More on the BLM Move Numbers- Colorado Reporting

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Joey Bunch of Colorado Politics has yet another set of numbers 25 to Grand Junction and 85 to Colorado. Here’s his article.
Apparently, Bunch got his info from this letter to Senator Murkowski.

It looks to me like they are relocating 222 positions, but not all to Colorado. The letter even has a table of who is going to go where, and they explain their rationale. Certainly, you can disagree with it, but they do have one. It must also be noted that big funders are going after Senator Gardner, whose Senate seat is vulnerable, which attracts political funding like crows on an elk carcass. And yet, Senator Bennet also supports it, as does Conservation Colorado, as you can see below. Interesting that you might miss these aspects if you read The Hill version of the same story (with lots of quotes from Grijalva). (It makes me wonder what other stories might not be as partisan as they seem to be when covered by coastal press). The below excerpts are from the Colorado Politics article.

Of the 85 positions that could be moved to Colorado, 54 would be divided between the state’s existing BLM field offices and its National Operations Center at the federal office complex in Lakewood, which already employs about 500 people.

“Colorado has a diverse number of resource needs, ranging from minerals to recreation, while also serving as a hub for the Bureau’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) projects and priorities,” the BLM letter said. “As such, positions from nearly every directorate will be located in the Lakewood offices.”

BLM employs about 9,260 workers scattered across field offices mostly in the West. Besides Colorado, about 50 positions each would move to field offices in Utah and Nevada, said Sen. Rob Bishop, a Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.

Conservation Colorado, the state’s largest environmental group, praised the move, saying it would help the local economy and put agency leaders closer to the lands they manage. But the group criticized Gardner.

“It’s no surprise the Bureau of Land Management wants to relocate to Grand Junction. With a fantastic quality of life supported by our stunning public lands, the location is a no-brainer,” said a statement by Erin Riccio, Conservation Colorado’s Western Slope field organizer.

My bolding of Conservation Colorado’s statement.

Climate and Drought

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Two items in ClimateWire today.

Surge of blazes linked to climate — study

Higher temperatures spawned by climate change played a “decisive” role in spawning extreme wildfires in California, a new study said.

AUSTRALIA: Mega-drought of 1903 offers grim climate warning

Past studies by the science agency predicted that rising temperatures could afflict Australia with warmer summers and winters and more intense drought. Now, a new study that zeros in on the “mega-drought” from 1895 to 1903 suggests that “an increase in such events could be devastating for global biodiversity.”

Mark Twain to eliminate hunting at request of state

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Source

Of feral hogs that is.  In kind of a turnabout from typical conflicts between states and feds, this is a disagreement between the state and counties (and the hog hunting segment of the public).  (There was some discussion of federal regulation of hunting on the Kisatchie National Forest here.)

The State of Missouri is undertaking a trapping program, which they say that hunting interferes with.  The Forest Service is proposing to use its federal land management authority to issue a closure order to prohibit hunting of feral hogs on the Mark Twain National Forest.  From the Forest Service website linked to this article:

Mark Twain National Forest is proposing a Forest Closure Order to support interagency efforts to eliminate feral swine (also known as feral hogs) in Missouri. The Forest Closure Order would prevent the taking, pursuing or releasing of all feral swine on the forest. The only exception would apply to feral swine elimination efforts conducted by the interagency task force.

The proposal is in response to a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) request to make policies consistent across all public lands in Missouri to halt the spread of feral swine and the resulting damage they cause. The State of Missouri feral swine elimination program bans all taking, pursuing or releasing of feral swine on state lands. The State asked the Forest Service and National Park Service for support as part of the Missouri Feral Hog Partnership. The proposed closure order would align lands managed by the Forest Service with the efforts of Missouri and other federal agencies, including USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

On the Kisatchie, the Forest Service used a forest plan amendment to provide long-term direction.  Here, the forest plan is not mentioned, so presumably the closure is viewed as short-term – until the hogs are gone, but from what I hear, good luck with that.

Wicked Problems, Collaborative Conservation (and Climate Change?)

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Spatial fire planning is an emerging vehicle for collaborative planning. Click on the image above to read more about it. Credit: Mike Caggiano, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University

This piece by Peter Williams came from the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, which always has interesting posts. As I read Peter’s piece, I remembered Dave Iverson writing about wicked problems for years, including this piece from 2011 on TSW.

In Coming to Public Judgment , Yankelovich (1991) determined that the most critical barrier to making effective and informed choices in a complex world is the lack of forums in which the process of “working through” value differences and preferences can occur. There is growing support among natural resource professionals that a public dialogue must be an integral part of achieving social and political acceptance of forest practices (e.g., Bengston 1994, Clark and Stankey 1991, Shepard 1992). Regardless of value differences, if people are to come to an understanding of, if not agreement on, the problems and choices that confront public lands management, it is likely to be in public forums where open and honest discussion can occur. Unfortunately, from their research on adaptive approaches to forest management, Stankey and Shindler (1997) conclude that such forums are most notable by their scarcity. (emphasis added)

Note that many of Dave’s cites are 20-25 years old. Perhaps we have made some progress since 1997 on public fora? What do you think?

