“A wildfire of corruption”

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Wash. Post columnist Kathleen Parker, in “A wildfire of corruption,” writes that the story of the 2007 Moonlight Fire in California is “a tale of corruption, prosecutorial abuse, alleged fraud upon the court and possible government cover-ups in the service of power and greed.” As you may recall, Sierra PAcific Industries was found by Cal Fire to be culpable in the ignition of the 65K-acre fire. The state’s case has been dismissed, and this may have an effect on the federal suit, “which had resulted in a settlement by which the defendants are paying the federal government $55 million and have started to transfer 22,500 acres of land.”

I always have thought that forcing a “donation” of land was highly unusual, but maybe it isn’t.

FOIA Improvement Act – coming next year

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I saw FOIA from the government side when I was a regional FOIA coordinator as an unfunded mandate that made agency staff drop their priority work, but then sometimes get bogged down in attempts to deny requests under changing administration policies regarding the “presumption of openness.”  But when I hosted a FOIA conference, I invited a newspaper reporter as a guest speaker to offer the rest of the world’s perspective.  Which is a lot like the one in this editorial.

Forest Service hiring process changes?

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I heard from a colleague that the USFS is moving away from USA Jobs as its job announcement/application web site, but he didn’t have any other info. Today I found this article, but didn’t move past the “pay wall.” Anyone know what’s going on?

Forest Service hiring process changes

NCW — The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and other national forests in the Pacific Northwest will use a new system to hire temporary or seasonal workers, including firefighters, next year.

The process will allow the agency to expedite the review and selection process for thousands of positions expected to be filled in Washington and Oregon this summer.

Seeking the key to forest management by padlock

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Forest Service lock-key

All.. I am glad to be back from a rigorous quarter of Christianity in Antiquity, Pastoral Care, and Spiritual Leadership. I can tell you that I learned in Antiquity that the world hasn’t necessarily gone downhill. When Christian sects don’t gouge each others’ eyes out .. the world is improving in at least one way :)! If you want to know more about my experiences in Spiritual World, I started another blog “IndieCatholic.com”

Anyway, enough about me. Here’s a link to Ron’s post on Not Without a Fight (PS if you read NWAF and want me to share a post here, just email me).

Ron’s note:  This no-nonsense op-ed comes to us from Salem, Oregon’s Statesman Journal; it was authored by Mickey Bellman and published Dec. 12th.

And so, another year passes, another U.S. congressional session parades into history and there is still no forest plan to address the management of our national forests.

Rep. Greg Walden blames the senators for the forest debacle. Both he and Rep. Peter DeFazio had authored bills to settle the quagmire of federal harvest levels.

Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Sen. Ron Wyden authored a bill to settle the federal timber issues and he blames those guys over in the House for not following through.

And so gridlock — nothing happens. No cures, no panaceas, no solution, no resolution to the forest debate that began when the spotted owl was declared to be “the canary in the coal mine.” What does remain is forest management by padlock.

For three decades, the controversy over forest management and timber harvest has continued in Western Oregon. While the federal harvest has shrunk to less than 10 percent of what it was in the 1980s, sawmills have closed, jobs have been lost, loggers have gone bankrupt and logging equipment suppliers now sell farm machinery. The tourist industry — touted by the eco-groups as our employment salvation — has indeed opened a few new REI and Cabela’s stores, but that is all.

As for the aforementioned northern spotted owl, its numbers and population continue to decline. Could the invading, aggressive barred owl be preying upon the more docile spotted owl? Or might it be the increasingly devastating forest fires that incinerate vast tracts of federal forest?   

Blacktail deer populations have declined every year since Clinton’s 1994 forest plan was passed. Without timber harvest to open the dense forest canopy, there is less browse at deer level on the forest floor. So, fewer deer for hunters to harvest, less revenue for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The O&C Counties of Oregon — counties that once received 25 percent to 50 percent of federal timber sale revenues to replace property taxes — now receive little or nothing, forcing Curry and Josephine counties to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. Even the miniscule federal subsidies that were paid to prop up county budgets until the tourist dollars rolled in have now been discontinued by Congress.

Thank you, Congressmen. Your concern and support of federal forest management and Western Oregon is truly underwhelming!

Mickey Bellman of Salem is a professional consulting forester. He can be reached at [email protected].

I’m interested because I don’t think folks on this blog agree on 1) if there is really a problem, let alone 2) what to do about it.
Right now I’m curious from the folks who think things are fine.. what do you have to say to this op-ed?

“Have We Heard the Chimes at Midnight?” Wilderness50 Keynote from BLM Wilderness Expert

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If you care about the future of America’s public lands and Wilderness legacy, please watch this video! – mk

Are we are in danger of losing the Wilderness System? Chris Barns is the Wilderness Specialist for the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center’s BLM National Landscape Conservation System in Missoula, Montana. With millions of acres of designated Wilderness in Montana and many millions more of undesignated roadless country on federal public lands, Barns’ comments should be considered by all Montanans who value our wildlands heritage. This is one insider’s plea to change direction before it’s too late, from a speech delivered in October 2014 at the Wilderness50 Conference in Albuquerque, NM.

