Three Letters on Montana USFS Timber Sales

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Three letters in the Helena Independent Record, presented in order of publication. Thanks to Nick Smith for pointing them out.

In Garrity’s letter, he says, “Last year the Forest Service [Region 1] received no bids on 17.5% of the timber offered, up from 15.6% that received no bids in 2018. That’s 615 million board feet that weren’t cut in 2019 because the timber industry did not bid on it.”

Altemus replies that “This is a gross distortion of the facts.”

Anyone know the facts?

Also, timber sales may get zero bids for many reasons — too far from a mill, poor or undesirable species, unfavorable terms, and so on — that have little to do with a region’s overall timber supply.

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Public loses on federal timber sales

MIKE GARRITY, Feb. 14, 2020

When Idaho billionaire Ron Yanke purchased the timber mills in Townsend and Livingston years ago to form RY Timber, he also bought lots of former Anaconda Company timberland. But just like Champion International and Plum Creek Timber who, according to a University of Montana study, cut trees three times faster than they could grow back, RY has already overcut their private land.

Both Champion and Plum Creek are gone from Montana, but at least Champion was honest about why it left, stating in the Wall Street Journal in the early 1990s that trees simply grow too slowly in Montana. Champion then clearcut its timberlands and reinvested the money in the Southeast, where tree farms can be harvested a decade after planting rather than the century or more it takes to reach harvestable size in Montana.

Plum Creek did the same thing, thanks to a board decision to “liquidate” its forest assets in the late ’80s and turn itself into a real estate investment trust to sell its marketable Montana lands for subdivision and development as Weyerhauser acquired its mills.

In spite of this sad but well-documented history of timber operations in Montana, RY is blaming environmentalists for what they claim is an insufficient supply of timber from national forests. The basic economic principles of over-supply and over-production in the timber industry are the real problems.

As Julia Altemus, logging lobbyist and director of the Montana Wood Products Association, told the Missoulian’s Rob Chaney: “There’s been a lot of over-production across the board. We have too much wood in the system and people weren’t building. That will make it tougher for us. What would help is if we could find new markets.”

When Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. cut back its mill production cycle from 80 to 50 hours weekly, manager Paul McKenzie told the Hungry Horse News: “It’s purely market driven… demand for lumber across the country is down… supply has actually been good.”

In fact, the “supply” from national forests is more than just good. Last year the Forest Service received no bids on 17.5% of the timber it offered, up from 15.6% that received no bids in 2018. That’s 615 million board feet that weren’t cut in 2019 because the timber industry did not bid on it. The truth is that Region 1 of the Forest Service, which includes Montana, has increased the amount of timber offered by 141% in the last 10 years and the cost to taxpayers continues to climb to staggering heights.

A report by the Center for a Sustainable Economy found “taxpayer losses of nearly $2 billion a year associated with the federal logging program carried out on National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands. Despite these losses, the Trump administration plans to significantly increase logging on these lands in the years ahead, a move that would plunge taxpayers into even greater debt.”

Adding to that debt are significant “externalized” costs to the public when new logging roads are bulldozed into unroaded areas. Runoff fills streams with sediment that smothers fish eggs and aquatic insects. More logging also reduces forested habitat for elk, which then seek safety on private lands, resulting in problems from “game damage.”

The Montana timber industry once again wants to rape and run. Just as environmentalists were not to blame for its overcut private lands (which are now filled with stumps, knapweed, and degraded streams) environmentalists should now be lauded, not blamed, for trying to stop such destruction on our public lands.

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

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Timber-dependent communities deserve better than what some environmentalists dish out

JULIA ALTEMUS, Feb 27, 2020

Michael Garrity’s Feb. 14 opinion letter was certainly no “Be Mine” valentine. It was dripping of desperation and distorted quotes. Again, the author is either grossly misinformed of the facts or intentionally misleading the public. The author stated that “Last year the Forest Service received no bids on 17.5% of the timber offered, up from 15.6% that received no bids in 2018. That’s 615 million board feet that weren’t cut in 2019 because the timber industry did not bid on it.” This is a gross distortion of the facts. Region One works very hard to not have sales go no bid. Rarely is there carryover timber volume in our Region to the next fiscal year. Other Regions may struggle with “no bid” sales, Region One does not. Michael would have the public believe that Montana’s timber industry is leaving valuable timber volume on the table. Not so!

Michael goes on to assert that, “The truth is that Region 1 of the Forest Service, which includes Montana, has increased the amount of timber offered by 141% in the last 10 years and the cost to the taxpayers continues to climb to staggering heights.” The graph, provided below by the U of M Bureau of Business and Economic Research, illustrates that up until the last couple of years, there was a steady decline in federal timber supply, not a 141% increase. [tinyurl.com/ycg53w9j]

At the heart of the decline in harvest and forest health is the fact that Montana is ground zero for litigation. Since the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) was amended in 1988, to allow nonprofits to sue the federal government, Montana has lost 30 mill manufacturers, resulting in the loss of over 3500 jobs.

