USFS: agency exceeded forest restoration goals for 2014

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This USFS press release was entitled “US Forest Service Waives Fees in Honor of Veteran’s Day” — oops! Should have been “U.S. Forest Service Exceeds Yearly Forest Restoration Goals.”

“sustained or restored watershed conditions on 2.9 million acres”

Sustained conditions? What does that mean? They didn’t burn? <tongue in cheek comment>

 
WASHINGTON, November 12, 2014— The U.S. Forest Service today announced that it exceeded its forest restoration goals for Fiscal Year 2014, highlighting the agency’s continued commitment to improving the health of the America’s National Forests, reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfire, and protecting watersheds. 
 
“The Forest Service has made strategic investments across all agency programs to advance our efforts to create resilient forests and sustainable communities,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “This work reduces the wildland fire threat to communities and firefighters and minimizes the risk of forest pests and climate change, while supporting American jobs and rural economies.”
 
In FY 2014, the Forest Service met or exceeded its restoration goals. Projects lessened the threat to communities by reducing hazardous fuels on 1.7 million acres in the wildland urban interface, sustained or restored watershed conditions on 2.9 million acres and resulted in 2.8 billion board feet of timber volume sold. The agency met its goals in a year where it lost staff time due to the government shutdown and when it continued to confront rising costs of fire-fighting that drain resources from forest restoration and management activities.   
 
The Forest Service was also successful in leveraging partnerships to help meet its ecological restoration goals. Partners, including conservation groups, forest industry, local communities, sportsmen, and others assisted with monitoring of resource conditions and project implementation as a component of adaptive management. The diverse programs, tools and activities used include: the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLR), Stewardship Contracting  Authority , Good Neighbor Authority and other 2014 Farm Bill provisions. The agency will continue to expand use of these authorities in the coming year.
Chief Tidwell said for FY 2015, the Forest Service is positioned to accelerate efforts to restore forest health and reduce wildland fire threats to communities. Current bi-partisan legislation supports the Obama Administration’s call for a change in how wildfire suppression is funded and that would free up more funding to implement projects to improve the resiliency of forests and rangelands. The agency’s 2015 budget request to Congress included more funding for key programs to allow the Forest Service to increase acres treated and timber harvests to 3.1 billion board feet. This adjustment will allow the Forest Service to continue to reduce wildland fire threats to communities while shrinking the agency total budget request for 2015.
The 2014 Farm Bill also included a provision that allowed governors to recommend, with secretarial approval, the designation of 44 million acres where the Forest Service can use insect and disease authority to more quickly address forest health issues.
Nationwide, 23 CFLR projects provide economic support to local communities. In FY 2013, those  projects helped create or maintain over 5,300 part and full-time jobs, bringing total labor income for that year to over $195 million. Collectively, between FY 2010-2013, the  projects generated 838 million board feet of timber sold and nearly 2 million green tons of woody biomass, available for bio-energy production.  The FY 2014 statistics will be available in early December and they are expected to be higher than FY 2013 contributions. The Agency will continue to implement these projects in FY 2015 as a pathway to achieve the 3.1 billion board feet of timber harvest target.  USDA and the Forest Service are also working to support expanding markets for biomass for energy and building materials.
America’s natural resources are integral to the social, ecological, and economic well-being of the nation, and the Forest Service plays a vital role in their care for current and future generations.  The Forest Service’s restorative actions draw on multiple programs and are implemented by prioritizing investments and managing performance to best meet the goals for resilient landscapes.
They improve ecosystems’ ability to absorb, or recover from the effects of disturbances through preservation, restoration, or improvement of its essential structures and functions and redundancy of ecological patterns across the landscape.
 
The mission of the Forest Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The agency manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the Nation’s clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live.
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“How litigation has shaped the Forest Service”

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More on litigation and forest management in the Northern Region:

Law of the land: How litigation has shaped the Forest Service

“The Northern Region has experienced a relatively high level of litigation,” said Forest Service spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown. “From 2008 through 2013, the region had more than 70 projects litigated. In recent years, litigation has encumbered as much as 40 to 54 percent of the region’s planned timber harvest volume.”

Judge rules Ninemile logging, burning may go forward: from Missoulian

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Here’s a link to the Missoulian story, which has a very nice map, as well as the court decision.

