Could You Participate in Gallatin Collaborative’s 3 Day, 27 Hour Workshop on Thurs, Fri, Sat?

by

We’ve had many discussions and debates on this blog over the past few years about the roll of collaboration in federal public lands policy and management. For example, last week we shared an opinion piece from the Swan View Coalition (Montana) offering up that organization’s perspective on how some of the collaborative processes in their neck of the woods are playing out.  Keith Hammer wrote:

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.

For my money, one of the more interesting dynamics of all this “collaboration” springing up regarding public lands management is the tremendous amount of time, resources and funding needed for an individual, organization or private business to fully participate in the plethora of optional collaborative processes.  Off the top of my head I can think of at least 10 different optional collaborative processes taking place across the state of Montana (Size: 147,164 sq miles) that deal directly with US Forest Service management.

Complicating the issue – at least here in Montana – is the fact that some of those able to participate in the more controversial optional collaborative processes in Montana aggressively and endlessly take to the media to publicly criticize those individuals and groups that lack the time, resources and funding to participate in these optional collaborative processes.  Of course, ironically some of these collaborators don’t actually fully participate in the legally required NEPA public involvement process.  Unfortunately such facts don’t stop some of these folks from intentionally confusing the public by making it seem that those who fully participate in the legally required NEPA public involvement process aren’t participating in any public process.

In March of 2012 I shared a new, extensive report from Caitlin Burke, Ph.D., with the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, who wanted to know about the factors that affect state and local environmental groups’ participation in collaboration, and how that affects representation, diversity, and inclusion in collaborative processes.

Burke set out by collecting data from eleven western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming), conducting a survey of 101 environmental groups that addressed forest-related issues and operated in the study area.  The survey gathered information about the organizations and their attitudes and behaviors toward collaboration to test relationships between organizational characteristics and strategy choice.  Here’s what Burke found:

“The results show that large, more professionalized organizations and those with multiple values use a collaborating strategy; small, less professionalized organizations and those with a single environmental value use a confronting strategy. In other words, collaboration is not representative of all environmental groups – smaller groups and more ideological groups are not involved. This research serves as a caution to those who would use, or advocate the use of, collaboration – its use must be carefully considered and its process carefully designed to ensure the most balanced representation possible.”

“If smaller, more ideological environmental groups are not involved in collaborative decision-making, then collaboration is not representative of all affected interests and collaborative decisions do not reflect the concerns of all stakeholders.”

Now, while Burke’s research was limited to environmental groups that addressed forest-related issues, it’s not a stretch to assume that these same time, resource and money constraints impact the ability of other individuals, smaller organizations of all kinds and private businesses to fully participate in these numerous, optional collaborative processes. For example, while it’s likely that a timber mill with 150 employees could afford to send a representative to an all day, mid-week optional collaborative meeting, it’s less likely that a logging contractor with 5 employees could afford the same luxury for an optional process.  The same goes for a working family with kids, or a college student with 18 credits and a part time job.

So, the reality is that most of the time these optional collaborative processes are made up almost entirely of paid Forest Service staff, paid environmentalists from well-funded, politically-connected organizations, paid logging industry representatives (who also happen to be very politically connected) and retirees (which often times, based on observations, are recently retired from the Forest Service or the logging industry).

So, if that’s the case, as Dr. Burke pointed out, such forms of “collaboration [are] not representative of all affected interests and collaborative decisions do not reflect the concerns of all stakeholders.”  I’d even go a step further and question how such a dynamic and make-up in some of these “collaborations” is really much different from the concept of the “King’s Forest” that existed throughout much of Europe at one time, and which was subsequently entirely rejected by early Americans going back to the late 1700s.

What got me re-thinking about these dynamics this morning was the following announcement from the “Gallatin Community Collaborative,” which was established in May of 2012 around management issues in the Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area on the Gallatin National Forest, Montana.

