherwise, or to someone who works late and ends up sleeping in the office overnight because they’re too tired to drive home. Employees don’t work because they expect a reward: they work because they believe in a shared vision, because it is the right thing to do, because it may make a difference. That’s what it means to be on teams in the Forest Service. We work together; we help each other out; we are persistent. As Calvin Coolidge observed, “Nothing takes the place of persistence.”

NFS Litigation Weekly June 26 & July 3, 2020

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The Forest Service summaries may be found here:  Litigation Weekly June 26_July 3_2020_Final Email

COURT DECISIONS

High Country Conservation Advocates, et al. v. United States Forest Service.  On June 15, 2020, the District Court of Colorado issued an order vacating the Colorado Roadless Rule’s North Fork Coal Mining Area exception on the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forest, per the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals March 2, 2020, order. (Meanwhile, Arch Coal has built a road into the Sunset Roadless Area during the delay in the lower court’s order.)

Solenex LLC v. Bernhardt.  On June 16, 2020, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals found the Bureau of Land Management’s cancellation of the Solenex oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine Area on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest was not arbitrary and capricious.  (Here is some background.)

Western Watershed Project, et al. v. Bernhardt.  On June 19, 2020, the District Court for the District of Columbia issued a memorandum opinion order denying the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction concerning the Upper Green River Area Rangeland Project on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, which plaintiffs allege unlawfully impacts the grizzly bear, and the Kendall Warm Springs Dace.  (Discussed here.)

Southeast Alaska Council v. Forest Service.  On June 24, 2020, the District Court for Alaska issued a remedy order against the Forest Service concerning the Prince of Wales Landscape Level Analysis Project on the Tongass National Forest which vacates the portions of the March 16, 2019, record of decision for the project that authorize vegetation management and road construction activities; and vacates the portion of the October 19, 2018, Final Environmental Impact States as applied to vegetation management and road construction activities.

The judge explicitly rejected the Forest Service argument that, if this can’t be the only NEPA process for this large landscape “condition-based” decision, “the project EIS’s shortcomings do not necessarily prevent it from serving as a programmatic EIS, to which future site specific analyses could tier, potentially without further amendment…”   (The court’s original ruling was discussed here.)

NEW CASE

WildEarth Guardians v. U.S. Forest Service.  On June 17, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a complaint in the District Court of Eastern Washington against the Colville National Forest, primarily concerning the state listed gray wolf. The plaintiffs claim that Forest Service abdicated its authority on livestock ranching activities to ranchers in both its recently revised forest plan and ongoing grazing authorizations, which has incited conflict with the gray wolf.  The plaintiffs also claim violations of section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, concerning ranching activities on the several listed species.  (We have previously discussed this case here.)

NOTICE OF INTENT

On June 22, 2020, Klamath Siskyou Wildlands Center, Klamath Forest Alliance, and EPIC sent a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue pursuant to the Endangered Species Act for alleged failure to reinitiate consultation on the Crawford Vegetation Project on the Klamath National Forest regarding effects on northern spotted owls.

 

BLOGGER’S BONUS

Here are some updates related to past and pending litigation.

The lawsuit recently filed against the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to complete the ESA listing process for wolverine has been settled, with the FWS agreeing to complete the process by the end of August.  This process is in response to a court invalidating their prior decision to not list the species.

We have discussed extensively, including here.  After President Trump shrank the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments several lawsuits were filed and consolidated.  Here is a summary of the arguments presented in a seminar at that time.  The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in late 2019 and asked the court for summary judgment.  The briefing was just completed for this case.

 

While cases continue in federal court (see here), the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters announced it is filing a lawsuit under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act asking a judge to order the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources “to initiate a public process to amend state non-ferrous mining rules” that would would effectively kill the copper-nickel mine that has been proposed in a watershed that includes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on the Superior National Forest.  The article also mentions federal legislation that has been introduced to ban mining on national forest lands in the watershed.

 

After the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Forest Service had not made a final decision on mountain goat management, and therefore there was no final agency action to challenge, plaintiffs have continued to monitor the effects of the non-native goats on a research natural area.  They plan to provide the information to the Manti-La Sal National Forest plan revision process this summer as a way of forcing action on the issue.

 

 

The Cult of the Line Officer.II. The Complicated Nature of Forest Service Decision-Making

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Andrew Johnson, forest supervisor for the Bighorn National Forest, explained the forest service’s organizational structure during a community meeting last Thursday. Over 40 Buffalo residents attended the meeting to petition Johnson to fill the district ranger position vacated earlier this year by Mark Booth. (Note: the Bighorn doesn’t feature in any of my stories in this post).picked this photo because

Patrick McKay raised the question of how much latitude folks in the District Ranger position have and whether they have too much/too little, and whether their personal proclivities might have an influence on their decisions. I’ll start out by saying that land management decisions can have a great deal of latitude that is within law and policy. The decentralized culture of the Forest Service (and other organizations) start with the assumption that the line officer closest to the ground knows best. I’m calling this post “the cult of the line officer” in the sense of possibly excessive devotion, not that I necessarily think that it is excessive, but to draw attention to how different people in the Forest Service think about it.