Watch Barns’ powerful speech here.

Judge blasts Forest Service, reaffirms ruling protecting endangered species on 111,740 acres of National Forest lands

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The following press release is from the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. – mk 

The federal district court in Montana reaffirmed and clarified its September 2014 ruling that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it approved logging procedures for 111,740 acres of newly-acquired national forest lands.The Court’s ruling requires the Forest Service to halt logging until it complies with both the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act requirements to analyze “potential environmental effects, reasonable alternatives, and cumulative impacts on those lands” and “comply with the consultation requirements of Section 7 of the ESA with respect to those protected species affected on the lands.”

These so-called “Legacy Lands” in Montana’s Swan Valley were former Plum Creek Timber Co. lands which were purchased by the federal government and are now part of the national forest and subject to federal laws that protect the environment and threatened or endangered species.  These lands are critical habitat for grizzly bears, lynx, wolverine, bull trout, and a very rare plant called water howellia.

Four conservation groups, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Swan View Coalition, Friends of the Wild Swan, and Native Ecosystems Council, filed a lawsuit in 2013 in Federal District Court challenging the Glacier Loon Timber Sale near Lindbergh Lake in the Swan Valley.

“The U.S. Forest Service authorized logging procedures and thousands of acres of clearcutting on these lands without any analysis of how the logging might affect and harm endangered species in the area,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.  “Of particular concern to local conservationists is the lynx, a rare forest cat that requires large expanses of unlogged area for survival.  The Swan Valley is the best potential habitat in the Lower 48 states for lynx, but lynx may be declining in the area.”

“The federal court reaffirmed that the federal government violated the law and the ruling couldn’t have been more clear,” Garrity said, pointing to the language in the ruling that “the Court has compelled no substantive changes to Agreed Operating Procedures but merely required the Forest Service to take the procedural steps obligated by law.”

Moreover, in addressing Forest Service concerns that the ruling would enjoin new Harvest Plans until the required compliance with the law has been done, the Court put the blame directly on the agency, writing:

“In any case, the Forest Service’s argument regarding the difficulties and potentially adverse consequences of complying with the law carry little weight here, where the troubles complained of resulted from the Forest Service’s failure to follow the law in the first instance. Had the Forest Service conducted the requisite analysis prior to taking agency action through approving the Agreed Operating Procedures, the agency would not be in its current predicament.”

“The bottom line,” Garrity concluded, “is very good news for the threatened and endangered species that call these lands home, since all commercial logging on these ‘Legacy Lands’ must cease until the Forest Service conducts the proper analysis required by the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act and puts in place appropriate protections for the endangered species in the area.”

Please find the court order here.

UPDATE: Here’s more background information about this issue, from the Fall 2014 Newsletter of the Swan View Coalition, including a discussion about the Plum Creek Timber Co and Nature Conservancy’s “Montana Legacy Project.”

A Look at USFS Timber “Subsidies”

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Letter published yesterday in an Alaska newspaper by Owen Graham, Executive Director of the Alaska Forest Association. Subject is the Tongass, but Graham addresses “below cost” USFS sales in general. Text is below….

Timber Economics
By Owen Graham

Dear Editor

Let’s talk about real timber economics. For years we have been listening to various environmental groups and others talk about Tongass timber sale subsidies. The reality is there are none; no matter how many times the falsehood is repeated. If the federal government provides billions in wind production tax credits; that’s a subsidy. When corn farmers and ethanol producers receive billions in tax credits and have their products supported with an ethanol gas mandate; that’s also a subsidy. However, if a local lumber yard or an appliance store spends more money selling lumber or appliances than it receives, that does not mean their customers are subsidized; it just means that the lumber yard or appliance store will soon go broke. Likewise, the timber industry is not subsidized when it purchases timber from the Forest Service. The industry is not responsible for, nor can it control how much a federal agency spends.

The Forest Service cost of preparing timber sales is very high compared to what the State spends preparing their timber sales, but that is a management issue, not a subsidy. After a timber sale is sold, the government still owns the timberland and they immediately start growing another crop of trees. The agency does a good job growing trees; they just spend too much money. The Forest Service also incurs costs designing and managing some of the access roads but like the land itself, the roads remain after the logging is complete and those roads are used for various purposes such as hunting and fishing access in addition to access for managing the land.

Federal agencies don’t go broke when they spend too much or produce too little, but they do respond to other kinds of incentives. For instance, environmental analyses (timber sale EISs) represent about half of the total cost of preparing federal timber sales. If environmental groups are sincerely concerned about federal fiscal responsibility, they could work to minimize the cost of these analyses rather than constantly demanding more.

