More Details On The Need To Reduce Wildfire Acreage

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An article titled “How Wildfires Are Polluting Rivers and Threatening Water Supplies” Published at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies makes the following points:

1) “As hotter and dryer conditions spawn an increasing number of wildfires in North America and around the world, one of the overlooked impacts of these worsening conflagrations is on aquatic environments and drinking water supplies. Just as wildfires can have a regenerative effect on woodlands, so, too, can fires provide some benefits to streams and rivers in burned areas. But scientists are warning that intense and repeated fires can damage the ecology of waterways by exposing them to the sun’s heat, exacerbating flooding and erosion along denuded hillsides, and releasing toxins such as mercury that are often liberated from soil and tree trunks.”

2) “Water treatment plants in those places were overwhelmed by sedimentation, dissolved organic carbon, and chemicals that were released by fire.”

3) ““Forests yield 40 percent of the water for the world’s 100 largest cities,” she says. “Many of these cities are already water-stressed because of drought, climate change, and increasing water consumption.”

4) “the Hayman Fire, which burned 138,000 acres across four counties in 2002, forcing the closure of some federal and state parks at the height of the tourist season. The intense fires removed many of the trees from parts of the mountain landscape. In the hot drought conditions that followed, the soils in those denuded landscapes baked. Some spring-fed streams stopped flowing. Chemical compounds that were vaporized by the fire got driven into the soil. As they condensed, they formed an impervious layer just below the surface.
Without trees, vegetation, and a stable soil structure to absorb the heavy rains that followed, tons of ash, debris, heavy metals, and nutrients were flushed through the watershed. This resulted in the precipitous decline of the blue-ribbon South Platte River trout fishery. Worst of all was that the affected watershed provides drinking water to 75 percent of the state’s residents. Hundreds of tons of sediment filled lakes and reservoirs. Intakes became clogged. Water quality suffered not just for a few days, but for several years.”

5) “Canberra suffered terribly in 2003 when fires blackened the landscape along the Cotter watershed, which provides 96 percent of the water for the 350,000 people who live in Canberra and nearby Queanbeyan. Heavy rains that followed caused massive erosion and flooding. More than 2,800 tons of sediment and an array of metals such as iron and manganese were dumped into the watershed. The quality of water was so poor that the city of Canberra was forced to build a new water treatment plant.”

6) “In the Alberta tar sands town of Fort McMurray, … The biggest issue, according to Emelko, is the dissolved organic carbon that is released by wildfires. When mixed with the chlorine that is used to treat water, it can produce carcinogens that most treatment plant technicians don’t have the expertise to manage. To deal with the challenges, Fort McMurray is now spending more than twice as much on chemicals as it did before the fire burned along the Athabasca River.”

7) “Wildfires are not always bad for watersheds, … Fish, however, are vulnerable to the chemicals that are often liberated by fire. Scientist Erin Kelly discovered this in the summer of 2000 when a wildfire in Jasper National Park coincided with a study she was conducting on mercury concentrations in alpine lakes. Following the fire, the doubling of the lake’s nitrogen concentration and a quadrupling of the phosphorus concentration was not a big surprise. What was not expected was a five-fold increase of mercury in fish.”

8) “invertebrates feasted on the nutrients and mercury that the fire introduced. Rainbow trout and lake herring capitalized on that bounty of invertebrates, and passed on the mercury to lake trout that prey on them. At the top of this food chain, the concentrations were high enough for government officials to issue a health warning for fish consumption by humans.”

9) “John Moody says there are two things to watch for in the future: the intensity and frequency of forest fires, and the extreme precipitation – those that unleash a lot of rain in 30 minutes – that follow a fire weeks and months after it is extinguished, when soils may not be able to absorb as much moisture as they normally do. Those are the events that can cause severe flooding, extreme sedimentation, and the liberation of undesirable chemicals.”

Western forests could adapt to pine beetles, but people won’t let them

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Last month on this blog we discussed and debated new research from the University of Montana’s Dr. Diana Six, one of the world-wide leader in the study of Forest Entomology/Pathology.

Today, journalist Brandon Keim (who has provided insightful comments on this blog for a few years now) had the following piece published in Anthropocene Magazine.

