I admit, it’s a rhetorical question. Of course they don’t. Never have, probably never will.
Just to illustrate . . . On April 9, 2012, the Forest Service released its new NFMA planning rule. Remember? It was a big deal.
Two months later, on June 20, the fire folks released their new “Fire Management Manual,” FSM 5100. According to the Chief, this was also a big deal. In fact, the manual’s new doctrine is “relevant to everything we do.”
The new fire manual cites four sources that “authorize and guide fire management activities for the protection of National Forest System lands and resources,” including the NFMA rules:
Regulations at Title 36, Part 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations (36 CFR 219.27) specify that, consistent with the relative resource values involved, management prescriptions in forest plans must minimize serious or long-lasting hazards from wildfire.
But, there is no 36 CFR 219.27 in the 2012 NFMA rules. In fact, there is no current rule that requires forest plans minimize serious or long-lasting hazards from wildfire. Instead, the 2012 NFMA rules emphasize restoring “fire adapted ecosystems.”
Nor will you find any such fire rule in the version that preceded the 2012 rules. In those old rules, 36 CFR 219.27 had nothing to do with fire — they were about “special designations,” like wilderness.
You gotta go back to the 2000 rule to find the latest mention of the [cf Haber below] provision the Forest Service’s fire dogs cite in 2012.
Congress recently passed and the president signed a one-year extension of Secure Rural Schools (SRS). Most commentators, however, see dim prospects for SRS’s renewal beyond 2014. The SRS program has been widely characterized as an interim safety net and transitional measure intended to tide counties over a period of dwindling timber harvests on national forests. It’s been said – even back in 2000, when SRS began – these payments were never intended as a long-term or permanent federal program. SRS would merely lend counties a hand as they shifted and diversified their local economies, making them less dependent on federal timber harvests.
Yet, this characterization of SRS misrepresents and misremembers a deeper and ongoing federal obligation to counties with national forests. Congress enacted a 10 percent timber revenue sharing measure in 1906, only a year into the Forest Service’s young life, and then raised the county share to 25 percent in 1908. The sharing provision sprang from a general recognition that counties hosting national forests suffered hardships on that account. Most notably, wherever national forests were laid out, counties lost potential property tax revenues, which in turn implied an increased tax burden for private landowners. Property taxes collected by local governments have traditionally supported schools, roads, police and fire protection, libraries, and other local services. Federal ownership also blunted potential growth in population and commerce. Moreover, counties retained the responsibility and expense of maintaining roads in national forests. The national forest land grab was by no means trivial. Here in Idaho almost 40 percent of the state’s area was appropriated for national forests. In our county – Shoshone County, Idaho – fully 72 percent is national forest.
Small wonder Idahoans and other westerners fought vigorously against the great and rapid expansion of forest reserves and national forests in the first decade of the 20th century. For his part, Gifford Pinchot, the national forest system’s great architect and advocate, sought to reassure westerners that their perceived negatives were really positives. In his 1907 book, The Use of the National Forest, Pinchot argued that federal forest ownership wouldn’t limit the uses of these lands but instead would insure that they achieved their highest use. The homesteader, the miner, the stockman, and “the small mill man” could go about their enterprises unfettered by the national forest designation, Pinchot confidently suggested.
Pinchot specifically addressed the issue of lost county property tax revenues in a section of the book titled “What happens to county taxes?”
“People who are unfamiliar with the laws about National Forests,” wrote Pinchot, “often argue that they work hardships on the counties in which they lie by withdrawing a great deal of land from taxation. They say that if the lands were left open to pass into private hands there would be much more taxable property for the support of school and road districts. The National Government of course pays no taxes. But it does something better. It pays those counties in which the Forests are located 10 percent of all the receipts from the sale of timber, use of the range, and various other uses, and it does this every year. It is a sure and steady income, because the resources of National Forests are used in such a way that they keep coming without a break.”