Region One has paid out $1,204,636.90 in litigation payments under the EAJA to environmental groups in Montana in the past five years alone. No wonder the Alliance for the Wild Rockies has had R-Y Timber in its crosshairs for well over a decade. Dating back to 2007, the Alliance litigated or threatened to litigate 24 of R-Y’s timber contracts equaling over 100mmbf. It’s hard to run a business with a dark litigation cloud hanging over head.

Let’s look at the facts. Currently, Montana’s timberlands are over 63% federal, 23% non-industrial timberlands, 8% industrial timberlands, 5% state, and 1% tribal. Montana’s wood manufacturers must rely on a sustainable and steady supply of raw wood fiber from the federal estate. On average, federal forests in Montana grow 567 million cubic feet annually. At the same time, we lose 510 million cubic feet to mortality, netting 51 million cubic feet of annual growth. We are losing a jaw-dropping 89.9% of our federal forests annually to insects, disease and fire.

Timber harvest is about more than just cutting down trees. There are numerous ancillary benefits. The value of the timber pays for restoration work, brings roads to best management practice standards, improves wildlife habitat, reduces the risk of catastrophic wildfires, provides employment and products that we all use daily.

While environmental groups, like AWR, continue to be engaged in litigation larceny, families, rural timber-dependent communities and the forests they depend upon are suffering.

Julia Altemus is the executive director of the Montana Wood Products Association.

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Forest management works best when parties collaborate

CHRIS MARCHION, May 3, 2020

My experiences with Ron Yanke and RY Timber over the past 30 years are substantially different from those characterizations implied by Mike Garrity’s recent letter. I dealt with RY in the 1990s when they purchased former Anaconda Company lands for the purpose of timber harvest.

While I did not agree with all of RY’s harvest decisions, their activities left the land in a condition desirable for public ownership. All of the streams still contain cutthroat and bull trout. The mountain lakes offer quality experiences and much of the landscape is still viable for wilderness consideration and provide critical wildlife habitat. In the late 1990s I worked successfully with Mr. Yanke and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to put 35,000 acres of these lands into public ownership.

This acquisition took several years of negotiations and payments. Although Mr. Yanke had better offers during the negotiations, he honored his original intent for a public acquisition. Although he was a successful industrialist he had conservation values. I learned he valued his employees, the communities where he operated, and the landscapes he affected. He was an interesting man because he was as comfortable sitting in negotiations involving millions of dollars as he was sitting in a pickup visiting with a logger.

Tragically, Ron died shortly after this acquisition but his company has kept his conservation engagement. In 2019, RY sold an additional 120 acres to be added to the original Watershed purchase.

RY’s recent closure of the Townsend mill which generated comments about environmental obstruction are understandable. Mr. Garrity’s comments as they relate to RY are not. For more than a decade I have been involved in the development of the Beaverhead-Deer Lodge Working Group which is a collaborative of interested forest users contributing to management issues on the Beaverhead-Deer Lodge Forest.

The most urgent forest issue is dealing with over mature lodge pole on forest lands. A major problem has been the inability of the forest to successfully execute sufficient commercial harvest on these lands. Due to a number of factors, including collaboration, timber harvest is up in recent years but still lower than the need dictated by landscape conditions.

We need to do more. The more interest groups involved in the development of these projects, the better the result. The healthier the forest. Obstructing at the end of project development as is Mr. Garrity’s method of legal intervention has not produced a better result. In the 1960s and 70’s international forest corporations were the extreme group promoting timber harvest as the only goal. Those international corporations are gone but Mr. Garrity has replaced their destructive harvests with equally destructive litigation.

Forest management is an evolving science that produces the best results when the interested parties engage constructively in the development of decisions. If Mr. Garrity’s constituents are sincere in their concern for forest health then start by engaging from the beginning of projects. Litigation should be the last resort, not the preferred choice.

Chris Marchion of Anaconda is a member of the Beaverhead-Deer Lodge Working Group and an inaugural member of the Montana Conservation Hall of Fame.

John Freemuth, Boise State professor and expert on public lands policy, has died at 69

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John Freemuth at WGA 2018 Western Working Lands Forum

 

What a loss to so many involved with federal lands policy!  Here’s what the Idaho Statesman had to say on this:

For decades, Freemuth worked closely with former Democratic Idaho governor and Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus, Tracy’s father. Tracy Andrus said they were “pragmatic conservationists” committed to facilitating agreement.

“John believed strongly in dad’s legacy … of a common sense approach,” Tracy Andrus said. “They were both always voices of reason on issues that politically charged.”

