Maybe my math is off, but it sounds like 90 days after sometime in October will be close to Inauguration(Jan 20) so they are not in a hurry, because analysis of the comments will clearly take time. I think that’s a good thing for employees, the public, and good policy.
This reminds me of when we were working on Colorado Roadless right before an election; Mark Rey (the Undersec at the time) told us something like “a good process will hold up across Admins, so just take your time.” The end result decision in our case was ultimately signed by Hickenlooper and Obama.. and still litigated for a substantial period of time by the usual suspects. And so it goes…
Update on the Release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan
Portland, Ore. (August 27, 2024) – The USDA Forest Service is informing partners, collaborators, and the public that the release of the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan, initially anticipated at the end of August, is now expected in October.
When released, the draft EIS will be published in the Federal Register which will start a 90-day public comment period allowing all interested parties to provide input on the proposed amendment.
The USDA Forest Service is amending the Northwest Forest Plan to address changed conditions with a focus on five key areas: wildfire resilience, climate change adaptation, tribal inclusion, sustainable communities, and conservation of old growth ecosystems and related biodiversity. The Forest Service is committed to preserving the elements of the plan that are working well while incorporating the latest science to help forests adapt to social, economic, cultural, and ecological changes.
The Northwest Forest Plan covers 24.5 million acres of federally managed lands in California, Oregon, and Washington. It was established in 1994 to address threats to threatened and endangered species while also contributing to social and economic sustainability in the region. After nearly 30 years, the Northwest Forest Plan needs to be updated to accommodate changed ecological and social conditions.
For more information visit the Northwest Forest Plan webpage at: www.fs.usda.gov/goto/r6/nwfp
Bathrooms at Roberts Camp in Big Santa Anita Canyon went offline after a flood and debris flow washed away a road that allowed them to be serviced. Other toilets in the area have also been removed or destroyed. The area will reopen to the public this fall.
This story from June in the L. A. Times hits some of our favorite topics..poop and funding. Interesting that this story is located in the “Climate California” section.. Another story in the same section is the takeover of black widow terrain by brown widows. The first specimens were collected in Torrance in 2003. Anyway, back to ..elimination.
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Joanie Kasten remembers peering out the kitchen window of her 108-year-old cabin in the Angeles National Forest and seeing a woman “going potty” near a large rock.
“Poor thing,” the 74-year-old thought. “She doesn’t know I’m right here.”
That was before the fierce Bobcat fire tore through Big Santa Anita Canyon in 2020, closing it to the public. Much of the canyon — which includes the popular Chantry Flat recreation area — is slated to reopen Oct. 1, and some who live there in historic cabins are worried that it’s going to open a floodgate of feces and urine.
That’s because seven toilets in and around the highly trafficked canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains vanished over the last six years — about half the facilities in the area, according to information provided by the U.S. Forest Service. Some were removed to comply with federal water safety regulations; others because they exceeded their lifespan. The fire claimed two. The loss climbs to nine if you factor in another two that were replaced but are currently unusable.
That leaves seven (and one urinal) in operation, including two composting toilets at a hike-in campground. Five of the area’s seven toilets are clustered at the Chantry Flats Picnic Area, a nexus for the most popular trails. Officials plan to install two portable toilets before the reopening.
It’s not just the canyon that’s lost restrooms in recent years. The Environmental Protection Agency ordered the Forest Service to close more than 60 campground pit toilets across seven of California’s national forests in 2018 to adhere to the Safe Drinking Water Act. Other toilets of the same type — known unflatteringly as large-capacity cesspools — were removed proactively in the Angeles National Forest, officials said. Many cesspools were replaced with other types of toilets, but not all.
Forest Service officials say it isn’t practical or feasible to install facilities in some difficult-to-access places — pointing to accessibility regulations and technological challenges. Besides, officials said, it’s not unusual for restrooms to be located in centralized areas on public lands, and it’s incumbent on the public to “leave no trace.”
“If you go hiking, there’s not a lot of bathrooms along trail systems,” said Forest Service District Ranger Ray Kidd, who manages the canyon. “They’re at typically trailheads, parking lots, places where we can get a pump truck or sewage truck to service those facilities.”
Cabin owners argue that visitors have and will continue to poop and pee in the woods without following best practices. If the agency doesn’t step up, they say, they’ll be left to literally clean up the mess — and fear contamination of waterways that snake through the area.
Justin McInteer, 51, said that before the area closed, he would “just go along and pick up s—.”
“It’s disgusting,” said McInteer, an artist who bought a cabin with his partner in the Winter Creek area about five years ago. “I don’t want to make that my habit by any means.”
“If they’re just saying, ‘No, we can’t do it,’ then who does?” he said. “It means that we probably will.”
Before the closure, the picturesque canyon, recently teeming with wildflowers, drew droves of hikers, mountain bikers, campers and picnickers.
Sturtevant Falls is one of the most popular destinations in the canyon. Cabin owners are concerned that the area no longer has sufficient bathrooms for large numbers of visitors.
One of the main draws is Sturtevant Falls, a 50-foot cascade less than two miles from a trailhead near the Chantry Flat parking lot. “By far, the most challenging thing you encounter on this hike is finding parking,” according to californiathroughmylens.com.
One of the casualties of the EPA order were toilets considered large-capacity cesspools at Hoegee’s Trail Camp, a hike-in campground and popular picnic spot just over two miles from Chantry Flat.
Large-capacity cesspools — which serve 20 or more people per day — release untreated sewage, which can contaminate underground sources of drinking water with pathogens, according to the EPA.
McInteer is just downstream from the Hoegee’s campground and said cabin dwellers in the area currently pull water from the nearby creek to filter and drink. But if people are defecating right next to the creek, he worries diseases could spread.