The announcement raises a number of questions.  Would you be able to participate in 27 hours worth of optional collaborative process meetings over 3 straight days (including 9 hours on Thursday and 9 hours on Friday)?  How about other working people, or college students, who aren’t paid to sit around the table?  And if you can’t manage to set aside 18 hours over two entire mid-week days and 9 hours on a Saturday to travel to Bozeman, MT to participate in an optional collaborative process in an attempt to come to some agreements on how to manage a Wilderness Study Area that equally belongs to all Americans, how would you feel if some of those paid to be at the table publicly criticize the inability of others to participate in such a laborious optional collaborative process?

As more and more optional collaborative processes spring up around the country concerning the management of America’s federal public lands hopefully others will rise up and ask similar questions.

Dear friends interested in the Gallatin Collaborative:

First, to those of you who participated in the initial workshops for the Gallatin Community Collaborative (GCC) earlier in October, thank you for the time and energy that you invested in those workshops.

In those five community workshops, held in Big Sky, Bozeman, Livingston, and Emigrant, participants respectfully listened to each other to develop an initial list of unresolved issues, identified concerns, began the development of a common vision, and began exploring steps to accomplish that vision. During the next several months, we will work together toward successfully resolving many of those issues. A report will be forthcoming from these first workshops and will be posted mid-November on the GCC website.

We have a few things to share coming out of that October workshop:

NOVEMBER WORKSHOP: As our next step, the Collaborative will undertake a three-day workshop, bringing the interested parties from the various communities together, to begin resolving issues related to community empowerment and begin building community capacity to resolve the numerous issues identified in the first workshops. The dates and locations of this workshop are:

Nov. 21 (Thursday), 8am – 5pm in Bozeman at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, Bldg. 4*

Nov. 22 (Friday), 8am – 5pm in Bozeman at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, Bldg. 4

Nov. 23 (Saturday), 8am – 5pm in Bozeman at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, Bldg. 4

Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided each day of the workshop.

The workshop is designed as a 3-day workshop, in which participants would ideally come for the full three days. We recognize that this is a significant time commitment for participants, and we hope that participants are able to be present for the full period of time. This is a complex issue and very important to the wider community. Many of you have already spent substantial time over numerous years. It requires a different approach to successfully resolve. Two hours here, four hours there… hasn’t been sufficient in the past. People will need to decide what works best for them in terms of participation. We hope you will give as much time as you can to this workshop; we’d like to make sure we invest the time to get this issue resolved successfully.

While participating for all three days is important, we understand that may not be feasible for everyone. You will be welcome at whatever sessions you can attend, but you may need to rely on other participants to bring you along and update you on what you may have missed.

Since we want to ensure as much opportunity as possible to provide your input into the process and to build on what we learned from the October workshops, we will provide another chance to engage for those of you who cannot attend the three-day workshop, bringing the Collaborative discussion into more Gallatin Range communities: we are adding a few evening meetings earlier in the week. These meetings will take place at the following locations and times:

Nov. 18 (Monday) from 6-9pm in West Yellowstone at the Holiday Inn (315 Yellowstone Ave.)

Nov. 19 (Tuesday) from 6-9pm in Gardiner at the Best Western Plus (905 Scott St. W.)

Nov. 20 (Wednesday) from 6-9pm in Livingston at the Best Western Yellowstone Inn (1515 W. Park St.)

Refreshments will not be provided at these meetings; please bring what you need to be comfortable.

If you plan to participate in the workshop or evening meetings, please register using this link on the Gallatin Collaborative website.

We will have a second three-day workshop in January or February, addressing issues around the themes of change and/or scarcity, depending on what we learn in November. We will be able to announce those dates at the November workshops.

ROLE OF THE US FOREST SERVICE: A number of you asked questions about the role of the US Forest Service in the Collaborative process, given that the government shutdown was underway during the October workshops. The Forest Service will be participating in the November workshop and is looking forward to getting back on track with this group. For more on the Gallatin NF’s role in this process, see the Collaborative website.