Freemuth had a skill for seeing issues from both sides. His objectivity earned him a spot as a moderator at numerous debates and on many panels, where he talked about environmental issues alongside the likes of Bureau of Land Management Director William Perry Pendley.

“He was always so extraordinarily balanced,” said Rick Johnson, retired former director of the Idaho Conservation League.

Johnson serves on the Board of Governors for the Andrus Center, where he worked with Freemuth. Johnson said Freemuth found a way to “blend the practical and the academic on politics.”

Idaho Rep. Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, said he saw Freemuth’s mediation firsthand when the two served on then-Gov. Phil Batt’s federal lands task force — Bedke as a representative of the livestock industry and Freemuth as an intermediary.

“Scott and John always got along — and people would’ve thought that we wouldn’t have,” said Bedke in a phone interview. “I think that speaks to the man, it speaks to the type of person he was.

“When you’re talking about managing federal lands or natural resources in the West … it’s a complex issue,” Bedke continued. “There are a lot of stakeholders, and everyone has their bias. And yet we’re expected to get along in this multiple-use regime, and John was able to bring good perspective to all of that and balance it out — but not to the elimination of one use or another. It was in a way of finding room for everybody.”

John was my go-to political scientist and friend of  The Smokey Wire.  He was a gracious source of help and encouragement for us, as well as so many others, students, colleagues and all kinds of workers in the public policy arena.

People who work this middle ground tend to be invisible compared to political appointees, or the drama of federal lands warfare.   But they are still out there, every day working to make the world a better, and less hateful, place. Probably getting disparaged by those on each side.  IMHO, these folks are unsung heroes.  And we have lost one of the best.

FS Story of the Week: Bill Bentley on his Father, Forest Service Researcher Jay Bentley

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Jay Bentley – A founding Father of the American Society for Range Management.

From Bill Bentley (this is from the Forest Service stories collection from 1990-ish).  Here’s the timeframe perspective from Bill:

I think he retired in 1969 or early 1970 after 37 years with the Forest Service. I had just moved to Ann Arbor. Unless my memory is off, he joined the old USFS California Forest & Range Experiment Station in late 1932.

A son has difficulty writing about his father, especially if they were close. Dad and I became best of friends as I moved into my middle years. Dad’s intense interest in what he was doing professionally put me off as a kid, but eventually inspired me to follow in his footsteps with a career in resource management and conservation.

The first time I really identified the seriousness of Dad and his Forest Service colleagues we were together on a field trip out of Porterville. I had just finished my freshman year, and joined Dad on a Range Society tour of range rehabilitation and management on the Sequoia National Forest. Dad, Ralph Fenner, some other fellows, and me came in from the field, hot and dusty, about 7:00 p.m. We then began a long review of the day, the use of fire in forest and range management, and the impact of low cattle prices.  About 10:30, one college freshman who was floating on the ceiling began to complain. All this talk and no mention of girls, baseball, or politics and he was very hungry! The men laughed and apologized for not getting on to dinner sooner, then went back to their debate.

How Jay Bentley got to California is an interesting story in itself. He was working on a master’s in soils and agronomy at Kansas State. It was a cold November day, and he was near the campus digging out a Lesbadezia [sp?] shrub to trace its root patterns. His roommate, Don Cornelius, peered over the top of the hole. “Jay, you just got a telegram from California. The Forest Service will pay you $2,600 a year if you’ll report right away.” Dad, in recalling this story, said as far as he knows the shovel is still in the bottom of that pit.

By the time I was a forestry student, Dad was with Operation Fuelbreak. He was working more and more closely with the Regional Office in San Francisco and several national forests. Once Eamor Nord and I were in a ranger station near Walker Pass. When the ranger heard my name, he asked if I was related to Jay. “Yes,” I said, with some pride but concern for what came next. Growing up in your Dad’s shadow is not always a comfortable process. “Well,” responded the ranger, “it’s always a pleasure to work with Jay. He understands our problems, and helps us solve them. A real unusual experience, in my opinion, working with researchers.” That’s a story I still use in workshops on applied research here and overseas.

Dad moved more and more into research useful to the National Forest System. The range rehabilitation work shifted toward brush conversion for timber management as he moved to the Shasta Trinity and northern Sierra national forests. I followed this work on periodic visits as a graduate student then young faculty member. He, his crew of young professionals like Tim Plum and Ken Brigeman, and their national forest counterparts were working through a complex of ecological, managerial, and other factors which were good grist for my learning processes.

One Sunday afternoon, we were exploring the cost and returns from brushland conversion while barbecuing a piece of well marinated beef in the backyard. It became obvious as the conversation went on that we had different perspectives on the subject. Finally, in some exasperation, he turned to me, the budding forest economist, and said, “Say, you’re not one of those ‘SOBs’ who believes in compound interest, are you?”