“It’s just a nightmare,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s unacceptable to open it as a campground without some kind of facilities.”
However, that’s the plan.
Forest Service officials said the three toilets at the campground were not replaced partly because of people throwing trash in them. Trash reduces the capacity and makes it difficult to pump sewage, Kidd said, and it’s costly to hire someone to remove the contaminated trash off the site.
Most campgrounds across the forest have restrooms, as well as road access to allow servicing, said Angeles National Forest spokesperson Dana Dierkes.
Pamela Zoolalian, a cabin owner who lives just downstream from McInteer, said she didn’t think the removal order was fully thought out.
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Leave No Trace
Dispose of waste properly
Deposit poop in catholes dug 6 to 8 inches deep at least 200 feet from water, campsites and trails. Cover and disguise the cathole when finished. (Some areas, like Mt. Whitney, require solid waste to be packed out.)
Pack out toilet paper and hygiene products.
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Zoolalian, an outdoor educator and self-described llama wrangler, said too few people are familiar with “leave no trace” — seven principles intended to reduce humanity’s impact on the outdoors. One is to dispose of waste properly.
“So you’re going to start seeing, I think, a lot of waste in the area from people that want to go and backpack but don’t know how to do it, and are making common first-time mistakes,” Zoolalian said. “And I think the area is going to end up having a bigger environmental impact because of it, versus just something that … seeps down.”
The EPA banned large-capacity cesspools under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005, but the U.S. Forest Service continued to operate them after the closure deadline, according to the EPA.
Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region leaders agreed to close dozens identified by the EPA by the end of 2020.
Closing the facilities across California’s national forests “is necessary for the health and safety of the forest ecosystem and surrounding environment, employees and forest visitors,” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said in a statement when the agreement was announced in 2018.
By the deadline, forest officials closed 62 cesspools in the Angeles, Eldorado, Inyo, Los Padres, Plumas, Sierra and Tahoe national forests; it cost approximately $1.4 million to remove the facilities and install replacements, according to a news release.
The EPA, through spokesperson Michael Brogan, advised those with environmental concerns to report them to the agency through an online form.
“Reports from the public have led to state and federal enforcement cases and ultimately served environmental protection well,” Brogan said in a statement.
Chris Kasten hikes along the Gabrielino Trail, from Chantry Flat toward Sturtevant Falls. It’s one of the most popular trails in the area, and crowds are expected to return when it reopens in October.
On the trek to Sturtevant Falls, gushing vigorously in May, there used to be at least two bathrooms.
One, at a junction called Roberts Camp, was removed because it was similar to the toilets targeted by the EPA. Though it was replaced by a facility called a Sweet Smelling Toilet — a type of vault toilet with a plastic liner — fierce storms in the winter of 2022-23 washed away the road that allowed it to be serviced by a pump truck. It was put in after the Bobcat fire forced the closure of the area so it’s never been used.
Kidd, who leads the Forest Service’s Los Angeles Gateway District, said officials are looking into a long-term solution, such as reestablishing the road or moving the bathroom to the other side of the creek. That won’t happen by the time the area reopens, and the agency plans to temporarily put out portable toilets.
A bathroom around the corner from the falls was wiped out by the fire, and another one above the falls — at Cascade Picnic Area — was removed. They weren’t replaced.
(Forest Service officials said the picnic area was decommissioned and there’s no record that the bathroom near the falls was constructed by the agency.)
Chris Kasten, Joanie Kasten’s husband, said his family bought a cabin in 1984, but his history in the area started 10 years before that.
He said he has spent a good portion of his 62 years hiking, serving as camp manager for Sturtevant Camp, volunteering for the Forest Service and even working at the pack station when he was in high school. Every few feet on a recent hike, he’d remark on the beauty of a tree — such as a particularly charming white alder — or recount a chapter of forest history.
Chris Kasten called the Cascade facilities “one of the nicest outhouses ever up here” while he and his wife hiked with a Times reporter through the canyon on a perfect spring day. “Like, if you could say that an outhouse is nice.”
It was in good repair, he said, and didn’t smell.
When Joanie Kasten pointed out the rock she had seen the woman go to the bathroom near, Chris Kasten suggested education might not be sufficient to prevent something like that from happening once the crowds return.
“People want to do the right thing,” he said. “They just need the right place to do it.”
According to Shawn Troeger, a more than 30-year veteran of the Forest Service — who started at Chantry Flat in the early 1970s — asking people to employ “leave no trace” principles might work in the remote wilderness, like far-flung areas of the Sierra Nevada, but may not be practical in the canyon.
“When you’re talking about the kind of amounts of people we’re talking about, I’m not sure how you can keep a healthy environment without having sanitation facilities,” said Troeger, who retired in 2009.
But Forest Service ranks have diminished over the years. Underfunding is a consistent problem. Some areas where toilets were installed may have been along road systems that have since been absorbed by the hills.
Decisions to add facilities are based on staffing, location, maintenance needs, budget and accessibility, forest officials said. Replacing a vault toilet, the standard type in the forest, can cost $50,000 to $100,000. When a bathroom burns or is removed, money to replace it is not already in the operating budget, officials said.
It’s not a perfectly even story of loss. New restrooms have been added in other popular areas of Angeles National Forest, Kidd said, pointing to an additional toilet installed at Oak Flat Campground and another two added at Frenchman’s Flat.
Kidd said the agency is developing a plan in which additional staff will be on hand at times at the canyon to provide information to visitors. The Forest Service has also filled 17 recreation positions that will augment staff in both Kidd’s district and the nearby San Gabriel Mountains National Monument District. The agency maintains it’s difficult to hire for lower-paid positions because of the high cost of living and daunting commutes in the L.A. area.
