New Study Finds Overwhelming Support for Wilderness Protections in the Southern Appalachians

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Here’s the press release from the Southern Environmental Law Center. A copy of the study is available here.

ATLANTA – A study, conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, found strong support for the preservation and expansion of wilderness areas among public land visitors living within a half-day drive of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The new report reveals 89 percent of respondents across the Southeast support the preservation of wilderness areas and 88 percent of those who had visited a wilderness area thought more wildlands should be protected.

“It’s clear from these findings that there’s nothing more valuable in a crowded world than wild, untamed places,” said Sam Evans, Leader of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s National Forests and Parks Program. “While these places belong to all of us as Americans, when you’re in wilderness, the experience is yours alone.”

The Appalachians are an iconic American mountain range with more than half of the U.S. population living within an 8-hour drive of its southern region. The wildlands located here offer one of the East’s greatest opportunities for escape, exploration, adventure and have been instrumental in shaping the region’s rich history for centuries. Despite this, researchers studying human to outdoor interactions have known little about how Southerners perceive, use, or view these protected areas.

“This research was conducted as an effort to better understand the use and demand for Southern Appalachian wilderness,” said Kyle Woosnam, UGA Associate Professor of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. “While wilderness areas are important for their ecological, social and economic contributions, little is known about how residents use and perceive these public lands. The intent of this study was to do just that.”

This Southern Appalachian region is also home to nearly 50 wilderness areas that span almost half a million acres, stretching from Alabama to Virginia. Researchers surveyed 1,250 residents in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee who had visited a protected natural area (ex: wilderness, state park, national scenic area, etc.) in the last five years, with questions focusing most closely on residents’ perceptions of and experiences in the Southern Appalachians. The research was funded by a grant from the Southern Environmental Law Center and The Wilderness Society.

Highlights from the study include:

• People most often visit wilderness areas for day hiking, photography, swimming and camping

• Positive perceptions of wilderness spanned across the political spectrum

• Word of mouth was the #1 way people found out about wilderness areas

• Participants expressed a high level of emotional attachment to wilderness areas visited

• The protection of water quality and wildlife habitat were the most important wilderness benefits identified

• The natural qualities of wilderness were considered the most valuable characteristics of these areas

The results of the study come just after Congress’s December 2018 approval of a wilderness designation for 20,000 acres of the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee. That designation expanded the existing Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock, Big Frog, Little Frog Mountain, Big Laurel Branch and Sampson Mountain Wilderness areas and created the Upper Bald River Wilderness Area, a new 9,000-acre addition to the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Unlike most federally managed forests, which allow for extractive uses like timber production or built facilities for human comfort and convenience, wilderness areas have only a single guiding purpose—to remain in a natural state. Under the Wilderness Act of 1964, areas that receive wilderness designation by Congress are forever protected as wild places, preserving these areas for future generations, protecting wildlife, rare species habitat, and water quality, acting as a buffer against the damaging effects of climate change, providing economic benefits to rural communities and unparalleled recreation opportunities for all that visit.

“These unique public lands allow us to experience and create memories in some of the country’s wildest places,” said Jill Gottesman, The Wilderness Society’s Southern Appalachian Conservation Specialist. “These areas are some of the most valuable, intact lands in the continental U.S. due to their connectivity, biodiversity and sheer remoteness. This study shows that Southerners are ready to work together to protect our Southern Appalachian wildlands for future generations.”

January litigation

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On to 2019 …

Ochoco National Forest OHV trail system

The Oregon district court ruled the U.S. Forest Service failed to satisfy its legal obligation to study wildlife impacts.  This case was discussed here.

Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest motorcycle event

Several organizations are challenging decisions that allegedly limit the routes for a motorcycle trail riding event on public land.  They challenge the Greater Sage-grouse Bi-State Distinct Population Segment Forest Plan Amendment  and special recreation permits issued to them.