Interestingly enough, that conversation led into a much more profound and continuing dialogue about the management of vegetation and related land-based resources. Dad and his team were trying to speed up natural successional patterns using fire, herbicides, seed, seedlings, fertilizer, and other inputs. But what they really were trying to do was use managerial control to guide nature toward a vision of what the landscape could look like and produce. Their visions were not intense systems, but ones that worked to produce more range forage, timber, and other multiple uses. Their philosophy was, “Learn how to do it right first, then worry about reducing the costs.” It took me some time to understand the importance of this philosophy, but once it stuck I have been alert to the many times resource managers focus on costs then lose their investments to the risks of nature’s complex response to our managerial schemes. Whether you’re managing timber and grass for money, for wilderness, or for watershed protection, you have to start by doing it right.

In the 1960’s, Dad and several other Forest Service researchers put their skills to service in Vietnam. Their activities were controversial, and we had several tense discussions within the family. It was not a happy period for the country, and the Bentleys were a small microcosm of a national debate. In the end, however, we all learned. Perhaps we learned from each others’ positions, but mostly we learned tolerance for perspective, individual values, and humanness. For Dad and I, that gave us the basis for a true and lasting friendship.

My version of the Jay Bentley story is not necessarily the same as the story remembered by his co workers in the Pacific Southwest Station. It is a story of a son who learned from his father, often while together puzzling out some problem, and in the process learned the meaning of true friendship and human relationships. This has little to do directly with research accomplishments, but a lot to do with why they are important.

William R. Bentley
Granby, Connecticut
May 6, 1991

More Reflections on the Black Hills and Open Peer Review: Second Guest Post by Frank Carroll

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Thanks to the Norbeck Society for providing links to the Friday videoconference! In case you haven’t been following the different threads , here’s a link to the info, including an agenda and list of speakers. It’s open to the public via the web. It’s from 1-3 MT on Friday May 1. That’s today. Now on to Frank’s second post.

Sharon Friedman writes “One of the interesting things about this paper is the peer review process- internal, external, and stakeholders and the public….I think it’s a great idea to have a variety of perspectives. Some of the most rigorous scientific reviews I’ve seen are when people with different opinions, interests, and experiences on the ground review a paper.”

Our experience with direct engagement of interested and affected publics in forest management began in earnest in 1970 when then-Southwestern Regional Forester William “Bill” Hurst wrote a letter to all hands extolling the brave new world of public involvement in forest management. The idea of direct public involvement didn’t come to Bill in the dark of night. As in our own time, the Forest Service was working hard to remain relevant in the sea of competing public interests, Congressional distractions, and Secretary-level politics that whipsaw the agency in every Epoch from 1895 until today.

The idea was to capitalize on the reputation the Forest Service then had as what authors Clark and McCool described as a “Superstar Agency” in their seminal work, Staking Out the Terrain. Hurst and his peers reasoned that involving the public directly in decision-making would build a cadre of political support that would support Forest Service management into the future and speak for the agency in political fights down the road. After all, people trusted us. Kids wanted to be forest rangers. Lassie ruled the airwaves. Capitalize on all the good will, Hurst reasoned. History will note that Bill’s expectations were earnest in intent, naïve in conception, and not at all what he envisioned in terms of real outcomes. Inviting the public into the agency house resulted in land and resource management planning and all the many iterations of public policy and high drama we have known since 1980 when LRMP really took off and the world changed.

The idea to involve our scientists and their research in what I view as an ill-considered and potentially disastrous, open-ended “peer review” process with any and all hands commenting is a direct descendant of Bill’s effort in 1970 and driven by the same desires that somehow involving the public in our planning and management processes, and, now, in our science and data, will somehow elevate our work. As we learned in 1980 and subsequent years, our shared agency hopes that opening the document to some form of “public peer review” will build a strong political consensus for the report and its conclusions is wrong. It will not. It will, however, compromise Forest Service science in unlooked for ways that may ultimately damage both the data and the scientists. Public involvement in this paper will not change the outcome of future decisions on forest management in the Black Hills in any way.

It’s a hard lesson made harder in the knowledge that “peer review” from all hands was not an idea supported by or even considered by the authors. The principals in this case are useful pawns as various levels of the agency and outside interests attempt to legitimize the conclusions in the report. The thinking is that if enough outside interests (like the Norbeck Society, Forest Service retirees, and others) weigh in and are familiar with the report and its projections, the weight of political power will swing away from the current timber industry in favor of timber volume reductions. For a host of reasons, that will not happen.