Western forests could adapt to pine beetles, but people won’t let them
By Brandon Keim

Though sporadic pine beetle outbreaks are a natural part of western U.S. ecosystems, a combination of climate change and drought have made them epidemic. The outbreaks are unusually large and intense, raising fears that pine forests may collapse — yet it seems that some trees are genetically predisposed to withstand attack.

They may contain the seeds of future forests adapted to warmer temperatures and pine beetle attacks. As of now, however, people are managing afflicted forests in ways that may prevent their recovery.

“Our forests have always been shaped by natural selection, and management largely ignores this,” says Diana Six, a forest entomologist at the University of Montana. “Trees contain some of the highest genetic diversity of any organisms on the planet. We should be working with this.”

In a study published in Frontiers in Plant Science, Six and colleagues describe their genetic analysis of trees in Vipond Park, a plateau in Montana’s Beaverhead National Forest where pine beetles recently killed 75 percent of mature lodgepole pines and 93 percent of whitebark pines.

The survivors proved to have a common genetic signature. That’s not particularly surprising, say the researchers: pine trees and pine beetles have shared that landscape for millennia, so natural selection would have favored resistant trees during previous outbreaks. And while the researchers don’t yet know the mechanism — perhaps survivors possess extra-hardy immune systems or produce beetle-discouraging chemicals — it certainly seems heritable.

Surviving trees, then, could be “key to developing management and trajectories that allow for forest adaptation,” write the researchers — and not just in Vipond Park, but across the west. Yet that resilience is threatened by so-called salvage logging, which often removes both dead and sick-but-surviving trees from the landscape, and large-scale replanting projects.

The latter are an even greater threat than salvage logging, says Six, because they effectively dilute the survivors’ contributions to forest gene pools. Instead of a new forest descended from trees adapted to pine beetles and climate change, the trees are just as vulnerable as before.

Large-scale replanting with adapted trees isn’t yet feasible, says Six. Eventually she hopes to develop a hand-held sensor that can identify pines with beneficial traits. In the meantime, salvage logging and replanting should be undertaken with care. The lessons of this research may also apply to other forests threatened by climate change and pests.

“Supporting forest adaptation is critical in this time of rapid change,” write the researchers. We need to “support rather than hinder natural selection for traits needed under future conditions.”

Source: Diana Six, Clare Vergobbi and Mitchell Cutter. “Are Survivors Different? Genetic-Based Selection of Trees by Mountain Pine Beetle During a Climate Change-Driven Outbreak in a High-Elevation Pine Forest.” Frontiers in Plant Science, 2018.

About the author: Brandon Keim is a freelance journalist specializing in animals, nature and science, and the author of The Eye of the Sandpiper: Stories From the Living World.

Gila plan revision’s “most divisive issues”

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This is an account of a series of meetings that seems like a useful step in the forest planning process that I don’t think I’ve seen before:

Over the last year, the Forest’s planning team has held dozens of public meetings regarding the ongoing revision process. Through those, and other submission options, they have collected hundreds of comments on various aspects of the Gila’s management. Heather Bergman, of Peak Facilitator Group, called this round of meetings the “last call for ideas,” at Tuesday’s meeting in Reserve. Throughout the meetings, Bergman — whose company the Forest Service contracted to consult on the plan revision process — and Gila planner Matt Schultz showed attendees the range of opinions the team had gathered on each of the most divisive issues to that point.

These might be the same thing as “significant issues” under NEPA that warrant development of alternatives.  Here they are:

  • Livestock grazing management (“permittee should decide how resources are managed on their allotment” vs. “more restrictions placed on permittees” or eliminate grazing)
  • Land adjustments (“less public land” vs. “acquire desirable lands”)
  • Wilderness (delist some wilderness vs. significantly expand wilderness)
  • Riparian area management, restoration tools and “a few more”

Here’s what the facilitator took home:

“It is really amazing when you think about all of the different things the Forest Service manages on the Gila, these are the only things there is controversy on,” Bergman said. “There is a great deal of consensus on management, which is really nice.”

Lucky them!  Wildlife apparently didn’t make this list, which is not uncommon, even in places where it is a source of controversy, which is most places.  Maybe that’s because it is the underlying reason for other divisive issues like livestock grazing and riparian management.  (Maybe fire management is included under “restoration tools?”)

“Land adjustments” is not usually on this list, but at least on the Gila (home of Catron County) it looks like forest planning is seen as an opportunity to bring up privatization again.

