Trump makes life more dangerous for public land managers

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A GAO Report released Monday documents incidents where employees of the Forest Service, BLM, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service were threatened or assaulted.  The security review was requested by the Democratic chairman of the U.S House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raul Grijalva, and there is a hearing today before a House subcommittee.  According to Snopes (so it must be true):

Grijalva said the findings underscore growing concerns over the safety of government workers on public land.  The Arizona lawmaker also criticized the Trump administration’s appointment of Bureau of Land Management Acting Director William “Perry” Pendley, who has expressed support for Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. Bundy’s family played central roles in a 2014 standoff over grazing fees in Nevada and the 2016 occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.  “Making a folk hero out of Bundy, that sets a dangerous precedent,” Grijalva said. “At the top of the agency, they reinforce and embolden some of these actions by doing nothing and previously being in support of them.”

Professor John Freemuth, an expert on U.S. land policies at Boise State University, said it was true that the Trump administration’s pro-development policies could help quiet resentments toward the government. But Freemuth added that anti-government rhetoric also gets legitimized when it’s espoused by prominent figures.

Also, as the Washington Post points out:

President Trump demonstrated his position last year on those anti-government ideologues who violate federal facilities, and it is not a comforting one for federal employees.  He pardoned two men whose convictions on public-land arson charges helped ignite the six-week Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation in Oregon in 2016. He absolved Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, father-and-son cattle ranchers in southeastern Oregon whose convictions carried mandatory five-year sentences.

In a formal response to the GAO report, Interior Department Assistant Secretary Scott Cameron agreed with recommendations to carry out security assessments at hundreds of government facilities. In a separate response, Forest Service Chief Victoria Christiansen also agreed with the recommendation for security review.  Neither response gave details on when the security work would occur.

It’s a tough time to work for the “deep state.”

Change in the wind for El Dorado National Forest

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An article about the El Dorado National Forest is interesting:

Change in the wind for U.S. Forest Service

Give an overview of the challenges the forest faces. For example:

Employing 250 permanent and 100 or more seasonal workers, with most of his budget spent on salaries and vehicles, Crabtree said there is very little flexibility to buy equipment such as a grader or backhoe. “On top of that we have an organization chart with about 40 vacancies and almost all of those are non-fire, so we are struggling.”

Also mentions a fuel break — nice map, too.

The Camino-Pollock Pines fuel break, a collaborative effort between the El Dorado County Resource Conservation District, Cal Fire and the Eldorado National Forest will expand and reinforce a major control line that was constructed during the 2014 King Fire along the ridge above the South Fork of the American River, north of Highway 50. Over 100 property owners are involved in creating the fuel break, which is approximately 600 feet wide and extends approximately 8 miles from the Union Hill area near Camino to the Pony Express Trail near Pollock Pines. This fuel break includes treatment on approximately 1,165 acres of private land and 1,000 acres of National Forest land.

There are other ridge-top fuel breaks in the area that have been around for decades.

 

 

What’s Going on in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest? Why? Guest Post by Jim Furnish

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From Jim Furnish:

Much attention has focused on the Tongass recently (yet again) with the Trump administration’s avowed intent to scrap adjudicated roadless areas protections dating back to 2001. Some cheer, some moan. Here we go again. It is inarguable that the Tongass is the most extraordinary and unique national forest, especially in the political sense.

A brief context: TR created the Tongass in 1907 and it slumbered until the 1950s when the Forest Service established two massive 50-year contracts with Ketchikan and Alaska Pulp Companies (KPC and APC), intended to assist in Japan’s recovery from WWII. These two monopolistic entities dominated a huge logging uptick. While the Monongahela NF controversy over clearcutting is well-chronicled, a similar conflict erupted in Alaska resulting in an injunction that was also resolved by NFMA in 1976. Later, after decades of subsidized exploitation of Tongass old-growth forests, KPC and APC closed their mills in the mid-1990s and the FS canceled both contracts. Controversy has dogged industrial logging ever since, though timber harvest volumes plummeted from the 50-year provision of 13 billion bf contracted to KPC and APC to current levels of only 25-35 mmbf/yr.