Oregon state forest logging practices

In 2018, five environmental and fisheries groups filed a legal complaint against the Oregon Department of Forestry alleging that logging and associated activities in the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests are harming federally threatened coho salmon by discharging sediment into streams.  The federal district court will allow the case to proceed as long as the allegations are made more specific.

Bitterroot National Forest public access

A lawsuit by landowners subject to a Forest Service easement claims the agency has encouraged public use, which has become “excessive and disruptive” to the landowners.

Rio Grande National Forest bighorn sheep

The new lawsuit challenges a decision to allow domestic sheep to graze because the risk is high that the domestic sheep and bighorns will cross paths, which could expose the bighorns to life-threatening diseases.

Superior National Forest land exchange

A federal judge is allowing to proceed lawsuits challenging a land exchange between the U.S. Forest Service and PolyMet Mining after a bill that would curb such legal challenges to the swap failed in Congress’ last session.

 

December litigation

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Since it looks like the Forest Service “Litigation Weekly” may have been a victim of the government shutdown, here’s what you may have missed.

Coconino National Forest ski area

The Arizona Supreme Court has squashed what could be the last legal maneuver by the Hopi Tribe to block the use of treated effluent to make snow on the San Francisco Peaks.  (The Forest Service was not a party.)

Boise National Forest salvage logging projects

The Ninth Circuit upheld the North and South Pioneer salvage logging projects against NEPA and ESA claims.  This lawsuit was previously addressed here.

Helena – Lewis and Clark National Forest thinning project

The District Court upheld a thinning and burning project in the Elkhorn Mountains Wildlife Management Area.

Flathead National Forest timber project

The District Court dissolved the injunction against the Glacier Loon project after the Forest supplemented its NEPA analysis.

Francis Marion National Forest annexation

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that two Awendaw residents and the Coastal Conservation League may challenge a 2009 town annexation that cut through the Francis Marion Forest to reach a 360-acre privately owned tract.  What made the Nebo annexation so controversial was the town’s approach to establishing “contiguity.” In South Carolina, municipalities may annex properties only if they’re contiguous, or touching, their current limits.  Awendaw annexed Nebo after also annexing a 10-foot-wide strip through the Francis Marion forest, but the U.S. Forest Service did not sign a petition allowing it.  (The Forest Service was not a party and has been strangely silent.)

Kisatchie National Forest hunting ban

A federal judge has upheld a 2013 dog deer hunting ban challenged by local hunters.

 

The Peculiar Symbiosis of the Outdoor Recreation and Oil and Gas Industries

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14er parking lot

To me, as well as others in my home state, the question of which environmental impacts of which industries are examined in detail, and how that is, or is not covered in the news is always a bit mysterious. Because there is oil and gas production here, we can read op-eds from voices you might not otherwise hear from.
From 2018 here in the Denver Post.

Western Energy Alliance welcomes the Outdoor Industry Association and its Outdoor Retailer show to Denver. The oil and natural gas industry is full of outdoor enthusiasts like myself who love to hike, camp, hunt, fish, paddle, climb, etc. We appreciate the myriad products that enhance the outdoor experience and protect us from the elements.

We’d also like to say you’re welcome. Without oil and natural gas, the outdoor industry and its customers couldn’t enjoy the great outdoors. Most obvious is the fuel to get people to remote wilderness areas or far-away national parks and to deliver goods to retail outlets.

What’s not so obvious is that just about every article of outdoor clothing and piece of gear is made from oil and natural gas. Spandex, nylon, fleece, Gore-Tex, plastics, high-tech lightweight fills, and other synthetic materials used in outdoor recreation products are engineered from petroleum.

Despite that symbiotic relationship, the Outdoor Industry Association and some of its member companies are often at odds with the oil and natural gas industry. From advocating against hydraulic fracturing to opposing responsible energy development on non-park, non-wilderness public lands, the outdoor industry often opposes the oil and natural gas on which it depends. Is it a cynical “greenwashing” ploy to sell more of its petroleum-based products while hoping the public doesn’t notice the hypocrisy?