From the get-go, the chief purpose of the Forest Service’s timber revenue sharing was compensation for lost county property tax revenue. This provision was a foundational feature of the new Forest Service agency. Huge expanses of national forest land inevitably imposed (and continue to impose) great losses in property tax revenues upon counties. SRS, initially passed in 2000, provided for compensation of counties when timber revenue broke down. When SRS sunsets after 2014, however, the federal obligation to compensate for lost property tax doesn’t evaporate. Property tax is collected year-by-year by counties. Hence, compensating for lost property taxes isn’t a one-time, sometime, or time-limited matter. In our county – as in many counties – three years of delinquent property tax payments results in a property’s title being transferred to the county. Come to think of it, we’re not averse to applying the same principle to our county’s national forest lands. We need a long-term solution to the issue.
This column was written by the following: Jim Best, Leslee Stanley, and Larry Yergler, Shoshone County commissioners; and Chris Asbury, William Woodward, Robin Stanley, Dr. Robert Ranells, school superintendents in Avery, Kellogg, Mullan, and Wallace (respectively).
Thank you to an alert reader who found this following up on our recent AWR theme…here’s the link.
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — An on-again, off-again logging project in the Kootenai National Forest may be going ahead after a federal judge refused to delay it during the appeal of a lawsuit that claims threatened grizzly bear habitat would be harmed.
The project, which calls for logging more than 900 acres and burning 2,140 acres, is based on sound science and should not harm the bears’ habitat, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy wrote in his order Thursday.
“In fact, given the evidence, studies and analysis marshaled by the agencies, it could be postulated that enjoining the project is more likely to irreparably harm the grizzly bear than allowing the project to proceed,” Molloy wrote.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a two-week block on the Grizzly Project while Molloy was considering the Alliance for the Wild Rockies’ request for an injunction during the appeal of its lawsuit.
The conservation organization’s appeal challenges a previous ruling by Molloy allowing the project to proceed. The group originally sought an injunction from the 9th Circuit, saying the project would likely be completed before the appellate court had a chance to weigh in.
But the 9th Circuit judges ruled the group first had to make the injunction request to Molloy.
Molloy denied the request in his Thursday order. If the project goes ahead, the conservation group will again ask the 9th Circuit to block it, Alliance for the Wild Rockies executive director Mike Garrity said Friday.
The 9th Circuit’s temporary two-week block expires Monday. Quinn Carver, natural resources and planning staff officer for the Kootenai National Forest, said the contractor should not have any impediments to starting the logging project after that date.
Garrity disputed that, saying the Forest Service must first receive the appellate court’s permission to proceed with the project.
The differing accounts could not immediately be reconciled.
I couldn’t find who is the author of this piece, but I feel great empathy for journalists who attempt to delve in to these complexities. And that line is great and honest “differing accounts could not immediately be reconciled.”
All, thank you for your ongoing comments and discussion while I’ve been off. Due to other commitments I did not get “back” as early as I originally intended and won’t have time to get into posting more thoughts until my last paper for my class is done on Nov. 11.
I do like the gentler and more reflective pace of the Book Club. I like that it allows us time to find related papers, books and articles to bring into the discussion. Nevertheless, I do feel a need to complete a plan, so we will be done with the book before February when the work for my next class will heat up.
So here is a schedule that I plan to adhere to to get through the book.
Nov. 11 Chapter 4 Oaks in New Jersey
Nov. 18 5. Mountain Lions and Mule Deer
Nov. 25 6. Earth as a Fellow Creature
Dec. 2 7. In Mill Hollow
Dec. 9 8. The Forest in the Computer
Dec. 16 9. Within the Moose’s Stomach
Dec. 23 10. Fire in the Forest
Dec. 30 11. Salmon in Wild Rivers and Grizzlies in Yellowstone
Jan. 6 12. The Winds of Mauna Loa
Jan. 13 13. Life on a Climate-Changing Planet
Jan. 20 14. The Moon in the Nautilus Shell
Jan. 27 15. Postscript: A Guide to Action
If you want to go ahead and author a post for any of these weeks, please send to me and I will hang onto it. Otherwise, I will post something to discuss each week.