Below is an excerpt:

“We had to defend this project in court and that required a significant amount of time and money,” Ninemile District Ranger Chad Benson said in an email Thursday. “I was disappointed in having to commit these additional expenditures, because from the start this was a collaborative project that had good public support and was designed with a lot of care, analysis and deliberation. To prevail in this lawsuit on all claims just affirmed that.”

The Rennic-Stark project got only four public comments before it was finalized in 2013. But the Alliance for the Wild Rockies appealed the decision, and then sued the Forest Service in August 2013 when its appeal was denied.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen ruled against the environmental group on Oct. 28, noting the plaintiffs had not proved any of their claims.

The alliance raised issues about the Forest Service’s lack of consideration of climate change and how the project might affect sensitive or threatened species like Canada lynx, wolverine, bull trout, fisher and goshawk.

“On the contrary, the Forest Service’s actions regarding the project appear thoughtful, informed and undertaken in the best interests of this portion of the Lolo National Forest,” Christensen wrote.

Wash. Gov. Requests Restoration on 720K Acres of Federal Forestland

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Areas selected based on collaboration and public input. That’s good, but its a shame than the USFS can’t “do the right thing” on its own.

Press release from Gov. Jay Inslee:

 

Governor Inslee Requests Forest Health Restoration on 720,000 Acres of Federal Forestland

October 31, 2014

Olympia, WA – Gov. Jay Inslee today asked the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to designate 720,000 acres of federal land in Washington to allow for expedited and prioritized forest health treatments and restoration efforts.

The work would be done on acreage selected by Eastern Washington residents through a joint public engagement process conducted by the governor and Commissioner of Public Lands, Peter Goldmark.

“Our state’s devastating wildfire season has again emphasized the need for broad efforts to restore forest health and resiliency across the eastern Washington landscape,” Inslee wrote to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

The Agricultural Act of 2014, commonly known as the Farm Bill, authorized governors to identify insect and disease treatment areas within national forests in their states that suffer from severe forest health issues and should be prioritized in federal planning of forest health treatments.

Areas of the Okanogan, Wenatchee, Colville, Umatilla, and Gifford Pinchot National Forests are included in the governor’s recommendations. These landscapes are suffering from acute forest health hazards caused by parasitic insects and tree diseases, resulting in heightened mortality risks. Forest conditions in many of these same areas also exhibit an increased susceptibility to wildfires.

If the Secretary of Agriculture approves Inslee’s request, the forestland will receive special authorities for quicker environmental planning. Projects would be done through a collaborative process with multiple local stakeholder groups. The Farm Bill also allows for up to $200 million a year to address forest health in the designated areas. Congress will consider appropriating funds in subsequent appropriations bills.

In June, five stakeholder meetings were held throughout eastern Washington. Participating groups included the North Central Washington Forest Health Collaborative, the Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative, the Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition, the South Gifford Pinchot Task Force, and the Umatilla Collaborative. In addition, members of the public and representatives of local, state, federal and tribal governments attended many of these meetings. Members provided input on which high priority areas should receive designation.

Long- Eared Bats Driving People Batty?

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bat2

Bats seem to be an appropriate post-Halloween topic.

I am cross posting this from Ron Roizen’s blog, “Not Without a Fight.”

Here’s a link to Senator John Thune’s piece in the Black Hills Pioneer on the bat.. it turns out that this is the same bat that is also having problems in the East (on private land). The issue seems to be that if something is problematic for a species (say a disease, in this case, but it could be climate change), then everything else that could affect the species needs to be tightened up or stopped. Which may not save the species anyway, because the issue for the species is something quite different than the targeted management. This does not seem very logical to me, so maybe someone can help enlighten me.

Here’s a quote:

In 2011, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) reached a secret sue-and-settle agreement with two radical environmental groups to require listing determinations on more than 250 species across the United States, including the northern long-eared bat. Northern long-eared bats are dying at alarming rates in parts of the country due to the spread of white-nose syndrome. Of the 39 states considered prime northern long-eared bat habitat, white-nose syndrome has only been found in 22 states, and has not been found in South Dakota.