(Personally, I don’t believe that’s the case).

As an advocacy organization, the outdoor industry often makes the point that outdoor recreation provides $887 billion in consumer spending and employs 7.6 million people. The association likes to tout its job numbers and argue that outdoor retailers’ economic impact is larger than the oil and natural gas industry. However, using similar economic modeling PricewaterhouseCoopers finds, in a study for the American Petroleum Institute, that oil and natural gas supports 10.3 million jobs and $1.3 trillion in economic impact.

All jobs and economic opportunity are to be applauded. The good news is it’s not a zero-sum game. A job in the oil and natural gas industry doesn’t mean one less in the recreation industry. In fact, the prosperity brought on by producing oil here and not importing it from Russia or Venezuela ultimately leads to more Americans who can afford the latest high-tech climbing gear or a vacation to put it to use.

Even if the OR industry brought more into the economy than O&G, they necessarily depend, as right now, we all do, on O&G production and use for those jobs and spending. Personally, I don’t believe that buying or selling stuff made from oil and gas, in stores heated with oil and gas, for people who drive to recreate in vehicles powered by gas and lubricated by oil, is essentially more virtuous than providing oil and gas for transport, heating and electricity for everyone, young and old, rich and poor, disabled or not, who shop at Walmart or REI. I can’t understand the idea that industries that consume energy based on fossil fuels are more virtuous that industries that produce it. Especially since people need heat and electricity, and probably don’t need marijuana, a lift ticket, or even, this one’s tough.. beer.

California Forest Carbon Report

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Folks, here are a few brief excerpts from a lengthy (552 pages) report, “AB 1504 California Forest Ecosystem and Harvested Wood Product Carbon Inventory: 2017 Reporting Period, FINAL REPORT.” The report was “completed through an agreement between the U.S. Forest Service…, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection…, and the University of Montana.”

http://bof.fire.ca.gov/board_committees/ab_1504_process/

“The 2017 reporting period annual rate of carbon sequestration for just the forest ecosystem pools is 29.2 MMT CO2e per year. This value is down by approximately 2.2 MMT CO2e per year from the 2016 measurement cycle. This reduction in carbon sequestration is the result of several factors including improvements in inventory methodology but is also being driven by two complementary factors; an increased rate of tree mortality and decreased gross growth rate on live trees during the most recent measurement years. Tree mortality regardless of cause, accounted for an additional 2.5 MMT of CO2e converted to dead wood annually. Gross growth on trees measured 10-years earlier declined by 1.2 MMT CO2e annually further reducing the net rate of sequestration.”

…

“In many forest types, current stocking levels reflect over a century of fire suppression and may not represent stand densities that are resilient to disturbances common to California forests such as fire or pest outbreaks. Additionally, as the forests age in unharvested stands, growth rates slow. Older forests tend to store more carbon, but they might not accumulate new carbon as quickly as younger, fast-growing stands. Consequently, the stocks and flux represented in this report may not be sustainable into the future without forest management given the uncertainty in potential effects from climate change, the current level of forest disturbances from wildfire and pests, and aging of forests on federal lands. From the 2015 reporting cycle, we are already beginning to see drought effects on tree growth and mortality. Forests provide many other services beyond carbon sequestration and storage, so there are many other considerations beyond forest carbon dynamics when developing management actions.”