Some of the ideas that, for example, Guy brought up are broader than any individual chapter and those are fine to send to me to post and discuss anytime. I just want to have a plan so everyone can see where we’re going and when we might get there.
Again, here’s a link to Virtual Book Club discussion and if you want to post, please email me at terraveritas at gmail.com.
If you want to comment on this post you need to go to Virtual Book Club site to do so.
Snapshot of the Flathead National Forest (MT) Plan Revision field tour on the Tally Lake Ranger District, August 2013. That’s New Century of Forest Planning commenter Dave Skinner with the camera, green hat and snazzy shirt. Photo by Keith Hammer.
(The following two columns are guest posts from Keith Hammer with the Swan View Coalition in Kalispell, Montana. Feel free to make comments below, but if you have any specific questions regarding the Swan View Coalition’s perspective on collaboration, please contact Swan View Coalition directly. Thank you. – mk)
Swan View Coalition on Collaboration By Keith Hammer
Swan View Coalition will always follow the legally required National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) public involvement process and will participate in optional collaborative processes as time and funds allow. We appreciate both as avenues to better understand all interests and issues.
But we have seen the collaborative process abused by federal agencies and key “stakeholders.” In 1997, national “conservation” groups joined industry in insisting its Flathead Common Ground logging plan be called “ecologically-driven vegetation treatments,” even though the scientific panel they asked to review their proposal disagreed and concluded “The desire to harvest timber products should be explicitly recognized here as the driving force.” This oft-repeated collaborative myth allows industry to argue old logging roads are ecologically necessary to log the forest back to health!
In 2012, the SW Crown Collaborative down-played opportunities for road decommissioning to benefit fish and wildlife in the Swan Valley, based on a mistaken report by the Flathead Forest Supervisor that “the Swan RD has already decommissioned 800 miles of roads . . .” We had to correct the record by providing the Supervisor’s own spreadsheet indicating less than 10 miles of road have been decommissioned in the Swan Valley! Who’s on watch here?
Forest-based collaboratives are skewed toward logging as “forest restoration,” rather than including a robust consideration of road decommissioning and other time-proven means to restore over-logged and over-roaded forests. Indeed, National Forest Foundation’s “A Roadmap for Collaboration Before, During and After the NEPA Process” helps institutionalize the assumption that trees must be removed to restore forest ecosystems. It offers the following tip: “It can be helpful when in the field to ask stakeholders what they would do to improve the condition of the project area. In the case of forest restoration, it can be as simple as asking stakeholders which trees they would leave on the landscape and why.”
We will continue to provide the Forest Service with the scientific research – most of it its own – indicating most forests suffer from too many roads and motorized vehicles, not too many trees. We’ll always do so through the NEPA process and will via the collaborative process when able. But we’ll continue to file lawsuits when necessary to prevent the Forest Service from continuing to create a landscape “pocked with clearcuts and criss-crossed by roads” (see the comments of Former USFS Chief Jack Ward Thomas below) and we’ll refuse to be marginalized simply because we dare speak up and advocate for fish and wildlife.
Why Collaboration and What’s the Fuss?
by Keith Hammer
Definitions of collaboration include “working together” and “traitorous cooperation with an enemy.” Over the past several decades, the Forest Service has increased its use of collaboration to forge consensus among key “stakeholders.”
This has allowed it to marginalize those of lesser means or not in agreement with social compromises that again “cut the baby in half” and perhaps violate laws protecting fish, wildlife, and water quality. Indeed, the National Forest Foundation’s “A Roadmap for Collaboration Before, During and After the NEPA Process” warns of the significant expenditures of “time, effort, funds and social capital necessary for an ongoing collaborative process.”