I am not an expert on Forest Service culture and it seems to me that districts, forests and regions have different cultures. So I am just going to throw my own experiences out there, and I hope that retirees with different background through space and time will tell their stories. I’m going to assume that we are starting from scratch here, even though I know that most TSW folks have a working knowledge of how all this works.

We discussed the topic previously here about a year ago. In this post, I’d like to focus on the question of who decides ultimately and how the interactions among Rangers, Forest Supervisors and Regional Foresters work in practice.
(There are cases where the WO gets involved in projects, but those are relatively rare).

I’ll start with my experience with the concept of the Line Officer. That is the person who makes the decision. The rest of the people are staff. The Forest Service is a line and staff organization. You can read about them in any business reference, e.g., here. In my logical view, at least back in the day, there was a bit of mystique about the position of line officer. It was about managing people, but not entirely about managing people. It was about dealing with externals “well” (keeping “containment” so decisions and activities did not result in angry phone calls to the next level), and there was a kind of mystical connection to the chunk of land (we discussed that in the previous post and comments). They are also the people who have to notify others if there has been an accident… there’s almost a feeling that they are more responsible, and have more gravitas than staff folks. This may come from the military, and certainly there were many veterans in the Forest Service in the 80’s, as there are today. I’m hoping people with line experience will step in here.

In my own experience (both in DC and Region 2, where I was in a position to observe), it was very bad karma to overrule the level below you. When I was in DC, for example, in our staff’s judgement, a Region 5 forest was doing CE abuse- which could, as a result of random judge’s decisions, lose the CE for everyone. Why didn’t the RF stop it before it hit DC (the NEPA staff in the Region thought the same)? I guess because there is only so much overruling you can do of the next level down, and perhaps he was keeping his powder dry. He also knew that if it was too bad, DC would step in (as we did) and he wouldn’t have to be the bad guy (small p political theater).

Two more stories. A Forest Supervisor overruled a Ranger on a decision, and the Ranger was so incensed that he called the Deputy Regional Forester to complain about it. The DRF was kind of the next level of line officer above the Supe (his boss), (kind of, because technically the Supes work directly for the Regional Forester) . I thought that this was uncool (your don’t go above your boss’s head, unless it’s very extreme in some way) but the DRF felt that he was providing needed buffering for this Forest kerfufle, and he thought that’s just the way the Ranger was, still a good Ranger, generally. So you’re not supposed to complain to the person above your boss, but some people do and get away with it. Mysterious indeed.

Another story is that a Forest Supervisor and his staff were moving toward a decision on a particular project and the Regional Forester decided to overrule him (it was a proponent-driven project, and the surrounding community was not in agreement on the project). This caused much consternation to the Forest and the Forest Supervisor.. I remember saying to the Supervisor, “but doesn’t the RF get to decide? He’s our boss (and as a line officer, perhaps, just as much in charge of the Region as you are of the Forest.” But that was the cultural divide of being line (him) versus not (me). Line gets to make decisions and staff advises. I was staff, so submission was always the best posture (except for extreme conditions), but line to line is more complicated.

I’m hoping that some folks on TSW will share their own experiences.

Sorry Secretary Sonny, Our National Forests Are Not Crops

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Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue gathered up the “good ole boys” at the Missoula airport on June 12 to unveil the Trump administration’s “Modernization Blueprint” for more logging, mining, drilling and grazing on national forests. Photo by Missoulian.

The following guest post is written by Adam Rissien. 

Trump’s Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue flew into Missoula on June 12 to sign a memorandum directing the U.S. Forest Service to essentially double-down on its continued push to prioritize logging, mining, drilling and grazing, all while limiting environmental reviews. During the campaign-style signing event, Secretary Perdue—a former agribusiness CEO whose previous political campaigns were bankrolled by Monsanto and Big Ag interests—not only bragged that “we see trees as a crop,” but also ironically compared America’s bedrock environmental laws to “bubble wrap.” Apparently it was lost on Secretary Perdue that bubble wrap protects valuable things from being destroyed.

Missing from the secretary’s statements was any recognition that America’s national forests, 193 million acres in all, are actually diverse ecosystems that are home to hundreds of imperiled fish and wildlife species, and contain the last remnants of wildlands in this country that millions of people cherish. The secretary failed to mention how numerous communities rely on national forests to provide clean drinking water, or the fact that intact forests do more to remove atmospheric carbon than do stumps. In fact, national forests have a crucial role to play as part of global, natural climate change solutions.

Returning to the past, when resource extraction and exploitation ruled the land is hardly a blueprint for the future. Yet, this is exactly what the secretary ordered and what the Trump administration has been pursuing from Day One. In fact, Perdue’s memorandum comes on the heels of two recent Trump Executive Orders allowing industry and federal agencies to waive compliance with long-standing environmental laws that safeguard fish and wildlife. These orders follow Trump’s wholesale rolling back of rules requiring federal agencies to involve the public, take a hard look at the environmental consequences of its actions, and consider alternatives.