Despite the lack of evidence suggesting white nose syndrome is a problem in our state, the FWS has proposed limiting forest management in the Black Hills to preserve the bats habitat. Unfortunately, these proposed regulations don’t address the real problem—eradicating white nose syndrome. Instead of dealing with the problem at hand, the FWS’s proposal will increase the potential for large scale wildfires, risk spreading the pine beetle epidemic, and will severely impact the Black Hills timber industry.

On October 14th, I sent a letter to the FWS with Representative Kristi Noem (R-South Dakota) encouraging the agency to withdraw its proposed listing of the northern long-eared bat as endangered and to refocus its attention on combating white-nose syndrome.

“A year’s worth of wood in litigation” in Region 1

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Here are some numbers on the amount of timber under litigation. According to this article:

Timber sales spike in the Bighorns

Timber isn’t a big industry in the Bighorn Mountains, but timber sales in the area have spiked in numbers not seen since the housing market crashed in 2008. Litigation over timber sales in Montana coupled with widespread devastation from the mountain pine beetle have sent Montana logging companies south to the Bighorns.”

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Evidence points to litigation over timber sales in Montana’s federal forests tying up timber companies. While companies like R-Y Timber Inc. estimate that as much as 40 percent of timber sales are under litigation right now in Montana, the U.S. Forest Service claims it’s actually less than 30 percent at any given time.

“We have a year’s worth of wood in litigation right now,” said Tom Martin, supervisor of timber management for the Forest Service for the Northern Region that encompasses Montana.

In Montana, 23 percent of current timber sales in the national forests are under appeal, encumbering contractors from harvesting those trees, said Elizabeth Slown, spokesperson for the Northern Region. Most of the litigation centers around Montana’s grizzly and lynx habitat.

Sage Grouse and Gubernatorial Politics in Colorado

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Gov. John Hickenlooper, left, and Republican challenger Bob Beauprez debate over Western Slope issues at the Club 20 debates in Grand Junction Saturday night. photo by Lauren Glendenning/lglendenning@cmnm.org |
Gov. John Hickenlooper, left, and Republican challenger Bob Beauprez debate over Western Slope issues at the Club 20 debates in Grand Junction Saturday night.
photo by Lauren Glendenning/[email protected] |
Normally I pretty much tune out the hoopla around elections (truth is not usually found anywhere in the vicinity), but thought these two op-eds were of interest, in the sense that sage grouse has come out in gubernatorial politics. Probably would not happen with an endangered species in Texas, Florida, or New York, and maybe not California. These issues are a big thing to our people and hence to our governors. It could be about federal to private land ratios.. it could be due to people trying to make a living from natural resources compared to the proportion of people in the state as a whole. Or ????

Last Sunday there were these two op-eds in the Denver Post
yes Colorado could manage federal lands better
and no.

Here is the “no” one on sage grouse (written by a member of the Hickenlooper administration):

This doesn’t mean acquiescing to every federal decision. Colorado has the expertise and clout to push against the federal government when we disagree. The Hickenlooper administration has done so on numerous occasions, most recently in protecting sage grouse habitat.

Hmm. if it is really about following the law on ESA, then states shouldn’t be able to “push back” when they disagree.

Here is the “yes” one on sage grouse:

Need another example? The feds have now threatened to list the Gunnison sage grouse after years of hard work, compromise, and collaboration with farmers, ranchers, neighborhoods and local governments. It took nearly three years for Gov. John Hickenlooper to finally realize what a disaster the listing could be to all involved. He hired a friend of mine to run interference at a cost of additional hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay the efforts of bureaucrats who have no appreciation of our Western way of life or culture of self- reliance and responsibility for the land.

First, the fact that this is political this year raises the complex situation that we all understand to the simplistic “take over public lands by states” idea and that dog won’t hunt. That’s why we know it’s political and not real.

We have states winning lawsuits because they weren’t consulted the right way (California southern land management plans). We have courts supporting the feds not allowing Wyoming to be a cooperating agency on 2001 Roadless. BLM has (or did have) formal discussions with the governor’s staff on management plans. I sat in on these, a presentation to the DNR Executive Director (Harris Sherman at the time, small world!) during the period we had a joint FS/BLM management plan. The FS does not (last I looked, have such a formal process). Seems to me that if your interest is good public policy and not political theater, there are a great many choices of how to involve states in federal decision-making that have not been explored, or seem to be more or less random depending on agency history, case law, etc.