Today, Tongass-dependent timber industry in SE Alaska hangs by a thread with one remaining OG mill – Viking in Craig – and a few artisanal specialty product mills. These are beset by headwinds like constant litigation, distant markets, uncertain supply, high labor costs, old technology, and now tariffs. Most tribal land logging is exported, as is up to one-half of federal log volume.

But politics exerts influence on the Tongass like no other national forest. The size of West Virginia, the Tongass “owns” nearly all lands except for the boroughs (like Juneau), thus the forest supervisor serves as an “almost governor” for all of SE Alaska. The Forest Service has an outsized influence over all affairs, which often puts them in conflict with local, state, and national elected officials who interject themselves in all manner of FS affairs. I think it’s reasonable to say that most conflicts originate with any FS pro-environment initiative, such as roadless area protection, pushing buttons of a traditionally pro-commerce Alaskan congressional delegation. Failure to tiptoe this tricky tightrope has shortened several careers.

The latest iteration involves a demand by the Obama administration that the FS all but eliminate OG logging by transitioning to now-commercial second growth. The FS produced an amended Tongass Forest Plan in 2016 granting themselves a 16-year glide path, claiming that second growth was not yet commercially viable (I strongly disagree, based on Catherine Mater’s exhaustive analysis of the FS’s own inventory data). The new Governor Dunleavy and President Trump administrations sparked a renewed effort to rescind roadless protections of about 9 million acres and pump life into a dying industry with more subsidies and more logging. Yet another Draft EIS is available for review. Agriculture Secretary Perdue favors dropping all roadless protections. As Trump often says, “We’ll see what happens . . .”

Experts claim Trump administration used ‘misinformation’ to justify more logging and roadbuilding on the Tongass National Forest

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Tonka Timber Sale clearcuts, Tongass National Forest( Lindenberg Peninsula, Kupreanof Island – Southeast Alaska 7/12/2019)

Imagine that. According to some experts, the Trump administration has used fuzzy carbon and climate math to justify their scheme to greatly expand logging of ancient, old-growth forests and road construction within the Tongass National Forest, one of the last remaining intact temperate rainforests in the world.

Adam Aton from E&E News has the full story:

The Trump administration says the Tongass National Forest is America’s best carbon warehouse — so it’s fine to increase logging there.

The Forest Service last week released a draft environmental impact statement for building new roads through the Tongass, a precondition for feeding more old-growth trees into southeastern Alaska’s struggling timber mills. Every 21st-century president has fought over whether to expand or curtail logging in the massive forest. Trump has gone the furthest; his Forest Service last week said the time had come for a final resolution and recommended opening almost the entire area to development.

At stake is the country’s largest forest. The Tongass is among the world’s best carbon sinks, and it’s one of the largest unfragmented ecosystems in North America. Its trees hold about 650 million tons of carbon, which roughly converts to half of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2017.

Trump’s draft EIS says the region plays an “important” role in regulating global climate, and changes in its forests can carry “global consequences.” Those are notable statements from an administration that usually frames emissions deregulation and drilling growth as too insignificant to affect world temperatures.

To justify development in such a critical area, the administration turns to an argument that many scientists reject: Any emissions from logging would be “temporary,” as the timber would sequester carbon in building materials while replacement trees recapture even more CO2. The Tongass’ carbon load has stabilized or possibly even increased since logging peaked in the 1970s and ’80s before declining, according to the draft EIS.

“Potential negative effects on the Tongass may be ameliorated and may be completely reversed with time, reducing or eliminating potential negative cumulative effects on carbon and climate,” the document says.

Beverly Law, an Oregon State University professor whose forestry research is cited in the draft EIS, called the administration’s argument “misinformation.”

Some old-growth trees in the Tongass are more than a thousand years old, so it would take a very long time for the forest to regain such a huge amount of carbon, she said.

“We call it slow in, fast out,” she said in an interview, explaining that emissions from milling and transporting the lumber, along with decomposition of the waste wood, outweigh carbon sequestration.