A recent Journal of Forestry article demonstrates the rationale for these rollbacks and attacks is baseless. Even without further “streamlining processes,” the Forest Service approved over 80% of projects between 2005-2018 by categorically excluding them from environmental analysis. The same study also showed that less than 1% of all projects were challenged in court.

Of course, this administration and industry proponents would never let facts change their story, especially when it plays on people’s fears and hopes. For years, those opposed to public land protection keep weaving nostalgic hints of returning to the good ole days when the mills were humming and the logging trucks filled with big trees, all the while knowing economics and automation make this impossible. At the same time, they use fear of wildfires as cover for industrial logging, sidestepping the reality that climate change and the historic drought gripping much of the West increases wildfire risks far more than cutting trees will ever address. The wildfires we see today matches what climate science tells us. If we truly want to see fewer large-scale wildfires, then we need to stop burning fossil fuels and do more to preserve intact, mature forests. Further, it is hubris to believe, and irresponsible to purport, that timber harvest will prevent wildfires. No one talks about hurricane-proofing the Gulf Coast, or tornado-proofing Oklahoma, but the Forest Service suggests if given enough latitude it can reduce forest fires – though the degree of which is left to the public’s imagination and that’s the point.

Ultimately, Secretary Perdue and the Trump administration believe national forests are little more than crops and the best, highest use for public lands is to exploit them with more logging, grazing, mining and drilling. The fact is, national forests and public lands are complex, living ecosystems with inherent value that deserves our moral consideration. These public lands are homes to grizzly bears, mountain goats, elk, trout, salmon and a whole host of other iconic wildlife species. Their survival depends on us, and we need to be better environmental citizens with our non-human neighbors.

America does need a “modernization blueprint” for the future of national forests, one that re-envisions their purpose so we can move beyond viewing forests simply as sources of lumber. In the 21st century, we need to strengthen forest protection, maximize the ability of national forests to serve as part of natural climate change solutions, and heal the scars left from decades of exploitation through true restoration, which cannot be done with a chainsaw.

Adam Rissien writes from Missoula, Montana where he’s the Rewilding Advocate of WildEarth Guardians. Learn more at https://wildearthguardians.org/

NFS Litigation Summary mid-June, 2020

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I didn’t receive a Forest Service June 19 “weekly,” but here’s what might have been covered:

COURT DECISIONS

On June 9, 2020, the Montana federal district court dissolved the injunction against the North Hebgen Multiple Resource Project on the Custer-Gallatin National Forest after the Forest addressed deficiencies related to elk hiding cover and wolverines.  (The opinion is short.)

On June 12, 2020, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld two thinning and prescribed burning projects (Hyde Park and Pacheco Canyon) on the Santa Fe National Forest.  The projects complied with HFRA and forest plan requirements for old growth and wildlife, properly applied the relevant categorical exclusion, and adequately addressed cumulative effects.

On June 12, the Idaho federal district court denied plaintiff’s injunction request, finding no likelihood of success on the claims under the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act.  (The court also denied a request by the Forest Service for an order for plaintiffs to stop harassing work crews with a helicopter, viewing it as a one-time occurrence.)

NEW CASES

On June 10, 2020, plaintiffs sued the Forest Service and U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Arizona federal district court seeking removal of 14 summer homes and a bible camp subject to special-use permits in order to protect the remaining canopied habitat on the Coronado National Forest upon which the federally endangered Mt. Graham red squirrel now relies.  (Additional background here.)

UPDATES

Plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment in their lawsuit against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service regarding the effects of the Rock Creek Mine on the Kootenai National Forest on grizzly bears and bull trout.  (Last discussed here.)

Plaintiffs decided not to seek a preliminary injunction in their lawsuit against the Forest Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection when the agencies informed them that there would be no construction activities until the summer of 2021 on the Bog Creek Road project, located just south of the Canadian border on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest.

The Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest announced it is withdrawing the Elk Smith project, involving prescribed fire in a roadless area.

OTHER LITIGATION

On June 17, 2020, a coalition of conservation groups filed a formal notice of their intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure to protect the bi-state sage-grouse population under the Endangered Species Act.  The species occurs on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest which has been involved in this long process, as noted here.

The federal government filed a complaint claiming that J-Spear Ranch of Paisley, Oregon, started the 2018 Watson Creek Fire that burned 46,000 acres in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, resulting in at least $14 million worth of losses in timber, habitat, water protection and environmental values, as well as fire suppression and rehabilitation costs.

A Mexican national pleaded guilty in federal court last week to cultivating over 1,000 marijuana plants in Sequoia National Forest.

Four conservation groups filed motions to intervene on the side of Ventura County and against the Ventura County Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business, and the California Construction and Industrial Materials Association in their lawsuit against two ordinances protecting designated wildlife corridors connecting the Los Padres National Forest, Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills.  (No word on whether the Forest Service will also intervene to coordinate with other land managers having land relevant to maintaining viable populations of wildlife, 36 CFR §219.9(b)(2)(ii).)