Jim Neiman’s monthly electric bill is $30,000, month in, month out, and won’t change barring any unforeseen events. The timber industry including Jack Baker and Jim Neiman support thousands of jobs and hundreds of families in two states. The combined economic clout of a robust and creative forest products industry are critical contributors to well-being in the southwest corner of South Dakota and eastern Wyoming and that industry enjoys the full support of the President, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Chief of the Forest Service, the Regional Forester, Senator Thune, Senator Rounds, Congressman Dusty Johnson, and every community leader who counts across two states.

In addition, the industry has operated in an unbroken cycle of success since at least 1885 providing timber and other forest products for the Hills and beyond. They have continued to do so up to and including this year. When there are blips in production, those blips are products of market conditions, not Forest Service actions with the glaring exception of 2000 when agency machinations gone wrong resulted in zero timber offered or sold. The combined experience of leadership at all levels has been that the timber industry can and does take care of itself using a combination of market forces, entrepreneurial skill and creativity, tenacity, and dedication to sustainable forestry over time.

The report paints a picture that is contrary to our combined experience in Black Hills forestry. The message is not trusted and there is no agreement on potential outcomes or conclusions. In such a situation the status quo will rule the day absent any surety that is should not.

The Forest Service must be highly circumspect in inviting public participation in scientific analyses and agency management, especially when the likelihood is high that public expectations for change from some quarters will not be met. In this case, the status quo will rule coming decisions related to ASQ and that’s OK. The problem is actually self-regulating. Either the timber industry is right and they will continue to use their skill, creativity, and market forces to make a living and provide forest management, or they will fail to do so, also because of market forces quite apart from Forest Service aspirational objectives. Please take heed, RMRS…you may think inviting “peer review” today looks good, but wait until they are editing your text and bar graphs to fit with their personal perspectives…your political scientific reports will frustrate you more than you can know.

In my opinion, the correct focus of the agency should be to compile data, provide analysis of current management and alternatives to it, and work to merge competing interests to the best of their ability. The Forest Service has no business trying to strong-arm the timber industry. A sketchy “peer review” of data and analysis is not helpful.

Additionally, the rise of the use of “unplanned fire in the right place at the right time” and “reintroducing wildfire to fire-deficit ecosystems,” or “forest management by applied wildfire,” has endangered the agency’s moral high ground to try to limit or control proven, traditional, systematic, forest management programs like the sale of federal timber. The timber sale program is a controlled disturbance agent well understood by most foresters. No one knows what the outcome of applied wildfire will be through time. I merely point this out to inform the complexity of the discussion. There is a high level of distrust in Forest Service forest management exacerbated by various attempts to (inappropriately) involve the public, on the one hand, and exclude the public on the other (there has been no public process to disclose the cumulative effects of management by wildfire or “managed fire” as it is called today).

Frank Carroll is managing partner of Professional Forest Management, LLC, PFMc, a full service forestry and grassland consultancy. Frank and partner Van Elsbernd have been working since 2012 to understand and help shape wildland fire policy. Frank is the principal author of the wildfire impact analysis for the Mount Rushmore Independence Day Environmental Assessment. PFMc has helped over 600 clients recover almost $600 million in damages from wildfires across the West. www.wildfirepros.com [email protected]

More Science on Salvaging Timber

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From a new study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change — online and free. A complete life-cycle analysis would account for harvests in the effects area as well as in areas where normal harvests change as more (or less) is harvested in the disturbed forest. Markets matter. If landowners in one area harvest more than their average annual volumes, landowners in other areas might harvest less: the overall demand for timber hasn’t been changed.

Forest Carbon Resilience of Eastern Spruce Budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana) Salvage Harvesting in the Northeastern United States

Abstract:

The next major eastern spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana) outbreak is likely to begin impacting the forests of the northeastern US over the next few years. More than 4.7 million ha of forest and 94.8 million Mg of carbon in spruce (Picea spp.) and balsam fir (Abies balsamea) are at risk. Vegetation shifts in at-risk forest stands are likely to occur as a direct result of mortality caused by spruce budworm and through post-outbreak salvage harvest operations designed to minimize economic impact. Management interventions have short-term and long-term consequences for the terrestrial carbon budget and have significant implications for the role of the region’s forests as a natural climate solution. We used regional forest inventory data and 40 years growth and harvest simulations from the USDA Forest Service Forest Vegetation Simulator to quantify a range of forest carbon outcomes for alternative silvicultural interventions in the northeastern US. We performed a life cycle assessment of harvested wood products, including bioenergy, to evaluate the full greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions consequences of salvage and business as usual silvicultural scenarios across a range of stand risk profiles in the presence and absence of spruce budworm attack. Salvaging dead trees in the most at-risk stands tends to produce net emissions of carbon dioxide for at least 10 years compared to a baseline where dead trees are left standing. In most scenarios, GHG emissions reached parity with the baseline by year 20. Changes in forest carbon stocks were the biggest driver of net emission differences between salvage and no salvage scenarios. A benchmark scenario without timber harvesting or the occurrence of a spruce budworm outbreak had the greatest net carbon sequestration profile after 40 years compared to all other scenarios. Salvaging trees killed by a severe and widespread insect infestation has potential negative short-term implications for GHG emissions, but long-term resilience of these climate benefits is possible in the absence of future outbreaks or subsequent harvest activities. The results provide guidance on silvicultural interventions to minimize the impact of spruce budworm on forest carbon.