The monument was expanded this year and some of the newly protected land now falls in Kidd’s district. However, he said the designation does not affect the canyon repair work.
There’s recognition that none of this may be enough to safeguard land so close to a megalopolis. Mirroring a national trend, the forest saw an explosion in visits during the pandemic, and numbers remain elevated.
So the agency is now in the early stages of exploring capacity limits for popular destinations. Studies looking at the issue are underway for Mt. Baldy and the north and east forks of the San Gabriel River.
“What we learn from those studies, we can apply it across the forest,” Kidd said.
Anyway, back to PERC’s argument. If you go to the link above, you can find the full text of the amicus brief.
Summary of the Argument
Forests are not static but complex and living ecosystems. Planning for forest restoration must be equally dynamic and flexible. In this case, however, North Cascades Conservation Council (NCCC) seeks to impose unnecessary and impractical constraints on the Forest Service’s ability to restore forests while complying with NEPA.
NCCC challenges the Twisp Restoration Project, which would restore forest and watershed health, improve wildlife habitat (including for northern spotted owl, lynx, gray wolves, and mule deer), and reduce wildfire risks. NCCC objects to the Forest Service’s use of “condition-based management” to fit the projects’ restoration activities to forest conditions during implementation.
Under condition-based management, the agency authorizes restoration activities in an area but limits their implementation based on local, on-the-ground conditions. For instance, the Forest Service may authorize mechanical thinning to reduce insect and disease threats in an area vulnerable to such threats, but only allow it to go forward within a certain distance of an outbreak. Or it may authorize thinning to address overly dense forest conditions, but limit that activity to areas meeting conditions for slope, density, etc., and, within those areas, limit the extent of thinning based on the degree to which tree density departs from desired conditions. This allows the agency to document and understand the environmental impacts of its restoration work while narrowing implementation in light of on-the-ground conditions.
Condition-based management is “a method to meet NEPA’s requirements, not to avoid or shortcut them.” NCCC, however, asserts that this approach is never permissible under NEPA. Instead, it claims the Forest Service must predict exactly “which trees will be cut, how, [and] when,” which would demand of the Service an impracticable level of foresight that is contrary to this Court’s cases.
Forest conditions vary even within a single unit of analysis and, further, may change during the years that pass between an environmental analysis and on-the-ground work. Therefore, condition-based management provides necessary but limited flexibility to meet the Forest Service’s obligations to conserve forests while also complying with NEPA. The consequences of taking away this flexibility would extend far beyond this case, undermining the Forest Service’s ability to address an 80-million-acre backlog in forest restoration and tackle the wildfire crisis. The district court’s holding that condition-based management is a lawful way for the Forest Service to comply with NEPA should be affirmed
I didn’t read the brief, if anyone finds something interesting, please put it in the comments and we can discuss.
WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service released a new report that finds visitor spending in communities near national parks in 2023 resulted in a record high $55.6 billion benefit to the nation’s economy and supported 415,400 jobs.
“The Biden-Harris administration has made historic bipartisan investments to restore and enhance national parks across our nation,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “This report illustrates the significant economic benefits national parks provide to nearby communities and the U.S. economy, and the value of our work to safeguard these public lands in the wake of the climate crisis, upgrade visitor experiences and invest in park infrastructure and staff.”
“I’m so proud that our parks and the stories we tell make a lasting impact on more than 300 million visitors a year,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams. “And I’m just as proud to see those visitors making positive impacts of their own, by supporting local economies and jobs in every state in the country.”
The National Park Service report, 2023 National Park Visitor Spending Effects, finds that 325.5 million visitors spent $26.4 billion in communities near national parks. This spending supported 415,400 jobs, provided $19.4 billion in labor income, and $55.6 in economic output to the U.S. economy. The lodging sector had the highest direct contributions with $9.9 billion in economic output and 89,200 jobs. Restaurants received the next greatest direct contributions with $5.2 billion in economic output and 68,600 jobs.
The latest report is informed by improved socioeconomic survey data enhancing the accuracy of spending estimates and helps the National Park Service learn more about park visitors.
Results from the visitor spending effects report series are available online via an interactive tool. Users can view year-by-year trend data and explore current year visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value-added, and economic output effects by sector for national, state and local economies.
The annual peer-reviewed economics report was prepared by economists from the National Park Service. Learn more about how NPS-managed lands and programs provide economic benefits at www.nps.gov.
I asked Microsoft Designer for “humans gossiping wearing Forest Service uniforms”
Let’s hope the AI in wildfire models works better…is that Smokey, without his signature hat, in the back listening to gossip?
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This post is in the interest of being a public service to all folks working or volunteering in groups. Also our chance to tell our stories. Due to the whims of the Algorithm Gods, I just found this 2018 article from the Harvard Business Review.
In the Forest Service during my time period (1979-2012), we definitely had training about how to talk to people directly, rather than going behind their back (specifically to their supervisors). We were supposed to go to the person first, so that if we went to their supervisor, the supervisor was supposed to ask “have you spoken to that person first? What did they say?” and the discussion would go on from there to work towards a solution.
In my career, as you can imagine (!), I had a great many complaints filtered via my boss without the complainant coming to me first. Now, I don’t blame an Undersecretary for not going to me first, he was working through channels. When I was a young FS sapling, trying hard to learn the culture, I noticed that “going through channels” was something I was supposed to do (and did gladly) but other people did not. I would point out this asymmetry from time to time without getting a good answer, so I accepted it as the way things are.