…

<<Selected bullet points that reference National Forest lands, from Section 1, Executive summary and key findings:>>

• The national forests account for 35% of the statewide annual flux at a rate of 10.3 ± 2.8 MMT CO2e per year (figure 4.1).
• Only on reserved forest lands managed by the Forest Service is live tree growth not currently estimated to exceed carbon losses from the live tree pool due to tree mortality (Figure 4.4a, Table 4.4a).
• Annual gross growth per acre on live trees is currently exceeding all other carbon losses from the live tree pool due to mortality or harvest on unreserved timberland for all ownerships including lands managed by the Forest Service.
• The Shasta-Trinity National Forest has the highest net annual carbon sequestration rate for all forest pools at approximately 2.7 ± 0.9 MMT CO2e per year (Table 4.6b).
• There are four national forests in California currently experiencing a net loss of carbon based on all pools; San Bernardino (-0.3 ± 0.3 MMT CO2e per year), Los Padres (-0.3 ± 0.4 MMT CO2e per year), Angeles (-0.05 ± 0.2 MMT CO2e per year, and the Lake Tahoe Basin (-0.07 ± 0.2 MMT CO2e per year) (Table 4.6c).

Mountain bikes in existing wilderness (redux)

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I try to not get too involved in the wilderness debates (there seem to be enough people there already).  But I follow planning, and this started out to be a post on the status of wilderness recommendations on the Salmon-Challis National Forest, as part of their forest plan revision process, but there was also this:

“Two places in particular really stand out,” he said. “One is the north side of the Pioneer Mountains. The southern half is in the Sawtooth National Forest and is already recommended for wilderness, and the area around Borah Peak in the Lost River Range. Those two areas we find to have exceptional wilderness character, a lot of scenic values, great wildlife habitat, opportunities for solitude and other things that fit the definition of wilderness character. These areas have been managed as wilderness areas since 1979.”

I wanted to find out what happened in 1979, because this suggests a policy of excluding mountain bikes to protect potential wilderness areas outside of Region 1 (the Salmon-Challis is in Region 4).  Instead I found a recent law review article discussing the bigger issue including a couple of questions that have been key in recent posts.  It includes the history of the Forest Service policy:

  • In 1966, the Forest Service wrote formal regulations to implement the Wilderness Act, and defined “mechanical transport” to mean a cart, sled, or other wheeled vehicle that is “powered by a non-living power source.

  • The Forest Service later reversed course by issuing a declaration banning bicycles in 1977…

  • The Forest Service flipped one last time in 1984, after various groups, including the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society, successfully convinced the agency to remove the reference to bicycles in the discretionary 1981 regulation.

There is also a good discussion of the legislative intent behind the term “mechanized transport.”  The author buys into the interpretation of a previous author liked by the Sustainable Trails Coalition, “Legislative history informs the mechanical transport issue and reveals that Congress “meant to prohibit mechanical transport, even if not motorized, that (1) required the installation of infrastructure like roads, rail tracks, or docks, or (2) was large enough to have a significant physical or visual impact on the Wilderness landscape.”  But she adds, “Even if the term “mechanical transport” in the Wilderness Act does not include bicycles as a matter of law, the management agencies have the discretion to ban them, as they explicitly have.”  (This includes BLM and the Park Service.)  She favors local discretion.

Wilderness decisions are acutely emotional and political, and what it feels like we’re witnessing is how emotions and politics shift over time, sometimes in response to technology.  I personally would rather not see mountain bikes in wilderness because it makes wilderness smaller by making more remote areas more full of people, which is not a wilderness value.  But maybe people like me are dying out.  But I’m not convinced that bikes (large numbers over time) don’t have “a significant physical or visible impact” either, on at least most trails.

So I don’t know why the Salmon-Challis potential wilderness areas may have excluded bikes since 1979.  But here is the status of planning for wilderness:

“There are groups out there like The Wilderness Society looking at us as the last best place to designate more wilderness area,” Mark said. “I’ve already got two-thirds of the forest as wilderness. I’ve got local folks, range permittees, outfitter guides and others asking ‘Well Chuck, how much more wilderness do you need?’ That’s a good question and I don’t necessarily have an answer.”

I don’t like the implication that he thinks 2/3 is necessarily a lot (especially if there are going to be more people using wilderness areas someday because they can ride their bikes there).