Discussion excerpt:

We found that forest management actions such as salvage harvesting designed to mitigate pest impacts over time can have positive impacts on overall C balances by reducing the risk of catastrophic loss in susceptible stands and landscapes and by shifting C from at-risk or dying trees to wood used as building materials or displacing fossil-fuel intensive energy sources. However, this C resilience comes at a short-term cost to the atmosphere that can last up to 20 years. Therefore, the resilience is dependent upon the recovery of the forest C stocks in the absence of subsequent natural or anthropogenic disturbances. If forest management interventions or large-scale mortality interrupt the growth response of the post salvage forest, then there is likely to be a longer period of time required to reach parity with the baseline scenarios.

 

 

Fleischman et al NEPA Paper: Discussion

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This paper was published in the Journal of Forestry, and I received an e-reprint from the first author, Forrest Fleischman. What is very (very!) cool is that the raw data is also available to the public in the University of Minnesota repository here.

The authors downloaded the entire Multi-year Trend Report, as they had access. Which is somewhat frustrating for me, as I was told I couldn’t access the database when I wanted to look at CEs, as I wasn’t an internal person. I could have FOIA’d it like Wild Earth Guardians, but really? So let’s talk about PALS for a minute. When E-Gov came around, the NEPA shop in DC (of which I was the lead at the time, but the immensely wonderful and capable Reta Laford did most of the work) was challenged to make NEPA more efficient, and getting a database to be able to ask questions like “how long does it take?” seemed like low-hanging fruit. Our intention at the time was to get it up and running, and then open it to the public. This seems to be one of those things that is good for the public, but never attracts the attention of any kind of Administration, so it never happens. We can put it on the The Smokey Wire Transition Team list of Things That People Who Otherwise Disagree, Agree Should Be Implemented.

Anyway, I have prowled around looking for objection letters, and I’m not sure that everyone is entering everything. So I’d greatly appreciate some feedback from current employees on how accurate they think the data are for NEPA, objections, and litigation. Here’s what Fleischman said about the data issue:”We found a lot of missing data, but think we have a pretty good sense of what it is from cross checking with other sources (e.g. individual national forest websites, library archives, etc.).” IMHO, shouldn’t have to do that.

And here is a link to their award from the National Science Foundation.

Here’s the abstract:

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.

For me, most of it, given all the previous “NEPA for the 21st Century” research, not too much was surprising, except this observation the decline in projects over time:

Several potential causes of the declines in Figure 7 can be easily eliminated. The trends are fairly consistent over the last 14 years, suggesting that no one
administration or Congress is responsible for lower levels of activity, although the sharp drop in CEs from 2007 to 2008 may be due to court cases lost by the Bush Administration that year that invalidated some CEs. (Sharon: were those the HFI CE’s?) Similarly, the decline appears similar across regions and activities. There are no major changes in NEPA regulations during this time that can account for this large shift in the number of projects. Yet whereas the number of projects signed by district rangers has declined by approximately 40 percent since the early years of our study, the decline in projects signed by higher level officials (e.g., forest supervisors, regional foresters) is only about 15 percent. This could indicate that the decline in number of projects is partly a result of consolidation of NEPA analyses into a smaller number of larger, landscape-scale programmatic EISs (Council on Environmental Quality 2014), although if this were the case, we would also expect an increase in the number of EAs and CEs that implement the programmatic EIS, but instead we observe a decrease. (Sharon: but maybe they are not programmatic but just larger landscapes for analysis)

On the other hand, it could also indicate that higher-level officials have more access to resources and/or pursue projects that are less likely to be cancelled in times of fiscal stress.

Perhaps people currently working could comment on their observations on their own districts/forests as to reduction in NEPA docs? Is it perhaps associated with lower budgets and/or fewer people?

Let the discussion (and different ways of analyzing the data) begin! If you want to ask a question of the data, and don’t have the skills, maybe we can help each other figure it out.

Another Point of View on the Black Hills Report-Guest Post by Frank Carroll

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I think this is the kind of photo Frank is talking about in his post.
Thanks to Frank Carroll for this guest post! Here’s some background on him. He is another retiree who worked on the Black Hills. Note: this discussion (and the previous thread on the report, and perhaps The Smokey Wire itself) should make you wary about any claims that “Forest Service employees think” or “Forest Service retirees think”. It’s interesting that we managed to live with each other and get along, for the most part, with our range of views.