“We’ve tracked this to landfill, and it’s a significant [amount of] emissions,” she said.

About 500,000 acres of old-growth forest — about 9% of all the trees in the Tongass — has been cut down, but only one-quarter of that has happened since 1990. Some of the region’s lumber mills have shuttered amid the slowdown, prompting the state of Alaska to petition the Trump administration to allow more logging of valuable old-growth trees.

The Trump administration’s preferred course of action would make available another 160,000 acres of old growth, while also nixing prohibitions on roads in 9.2 million acres of the Tongass. The Forest Service said that would happen in accordance with guidelines from the United Nations’ climate authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“The management mechanisms applied in all alternatives are consistent with internationally recognized climate change adaptation and mitigation practices identified by the IPCC,” the draft EIS says.

That line baffled Dominick DellaSala, president and chief scientist at the Geos Institute.

“I was one of the reviewers of the IPCC report, and I can tell you: Nothing in that report supports what they’re claiming,” said DellaSala, whose research was also cited in the draft EIS.

The draft EIS warns that Alaska could see an additional 1 to 3.5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2050, but it makes little effort to grapple with the implications of such warming.

“There is considerable uncertainty concerning the exact scope of the effects of climate change on the forests of Southeast Alaska and how best to deal with possible changes to the many resources managed on the Tongass,” the document says.

Climate models show Alaska warming faster than the rest of the country — the changes are already visible — but the Tongass is poised to fare better than its surrounding landscapes, DellaSala said. That could make it an oasis for wildlife that feels climate pressures elsewhere. But destroying habitat by logging and fragmenting the remainder with roads undermines that option, he said.

“Alaska’s going to be in big trouble in the coming century, so why give away the one opportunity to protect those forests that are going to help stabilize the climate?” he said.

Arches National Park is currently full, please come back later

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Arches National Park is currently full.

When I saw this tweet just now, I was immediately reminded that former Arches National Park Ranger Edward Abbey saw this all coming way back in 1985. Back in 2012, we posted the never-aired Edward Abbey movie-essay. But please watch it again, and see how prophetically – and wryly – Abbey talks about the future of our National Parks: https://vimeo.com/49544042

It should also be mentioned that the “Arches National Park is currently full” announcement comes directly on the heels of the Trump administration opening up all the National Parks in Utah to ATVs, a decision that as made with zero NEPA and zero public notice or input.

As the Salt Lake Tribune reported last month:

The roar of ATVs could be coming to a Utah national park backcountry road near you under a major policy shift initiated by the National Park Service without public input.

Across the country, off-road vehicles like ATVs and UTVs are generally barred from national parks. For Utah’s famed parks, however, that all changes starting Nov. 1, when these vehicles may be allowed on both main access roads and back roads like Canyonlands National Park’s White Rim and Arches’ entry points from Salt Valley and Willow Springs….

Under the rule change, off-highway vehicles could roam Canyonlands’ Maze District and Arches’ Klondike Buffs — as long as they remain on designated routes. In general, ATVs would be allowed to travel roads that are open to trucks and cars.

The directive, which applies only to Utah parks, triggered an immediate backlash from conservation groups, which predicted the move will result in a “management nightmare” for parks already struggling with traffic jams and parking clutter.

Now the park service is inviting a whole new category of vehicle onto park roads, establishing new uses that will disrupt wildlife and other visitors’ enjoyment, warned Kristen Brengel, the National Parks Conservation Association’s vice president of government affairs.

[The directive was issued] after off-highway groups and Utah lawmakers led by Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, pressured the Interior Department to lift the prohibition….

Lyman is the former San Juan County commissioner who became a political celebrity after organizing an off-road vehicle protest ride though Recapture Canyon, which resulted in misdemeanor convictions, 10 days in jail and a reputation as a public lands warrior.

Adding pressure were UTV Utah and Utah OHV Advocates. According to the groups, Utah is home to 202,000 registered OHVs, or off-highway vehicles, the broad category that includes UTVs and ATVs.