Protecting Wildlife and Mountain Bike Trails: The Mad Rabbit Trail Controversy

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Caption and photo from the Denver Post “Land managers in Colorado have been unable to keep up with the evolving uses and demands like biking of mountain trails, writes Steve Lipsher. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)”

I ran across this in the Sunday Denver Post, and it seemed relevant to our ongoing discussions. What I think is particularly interesting about this is when mountain bike trails come up as an issue, and when not, on National Forests. (I noticed some anti MB sentiment in one public comment letters on the Pisgah Nantahala forest plan, so it could be a national issue).  Following my inertial theory of resource management (it’s harder to kick uses out than not to allow them in the first place), perhaps it’s just new trails that raise controversy? But not everywhere, as near Colorado Springs, we want to complete the Ring the Peak trail and so far I haven’t heard concerns about wildlife. So maybe completion and initiation are two different things?

The debate in Steamboat Springs is over a proposed network of mountain bike trails that would be funded with revenue from a local lodging tax and built in the Routt National Forest. Outdoor recreation enthusiasts, many of them mountain bikers, have hit a speed bump in efforts to add more trails — hunters and wildlife advocates who say elk and other animals could be harmed.

With tensions building, the Steamboat Springs City Council hired the Keystone Policy Center to oversee public meetings aimed at reaching agreement on the proposal the U.S. Forest Service will consider. Ahead of a March 4 meeting, tensions and frustrations remain high, people on various sides of the issue say.

“There’s a high degree of suspicion that this is a railroad,” said Larry Desjardin, who lives in Steamboat Springs and is a member of the newly formed group Keep Routt Wild.

News of declining elk numbers in other parts of Colorado and reports from local hunters of fewer elk where earlier trails were built have prompted the group to call for a pause, Desjardin said.

“What we’re really trying to do is understand the impact that outdoor recreation has on wildlife and wildlife habitat and have a really holistic planning process,” Desjardin said. “There’s a sprawl of outdoor recreation, and we’re trying to treat that just like we do housing.”

Housing construction, mining, oil and gas drilling and transportation are bigger threats to wildlife than trails, Kelly Northcutt wrote in a Jan. 10 letter in the Steamboat Pilot and Today newspaper.

“Really, a wildlife advocate group should be looking at a lot of other issues besides a handful of trail connectors,” Northcutt, executive director of the cycling advocacy group Routt County Riders, said in an interview…
Sonja Macys, a Steamboat Springs City Council member, is representing the city in the discussions. She said those worried about the impacts on wildlife feel as though they’re not being listened to.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has also raised concerns about the cumulative impacts of more trails on wildlife. In a 2018 letter to the Forest Service, JT Romatzke, CPW’s northwest regional manager, wrote that “outdoor recreation associated with trails influences a variety of wildlife species in multiple ways.”

Two trail options under review at that time — one 79 miles total and the other 68 miles — would affect from 44,500 to 48,100 acres of wildlife habitat, according to CPW. The estimates are based on the miles of trails and the results of studies showing how far elk and mule deer stay away from trails that are in use.

The Smokey Wire Website Renovation and Current Financial Status

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Thanks to David Beebe for reminding me that I had not kept everyone up to speed on how the Smokey Wire renovation project was coming.

First, I’d like  to thank all of our contributors.  I have not gotten a chance to thank each one personally, and some of you have offered to give more.  I appreciate that greatly but have been waiting for others to step up before I accept your generous offers.

The story is a bit confusing because we had a general goal (renovate website), and got caught up in crises (WordPress 5.0 transition and site being shut down due to malware). Between the asterisks** are the technical details.

**Bluehost is the hosting service and charges $155.88 per year, plus $15.99 per year for the domain forestpolicypub.com. There has been a site redirect every year with WordPress, for our “old stuff” to be linked to the site. This is $13.  So it used to cost $184 (not $300, that was before we switched to WordPress.org, and I never changed the widget). We have never received more than $100 a year in donations, prior to this year.