I remember my first surprise about this was my first job, second location, the Ochoco SO. My boss, a terrific guy, was giving my performance review and said “the administrative folks said you were something.” Today, I can’t remember what the concern was. I do remember saying “you never asked me to give input on them, is this something that’s standard?” I was one of the first women professionals and maybe there was some kind of problem, which I couldn’t fix unless they told me specifically. At the time, there were pockets of tension between some (women) administrative folks and (some) women professionals. Women (and men) are not always kind to each other.
I also remember also being highly irritated that this wonderful person whom I had worked with, and whom I supported for a job, had his chances kiboshed by someone in the RO who had never worked with him. This also happened to me when I tried to get a job nearer to where my husband lived.. my Forest Super called over and was told “they heard bad things about her.” I called this (my tiny part of Region 6’s) “Management by Gossip.”
Fast forward thirty years, and I’m on review panels for jobs in R2. More than once I was really frustrated after carefully reading all their applications and calling around, to find that all it took was one bad word from a highly regarded person and that was it.
Now I understand part of why that is. Hiring people is critical, if you get the wrong one they can 1) make your life miserable 2) make everyone else’s life miserable, and 3) make extra work for you and your employees. I have a friend in the medical university world who has PTSD from dealing with one colleague. So it’s very important, removing people is hard, and being risk-averse is not a bad thing. Especially when other people might be trying to get rid of problem employees and giving them glowing reviews. No, not easy at all.
I also know why many people don’t want to give feedback. At one time, I was working in 4NW of the Auditor’s Building in RPA. We shared with the Wildlife and Fish people a huge space of small cubicles. One wildlife and fish person spoke very loudly while she was on the phone. I did speak to other folks to make sure that I wasn’t the only one, and found myself the only person willing to tell her. So I think the fact that “hearing bad things” is an employment criterion and being unwilling to give feedback because it might irritate a person who might then say bad things about you. In my case we didn’t inhabit the same potential promotion space, so it was fairly safe for me. At the same time, future promotion space is not entirely predictable, so there’s that.
In my last job, only 12 years ago, I had an employee who wanted to lateral to a Deputy Forest Supe on a Forest. The Forest Supe, she and I were all together on this. I went to my boss at the time and said “let’s make this happen.” My boss looked at me and said “I’ve heard from the WO that she has a blog so we can’t support her.” I felt like, but didn’t say, “you clueless wretch!” I did say “you accepted that and didn’t ask me or her if it was true? It’s me who has the blog.” Coming after me was one thing, but coming after innocent employees- based on gossip..? That was the day I decided to retire.
Why is gossip sometimes helpful? Why is “talk to the person before you talk to someone else” so difficult? Please share your own stories, or explanations or clarifications in the comments. About the Forest Service or any other organization.
Considering how satisfying it is to be right, how tempted we are to avoid giving direct feedback and having difficult conversations, and how often we seek confirmation for what we already believe, it can be hard to break the habit of engaging in gossip — as the instigator or the recipient. Nevertheless, there are several strategies to help you and your team stop engaging in something so wrong that feels so right:
1) Name it, then pivot. First, call gossip “gossip” to stop it in its tracks. If you are engaging in “informal and evaluative talk in an organization, usually among no more than a few individuals, about another member of that organization who is not present,” — especially if the aim is to confirm your experience rather than get constructive solutions — then you are participating in gossip. If you call someone on it, most people will step back at hearing a colleague say, “This sounds like gossip. Is that what you intended?” Second, pivot the conversation by asking, “How can I help you get a better outcome?” Only engage in coaching, brainstorming, and problem-solving conversations — not in problem-confirming ones.
2) Ask yourself or others why you need someone else’s confirmation about a behavior that you’re noticing in a third person. If it’s to justify your feelings, to confirm that you’re right, or to gain support for your point of view, don’t bring someone else into the conversation. If it’s to understand how you might be contributing to the dynamic or problem, to brainstorm helpful solutions, or to go on record to make a formal complaint for further investigation, then go for it.
3) Let people know that you have a policy of “if you have a problem with me, please tell me first.” Adopt the “tell them first” policy with your colleagues, and, when someone approaches you with gossip about someone else, ask “Have you already told her?” to remind them of this policy.
4) Create a feedback-rich environment around you. The more you normalize feedback — both positive and negative, and both giving and receiving — the less likely people will be to look for alternative means to express their frustrations and concerns. Rather than “saving” feedback for annual performance reviews, make discussions about what someone did well, and what he or she could do differently, a part of every supervision meeting or project debrief. And make sure to give people positive feedback when they offer particularly useful feedback — even if it’s hard to hear.
Gossip, even by any other name, is still a destructive communication strategy that negatively impacts individuals, teams and the whole organization. By stopping it in its tracks, choosing healthier and more helpful methods of communicating what’s not working, and engaging in collaborative problem-solving, relationships and organizations can flourish.
Shout-out to reporter Noelle Philips of the Denver Post for a thorough article. Apparently a company named CoreLogic also has a model of wildfire risk. Count me skeptical, and I’m not the only one. How convenient that the model ignores mitigation and suppression! could that lead to a mismatch between real and perceived risk.. in whose favor? Let me think..
It’s interesting that organizations who benefit from higher rates also believe in (and paid for?) them..
Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, said the various data reports generated by tech companies are really reflecting what insurance companies already know — hot, dry weather in Colorado is increasing the chances of wildfires and still people are building expensive homes in the mountains.
She disputed arguments that the various analyses cause rates to go up.
“What it really does is provide accuracy, first and foremost, for what your risk is,” Walker said.
According to Wikipedia:
CoreLogic, Inc. is an Irvine, CA based leading information services provider of financial, property, and consumer information, analytics, and business intelligence. The company analyzes information assets and data to provide clients with analytics and customized data services.