Current Forest Planning regulations urge that an optional collaborative process precede then parallel the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) public involvement process. And therein lie two aspects of the rub: 1) collaborators get to front-load the process with their proposals while, 2) many folks who can’t afford to do both must choose whether to collaborate or follow the legally required NEPA process.
The process of seeking consensus through collaboration remains contentious, especially when the Forest Service and industry use it to enlist enough folks to agree with them so they can marginalize those who disagree. Consider these quotes:
“Between private lands and public lands the world that was once covered with a sea of green was now pocked with clearcuts and criss-crossed by roads. But we still continued until we were faced with a segment of the public that had a differing view of what their national forests should be.” – Former USFS Chief Jack Ward Thomas (Chronicle of Community Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998)
“[W]hen local environmental groups and timber representatives learn to reach consensus . . . that will marginalize extremists.” – Former USFS Chief Jack Ward Thomas (Daily Inter Lake 6/8/97)
“We need to find common ground so the people who want to litigate are marginalized.” – Former Assistant Secretary of Interior Rebecca Watson (Missoulian 11/28/02)
“The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act . . . is largely being used to circumvent existing environmental laws and give control of the management of our National Forests to local special interests.” – Al Espinosa and Harry Jageman, retired USFS fisheries and wildlife biologists (Letter to Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests 8/21/10)
“I believe that we . . . have public lands that belong to all people . . . I fear that localized decisions are usually based on ‘How much can I get now?’” – Former Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora (Chronicle of Community Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998)
“There’s something unreasonably comfortable about focusing primarily on alternative structures for decision making instead of the issues that lie at the heart of the debate.” – Economist Tom Power (Chronicle of Community Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998)
“Consensus is the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes; but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner, ‘I stand for consensus’?” – Former UK Primer Minister Margaret Thatcher
Thanks to an alert reader for this. Sounds like the judge shares folks’ annoyance at AWR’s (Alliance for Wild Rockies) selection of litigation projects and behavior.. to summarize:
1) FS responds to AWR and others’ comments by reducing projects.
2) AWR litigates anyway
3) Plaintiffs’ complaintsare solely based on relatively insignificant alleged procedural missteps and they point to no actual or even reasonably potential harm theProject will cause to any of the relevant species.
It sounds like something I would say. In this case, it is hard to argue that AWR is all about making the FS “follow the law”. In fact, it is difficult to understand what it is really about other than the potential power of sitting in settlement meetings and determining outcomes. Even then, though, some of the dogs AWR is choosing won’t hunt.
From page 3. My italics.
This Project is the most innocuous logging project to be challenged in this Court to date. The Project was dramatically reduced in scope following publiccomment, primarily by the Plaintiffs, from 12,563 acres to approximately 3,650acres. Only 500 acres will be thinned per year. No roads will be reopened or created for Project use. Only hand trimming will be performed, with hand tools used near bull trout critical habitat. The trees that will be thinned fall far short of commercial size–most are one to five inches in diameter and only a few feet tall.
In short, this Project, compared to the majority of projects that come before the Court, is truly designed to promote and restore forest health, and will benefit the endangered species inhabiting the Flathead National Forest. Plaintiffs’ complaintsare solely based on relatively insignificant alleged procedural missteps by theForest Service, and they point to no actual or even reasonably potential harm theProject will cause to any of the relevant species. For these reasons, as well as the legal analysis to follow, Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment will be denied and Defendants’ motion will be granted.
I checked out who the officers are and here’s a link. If you know any of them, ask the question “why did you pick this one?” I think we’d be curious as to the answers.
Again, I think if a mediation session open to the public were required beforehand this might have been kept out of the courtroom and the resulting waste of judges, lawyers and FS employees’ time. My previous efforts to understand Mr. Garrity’s point of view and choice of projects can be found here (whitebark pine) and here (Colt Summit). It seems so simple that if folks litigate projects, they should be asked upfront what they hope to achieve and why, without violating “basic democratic principles.” If they were member organizations, we could join and ask them to become members of the Transparent Litigators Coalition. I like the acronym, anyway :).