SUPPORTING THE GCC: Finally, a foundation supporting the work of the Collaborative has provided a “challenge grant,” offering to match dollar-for-dollar each dollar raised from local individuals and organizations by the end of 2013, up to a total of $7,000. This support will help the Collaborative by providing needed funds for meeting space, meals and refreshments, and other costs. We still have $4,000 to go to achieve this match, so if you’re interested in helping to support the Collaborative, please send a check to our fiscal sponsor: Park County Community Foundation, PO Box 2199; Livingston, MT 59047 and please note “GCC” in the memo line of your check. Thanks so much for your support.

Thank you again for your time and interest in this important process,

Jeff Goebel, Facilitator
For the Exploratory Committee of the Gallatin Collaborative

UPDATE: The following information was just sent to me from Travis Stills….thanks Travis.

From: Federal Advisory Committees: An Overview, Wendy R. Ginsberg, Analyst in American National Government, April 16, 2009, Congressional Research Service,  7-5700, www.crs.gov, R40520

According to GSA’s FACA Database, in 2008, the federal government spent more than $344 million on FACA committees — including operation of advisory bodies, compensation of members and staff, and reimbursement of travel and per diem expenses. According to GSA, $39.8 million was spent on committee member pay (both federal and non-federal members) and $166.2 million was spent on staff. An additional $14 million was spent on consultants to FACA committees.

UPDATE 2:  Another 3 days worth of meetings, covering 24 hours, was just announced by the Gallatin Collaborative.  I hear Bozeman, MT is really easy (and cheap) to drive into or fly into during January.

Dear Friends,

On behalf of Jeff Goebel, the GCC Exploratory Committee wants to sincerely honor and thank you for your hard work and participation in the recent 3-day workshop at the County Fairgrounds.

It was a powerful and insightful time together. As you all know, this is a marathon not a sprint, but significant progress is being made. The issues we covered and questions answered are not what many of us expected, but they are equally as important as any of the traditional on-the-ground concerns. We are off to a great start.

The entire group of October Collective Statements, along with updated FAQs and materials from the November workshop,  will be posted on the GCC website at www.gallatincollaborative.org before the next scheduled sessions beginning January 9.  Below are the details on the January GCC workshop. Please forward this to anyone interested in the process, and encourage them to attend any or all of these meetings.

The purposes of the January meetings will be to explore the change that is desired for the communities surrounding the Gallatin Range, design the operating structure of the Gallatin Community Collaborative, and develop new and more effective ways of valuing the people involved in the region.

Thursday, January 9 – 1:00pm to 9:00pm

Friday, January 10 – 1:00pm to 9:00pm

Saturday, January 11 – 9:00am to 5:00pm

Best Western
1515 W Park St

Livingston, MT

Food and refreshments will be served.
RSVP at www.gallatincollaborative.org

If any of you are interested or planning on practicing the consensus building skills Jeff has been sharing with our community and you are looking for support or have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Exploratory Committee at [email protected]. Be sure to include this email in your Contact list to avoid it getting sent to the junk folder.

May you all have an enjoyable and safe Holiday season and we look forward to working with you all again soon.

With Respect & Gratitude,

Jeff Goebel

A New Generation of Tree-Sitters

by

The essay below mentions a new generation of tree-sitters, such as those at the White Castle Variable Retention Harvest, a Demonstration Pilot Project designed “for the purpose of illustrating the principles of ecological restoration developed by Drs. Jerry F. Franklin and K. Norman Johnson,” according to the EA. 187 acres, with “78.4 aggregate retention acres.”

www.blm.gov/or/districts/roseburg/plans/files/WhiteCastleDR.pdf‎

In September, the BLM initiated a Temporary Area Closure for up to 2 years: “The purpose for this proposed action is to quickly implement a temporary closure of the area to public use during active logging operations. The need for action results from the danger to timber sale protesters within harvest units of an active timber sale; risks to personnel engaged in timber harvest operations; and potential damage to roads, vehicles, and equipment.”