Frank questions whether the report itself (on LTSY) can entirely answer the question “what, where and when should timber be cut on the Black Hills.” This is the first of two guest posts by Frank.

Russ (Graham), Mike (Battaglia), and Theresa (Jain) have done their usual stellar job as scientists in reviewing the record, compiling appropriate data, applying expert analysis, and disclosing their conclusions and answers to a set of specific questions about maintaining a nondeclining even flow of timber and sustained yield of timber over time. These great scientists were asked how much timber is growing across the forest, how much is available for harvest, and how do those answers line up with the current allowable sale quantity and current timber management plans. They answered fully and to the best of their ability.

They were not asked to assess what the timber market has in store in terms of innovation, new technologies, new wood processing equipment and techniques, the pluses and minuses of various levels of timber industry outputs, or personal and personnel factors, market factors, or political factors that would inform strong direction to the industry from the Forest Service as everyone tries to navigate the future.

As we would hope and expect, our scientists did a solid job of answering a specific set of questions based on a specific set of expectations and assumptions, and did not swan off into territory beyond their training and understanding.

Black Hills Timber Growth and Yield is a solid piece of work and the authors are to be congratulated.

Black Hills Timber Growth and Yield does not comprehensively enlighten our understanding about how to move forward with the timber industry in the Black Hills.

Anecdotal data and our experience show that our timber industry can and will successfully negotiate the challenges of the future and maintain a strong and vibrant presence in the Hills.

The FIA data suggests, because it is not a one-for-one inventory of trees, that our forest is dying faster than it is growing and that the current ASQ is not sustainable.

The timber industry argues that we know we can cut trees and keep a viable forest industry going. We don’t know that we’re actually running out of trees. It’s theoretical. It’s a model. It’s imperfect science, the thinking goes.

In any event, there is not sufficient data and no comprehensive answers to many related questions about factors that influence the success of our timber program that would settle the unsettled question; are we overcutting the Black Hills?

Our choices are to substantially revise our allowable sale quantity to line up with Russ’ report, or to choose the status quo and see what the future brings.

In any event the Forest will abide. Either it will continue to meet the demand for trees or it won’t. We’ll either continue to have a viable and healthy timber industry or we won’t.

The principal players won’t change and the report won’t change their minds. The biological forest is cooperating as it always has and seems destined to continue to grow trees. We don’t know what fires and bugs are planning but it doesn’t matter. It’s a self-regulating system. As the nature and form of forest structure changes, the industry will adapt and change to find new opportunities. The Forest Service must not stand in the way of this natural process of various forces experimenting, testing, and finding a way forward.

We are not in the equivalent of a natural pandemic where we must decide to crash our industry. We can and will maintain as much of the status quo as we can and see what’s in store for us all. We need our industry, our industry needs us, and those are factors Russ, Mike, and Theresa could not assess.

All of this is, or course, my humble opinion having participated in the politics and practice of forestry for many decades.

I am reminded of old photos of the Black Hills at the turn of the last Century. The hills and ridges are denuded of timber as far as the human eye can see, or the camera record. And, yet, here we are.

Congratulations on a report well done.

Frank Carroll is managing partner of Professional Forest Management, LLC, PFMc, a full service forestry and grassland consultancy. Frank and partner Van Elsbernd have been working since 2012 to understand and help shape wildland fire policy. Frank is the principal author of the wildfire impact analysis for the Mount Rushmore Independence Day Environmental Assessment. PFMc has helped over 600 clients recover almost $600 million in damages from wildfires across the West. www.wildfirepros.com [email protected]

‘560 Fire’ burning on Hayman Fire burn scar

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From a Colorado TV station (emphasis added):

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Firefighters are getting closer to full containment on an 83-acre fire burning on the Hayman Fire burn scar in Jefferson County.

The fire was reported early Saturday afternoon 3 miles northwest of the Cheesman Reservoir. Named the 560 Fire after nearby Forest Service Road 560, the fire is burning in an area thick with dead and fallen trees.

“These trees not only create a tripping hazard for firefighters but they also put firefighters at risk from falling trees. The fire is burning in very steep and rugged terrain,” the U.S. Forest Service said Sunday.

Despite the hazards, firefighters made significant progress Sunday into Monday, bringing containment up to 80 percent. They have also been able to keep the fire from growing; USFS says the new reported size — 83 acres, up from a reported 68 on Sunday — was due to better mapping.

“Firefighters were able to map the entire fire today and that mapping increased the acreage to 83 acres. The 560 fire has not grown but some hot spots still remain in the interior of the fire as dead trees from the old Hayman burn scar continue to burn,” Forest Service said Monday.