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Modeling isn’t new
Computer modeling for wildfire risk is fairly new to the industry, Walker said.
It is much more sophisticated than years ago when a homeowner would talk with their insurance agent about how far they lived from the nearest fire station and where fire hydrants were located in neighborhoods. Now, drones, satellite imagery and other data points can help analyze the slope on which a home is built, the vegetation around the house, construction materials and, yes, the distance to the closest fire station.
Those models also are helping with the science of mitigation, which is an increasingly big part of reducing wildfire risk, she said.
That means homeowners do as much as they can to reduce the chances their houses will burn in a wildfire. It involves everything from upgrading roofs to moving wooden fences farther from houses to clear-cutting dense brush around the perimeters of homes.
But that’s where the fight is centered. If insurance companies are going to ask homeowners to mitigate risk, then the homeowners should receive discounts for that work, Conway said.
So far, the risk analyses and modeling programs that insurance companies rely on are not taking into account all that work, he said.
For example, Colorado deployed a Firehawk helicopter for the first time to fight blazes that sparked this summer in Boulder, Jefferson and Larimer counties. The state’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control also has airplanes to map fires and carry water and retardants to extinguish them. Those aviation assets saved valuable property.
But the state and its homeowners do not get credit in risk assessments for those airplanes and the helicopter, Conway said.
The models also don’t take into account all the work that communities such as Boulder County have done to help reduce the level of destruction a wildfire can cause. For example, Boulder County collected $8.9 million last year through a sales tax dedicated to wildfire mitigation that funds projects such as using goats to graze on open space in Superior.
The same fight is happening in California, Bach said. It’s impossible to put the “tech genie back in the bottle,” so it is up to regulators like Conway to push the tech companies to change their models and predictions so mitigation efforts are included in the assessments, she said.
“That is the fight,” Bach said. “From my perspective as a consumer advocate, if you’re charging someone who has mitigated the same rate as someone who hasn’t, then you’re overcharging.”
I hope insurance regulators hire someone to ground-truth risk maps.
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Below is the whole story as requested by Pecos:
An estimated 321,294 homes across Colorado valued at $141 billion are at risk of being destroyed by wildfires, according to a new report that influences how insurance companies set rates.
CoreLogic’s 2024 Wildfire Risk Assessment comes as insurance companies increasingly rely on technology to help them determine how big the wildfire risk is across the United States and, in turn, how much they need to charge homeowners to cover those risks while still turning a profit.
The problem, according to consumer advocates and industry regulators, is these modeling systems do not account for all of the mitigation work being done to protect properties from fires. It’s a problem Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway is trying to solve.
“What the majority of them don’t do at all is incorporate state-level or community mitigation,” Conway said. “They have been telling homeowners they have to mitigate to keep insurance affordable and available. But if they’re not going to take that into account, that’s a very big problem.”
The increasing costs are not just impacting those whose homes are at risk of burning in a wildfire. Every property owner in Colorado will pay more so insurance companies can cover their risk when a catastrophe happens elsewhere in the state. That makes people’s monthly mortgage payments go up as most homeowner insurance is paid by their banks through escrow accounts.
The increase also affects renters as landlords will charge tenants more to pay for their expenses.
Those rising rates are being driven by increased wildfire risk — a result of a warming climate — and inflation, said Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, an advocacy group for consumers. But new technology that provides insurers with maps, graphics and piles of data also are contributing to enormous increases, she said.
The latest wildfire risk assessment was produced by CoreLogic, a tech company that creates risk assessments for wildfires and other natural disasters. But CoreLogic is just one of a handful of companies producing such assessments by using artificial intelligence, drones and mapping, Bach said.
For example, Verisk Analytics’ most recent analysis on the cost of home reconstruction after a disaster, which also is used by insurance underwriters, reported that Colorado had the second-highest increase in post-disaster reconstruction costs in the country, behind only New Hampshire. The cost to rebuild a house rose 9.05% in Colorado between July 2023 and July 2024, the analysis found. Colorado also had the second-highest jump — 11.57% — in rebuilding commercial properties.
“In the beginning, I thought it was climate change driven,” Bach said of rising homeowners insurance costs. “But now I believe it’s the tech factor that is equally causing a dramatic shift in the market.”
A map of residential properties and their wildfire risk score in Colorado. (Provided by CoreLogic)
Wildland urban interface
CoreLogic’s 2024 Wildfire Risk Assessment estimated that 2.6 million homes in the western United States are at least at moderate risk of burning in a wildfire, and the cost to rebuild those homes would exceed $1.2 trillion. Colorado ranked second with the most homes at risk while California was first and Texas was third, the assessment stated.
In Colorado, 68,928 properties in metro Denver are at risk along with 50,298 in the Colorado Springs area. Most of the homes in the state that are threatened by wildfire are in what insurance companies and firefighters call the wildland urban interface — in other words, houses built near open spaces or on the outskirts of mountain towns such as those that burned last month in the Stone Canyon fire near Lyons and the Alexander Mountain fire west of Loveland.
That growth around the wildland urban interface is contributing to rising insurance costs in Colorado.
Insurify, a digital insurance agent that compares quotes from more than 100 agencies, found that Colorado’s average annual home insurance rate is expected to increase by 7% to $4,367 in 2024 from $4,072 in 2023. In 2023, Colorado’s average home insurance rate was $1,695 higher than the national average.
The number of homes with moderate or higher risk by state and their respective reconstruction cost value. (Provided by CoreLogic)
Colorado’s continuing popularity and people’s desire to live near the mountains and foothills contribute to the state’s high ranking in the CoreLogic report, said Jamie Knippen, a senior product manager for the company. Since 2010, the number of homes built in Colorado in the wildland urban interface has increased 45%, she said.