Anyone know what’s going on at present with the sale and the protesters? Are the protesters using the same techniques, aside from occupying trees, such as leaving steel “jumping jacks” on roads to puncture tires?

Just background for the essay, from High Country News’ Writers on the Range:

 

Protesters still take to the trees

By Robert Leo Heilman/Writers on the Range

If you think that sitting high up in a tree to block a timber sale is a thing of the past, then you should have come with me recently to what’s called the Whitecastle timber sale in southern Oregon. There’s a new generation of protesters up in the trees there, and in many ways they’re more sophisticated than the Earth First! radicals I interviewed back in the mid-1980s.

 

Today’s tree-sitters are much more likely to have been involved in other movements, such as Occupy, or in environmental struggles against coal, tar sands and power plants. There are also a lot more women involved.

 

Not surprisingly, the sitters can seem abysmally ignorant about some things; they’re young, in their 20s for the most part, and largely raised in cities. Most of them believe that the century-old second-growth forest they’re camping in is old-growth dating back to Shakespeare’s day. But like the folks who blocked roads and chained themselves to logging equipment during the Reagan administration, they are idealists, willing to put their freedom on the line for what they believe in.

 

Probably the most interesting generational change is that the “old guard” were often elitists, college-educated folks who thought timber workers were too stupid and ignorant to know what was good for them. The kids nowadays want to ally themselves with the workers and take on the bosses alongside them in a fight for both ecological and labor justice.

 

This is not such a far-fetched notion. When the Reverend Jesse Jackson came to Roseburg, Ore. — which calls itself the timber capital of the nation — at the height of the “Timber Wars” of the early 1990s, he received an ovation from a mixed crowd of timber workers and environmentalists. He brought them to their feet when he said: “This is not about workers against environmentalists; this is about workers and environmentalists against the greedy and the wasteful.”

 

This change of attitude can be traced back to Judi Bari and Gene Lawhorn. She was an Earth First! activist from the redwood country of Northern California, and he was a mill worker employed by the Roseburg Forest Products Co. After they met in the late 1980s, at the University of Oregon’s annual Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Lawhorn persuaded Bari to renounce tree-spiking and other activities that could harm loggers or mill workers.

 

She, in turn, was able to convince her fellow protesters that their struggle was against the bosses, not against the workers. Endangering workers was both morally reprehensible and stupidly playing into the hands of the very folks who were cutting too much timber too fast, even as they cut the wages and benefits for their employees.

 

Bari went on to become the victim of a bombing attack, surviving that only to die of cancer a few years later. Since her death, she has become something of a saint in leftist radical circles, her name invoked reverently by this new generation. But Gene Lawhorn has been largely forgotten. He had complex views about logging old-growth forests, and he had the courage to voice his opinions. For this he received death threats, beer bottles were smashed in his driveway and the windshield on his pickup was shattered. After he lost his job with Roseburg Forest Products Co., he couldn’t find employment anywhere in Douglas County. Neither could his wife, who found that job offers disappeared as soon as prospective employers heard her last name.

 

When the local daily newspaper finally published an article about the so-called “timber wars” and the death threats circulating around the county, Gene Lawhorn’s predicament was exposed right in front of God and everybody. Yet not one leader in Douglas County — no politician, preacher, member of law enforcement or of the court system, and no teacher, mill owner or government agency head — spoke out against neighbors threatening to kill their neighbors. There was a letter to the editor of the local weekly, but the writer said that Gene Lawhorn was a traitor who deserved whatever he got. By then, Gene and his wife had already fled to Portland.

 

The tree-sitters I talked with recently had never heard of this former neighbor of mine, a man who reached out to people whom he’d been told were his enemies. Nevertheless, these kids are now making his argument for him.