And on a lighter, or perhaps higher, note…Maybe Arnold would be better suited as a volunteer ski ranger..sniffing out smokers?
Here’s a link to the article (note the Denver Post just might be the most annoying online newspaper ever in terms of ads; I hope this doesn’t mean it’s on its last gasp):
For the people who like to use it, that is awesome, but it’s not legal to use it in public,” Henceroth said.
Amendment 64 does not allow marijuana consumption “conducted openly and publicly or in a manner that endangers others.”
“We’re one of those public places,” Henceroth said.
Arapahoe Basin is one of 22 Colorado ski areas that leases federal land from the U.S. Forest Service on five-year special use permits. Despite legalization in Colorado and Washington, marijuana remains illegal under federal law and is therefore illegal on those lands, whether or not it is consumed in public. The Forest Service said recent legalization should have no effect on marijuana tolerance at ski areas.
“Not every year would this be as emphatic or as big of a topic as it is now,” said Paul Cruz, regional winter sports coordinator for the Forest Service in Colorado.
Cruz sent a reminder of the federal law to recreation permit coordinators last week.
“There really is no change in forest special use permits because it was illegal before, and it’s still illegal,” said Chris Strebig, communications director for the Forest Service in Colorado.
At Wolf Creek Ski Area, officials decided last year not to pursue marijuana violations if users do not pose a safety risk and are discreet.
“Our patrol’s job is not to bird-dog everybody when they smell marijuana,” said Wolf Creek CEO Davey Pitcher.
The ski area, which opened ahead of schedule on Oct. 19, has had no issues related to marijuana since a federal officer caught an employee with a medical marijuana license smoking at the top of a ski line last winter, Pitcher said. Unless reckless skiing becomes an issue, Wolf Creek’s 400 seasonal staff will leave it to Forest Service officers to enforce the law. Citations for public consumption carry a minimum $250 fine and possible court summons, and a maximum fine of $5,000 and six months in jail.
“It’s their job, not ours, to enforce that,” Pitcher said. “They are up here quite often. They ski around. Sometimes they ski around undercover.”
On March 1, 2013, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell issued an anti-harassment memo to all FS employees:
I reiterate my strong commitment to maintaining a harassment-free and respectful workplace. Harassment or discrimination in any form will not be tolerated in the Forest Service.
His memo explains that Sexual harassment is behavior of a sexual nature that is unwelcome and offensive to the person or persons it is targeted toward. Examples of harassing behavior may include unwanted physical contact . . .
Would someone just turn out the lights in the WO? That would be more climate saving than anything Herr Gröpenfuhrer has ever accomplished.
PS: Leo Kay is the Forest Service’s director of communications and the presumptive genius who came up with this foolishness. Here’s what Leo was before 2010:
Leo spent the previous three years as a political appointment to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Communications Director for the state’s landmark climate change program.
So far (almost 4 years to the month) we have run this blog based on the “Blanche Dubois” business model- depending on the “kindness of strangers.” It has been a great thing; I have asked for financial contributions toward the hosting service, and so far I have received nothing from anyone. We agreed to not try to develop a 501c3 as the work for us would be more in terms of forms and accounting than we would probably get in donations. And up until these particular issues (blog programming), it worked just fine.
These issues are things to do with programming the blog. First folks wanted more than 15 comments in the “Recent Comments” widget. So I asked around and found that the only way to do this was to move the blog to be self-hosted. Our model worked, as Eli Sagor volunteered and did a great job moving it. I paid for the rent on the new server from my personal finances. I even played around with the support forums in WordPress.com to fix some things in September right after we moved. I ordered books on CSS from our library, and tried to reach out at the SAF convention to find some volunteers knowledgeable about design. I also tried getting a graduate student intern, but was told that since we are completely virtual and don’t have an office, that we aren’t a great environment for interns.