“Despite being one of the largest groups of public land users, and even though the economic benefit of our community dwarfs most other recreational users combined, we often find ourselves discriminated against by decision-makers that head public land agencies,” the groups’ presidents, Bud Bruening and Brett Stewart, wrote in a joint July 29 letter to Bernhardt. “In Utah, this discrimination is particularly acute when it comes to the National Park Service.”

Sorry, Phil Lyman, but you actually don’t “find ourselves discriminated against.” You are not your ATV. Also, I’m willing to bet that every single person in Utah who owns an ATV, OHV or UTV also owns an automobile.

Trump Administration sage-grouse plans stopped

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The district court for Idaho has enjoined the Trump Administration’s attempt to cut back protection of sage-grouse on BLM lands in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada/Northeastern California, and Oregon from that provided by plan amendments in 2015. (A similar decision has been pending for national forest plans.) The changes made in the 2019 amendments to BLM land management plans can not be implemented, and the provisions in the 2015 amendments will apply (projects must be consistent with the 2015 amendments) until the case is decided on the merits.  (A link to the opinion is included with this news release.)

Moreover, the court telegraphed the merits pretty clearly:

“… the plaintiffs will likely succeed in showing that (1) the 2019 Plan Amendments contained substantial reductions in protections for the sage grouse (compared to the 2015 Plans) without justification; (2) The EISs failed to comply with NEPA’s requirement that reasonable alternatives be considered; (3) The EISs failed to contain a sufficient cumulative impacts analysis as required by NEPA; (4) The EISs failed to take the required “hard look” at the environmental consequences of the 2019 Plan Amendments; and (5) Supplemental Draft EISs should have been issued as required by NEPA when the BLM decided to eliminate mandatory compensatory mitigation.”

(1) “The stated purpose of the 2019 Plan Amendments was to enhance cooperation between the BLM and the States by modifying the BLM’s protections for sage grouse to better align with plans developed by the States. While this is a purpose well-within the agency’s discretion, the effect on the ground was to substantially reduce protections for sage grouse without any explanation that the reductions were justified by, say, changes in habitat, improvement in population numbers, or revisions to the best science contained in the NTT and CTO Reports.” The agencies did not fulfill their duty to explain why they are now making a different decision based on the same facts.

(2) The no-action alternative did not meet the purpose and need, and there was only one action alternative. “Common sense and this record demonstrate that mid-range alternatives were available that would contain more protections for sage grouse than this single proposal.”

(3) The BLM prepared six EISs based on state boundaries, but failed to provide the “robust” cumulative effects analysis this situation required. In particular, “connectivity of habitat – requires a large-scale analysis that transcends the boundaries of any single State.”

(4) “Certainly, the BLM is entitled to align its actions with the State plans, but when the BLM substantially reduces protections for sage grouse contrary to the best science and the concerns of other agencies, there must be some analysis and justification – a hard look – in the NEPA documents.” The court took particular note of the EPA comments that were ignored, and Fish and Wildlife Service endorsement of the 2015 amendments in deciding not to list the species under ESA because they adopted scientific recommendations (see below).

(5) Compensatory mitigation measures were eliminated after the draft EIS, which “appears to constitute both “substantial changes” to its proposed action and “significant new circumstances” requiring a supplemental EIS.

The case provides a good example of how science is considered by a court, which allowed declarations from outside experts to determine if relevant environmental consequences were ignored. The court relied heavily on earlier scientific reports that included normative “recommendations,” but the court focused on their scientific conclusions, such as “surface-disturbing energy or mineral development within priority sage-grouse habitats is not consistent with the goal to maintain or increase populations or distribution,” and “protecting even 75 to >80% of nesting hens would require a 4-mile radius buffer.” The Final EISs stated that there would be no measurable effects or they would be beneficial to sage-grouse, but the BLM either had no analysis or ignored this contrary information.

 

What Makes (Some) Recreation Conflicts (So) Intractable?