 

Robert Leo Heilman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is an award winning essayist, author and journalist living in Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

“Forests to Faucets”: 10,000 Piles in 10 Days with Video

by

controlled-burn-pkg-copy-01

Check out this video with burning piles in Colorado..from CBS 4 News. Worth having to endure the annoying ad, IMHO.

One of my media interests is comparing how stories are reported in local news compared to national news. My hypothesis is because they speak to people working with projects, the coverage tends to be more pragmatic and less ideological. Listening to this reporting, it is hard to find anyone against it. Because it’s not Timber Industry, it’s Denver Water.

“We have a lot of people glad to see us getting this done,” Armstrong said.

Up to 4,000 tree piles per day may be burned this year under a special state smoke permit, compared to the usual limit of 250. In the end the mountains and metro Denver should benefit.

“Catastrophic wildfire can have devastating impacts on our water supply, and so by treating the forest properly we can help prevent that and reduce costs in the future,” Chesney said.

The Forest Service hopes to burn more than half of the 20,000 tree piles in just 7 to 10 days. In the meantime, spending millions should help keep the drinking water clean.

That’s a lot of GHG’s, and why many Coloradans think that alternatives to burning piles could be good for the economy and the environment.

Blog Improvement Prioritization Input Wanted!

by

Bob put this as a comment, but as draft prioritization it deserves its own post.

PS Thanks to everyone who contributed to our Blog Improvement Fund.

So far as a needs priority committee is concerned, that was my virtual intent with the “What’s Wrong With this Website?” post. Some of those concerns have been addressed, and a few others added, but no real priority list was determined: this was before we knew we had a budget to work with.

So far as needed blog improvements, I’d put some of the cheap stuff up first, just to check the skill level of who I’m (“you’re”) working with, and also to get some of the cosmetic stuff out of the way. Here are my suggestions:

1) Now that we’ve fixed the Comment list topics, we’ve sacrificed our Avatars, which are also very helpful sorting and place-keeping tools. Should be a quick and easy fix, maybe involving a widget or two at most. This was the most common concern of commenters, and it’s mostly fixed.

Note to Bob.. do you mean getting avatars back on the Recent Comments widget in the right hand column? or somewhere else?

2) Improved (“same as before”) statistical and user summaries, maybe with a few add-ons. Maybe just more widgets, or cut-and-paste the old code.

3) Making the bulk of the statistical studies available to all readers (or at least registered subscribers).

4) Now something difficult — restore the older (“pre-upgrade”) posts and comments so that they properly display graphics (including stats back to Day 01) and so they can be readily searched, sorted, and displayed. Just like Google or Excel or somebody.

5) Install a functional search engine so that past posts and comments actually can be searched, sorted, and displayed. If we can get these 5 things, some basic WordPress payments, and Derek’s spa suggestion covered for anywhere near $1000, I think we will be very lucky people.

Another question for Bob. is there a difference between searching in 4 and 5 or is 4 just saying graphics should be searchable in the same way as 5?

6) Categories and Tags. Probably need to design an explanatory page for this and demonstrate its utility to us non-users. Maybe after the next fundraiser?

Other ideas?

Here’s my question to users who are not Bob.. how much do the site statistics interest you? Bob is very interested, I am not particularly interested, and it would be good to get the pulse of the rest of you.