So reading the comments in Bob’s post here, the problem (for once!) is not that we all don’t agree on what needs to be fixed, but that THERE IS NO ONE TO FIX IT. Maybe I haven’t been as explicit before about having reached the end of my technical capabilities.
So if people want changes made, here are some options:
1) Send me money and I will hire someone- there are plenty of places where this could be done. I would put out the desired fixes and ask for bids.
2) Find a volunteer. Ask around at work, in your other volunteer work, or leave a note at local coffee house (I tried this, so far unsuccessfully).
These are the only two ways I can think of, but am open to others’ creative ideas. Anything you all think of can be done, but someone has to know how to do it.
On another note: the widget for categories had gone missing when we changed themes, it is now on the right hand side. It helps search when you identify the category that a post fits under when you author a post. You can also click on the categories on the widget when you want to find all the posts under that widget.
Recent discussion on this blog has regarded the restrictions governing recent and proposed changes in planning for our National Forests. Some concern has been raised that current regulations have veered far from the intended path of the original founders of the National Forest System. The “Organic Act of 1897,” for example (30 Stat. 34-36; codified U.S.C. vol. 16, sec. 551), stated that the purpose of the forest reserves was for “watershed protection and timber production.”The Act further states (note: the following quotes, bold texts, and legal citations are mostly courtesy of the “Family Guardian” website):
“…but it is not the purpose or intent of these provisions of the Act Providing for Such Reservations to authorize the inclusion therein, of lands more valuable for the mineral contained therein and for agricultural purposes, than for Forest Reserve purposes…”
Settlers were allowed to cut firewood, fencing and building material, and mining and prospecting were specifically authorized within forest reserve boundaries, but grazing was not mentioned. Statutes at Large, vol. 30, p. 36; U.S.C. vol. 16, sec. 478 provided that nothing in the act would “prohibit any person from entering upon such national forests for all proper and lawful purpose, including that of prospecting, locating and developing the mineral resource thereof . . . such persons must comply with the rules and regulations covering such national forests.” The section also provided that the Secretary of the Interior to “make such rules and regulations . . . as will insure the objects of such reservations, namely, to regulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction.”
Less than one month after passage, the General Land Office “promulgated regulations” that allowed grazing in reserves. In 1896, restrictive Forest Rules regarding sheep grazing were challenged in United States v. Tygh Valley Co., 76 F. 693. The Forest Rules were upheld on the basis that closely herded sheep were damaging the resources; (see also Dastervignes v. United States, 122 F. 30; 1903; and Dent v. United States, 76 P. 455, reversing 71 P. 920; 1904.) According to Colorado Judge Ethelbert Ward, The Legal Aspect of the Grazing Problem,these were essentially civil cases by injunction to prevent damage to property “and would apply as well to the individual as to the United States. They are founded on the law of the land, and do not depend on rules and regulations.” (Forest Service Law Office Correspondence RG 49, Drawer 16, National Archives.)
The grazing system devised by the Bureau of Forestry in 1902 issued the first grazing permits for sheep. A circular issued by the department of Interior on January 8, stated livestock on the forest reserve would receive preference in the following order: 1) Stock of residents within the reserve; 2) Stock of persons who own permanent stock ranches within the reserve, but who reside outside of the reserve; 3) Stock of persons living in the immediate vicinity of the reserve, called neighboring stock and 4) stock of outsiders who have some equitable claim.
So, we can see from the outset that the Forest Reserves were intended entirely for “watershed protection” and “timber production” — excluding all lands better suited for agricultural and mining purposes — and the principal issue of the day seems to have been livestock grazing. Is any of this still relevant today in regards to current National Forest planning efforts?
We can also see a very specific attempt to define “local” in regards to pre-automobile livestock owners; was that perspective still accepted during the construction of the 1905 “Use Book”?