However, this year, we discovered that we needed to switch to WordPress 5.0, and our theme was no longer supported. I could see the handwriting on the wall that we needed a renovation.  I called a few people and got the estimate of $3K for updating, getting a better search function, and other tweaks.

Here’s where the urgency began.  While Gil and I were on a WordPress 5.0 seminar, we figured out that we needed a separate backup to the Bluehost backup (so that’s $40/year for Jetpack/Vaultpress).  I also tried to do some troubleshooting with Bluehost and coincidentally (I try to not be suspicious) they discovered the site had malware and shut it down (first shutdown in nine years). I wasn’t in a good negotiating posture, as the site was down, and I had no idea how to clean out the malware, so signed up for Sitelock malware protection, which is $40 a month.  You’re right that’s $480 a year, and I had to sign up for a year.  That’s more than twice the cost of the whole rest of the $184 plus $40 for Jetpack.

After the crisis blew over, we needed to copy our site onto another location so we could test it with WordPress 5 to see if it would work.  At that point, I decided that we needed a pro, so we hired one to do the minimal fixes to test the website on WordPress 5 and make sure it worked, then get us a new theme (a free one) and a donation button.  This cost $292.50 but is a one-time thing.**

So here is how much it is going to cost this year, and possibly recurring if I can’t find something cheaper and as good as Sitelock. $224 plus $480 or $704.

Right now, it has cost $704 plus $292.50 or $996.50. And we have brought in $515.

I’d like to get a donation widget that shows when we are in the hole, but that would cost more for web design 🙁 , unless I updated it by hand).

I would still like to redesign the website, get a better search capability for most users (contributors have a pretty good one), and have the old content moved from WordPress so we don’t have to pay the $18 per year to store it there.  I would also like to apply for 501c3 status, which is $275, as we might be able to bring in grants for specific purposes. Or, at least, those of us who contribute could write it off.

Bottom line, the above, albeit perhaps TMI, was offered in the spirit of transparency.  If you would like to contribute, contribute more, or have cost-saving suggestions, those would all be appreciated.  We depend on the community not only for content, but for keeping the electrons flowing.

Forest Management: “For a Warming World, A New Strategy for Protecting Watersheds”

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This article was prepared by Yale Environment 360. Although its focus is primarily on protecting watersheds, most of the well validated scientific principles that Sound Forest Management is based on are clearly demonstrated in a way that easily shows the value of human intervention in our federal forests for other site/situational specific prescribed purposes as well. Here are some highlights which have been the subject of many previous posts on this site.