“So as people have moved and development has increased within these areas, risk has also grown just due to the number of homes and the value of those homes,” Knippen said.
CoreLogic started producing the wildfire risk assessment in 2019 to help insurance companies figure out the risk they would take on when selling policies to homeowners in different areas of the country, Knippen said. The company also writes risk assessments for hurricanes and floods in other parts of the U.S.
The company wants to report accurate data so insurance companies and the general public understand risks, Knippen said. The risk assessment should start conversations about the perils homeowners face and how they can be taken into consideration when it comes to decisions such as buying a new house or protecting the ones people already have.
Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, said the various data reports generated by tech companies are really reflecting what insurance companies already know — hot, dry weather in Colorado is increasing the chances of wildfires and still people are building expensive homes in the mountains.
She disputed arguments that the various analyses cause rates to go up.
“What it really does is provide accuracy, first and foremost, for what your risk is,” Walker said.
A map of residential properties with a moderate or greater wildfire risk score throughout the western United States. (Provided by CoreLogic)
Modeling isn’t new
Computer modeling for wildfire risk is fairly new to the industry, Walker said.
It is much more sophisticated than years ago when a homeowner would talk with their insurance agent about how far they lived from the nearest fire station and where fire hydrants were located in neighborhoods. Now, drones, satellite imagery and other data points can help analyze the slope on which a home is built, the vegetation around the house, construction materials and, yes, the distance to the closest fire station.
Those models also are helping with the science of mitigation, which is an increasingly big part of reducing wildfire risk, she said.
That means homeowners do as much as they can to reduce the chances their houses will burn in a wildfire. It involves everything from upgrading roofs to moving wooden fences farther from houses to clear-cutting dense brush around the perimeters of homes.
But that’s where the fight is centered. If insurance companies are going to ask homeowners to mitigate risk, then the homeowners should receive discounts for that work, Conway said.
So far, the risk analyses and modeling programs that insurance companies rely on are not taking into account all that work, he said.
For example, Colorado deployed a Firehawk helicopter for the first time to fight blazes that sparked this summer in Boulder, Jefferson and Larimer counties. The state’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control also has airplanes to map fires and carry water and retardants to extinguish them. Those aviation assets saved valuable property.
But the state and its homeowners do not get credit in risk assessments for those airplanes and the helicopter, Conway said.
The models also don’t take into account all the work that communities such as Boulder County have done to help reduce the level of destruction a wildfire can cause. For example, Boulder County collected $8.9 million last year through a sales tax dedicated to wildfire mitigation that funds projects such as using goats to graze on open space in Superior.
The same fight is happening in California, Bach said. It’s impossible to put the “tech genie back in the bottle,” so it is up to regulators like Conway to push the tech companies to change their models and predictions so mitigation efforts are included in the assessments, she said.
“That is the fight,” Bach said. “From my perspective as a consumer advocate, if you’re charging someone who has mitigated the same rate as someone who hasn’t, then you’re overcharging.”
One of the things we elders like to do is support the younger folks in our professions. I’d like to give a shout-out to The Hotshot Wakeup (THW). I am a regular follower and subscriber. I encourage you to support him and subscribe, if only for a month or two, as you can afford.
FS Chief Moore Calls Out Hypocrisy With Cost Of Living Increases. Says The Feds Are Not Doing Enough. FS Has A $740M Budget Hole.
During which he talks about rent increases for federal housing, rebates for some federal housing, and differences in salaries or geographic differentials (not clear which) between BLM and FS employees in the same building in North Dakota. It sounds like the problem(s) might be with OPM, but I’m sure it’s complex; if anyone can explain the details (or if the FS has something written about it), please share. Also what agency sets rents, and do they rationalize somewhere why a 100% increase is a good number?
I’m sure some folks in the FS have written a clear description of the problem(s) and possible solutions. It sounds as if the Secretary can’t influence OPM, but if they are the problem, surely someone can. I think we all would like to help if we could figure out exactly how and whom to try to influence. THW also included a clip from a recording by the Chief during which he sounds pretty frustrated.
Please, if you have access to clear(er) information, share it either below or via email.
Also THW mentioned something like “the FS owes more in leases than they are legally funded for”, I’d like to hear more details about that.
He also said something like the FS is something like 740 mill in the hole. Again, more details would be helpful.
The FS is probably in the middle of figuring out how to deal with it and doing the best they can. I hope after the worst is over, though, there is a publicly accessible lessons learned.
Finally, I would still like to see an explanation of the “new” budget structure and how it is different from the previous version, if someone has seen one or would be willing to write one.
As the wildfire crisis in the American West reaches a tipping point, it’s time for a candid conversation about the role of federal agencies in managing forests and fighting this plague of devastating fires.
LAKE TAHOE, NV.As the American West grapples with an unprecedented wildfire crisis, a sobering reality emerges: our approach to forest management is not just flawed, but potentially catastrophic. The concept of using fire to fight fire, once hailed as innovative, now stands as a testament to our hubris in the face of nature’s raw power.
August 14, 2024, marked the third anniversary of the Caldor Fire, a devastating blaze that serves as a grim reminder of our misguided policies. This inferno, which destroyed over 1,000 homes in mere hours, is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger, systemic problem in forest management strategies.
The Caldor Fire’s destructive path echoes a similar tragedy from a century earlier. In August 1923, another fire in the same area devastated the California Door Company’s lumber operation. This eerie repetition of history underscores a crucial point: our failure to learn from past mistakes has dire consequences.