From Peter’s piece:

In fact, approaching a wicked problem as though it were tame and technical is a mistake that often leads to new and more challenging problems that emerge from the mismatch between the problem and the approach.

So, what are we talking about? A wicked problem, at its core, is defined by disagreements about:

-The problem’s nature or type;
-Goals for addressing it;
-How to reach those goals;
-How to tell when it’s solved.
And those disagreements build on each other, often from the very beginning when first explaining or trying to understand the problem. The wickedness of a wicked problem is not about mistakes or misunderstanding; its more about values, priorities and how different people see the world.

There are a number of distinguishing and interrelated characteristics of a wicked problem, according to the two scholars who documented their thoughts about this (Rittel and Webber 1973). We’ve mentioned several already:

-A problem is wicked if it has no definitive formulation, so smart people define it differently;
-A wicked problem has no stopping rule, so it’s hard to gauge success;
-It has no best or worst solution, only ones that are subjectively good or bad;
-It has no clear test of solutions, so decisions simultaneously produce success and failure, which also means there is little sound basis to establish statistical, scientific probabilities;
-It is dynamic and unique in meaningful ways, so every attempted solution is also unique in meaningful ways and leads to an equally unique outcome;
-It is a symptom of other problems and a cause of still others, all with unclear boundaries;
-And last, it has unclear decision makers because different individuals or groups can choose to respond to the problem independently, or even in opposing ways for conflicting reasons.

These characteristics explain why we see wicked problems as tricky like a leprechaun and slippery like a wily coyote, the trickster here in the Southwest.

For me, the most important lesson about wicked problems is that community collaboration and collaborative conservation are the most appropriate ways to address them and to manage them for the long-run. Specifically, it isn’t just that we most often face wicked problems; it’s that our skills and approaches are most suitable for dealing with and managing that tricky type of problem.

Treating a wicked problem like a tame or technical one ignores the wicked characteristics that a collaborative approach embraces. Collaborative approaches — when done well (see The 8 Watch Outs of Collaboration for tips on recognizing problems and getting back on track) — bring different, diverse perspectives together to produce a shared understanding and commitment.

This includes a shared sense of healthy skepticism. That shared understanding, combined with a bias toward action, can be the basis for ongoing learning — knowing that the problem will continue to evolve regardless.

Take note: collaborative conservation and community collaboration most often deal with wicked problems, which is good because their nonlinear, diverse approaches are exactly what’s needed.

It’s interesting to think about climate change as a wicked problem, and many have. Here’s one Australian perspective from 2013 (note the author is not talking about the recent Australian election).

Maybe we could scale up the idea of collaborative approaches to deal with climate change? Can collaboration be scaled up? Do you have examples, say at the state level?

Racism in government

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I thought I would share a question from a friend:

I am a US citizen, an immigrant, and a federal employee. If my boss told me to go home to my birth country and fix things there before I speak out about reforms in my agency’s work, would that be OK? Or if the chief of the forest service said those words, or Sunny Perdue said those words – would there be consequences for them? Or is this sort of speech OK in the workplace?

Maybe some agency heads will answer it for us?

Good Fire

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Forest Service file photo

Headline:  “Officials showcase site of Bacon Rind Fire 1 year later” (on the Custer Gallatin National Forest in Montana).

Their main message was that, despite the fire’s size, it was ecologically beneficial to the landscape, exposing bare soil and giving way to the forest’s regeneration.

It’s good that they are showcasing this, presumably as a way to sell wildfires as a potential management tool – still, even with climate change and no “mechanical preparation.”  It’s too bad that these kinds of fires don’t get the same kind of media coverage as the “bad fires.”   Someone might start to think that maybe fuels reduction shouldn’t show up as the purpose for every thinning/logging project everywhere.  And that forest plans should provide guidance for where it is or isn’t desirable (such as desired fuel loads).

 

 

NFS Litigation Weekly July 10, 2019

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Forest Service summaries:  2019_07_10_Draftv1 for distribution

COURT DECISIONS

The District Court of Oregon denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against a ten-year grazing permit on the Antelope Allotment on the Fremont-Winema National Forest.  This case was previously discussed here.

NEW CASES

A complaint was filed in the District Court of Idaho concerning the Rowley Canyon Wildlife Enhancement Project on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.  Here’s the viewpoint of plaintiff Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

NOTICE OF INTENT

The Alliance of the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystem Council filed a Notice of Intent to Sue under the Endangered Species Act regarding the Willow Creek Vegetation Management Project on the Helena – Lewis and Clark National Forest.  A complaint addressing other issues was filed previously and included here.

OTHER AGENCIES

A complaint was filed in the District Court of Colorado concerning BLM’s decision to approve the West Elk Mine expansion underlying roadless lands in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests.  The Forest Summary includes a 2013 complaint for a “related case:”  000004_High Country Conservative Advocates et al v US FS et al_Region 2  .  More information is provided in this article.