Hearing on EAJA “abuse”

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Montana, Rep. Greg Gianforte (mugshot from reporter assault case above) chaired a hearing Thursday in a U.S. House subcommittee seeking suggestions on ways to modify the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA).  At the Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy and Environment hearing, Gianforte called environmental groups “extremists” and accused them of stifling “responsible use of natural resources” and said “wealthy environmental organizations” were taking advantage of the law’s loopholes, amounting to an “abuse” of taxpayer dollars.

This article includes some helpful perspectives on the law.  Here’s a summary of testimony by a law professor:

Sara Colangelo, a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, urged the congressman to seek more information from government agencies on EAJA cases. Better data tracking would provide the public a clearer picture of what is actually going on, she said.

“When we see the data in front of us, we’ll come up with better changes,” Colangelo said.

In fact, the 2012 GAO report noted then that data collection by agencies was either hard to find or nonexistent.

“As a result, there was no way to readily determine who made claims, the total amount each department paid or awarded in attorney fees, who received the payments, or the statutes under which the cases were brought,” the report said.

Colangelo also said she sees little evidence that environmental groups would consider EAJA payments when deciding whether to contest a project. In other words, the EAJA payments don’t invite litigation, she said.

Also,

Rep. Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, noted in her opening statement as ranking member that the Equal Access to Justice Act is important to U.S. citizens seeking to hold government agencies accountable for actions or inaction. Ninety-eight percent of EAJA fees go to veterans fighting for disability and for Social Security cases, she said.

Based on the 2011 GAO report, Plaskett said most of the lawsuits seeking EAJA funds were filed by trade groups, not environmentalists, a fact Colangelo also made saying that attorney fee awards to environmental groups were a “miniscule” part of Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management budgets.

So any legislation would appear to have little benefit, and would have to target the real “extremists” (and who gets to decide who those are?).  (Searching this site for EAJA will turn up several prior discussions of this topic.)

Forest Service promotes wildlife overpass

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Despite a national effort (see pp. 29-30) to encourage it, and requirements in the 2012 Planning Rule to provide wildlife habitat connectivity, the Forest Service doesn’t seem to like to assert itself much in cross-boundary planning for such connectivity.  Here is a big exception, which should be an example of what can be done – and what should be done where the Forest Service is responsible for improving conditions for at-risk species.

By revamping the highway with wildlife’s needs in mind, officials were able to broker an easement with the U.S. Forest Service to add the additional lanes.

“It’s a win-win. We could improve transportation. We did lose some national forest,” said Garvey-Darda referring to construction of additional highway lanes. “But we can connect the North Cascades and the South Cascades.”

More importantly, I was told that the forest plan provided the basis for the Forest Service position in the negotiations that the North Cascades and South Cascades should be connected.  I can’t find language in the current plan that would clearly address this, but I know the plan revision process was moving towards useful language for connectivity.  Other revised plans are including language that at least provides some intent to participate in highway planning.  This is from the recently revised Kootenai National Forest Plan:

FW-DC-WL-17. Forest management contributes to wildlife movement within and between national
forest parcels. Movement between those parcels separated by other ownerships is facilitated by
management of the NFS portions of linkage areas identified through interagency coordination.
Federal ownership is consolidated at these approach areas to highway and road crossings to facilitate wildlife movement.

This would at least tell a Forest it needs to be a player and give them some leverage.  However, for at-risk species its role is to be a leader, and with nothing more than a desired condition and without identifying any linkage areas in the plan this would not meet any substantive requirements of ESA or NFMA (recovery or viability).  (Similar language in the uniform plan amendment for lynx does apply to mapped linkage areas.)

 

NFS Litigation Weekly September 21, 2018

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Forest Service summaries:   Litigation Weekly sept 21

The Bridger-Teton National Forest violated NEPA when it amended a special use permit for the Alkali Creek elk winter feeding station.  (D. Wyo.)

New case:  Crystal Clear Restoration Project on the Mt. Hood National Forest.  (D. Or.)  Discussed already here.

Notice of intent to sue under ESA:  The Crystal Clear Project on the Mt. Hood National Forest may affect the northern spotted owl, spotted frog, and gray wolf.

BLOGGER’S NOTE:  The NOI challenges the assumption that logging existing habitat would benefit the spotted owl, which was underlying some of our prior discussion of this project, and discussions of other projects in spotted owl habitat.