As to categories, I think the point is to be able to find all the posts on a topic. When you do a post, you get to check off all the categories that you think apply. Since I developed them over the last 4 years, chances are that they may not mean anything to others. But if we changed improved and reorganized them (volunteers?) then we should probably recategorize all the 1800 or so posts.

hey Veterans, happy Vets day to y’all

by

I don’t usually make a deal of it, but thought I’d send out the wish.  I spent most of my four active duty years cruising around the Atlantic and Mediterranean on a carrier, so no real hardships for me, and it paid my college tuition afterwards,  but lots of other folks from the Nam years and more recent wars paid some heavy dues. My late Dad jumped at D-Day with the 101st, something I can’t really imagine.  So I raise my coffee cup to all of you vets, whether still with us or moved on, best wishes,  -Guy

DellaSala & Hanson & 248 More Scientists Concerned About Salvage Logging

by

This came in on Halloween from our noted environmental scientists (and environmental activists), Dominick DellaSala and Chad Hanson and a number (248) of interesting cosigners. Apparently this is Part 3 in a Developing Series: https://forestpolicypub.com/2013/09/27/osu-forestry-saving-our-planet-by-letting-us-forests-burn-and-rot/

Press Release

250 Scientists Concerned about Proposed Post-fire Logging Legislation

MEDIA ADVISORY – October 31, 2013

Contact: Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute  541/482-4459 x305 or 541/621-7223

In an open letter to the U.S. Congress, 250 scientists request that Congress show restraint in speeding up logging in the wake of this year’s wildfires, most notably the Rim fire in the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park.

The scientists raised concerns that currently proposed legislation (HR1526, which passed in the House in September, and HR3188, now before the House) would seriously undermine the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems, setting back their ability to regenerate after wildfires.

The letter also pointed to the numerous ecosystem benefits from wildfires and how post-fire landscapes are as rich in plants and wildlife as old-growth ecosystems.

Click here to see the full text of the scientists’ letter to Congress.

Click here for a Nov. 2, 2013 Associated Press article about the scientists’ letter.

Here’s how the Associated Press handled this, (with author unidentified, but likely based in southwest Oregon):

Scientists oppose two logging bills in Congress

Yosemite wildfire rages on, threatening water supply
Two firefighters watch trees burn while battling the Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park, Calif., in August. (The Associated Press)

The Associated Press By The Associated Press
Follow on Twitter
on November 02, 2013 at 1:31 PM, updated November 02, 2013 at 1:51 PM

More than 200 biologists, ecologists and other scientists are urging Congress to defeat legislation they say would destroy critical wildlife habitat by setting aside U.S. environmental laws to speed logging of burned trees at Yosemite National Park and other national forests and wilderness areas across the West.

The experts say two measures pushed by pro-logging interests ignore a growing scientific consensus that the burned landscape plays a critical role in forest regeneration and is home to many birds, bats and other species found nowhere else.

“We urge you to consider what the science is telling us: that post-fire habitat created by fire, including patches of severe fire, are ecological treasures rather than ecological catastrophes, and that post-fire logging does far more harm than good to the nation’s public lands,” they wrote in a letter mailed to members of Congress Friday.

One bill, authored by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., would make logging a requirement on some public forestland, speed timber sales and discourage legal challenges.

The House approved the legislation 244-173 in September and sent it to the Senate, where it awaits consideration by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The White House has threatened a veto, saying it would jeopardize endangered species, increase lawsuits and block creation of national monuments.

Hastings, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said wildfires burned 9.3 million acres in the U.S. last year, while the Forest Service only harvested timber from about 200,000 acres.

Hastings’ bill includes an amendment by Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., which he also introduced as separate legislation specific to lands burned by this year’s Rim Fire at Yosemite National Park, neighboring wilderness and national forests in the Sierra Nevada.

“We have no time to waste in the aftermath of the Yosemite Rim Fire,” McClintock said at a subcommittee hearing in October. “By the time the formal environmental review of salvage operations has been completed in a year, what was once forestland will have already begun converting to brushland, and by the following year, reforestation will become infinitely more difficult and expensive.”

The Rim Fire started in August and grew to become one of the largest wildfires in California history. It burned 400 square miles and destroyed 11 residences, three commercial properties and 98 outbuildings. It cost $127 million to fight.

Members of the House Natural Resources Committee remain optimistic the Senate will take up Hastings’ bill before the end of the year, said Mallory Micetich, the committee’s deputy press secretary.