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A sign near Leadville alerts travelers to the closure of a Forest Service road this winter. A settlement reached in 2015 between the Pike and San Isabel National Forests and environmental groups has led to the seasonal closure of dozens of routes near Leadvillle, Buena Vista and Salida.(courtesy phot from this 2016 story in the Chaffee County Times http://www.chaffeecountytimes.com/free_content/lawsuit-forces-u-s-forest-service-to-protect-big-game/article_ea0168a4-bcc1-11e6-ab7c-5f4ff3ca5610.html)

I’ve been thinking about the Pike-San Isabel Travel Management decision and its long history of litigation, which started while I was still employed by the FS. I remembered another project that had the same level of conflict. It was the Rico-West Dolores travel management on the San Juan, which apparently has gone from being litigated by one side to both sides (see this article from last year). So I became curious as to why some travel management decisions are so intractable, and other travel management decisions are not. This seems like an area ripe for the picking in the social sciences, and in fact a Google Scholar search of “intractable disputes recreation motorized” yielded a few. One paper addressed “unmanaged recreation” (broader than motorized vehicles, as defined in the paper) as a “wicked problem” (shades of Dave Iverson) on the Arapaho Roosevelt, just north of the Pike San Isabel. The paper is “Understanding the Wicked Nature of ‘‘Unmanaged Recreation’’in Colorado’s Front Range”, by Jeffrey J. Brooks Æ Patricia A. Champ Environmental Management (2006) 38:784–798. Here are some excerpts:

Strategies for addressing unmanaged recreation that focus on measuring public consensus, opinions, or votes in the form of the aggregate attitude of the majority are insufficient because interest group polarization at national and regional scales has created an intractable ‘‘us against them’’ controversy over outdoor recreation. Collaboration that overcomes wickedness requires that decision-makers allow themselves to be directly informed by local positions and knowledge rather than the positions evident in national debates. Some local positions may be difficult to identify at first if not well organized and vocal. Nonetheless, in the context of increasing social complexity and wickedness, inclusive approaches that actively seek diverse input and involvement tend to succeed (Pellizzoni 2003; Propst 2005).

Overcoming wickedness requires a local social process that involves inclusive communication and collective action among all stakeholders with an interest in local recreation management. Solutions should be considered temporary and place specific. To achieve successes, researchers and managers are first encouraged to accept the wicked nature of unmanaged recreation. Working together by building relationships between local stakeholders is the key to resolving cases of unmanaged recreation. Allen and Gould (1986:23) concluded that ‘‘people are what make problems wicked … emphasis on people within the organization and on external customers is the central element when wicked problems are successfully handled.’’ Forest Service managers should be rewarded for using and developing people skills and their abilities to organize and facilitate social groups and collective action. Training, education, and requiring these skills and abilities for employment will continue to be important as the Forest Service addresses wicked problems.

In the experience of TWS readers, why are some travel management decisions successful and others not? Does dissatisfaction with an outcome lead to bringing in national groups to litigate, which then makes resolution difficult, as Brooks and Champ postulate? Is it personality-driven (though these disputes tend to cycle through many personalities, at least on the FS side), or a function of other factors? (though these disputes tend to cycle through many personalities, at least on the FS side). What have you observed in your experience, and are there any other scientific studies you’d like to point that look at this question and offer potential solutions?

NFS Litigation Weekly October 2 & 9, 2019

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Forest Service summaries (which I have summarized further below):  0000000_2019_10_09_Litigation Weekly Email

COURT DECISIONS

The district court found plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the NorthMet Project Land Exchange to allowing copper mining on the Superior National Forest.  (D. Minn.)  This case is discussed here.

The district court held that the administration of a special use permit for dam infrastructure on the Ocala National Forest is not subject to judicial review.  (M.D. Fla.)