 

IN OTHER COURTHOUSE NEWS

An Oregon law restricting suction dredge mining in rivers and streams containing essential salmon habitat is not preempted by federal law and applies on federal lands.

Activist groups have filed suit against a planned tree thinning and burning plan on national forest lands near Santa Fe.

A federally-run sheep experiment station partly on national forest land in the Centennial Mountains of Idaho and Montana, and long targeted by environmental groups in lawsuits, will resume grazing sheep next year.  One lawsuit is discussed here.

Sen. Steve Daines asked the Forest Service to open a court-ordered objection period on a travel plan to anyone with an interest in the issue.  Previously discussed here and here.

Zoning in the WUI

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Another example of someone doing something right.  But it’s not the Forest Service; the Deschutes National Forest was listed as an agency that “either had no comment or did not respond to the notice.”  (The forest plan management area for much of the adjacent national forest is something called “other ownership,” but I couldn’t find what that means.)

Developers said they’ll cap the number of homes in the new zone at no more than 187 units — 100 on the north property and 87 on the south. Lots would all be designed to prevent risks of wildfire spreading and protect wildlife habitat, said Myles Conway, an attorney for Rio Lobo investments. Plans also call for a 42-acre wildlife conservation area adjacent to Shevlin Park.

The environmental watchdog group Central Oregon LandWatch, which fought to keep Bend’s urban growth boundary from encompassing the affected areas, “strongly supports” the so-called transect zone, LandWatch staff attorney Carol Macbeth said.

“It’s critical to take a new approach to development in the wildland-urban interface, and the Westside Transect is that approach,” Macbeth said. “It will provide a 4.5-mile first line of defense against approaching fires for developments like Awbrey Glen as fires approach from the west and northwest.”

Forestfirefacts.org

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Something I stumbled across that has a lot of information in one place (though I suspect some will not agree with all of it, it seems to line up pretty well with my opinions).  (Not sure what I did here, but click on “Home” to get to their website.

Home

NFS Litigation Weekly September 14, 2018

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Forest Service summary:  Litigation Weekly sept 14

(New case.)  Cove Fire Salvage Project on the Modoc National Forest.

 

BLOGGER’S BONUS:  Since this one was so short (and since Sharon might not be forwarding anything to me for awhile), here’s some other recent courtroom news involving national forests.

“Four environmental groups are suing the U.S. Forest Service to stop a major logging project on the east shoulder of the Mount Hood National Forest near the White River in north-central Oregon… It is the largest timber sale in the Mount Hood National Forest in more than a decade, and would roughly double the annual forest-wide timber harvest.”

“U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn dismissed the case last week following a settlement reached earlier this summer between the Bureau of Land Management and energy company SG Interests. The BLM agreed to pay the company $1.5 million for 18 oil and gas leases it cancelled in 2016 at the request of a coalition of governments, environmentalists, ranchers and others.”  I guess this closes the “gap,” discussed here.

“Nearly a dozen residents and businesses have filed a lawsuit against the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, accusing it of starting the 416 Fire earlier this summer (on the San Juan National Forest).  The lawsuit was filed before the Forest Service has completed its own official investigation into the fire’s cause.”

“For over two decades, Oregon has regulated thermal pollution in rivers and streams using illegal standards. But at a hearing Tuesday, the federal and state governments said it will take another 12 years to come up with revised standards to protect threatened and endangered fish.”

Energy dominance coming to national forests

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The Forest Service plans to submit a rule that would make it easier to explore oil and gas drilling, as well as mineral mining, in National Forests.

“It is in the national interest to promote clean and safe development of our Nation’s vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation,” the rule notice reads.

“The intent of these potential changes would be to decrease permitting times by removing regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production. These potential changes would promote domestic oil and gas production by allowing industry to begin production more quickly,” the notice reads

I assume that any such burdens are in place because someone thought they were “necessary,” and I hope there is a good discussion of why they are no longer so.

For mining,

“Increasing the consistency of the agencies’ procedures and rules would benefit persons who conduct locatable mineral operations on the public lands managed by the [Bureau of Land Management] as well as on National Forest System lands managed by the Forest Service,” the notice reads.

Interesting how they are not even paying the lip service that usually sounds like this: “while protecting the environment and other national forest uses.”  I look forward to their analysis of effects on global warming.