“We have a lot of hazardous fuel buildup, and it will help alleviate some of the threat of catastrophic wildfires,” she said.

The scientists see it differently.

“Just about the worst thing you can do to these forests after a fire is salvage-log them,” said Dominick DellaSala, the lead author of the letter. “It’s worse than the fire itself because it sets back the recovery that begins the minute the fire is out.”

DellaSala, chief scientist at the conservation group Geos Institute in Ashland, Ore., was on a team of scientists that produced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s final recovery plan for the spotted owl in 2008.

Many who signed the opposition letter have done research in the field and several played roles with the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service in developing logging policies for the threatened northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest.

“Though it may seem at first glance that a post-fire landscape is a catastrophe ecologically,” they wrote, “numerous scientific studies tell us that even in patches where forest fires burned most intensely, the resulting post-fire community is one of the most ecologically important and biodiverse habitat types in western conifer forests.

“Moreover, it is the least protected of all forest types and is often as rare, or rarer, than old-growth forest due to damaging forest practices encouraged by post-fire logging policies.”

Kornze Appointed BLM Director

by

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today praised President Obama’s intent to nominate Neil G. Kornze as Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). … Kornze has led the BLM since March 1, 2013, as Principal Deputy Director, overseeing its conservation, outdoor recreation and energy development programs. …

http://tinyurl.com/nbx9ued

He has a lot of policy experience but not, apparently, any actual land management experience.

Any thoughts about how this may (or may not) affect the BLM?

Steve

Contributors Page Update

by

I just updated the contributors page, sadly removing some former contributors (seems like there should be a ceremony for that) and adding Guy Knudsen.  Many of you comment enough to be “Contributors” and it seems useful  have a place for folks to learn about you.  If you feel like it, please send me your info.. click on the tab to see the format. terraveritas at gmail.com.

Vintage Yosemite Photo

by

I’ve been digging through my old Kodachrome slides, and I found this view of the Tuolumne River and Poopenaut Valley, within Yosemite National Park. This area burned in the Rim Fire, and it is representative of what lies below, in the Stanislaus National Forest. Of course, little of this would even be worth salvaging, even it is wasn’t in the National Park. You might notice the abundance of digger pines, even on the north-facing slopes. This is the beginning of an impressive canyon, and it becomes a Wild and Scenic River, when you reach the Park boundary. Of course, very little fuels work could have been done, within this awesome canyon. However, fuelbreaks could have been installed all along the edge of this canyon, knowing that there would eventually be an ignition, within the canyon. Lightning fires happen all the time in this portion of the Sierra Nevada. I really want to get in here and re-visit these spots, for some repeat photography.

Poopenaut-web

Mini-Refinery Using Bug Trees Research in Interior West

by

These trees are closer to finding a home other than a burn pile. Along a Wyoming road in 2010.
These trees are closer to finding a home other than a burn pile. Along a Wyoming road in 2010.
Nice article by Bruce Finley here.. the Denver Post flashes and banners continue to be annoying, but I’m still glad they’re here.

Note that they are:
Using what carbon accounting folks would call “residues” that would be otherwise burned.

Moving the refineries around to take advantage of moving areas of dead trees. In Region 2, we used to talk about the “crows on bison carcass” model (biomimicry?) of moving small refineries and chippers around to each area as they had massive tree deaths. Many small things are just as good at getting rid of things as a few large things.

It’s interesting that Paustian felt the need to say “we’re not industry dupes”, given that the “industry” is nascent. And it sounds like EDF and TWS are there as well. His statement about energy plantations, while obvious to folks in the Interior West, is probably directed at the critique found in the scientific literature that 1) people “are projected to” use biofuel plantations, 2) which can be environmentally bad 3) therefore biofuels are environmentally bad. Note that projections are made up by specific people under the science blanket but essentially are assumptions about the future. Therefore the logic is essentially that “we think people might do bad things, therefore the technology is bad.” That’s why it makes sense not to believe scientific papers about a technology unless they are talking specifically about what you plan to do, where you plan to do it, and how you plan to do it.