  1. water managers are learning that careful management and restoration of watershed ecosystems, including thinning trees and conducting prescribed burns, are important tools in coping with a hotter, drier climate.
  2. New Mexico’s forests … areas that supported 40 trees per acre in the pre-European era now were blanketed with up to a hundred times as many. This profusion of trees — as many as one per square yard — weakened all of them, and rendered them defenseless against megafires.
  3. the Las Conchas Fire … consumed nearly an acre of forest per second … and left behind nearly 100 square miles so severely burned that even seeds to regenerate the forest were destroyed …
    two months later, when a thunderstorm in the Jemez Mountains washed tons of ash and debris into the Rio Grande River, the water source for half of New Mexico’s population and for a major agricultural area. Only an inch of rain fell, but the debris flows the storm generated turned the river black and dumped ash, sediment, and tree and shrub remnants into a major reservoir⁠, requiring a costly cleanup … a heavy rainstorm two years later generated enough sediment to entirely plug the Rio Grande
  4. In the last two decades, megafires in similarly dry and overgrown watersheds have ended up contaminating downstream water supplies in numerous areas throughout the western United States, including Phoenix; Denver; Flagstaff, Arizona; and Fort Collins, Colorado. Downstream water managers serving millions of urban residents have learned that the security of their water supplies is tied to the health of upland watersheds that may be hundreds of miles away.
  5. In the Western U.S., watershed restoration chiefly consists of two steps: thinning of trees and shrubs, and prescribed burns. In the Eastern U.S., it involves a bigger set of tools, including planting native trees, reducing the area of impervious surfaces, and slowing the speed of stormwater so that more water percolates into soil and aquifers. All these measures are designed to improve water quality.
  6. numerous pilot projects have shown the efficacy of restoration, agencies rarely have enough money to treat entire watersheds
  7. after the Las Conchas fire, residents in the Rio Grande watershed … in 2014 they launched a public-private partnership, the Rio Grande Water Fund, whose 73 contributing members⁠ include government agencies at all levels, foundations and other NGOs, local water utilities, and local businesses and residents. Together they raised enough money for a 20-year program to restore 600,000 forest acres — enough to support the resilience of the entire central and northern New Mexico portion of the Rio Grande watershed. They have already restored 108,000 acres, and are racing to complete the job before another megafire occurs.
  8. The Rio Grande Water Fund’s public-private partnership model has become official federal policy. Last August, the U.S. Forest Service published a landmark report called “Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes” that outlined the agency’s intention to convene watershed stakeholders of all kinds to plan and fund watershed restoration. “Because fire crosses back and forth across land ownership boundaries, the risk is shared,” the report said. “Accordingly, land managers cannot achieve the fire-related outcomes people want… without shared stewardship of the wildland fire environment.”
  • The benefits of watershed restoration extend far beyond water security. Most obviously, healthy forests deter megafires. Laura McCarthy, the Rio Grande Water Fund’s executive director, says that in three instances since restoration work began in New Mexico, wildfires that ran up against restored zones immediately died down. Healthy forests can tolerate low-intensity fires: they possess diverse understories of grasses, sedges, and forbs and rich, microbe-laden soil, all of which supports wildlife, from insects to mammals. Watershed restoration can double the amount of carbon stored in the soil, which means that it’s a vital tool in fighting climate change. And watershed restoration creates jobs: In the case of the Rio Grande Water Fund, many of those jobs go to youths in traditional Hispanic and Native American communities where unemployment rates are 30 percent or higher.
  • In some regions, forest restoration even increases water supplies. Roger Bales, a hydrologist at the University of California, Merced, has shown that because watershed restoration requires the removal of vast numbers of young trees, loss of water into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration in those trees is eliminated. The water instead flows downward, into the soil, often on its way to the watershed’s rivers and reservoirs. Bales’ experiments in California’s Sierra Nevada show that restoration can increase water supplies in downstream reservoirs by 9 to 16 percent. That makes restoration a more cost effective (and vastly less destructive) water supply method in California than building dams. Restoration is also cheaper than fighting the megafires that are otherwise inevitable in the overgrown forests: last year’s Camp Fire in northern California alone caused $11 billion to $13 billion in damage.
  • unless it is followed by prescribed burns, undesirable trees and shrubs grow back. In that case, said Don Falk, a leading fire researcher at the University of Arizona, “You’re either committed to a perpetual Sisyphean cycle of thinning” every 10 or 15 years “or you’ve got to let fire back into the system.” Fire is an integral part of the functioning of many ecosystems: Blazes of less-than-megafire scale germinate seeds, keep native species in balance while warding off invasive species, and stimulate microbial activity that produces soil nutrients.

PUBLIC LAND LIVESTOCK FEES HIT ROCK-BOTTOM: Full cost of federal grazing program well overdue for complete analysis

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Pasted below is a press release from PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility). At this link to the release, you can find more detailed information. Since so much of the current discussion on this blog has focused on Wilderness, I should point out that approximately 10 million acres of Wilderness is open to private grazing by cows and sheep.