Clean Water Act major court decisions

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Not long ago we were discussing EPA’s new regulations redefining WOTUS to exclude areas that were not obviously connected to navigable waters, as summarized in the graphic above.  It was the latest iteration of a political dispute over the scope of the Clean Water Act.  Now the U. S. Supreme Court has, in a 6-3 decision, stepped in to apparently invalidate the recent “bright line” rule established by the EPA to again make point source permit requirements contingent on the actual risk of pollutants getting into navigable waters.  This somewhat splits the difference between the Obama and Trump interpretations, but clearly rejects the latter’s new absolute position.  “Significant nexus” has now become “functional equivalent.”

On April 23, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the addition of pollutants to groundwater which travels a half mile to enter navigable waters is the functional equivalent of a direct discharge, and subject to the protections and requirements of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”). The decision in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, 590 U.S. (2020), represents a sea change in CWA interpretation, and may spell the end of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule issued by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers only two days earlier. That rule (colloquially known as the 2020 WOTUS Rule) specifically excluded groundwater from the protections of the CWA under a new definition of “Waters of the United States.”

In determining that the CWA requires a permit when there is a functional equivalent of a direct discharge from a point source to navigable waters, the Supreme Court acknowledged that application of the statute will be highly fact dependent, with time and distance being critical issues in most cases.

In addition, a federal district court has stopped the Keystone Pipeline because its Clean Water Act permit for stream crossings is invalid.  This is significant because the permit was kind of the Clean Water Act equivalent of a NEPA categorical exclusion, a nation-wide blanket permit requiring limited environmental review that could be used for certain kinds of projects.  The court said that when the permit was renewed in 2017, the Army Corps of Engineers failed to adequately consider effects on species listed under the Endangered Species Act.  Since then the permit has been used 37,000 times.  So here’s what’s happening ….

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended a nationwide program used to approve oil and gas pipelines, power lines and other utility work, spurred by a court ruling that industry representatives warn could slow or halt numerous infrastructure projects over environmental concerns.

The Trump administration is expected to challenge the ruling in coming days. For now, officials have put on hold about 360 pending notifications to entities approving their use of the permit, Army Corps spokesman Doug Garman said Thursday.

Pipeline and electric utility industry representatives said the effects could be widespread if the suspension lasts, affecting both construction and maintenance on potentially thousands of projects. That includes major pipelines like TC Energy’s Keystone XL crude oil line from Canada to the U.S. Midwest, the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline in Virginia and power lines from wind turbines and generating stations in many parts of the U.S.

The Forest Service is involved with litigation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline as discussed most recently here.

 

Virus driving forest fire policy

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It looks like the pandemic is taking the Forest Service back to the old days of fire suppression, when the goal was to have them all out by 10:00 am.  It will be interesting to see (if it’s possible) what actual difference that makes in the coming fire season (which is predicted to generally be normal or slightly worse).  Of course changes in operations from social-distancing may also be a factor.  And this all has be squared with the Chief’s pronouncement (quoted there):  “Forest Service resources will be used “only when there is a reasonable expectation of success in protecting life and critical property and infrastructure.”

Prior to this year’s COVID-19 complications, the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies have increasingly looked to low-intensity, managed fires on wildlands to improve ecosystem health and reduce undergrowth that can lead to intense, out-of-control fires. This fire strategy has meant allowing unintentional fires and prescribed burns to reduce excessive undergrowth when conditions are favorable.

“We want to try to limit the amount of fire that is out on the landscape this year, which is in contrast to what we’ve been trying to do around here. We’ve been trying to get fire out on the landscape. But for obvious reasons, for the health of our  firefighters and the public in general, we need to limit those as best we can,” said James Pettit, fire staff officer for Coconino National Forest.

Another benefit of the quick suppres­sion strategy this year, according to Pettit and Russ Shumate, a district manager for the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, is reducing the need to bring large numbers of fire fighters and support staff together for long operations. Shumate noted that managing a large fire can involve fire camps with 500 people. Controlling spread in these conditions might be challenging.

Shumate said quick suppression will also allow the state fire agency to manage fires with fewer resources, something he is expecting this year.

“In the previous days of the Forest Service they had what they called a ‘10 o’clock rule’ — the goal was to suppress all fires before 10 o’clock the next morning. We’re not going to state it as that aggressive, but it’s a real similar strategy [this year]” Pettit said.

The USFS instituted the “10 a.m. policy” in 1935. It was officially replaced in 1977 with a policy that expanded fire fighting strategies to include managed burns.

A similar message is coming from the Bitterroot National Forest (with more about “fewer resources” from the Job Corps):

Wilson said the objective will be to keep all fires on the national forest — including wilderness — small and limit the amount of smoke that’s produced.