 

BLOGGER’S BONUS

Plaintiffs in the Friends of the Crazy Mountains case have moved for a preliminary injunction against construction of a new trail.  This case was discussed here.

The Forest Service has sued the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad for causing the 416 Fire and causing $25 million in damages to federal lands.  This article provides a good description of how these cases work.

Environmental plaintiffs followed through on their Notice of Intent to Sue the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to respond to their petition to list the Siskiyou Mountain salamander, found on federal lands in Oregon, which was discussed here.

The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force it to update its recovery plan for grizzly bears and consider reintroducing them in additional areas of former habitat, as described here.

The Forest Service was providing summaries of the “climate kids” case, officially known as Juliana v. U. S.  A hearing was held before the Ninth Circuit in June in the latest move by the federal government to dismiss the case.  Here are two recent views of the case, one from one of my (notably libertarian) law professors, and another from “60 Minutes.”

To Thin or Not to Thin

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A juxtaposition is two articles linked in Nick Smith’s Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities News Round Up today. Enviros in New Mexico say don’t thin, citing a need to consider negative effects, while s scientists in Alberta documents a change in stand density and an increase in fire severity. Yes, different regions, but the basic premise in the same: Relatively minor negative effects of forest management vs. longer-term effects of severe wildfires.

AP/SF Chronicle:
Groups appeal ruling over Santa Fe forest thinning plans

Environmentalists went back to court Monday in hopes of putting the brakes on plans to thin thousands of forested acres in the mountains bordering Santa Fe.

Wild Watershed and others filed their appeal with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, arguing that a district court judge erred when allowing Santa Fe National Forest to move ahead with its plans for Pacheco Canyon and areas near Hyde Memorial State Park.

The plaintiffs contend that forest officials failed to analyze the cumulative and indirect effects of clearing and burning in the area.

“These projects are the first of what could become the most extensive ever slash and burn forestry near Santa Fe,” said Sam Hitt, founder of Wild Watershed and president of the Santa Fe Forest Coalition.

In approving the projects in 2018, forest managers said thinning and prescribed fire would be used to reduce risks posed by disease, insect infestation and catastrophic wildfire.

The work is part of a larger-scale effort to tackle problems that have resulted from decades of fire suppression and other land use practices in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, specifically the area that makes up the region’s watershed.

The Star (Edmonton, Alberta):
Fewer trees in Alberta Rockies could mean more manageable wildfires, researcher says

Forest fires in Alberta’s southern Rockies would be much more manageable if the landscape looked like it used to more than a century ago, research suggests.

As part of his 2016 PhD dissertation at the University of Alberta, Chris Stockdale, now a research and extension scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, looked at how forest fires have burned through southern Alberta Rockies from Bow Valley all the way to the border with the United States.

Using simulation technology, he looked at how fires burned through the current landscape filled with coniferous trees, as well as what the landscape looked like a hundred years ago, which was mostly grasslands with a small mix of coniferous and deciduous trees.

While the number of fires that hit the area did not change between the early 20th century and early 21st century, the severity of the fires did.

Too Many Logs With Nowhere To Go in California- WSJ article

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Logged trees pile up at a salvage logging operation in Magalia.

Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal article. Below are excerpts.

Paul Moreno, a spokesman for PG&E, called the stacks “temporary log-staging areas” that are part of the normal transportation chain. The utility, he added, is educating some contractors who mistakenly piled the logs in fields where they don’t belong.

George Gentry, senior vice president of the California Forestry Council trade group, said the biggest threat posed by the log decks is the insects they may attract. The insects may go on to attack surrounding trees, which would dry them out and make them more flammable. “You really don’t want to leave big stacks of logs around your community,” Mr. Gentry said.

The recent logging is part of an effort to remove an estimated 300,000 highly flammable dead and dying trees in Butte County, which remains at high risk of another catastrophic inferno, according to local officials…

Mark Wilson was hired by a contractor that works for PG&E to cut down trees around Paradise, located 90 miles north of Sacramento. One morning last week, he unloaded freshly cut timber from the back of his flatbed trailer in a field just outside Paradise filled with hundreds of similarly discarded logs. He said he had no other options.

“The mills are full, so we have to take the wood here,” Mr. Wilson said as his white pickup truck idled.

According to federal data, there are only 25 sawmills in California, down from more than 100 in the 1980s, due in large part to curtailed logging in national forests over environmental concerns. The number of biomass plants, another option for disposing of trees, has fallen to about two dozen from 66 in the 1990s, in part due to the expiration of government price subsidies, according to the California Energy Commission.

Most remaining sawmills are running at capacity, and owners are reluctant to expand due to fears that demand won’t stay high beyond the current glut, said Rich Gordon, chief executive of the California Forestry Association, a timber trade group.

“It’s the Achilles’ heel of the whole situation,” said Calli-Jane DeAnda, executive director of the Butte County Fire Safe Council, a nonprofit group. “We can write grants to get rid of these trees, but where do you put them?”