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Cliven Bundy’s cows are STILL illegally grazing on federal public lands and Bundy STILL hasn’t paid his federal grazing fees, owing the American people over $1 million in unpaid grazing fees. How in the world can he get away with this?

Bundy was also in the news yesterday, sort of, as news broke that a self-described White Nationalist (and would-be terrorist) named Christopher Paul Hasson was planning to kill (assassinate is really the correct term) a number of progressive political leaders and journalists.

According to the New York Times Christopher Paul Hasson, who was also a Coast Guard lieutenant, “mused about taking advantage of some already tense issue, like the standoff in Oregon in 2016 between [heavily armed Bundy Militia] protesters and the Bureau of Land Management.”

Washington―The U.S. Interior Department has reduced fees for grazing cattle and sheep on federal public lands to the minimum allowed under federal law, $1.35 an animal-month. Yesterday’s announcement applies to grazing in national forests and on public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

The 41-year old formula has been a boon for livestock operators whose animals graze on federal public lands, but a large proportion of BLM grazing land fails to meet the BLM’s own rangeland health standards. The new $1.35 monthly fee, down from $1.41 a month, is for each cow with a calf, or five sheep or goats. A large proportion of BLM grazing allotments are failing to meet Rangeland Health standards.

“BLM’s own records reveal that much of the sagebrush West is in severely degraded condition due to excessive commercial livestock grazing,” said PEER’s Advocacy Director Kirsten Stade. “Lowering already ultra-low grazing fees only encourages more abuse of public rangelands.”

Costs to administer the grazing fee program exceed the money collected, resulting in taxpayer subsidies of about $100 million per year. Grazing fees were initially based on a “fair-market value” set at $1.23 per AUM in 1966. If the federal government adjusted the fee annually to keep pace with inflation, the current rate would be $9.47. In addition, cattle sizes have increased markedly over the years: In 1974 an Animal Unit Month provided forage for a cow weighing 1,000 pounds; today the average slaughterweight for an adult cow is 1,400 pounds. A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service shows the average monthly grazing fee for livestock leases on private lands in 16 western states was $22.60 per animal unit.

“These rock-bottom prices don’t even cover the cost of administering the permits, so the American taxpayers are footing the bill for a massive welfare program that degrades our public lands,” said Erik Molvar of Western Watersheds Project. “Even with the low fees, our western mountains and basins are typically so arid or fragile that federal land managers have to sacrifice the health of the land to authorize grazing levels that are profitable for commercial livestock operations.”

Half of the federal grazing fees pay for “range improvements” on public lands. These include fences, corrals and cattle troughs that benefit and subsidize livestock operations while causing further environmental degradation. Barbed-wire fences are a major cause of death for sage-grouse and scientists have termed the denuded areas around livestock troughs “piospheres,” which become hotspots for the spread of invasive weeds.

“Federal grazing policy caters to a tiny fraction of the livestock industry and the fees don’t begin to cover the costs,” said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Indirect costs include the killing of important native predators, such as wolves and bears, and trampled landscapes and rivers. It’s a bad deal for wildlife, public lands and American taxpayers. The federal grazing program is long overdue for an overhaul.”

The fee structure charged to livestock operators on America’s public lands has remained unchanged since Congress passed the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act (PRIA). A three-tier formula dictates federal grazing fees based on market indicators but is not indexed to inflation. A 2015 study by the Center for Biological Diversity, Costs and Consequences, the Real Price of Livestock Grazing on America’s Public Lands, found that federal grazing fees were just 7 percent of what it would cost to graze livestock on similar state and private lands.

“Federal agencies should be charging fair-market value for commercial livestock grazing on western public lands, and only allowing livestock at levels and in places where major environmental impacts can be prevented,” said Chris Krupp of WildEarth Guardians. “With the fee formula set by statute, Congress must step in to reform public lands grazing. It must revise the PRIA’s fee formula as the first step in ending a subsidy that damages more public lands than any other federal program.”