Caldor sawmill destroyed in fire, August 13, 1923 (Screenshot of CALFIRE archives)
But the 2021 Caldor Fire didn’t occur in a vacuum. It followed closely on the heels of the “Agreement for Shared Stewardship of California’s Forests and Rangelands,” signed in August 2020. This agreement, lauded as a landmark achievement, gave federal and state agencies a virtual “license to burn” under the guise of forest health and resilience. The result? A trifecta of devastating fires—Tamarack, Dixie, and Caldor—that scorched over 1.2 million acres and caused billions of dollars in damages.
And this is just a microcosm of the larger fire picture across the West.
With 2024 fire risk fixed at peak level 5, the National Interagency Fire Center reports that wildfires have already burned over 5.3 million acres YTD across the nation, primarily in the West. This figure surpasses the 10-year average by more than a million acres.
The hard truth is, we’re facing an unnatural disaster of our own making. With over 100 million acres of national forests dead or dying, we’re sitting on a powder keg. The USFS’s current policies and practices are not just failing to address this crisis—they’re actively contributing to new cycles of catastrophic fire.
Contrary to popular narratives, this crisis isn’t primarily the result of climate change or a century of fire suppression. Instead, it’s the consequence of decades of misguided forest management policies and irresponsible stewardship. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and other federal agencies have allowed fuel loads to accumulate to dangerous levels, creating tinderbox conditions across vast swathes of public and private lands.
Rather than address this fundamental issue, these agencies have resorted to a strategy of “monitor, manage, and let fires burn.” They cloak this approach in a series of catchy slogans designed to shape public opinion: “Fire Has No Season,” “Learning to Live with Fire,” “Fire Adapted Communities.” These phrases may sound benign, even progressive, but they mask a dangerous reality.
Perhaps most troubling is the redefinition of terms like “full suppression.” Once an unambiguous call to extinguish fires, the Department of the Interior now includes provisions for “managing fire when it provides benefits such as vegetation reduction or improved wildlife habitat.” This semantic sleight-of-hand confuses the public and undermines trust in our institutions.
Caldor Fire August 17 (Satellite photo: Space.com)
Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration calls for another 60 million acres to burn over 10 years, pressing for increased reliance on costly “innovative technologies” including drones, UAS unmanned aircraft, and high-power satellites. To be clear, these tools are not just being used to forecast, detect and monitor fire, but more disturbingly, to ignite, augment and direct pre-planned, prescribed fire in designated “restoration” zones across many states.
The public must demand a prohibition against the use and weaponization of wildfire “technologies” on the very lands and people they are meant to protect. We must reject the notion that “fire knows no season” and stop using nonsensical jargon to justify allowing precious natural resources to burn unchecked.
Instead, we need a strategy that emphasizes rapid fire suppression followed by responsibly controlled burns and other strategies to mitigate fuel overload. We need to put fires out first and ask questions later.
The wildfire crisis in the American West is indeed complex, but the solution doesn’t lie in letting our forests burn indiscriminately. It’s time for citizens, policymakers and land management experts to unite and forge a new path forward. We need an approach that truly prioritizes the health and safety of our forests, our communities, and our nation as a whole.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. To continue down this perilous path of using wildfires as our predominant “management” tool is to risk losing not only our forests, but our homes, our livelihoods, and our very way of life. We must say it loud and clear: using wildfires to thin trees isn’t just misguided—it’s reckless and potentially catastrophic.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods to benefit humanity. Today, we face the irony of needing to protect ourselves from the very fire we thought we could control. It’s time to reassess our relationship with government agencies that have become dangerously reliant on using fire to fight fire and advocate for more responsible and sustainable forest management practices. The future of our forests, our communities, and our nation depends on it.
This WaPo op-ed from last Sunday is by John Paul Lederach, a professor emeritus of international peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame. It’s interesting that when we think about peace making or keeping, we mostly think about the absence of violence. The most famous peace-seekers deal with armed conflicts (as well they should) and yet there are plenty of people who do this kind of work with disagreements way short of armed conflicts.
As I wrote yesterday, peacemaking is an interesting lens to look at our long-running forest conflicts. In the op-ed:
First, we need to reach beyond our isolated bubbles. In other places, reaching out frequently started with a few people who had the imagination to take a small risk: They dared to open a conversation with their perceived enemies in their own community. This small step was the start of a meaningful journey.
Second, we have to rehumanize our adversaries. We must have the courage to confront dehumanizing language and behavior, especially when it comes from within our closest circles. For many, like the Improbables in Valledupar, these became guiding daily practices: Refuse to belittle others. Stay curious about their lives. Speak about your own deeply held convictions without blame, retreat or demonization.
Finally, we need to stick with it. We can’t just pull away when difficult issues emerge.We must engage on policy but also acknowledge deep-seated fears, historic wrongs and identity differences.People who learn to stay the course know that politics without violence is possible only when we stay connected. It’s hard, but not nearly as difficult as stopping a war.
The very notion of the Improbables suggests the unexpected can have transformative power. When former enemies jointly propose ideas, it shocks the system of toxicity. People can no longer react instinctively; they must stop and look twice. Even a short pause of curiosity opens potential for a more meaningful conversation.
That’s what we try to do here at TSW, but the idea and writing stakes are pretty low, since many of us have no political power to do, or not do, actions in the real world.
It is an opportunity, though, to give a big shout out to the people engaged in these peace-making processes, whether in collaborative groups across the country, FACA committees, or other efforts.
Thank you all for what you do! It’s hard work, for many it’s unpaid, and often little appreciated.