Trucks will haul these refineries — wood-chippers and chemical conversion tubes — to locations near forests where dead trees are available. ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, General Electric and Google are among the investors in what is described as a quest for cleaner, renewable fuel.

“Getting diseased wood out of forests more rapidly is going to reduce the risks of severe fire,” Vilsack said in an interview Tuesday.

The issue is whether timber across millions of acres of forests hit by a now-slowing beetle epidemic can be tapped in a way that minimizes erosion. The mini refineries are seen as viable alternatives to large biofuel plants, which could cost $500 million and require costly transport of timber.

Growing pressure to address climate change from fossil fuel greenhouse-gas emissions is, along with competition for oil, driving the Department of Defense and commercial airlines to develop new sources of fuel, Vilsack said.

“We’re interested in finding out ways we can use wood to produce energy,” he said. “We’re interested in determining ways we can help restore the health of our forests, reduce fire hazards,
Trucks will haul these refineries — wood-chippers and chemical conversion tubes — to locations near forests where dead trees are available. ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, General Electric and Google are among the investors in what is described as a quest for cleaner, renewable fuel.

“Getting diseased wood out of forests more rapidly is going to reduce the risks of severe fire,” Vilsack said in an interview Tuesday.

The issue is whether timber across millions of acres of forests hit by a now-slowing beetle epidemic can be tapped in a way that minimizes erosion. The mini refineries are seen as viable alternatives to large biofuel plants, which could cost $500 million and require costly transport of timber.

Growing pressure to address climate change from fossil fuel greenhouse-gas emissions is, along with competition for oil, driving the Department of Defense and commercial airlines to develop new sources of fuel, Vilsack said.

“We’re interested in finding out ways we can use wood to produce energy,” he said. “We’re interested in determining ways we can help restore the health of our forests, reduce fire hazards, protect communities and create jobs in rural areas.”

CSU ecologist Keith Paustian, the project leader, said university scientists in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana will study refinery operations in forests filled with beetle-killed trees. Piles of down timber that otherwise would be burned may be used.

Paustian said they’ll focus on “what you would take, how you would take it, how you process it and how you would do it in a way that is environmentally responsible.

“On one hand, we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels due to the issues with greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change. We’ve got to be able to use some kind of renewable source,” he said. While wind power could provide electricity for cars, “we cannot make electric airplanes. Is there wood that could be removed that would benefit the environment as well as be a feedstock for renewable fuels?”

University researchers are to work with Cool Planet, which moved its headquarters from California this year and is building a biofuel plantation in Louisiana to convert fast-growing wood into 10 million gallons of fuel. About 70 gallons of fuel can be made from a ton of wood.

Cool Planet’s process breaks down cellulose to fuel, wastewater and charcoal-like chips.

Cool Planet has raised $64 million and plans to manufacture the mini refineries in Colorado, company director Wes Bolsen said.

The fuel is said to be identical to petroleum material used in regular gasoline. For airlines, the conversion is different because airline fuel chemically is closer to kerosene.

“The problem with the beetle-kill is, it is episodic,” Paustian said. “We have a lot of wood now, but it’s not going to come back every year.”

Wilderness and roadless forests are not to be tapped. Project advisers include the Environmental Defense Fund and Wilderness Society.

“In Colorado and Wyoming and a lot of the northern Rockies, the conditions are such that there’s no way you’re going to make biofuel plantations. You cannot grow the biomass fast enough here,” Paustian said. “But our situation now is that we’ve got a lot of dead wood that is, essentially, almost an environmental problem.

“We’re not industry dupes. This is very much an open-minded research project. Let’s do the due diligence. That’s what universities are supposed to do — objective, nonpartisan research.”