The district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss or transfer to multiple courts the challenge to the 2015 decision by the BLM and FS to amend land management plan direction for sage-grouse affecting national forests in three regions.  (D. Idaho)

The district court remanded the decision on the Pilgrim Creek Timber Sale Project on the Kootenai National Forest to prepare a supplemental EIS and reinitiate consultation on grizzly bears regarding the effects of ineffective road closures.  The remand also requires reinitiation of consultation on the Forest’s “Access Amendment,” which is part of its revised forest plan.   (D. Mont.)  (More information is provided here.  An earlier court decision on similar issues on the same project was discussed here.)

UPDATES

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear this appeal of the order by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the Forest Service decision to permit construction of the pipeline across the George Washington and Monongahela National Forests and under the Appalachian Trail.

The district court denied a temporary restraining order regarding HUD’s authorizing the use of disaster relief funds to the Forest Service for logging on the Stanislaus National Forest and construction of a new biomass power plant.  (N.D. Cal.)

NEW CASES

The complaint concerns a second iteration of the Pettijohn Project on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and includes claims of ten statutory violations related primarily to northern spotted owls and old growth.  (E.D. Cal.)

The complaint alleges that the Bridger-Teton and Caribou-Targhee National Forests are improperly allowing mountain bike use in two wilderness study areas and motorized use in one of them.  (D. Wy.)  (Discussed on this blog here.)

NOTICES OF INTENT

Claim: The Pike and San Isabel National Forest failed to relocate a motorized trail out of an area where it would affect the federally listed greenback cutthroat trout as it had documented in a decision notice.  (Discussed on this blog here.)

Claim:  The Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest failed to initiate consultation regarding the effects on bull trout of operation of the Flint Creek Ditch and fish screen by the Montana Department of Natural Resources, as the decision notice on the East Fork Fish Creek Screen had stated.

Claim:  The analysis of effects on Canada lynx for the John Wood Forest Management Project on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest failed to meet requirements of ESA and NEPA.

 

BLOGGER’S BONUS

The Wilderness Society and Moncrief Oil and Gas Master LLC reached an out-of-court settlement resulting in the permanent retirement of a federal oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park. The district court’s ruling and lease reinstatement had been appealed by multiple conservation, sportsmen and Blackfeet Nation stakeholders and their appeal was pending before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals when the settlement was reached. Williams (TWS), along with Peter Metcalf, executive director of the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, thanked the Wyss Foundation for its assistance in “making the lease retirement possible.”  This area has been previously discussed here (and I thought Sharon might be interested in this settlement).

Speaking of national monuments, the Western Environmental Law Center has filed a second lawsuit against the BLM for its decision to open 90% of this Monument to recreational target shooting, which has “irresponsibly damaged centuries-old saguaro cacti and irreplaceable petroglyphs.”

 

WaPo: Trump administration proposes expanding logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

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I wonder who pushed Trump to OK this….

Trump administration proposes expanding logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

The Trump administration Tuesday proposed allowing logging on more than half of Alaska’s 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest, the largest intact temperate rainforest in North America.

President Trump instructed federal officials to reverse long-standing limits on tree cutting at the request of Alaska’s top elected officials, on the grounds that it will boost the local economy. But critics say that protections under the so-called “roadless rule,” finalized just before President Bill Clinton left office in 2001, are critical to protecting the region’s lucrative salmon fishery and tourism operations.

The U.S. Forest Service said it would publish a draft environmental impact statement this week that, if enacted, would exempt the Tongass from the 2001 roadless rule.

Chad Hanson LA Times

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Nothing new, but how does Hansen get published so often?

From Nick Smith’s Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities email today… I don’t have an LA Times subscription, so can’t get the text.

Chad Hanson: California’s clear-cutting project in the Rim fire area is setting up the region for another tragedy (LA Times)
During hot, dry and windy conditions last November, the Camp fire devastated the towns of Paradise and Concow in the northern Sierra Nevada, ultimately claiming at least 85 lives and destroying thousands of homes. The tragedy was a wake-up call regarding the increasing risks to vulnerable communities stemming from the human-caused climate crisis. But forest fire behavior is complex, and multiple factors affect fire severity. In addition to high regional temperatures and aridity, the Camp fire was fueled by persistent forest mismanagement.