Is it any wonder that the newly-elected President Clinton, who had promised during his campaign to resolve the nation’s thorniest environmental/jobs conflict of the late 20th century, would want a Forest Service chief up to the task. Undersecretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons was assigned the unenviable job of picking up the shattered pieces of national forest policy. Jim selected JWT as point person to lead the Forest Service out of the morass.
Sure Clinton promised to “resolve the issue” but he was a politician, and campaign promises are usually not worth the electrons used to write them down. They are the epitome of what I used to call in the Forest Service “management by wishful thinking.” So here I’d like to ask the question “was the issue resolved?” I would say … not.. we seem to be debating the same things as the early 90’s.
Which takes us back to the Utah lawsuit from yesterday. Would there be a way to do some kind of “peace proposal” between the western states and the feds on the topic of federal lands?
What can we learn from the “peace proposal” that was the Northwest Forest Plan about the process of, and the success of, one very expensive and prolonged experiment in peace-making?
Many environmental groups were not satisfied with the NWFP and continue to litigate various projects that follow the NWFP. So were the wrong people in the room for the agreement? What would it mean to violate the terms of the agreement? It seems like that would be clear from the timber harvest side, but perhaps not so much from the environmental side. Is it a case of the federal lands “quid pro nada” which is a systemic problem in which “protected lands” are not contested, but the “you can do that here” parts continue to be after the agreement? Or is the concept of peace irrelevant to these kinds of disputes?
If we go back to Chief Thomas’s restatement of classic Kohelet wisdom I posted this spring:
There is a time to fight. There is a time for all things under the sun. There is a time to make peace. I think the general environmental war related to the Forest Service is over. In reality, industry needs to abandon sponsoring “ghost dances” to bring back the buffalo—i.e., the good old days. Those days aren’t coming back. It is time for the environmentalists to ease up. They are not going to finish off those who extract natural resources. Now we’ve come to where we stand today. And it is time to ask, “What are some of the things that we could agree upon?”
People are answering that question at the forest level via collaborative groups and their “zones of agreement.” And we can ask “if they can, why can’t higher levels?” What is going on that happens at the larger scales so that we can’t get broader scale agreements that stick? My guess is that the higher level involves people who don’t care about peace. ENGO’s are going for their max desires. There is no reason to compromise for them, perhaps. Many politicians are beholden to political parties that want to milk, rather than resolve, disputes. I’d be interested in what others think.
Maybe resolving conflict, or making peace, are impossible in our chunk of the world.
Strangely, the article was “updated” in 2021. I bolded the “old growth” part, but that may have been “updated.” I suppose I should check the Wayback Machine.
President Clinton’s peace proposal for the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest was rejected instantly by both sides, with environmentalists declaring it “voodoo forestry” and timber cutters vowing to fight it in court.
Delivering the plan he promised three months ago at his Portland forest summit, Clinton proposed reducing timber harvests 75 percent from historic highs to better protect the spotted owl and other species and committing more than $1 billion toward easing the economic fallout.
The president insisted that his strategy balances jobs and nature and can be defended both legally and scientifically, but he readily conceded that it “may not make anybody happy.” The problem, he suggested, is that after “years of overcutting,” there is simply too little forest left.
“We have to play the hand we were dealt,” Clinton said. “Had this crisis been dealt with years ago, we might have a plan with a higher (timber) yield and with more . . . protected areas. We are doing the best we can with the facts as they now exist in the Pacific Northwest.”
Clinton’s proposal-key elements of which must be approved by Congress or the courts-represents a dramatic shift in priorities for 22 million acres of federal land stretching from Northern California through western Oregon and Washington.
Instead of dedicating areas primarily to timber-cutting or to preserving a single species such as the northern spotted owl, Clinton’s plan would create a 6.7 million-acre network of forest “reserves” where a wide range of species would be preserved and “very limited” logging allowed.
But far from breaking the timber deadlock, as he had promised in Portland to do, Clinton’s proposal set off a new round of recriminations that appeared to underscore the irreconcilability of the competing visions for the largest remaining stands of virgin forest in the lower 48 states.
Environmentalists, who have been uncompromising in their demands that all or most of the old growth be permanently protected, were furious that logging would be allowed in the proposed reserves, which encompass 80 percent of the old-growth stands.
“The Forest Service refers to this as new forestry,” said Joan Reiss, the Wilderness Society’s regional director in San Francisco. “But when you’re talking about ancient forests, new forestry is voodoo forestry. We need inviolate reserves and we got none of that at all.”
The timber industry, meanwhile, said the reduced harvests-from a high of more than 4 billion board-feet a year in the late 1980s to 1.2 billion board-feet a year in the coming decade-would be a fatal blow to timber towns in the region.
“The president didn’t make good on either half of his promise for a balanced solution. This ain’t balanced and this ain’t a solution,” said Mark Rey of the American Forest and Paper Association.
“There is nothing in this plan that gives any hope to the people in the Pacific Northwest who depend on the forest products industry.”
Rey said the industry will fight back in the courts, where it will challenge Clinton’s plan and press for immediate timber sales, and in Congress, where it will push amendments to weaken protections for the spotted owl and other wildlife under the Endangered Species Act.
The California Forestry Association, which represents the state’s timber industry, said it will file a petition seeking an end to the owl’s designation as a threatened species in Northern California, where the bird appears to be thriving in second-growth redwoods.
Although the timber industry predicted job losses numbering in the tens of thousands, the administration said its plan would directly affect only 6,000 jobs and would wind up creating more than 8,000 jobs in coming years, mostly in environmental restoration work.
The economic package, which calls for $1.2 billion in new spending over five years, must be approved by Congress, as must a proposed end to tax subsidies for the export of raw logs from private lands.
And now we’ve got NOGA and shooting owls. Was there a better way?