A recent economic study by a Montana group criticizes the Forest Service for preparing below-cost timber sales (timber sales that cost more to prepare than the stumpage receipts). The issue is real, but the study grossly exaggerates the below-cost problem. However, instead of addressing the causes of this diseconomy, the study states that the agency should divert its funding to young-growth timber sales, recreation and fish habitat restoration. This not-from-Alaska group is evidently unaware that the young-growth on the Tongass is decades away from maturity and if it is harvested now, the below-cost problem will become much worse. The group also fails to recognize that the timber program has enhanced recreation opportunities and has not harmed fish habitat. In fact, fish populations have more than doubled in Southeast Alaska, particularly in the most heavily logged watersheds. The study also fails to address the issue of replacing year around, high wage logging and manufacturing jobs with low wage, seasonal jobs.

The Forest Service has done a good job managing the forest, even if it does spend too much money. All of the harvested lands support healthy, vigorous stands of young-growth timber, fish and wildlife populations are doing fine and the logging roads are providing access to the forest for everyone. The agency needs to honor the timber supply commitments it made many years ago and make the transition to young-growth timber as it becomes mature rather than submit to political pressure to reduce the timber supply and harvest the young trees prematurely.

Regards,

Owen Graham, Executive Director
Alaska Forest Association
Ketchikan, Alaska

About: Owen Graham is the Executive Director of the Alaska Forest Association – a Statewide Association since 1957.

Rim Fire Update

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Apparently, enough of the hazard trees within the Rim Fire on the Stanislaus NF have been cut so that the travel ban has finally been lifted, after more than a year. I heard one report that says that the litigation has failed at the District Court level, losing their pleas to stop the logging three times. The article below includes the Appeals Court but, I doubt that an appeal has been seen in court yet. It seems too soon after the District Court decision for the appeal to be decided.

http://www.calforests.org/rim-fire-update-final-motion-halt-restoration-forestry-rim-fire-denied/

P9232907-web

 

Since the Rim Fire tore through the area and devoured over 250, 000 square miles of National, State and private forested land, the community has come together to put together a solution with positive environmental, economical and social sense. The whole effort to restore forests has been very successful due to cooperation of a diverse group of individuals, organizations and government agencies.

(Edit: Thanks to Matt for pointing out the acres/square miles error. That should be 250,000 acres.)

With a monster storm approaching California, we should be seeing some catastrophic erosion coming from the Rim and King Fire areas. Of course, very little can be done to prevent erosion on the steep slopes of the canyons with high burn intensity. Standing snags tend to channel water, while branches and twigs on the ground can hold back a surprising amount of soil. This flood event would have been great to document through repeat photography but, it appears that opportunity will be lost, too.

Bark beetle activity has also spiked where I live, northwest of the Rim Fire.

47 Public Lands, Wilderness & Environmental Groups Blast Riders in Defense Bill

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Part of the 449 page Public Lands Rider Package on the $585 Billion Defense Bill includes the SE Arizona Land Exchange, which will give 2,400 acres of the Tonto Nation Forest – ancestral homeland of the Apache Tribe – to a foreign mining company and allow them to put in a huge copper mine on these sacred lands (pictured above).
Part of the 449 page Public Lands Rider Package on the $585 Billion Defense Bill includes the SE Arizona Land Exchange, which will give 2,400 acres of the Tonto Nation Forest – ancestral homeland of the Apache Tribe – to a foreign mining company and allow them to put in a huge copper mine on these sacred lands (pictured above).

A coalition of 47 public lands, Wilderness and environmental organizations from across the country have issued a letter to all members of the U.S. Senate demanding the removal of damaging public land “riders” that have been added to the Defense Authorization Bill, which passed the U.S. House last week and now awaits action in the Lame Duck senate.

Title XXX (30) of the bill includes several controversial and harmful public land proposals, including an exchange of National Forest land to a foreign-owned mining company seeking to operate a mine on land sacred to the Apache, a giveaway of 70,000 acres on Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to Sealaska Corporation, notorious for its scorched-earth logging practices, and a stealth provision that removes protections from two Wilderness Study Areas in eastern Montana. The bill also contains numerous public land conveyances as well as Wilderness bills with special provisions allowing helicopter use and habitat manipulation.

The coalition of 47 organizations is calling on the Senate to remove Title XXX from the Defense Bill. Some proposals thrown into the mix would gain the groups’ strong support as stand-alone legislation, but the bill’s numerous “poison pills” mean that too high a price would be paid for a few conservation gains. The groups are submitting their letter to Senators ahead of its being brought to the Floor Tuesday.

UPDATE: This video produced by the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition and Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Coalition gives more information about the SE Arizona Land Exchange, which will give 2,400 acres of the Tonto Nation Forest – ancestral homeland of the Apache Tribe – to a foreign mining company and allow them to put in a huge copper mine on these sacred lands.