EPA, Rx Fires, and Smoke

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This is interesting (thanks again for Nick Smith at HFHC for the link).  EPA press release:

EPA approves Washington’s Smoke Management Plan to allow strategic use of prescribed fires to manage forest health and protect air quality

Updated plan provides more flexibility for managing prescribed burning while continuing to minimize air quality impacts from smoke.

Contact Information
Suzanne Skadowski ([email protected])

206-900-3309

SEATTLE (August 10, 2023) – The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved Washington State’s updated Smoke Management Plan under the Clean Air Act. The Smoke Management Plan regulates prescribed burning on forest land aimed at reducing fuel loading, restoring forest ecosystems, and potentially reducing the risk to communities from catastrophic wildfires, while minimizing air quality impacts from smoke.

“As wildfires become more frequent and severe, particularly here in the Northwest, we are working closely with our local, state, tribal and federal partners to help prevent, prepare for, and mitigate those risks and impacts,” said Casey Sixkiller, Regional Administrator of EPA’s Region 10 office in Seattle. “By increasing the flexibility in the tools and timing for prescribed burning, we can better prevent and reduce the health impacts of smoke from wildfires on our communities.”

Key revisions to Washington’s Smoke Management Plan are expected to modernize the approval process so that prescribed fire can be a more effective tool to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires while also preventing and managing air quality impacts.

“Prescribed burning is a critical component of DNR’s continued forest health work,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz. “Using ‘good fire’ to remove potential fuels safely and efficiently makes our forests and grasslands healthier and less susceptible to the explosive wildfires that have filled Washington’s summer skies with smoke the last decade. With this plan, we’ll be able to do the work we need to keep our skies and lungs clear.”

“In recent years, wildfire smoke has repeatedly blanketed Washington, taking an enormous toll on the health of our state’s communities,” said Heather Bartlett, Ecology’s deputy director. “This updated plan provides an important tool for preventing wildfire, and we’re pleased we were able to work with our partners to protect air quality and public health.”

Wildfire has had a serious impact on communities across Washington during the past decade with many large-scale wildfires impacting air quality. Prescribed fires are increasingly used as a land management tool to help reduce the likelihood of potentially catastrophic wildfires by reducing the buildup of unwanted fuels and strengthening ecosystems. Prescribed burning —the controlled application of fire to wildland fuels— is done under specific environmental conditions and protocols, confined to a predetermined area and on a limited intensity and scale required to attain forest land management objectives. The State anticipates increasing the application of prescribed fire in response to the increasing threat of wildfires in Washington.

The Department of Natural Resources has jurisdiction for prescribed burning on forest lands in Washington State, while the Department of Ecology is responsible for updating and implementing the Clean Air Act State Implementation Plan. EPA last approved the Washington Smoke Management Plan in 2003. Following significant wildfires, the Washington State Legislature directed the Department of Natural Resources to study prescribed burning practices and improvements needed to the Smoke Management Plan and to increase the pace and scale of prescribed burning to reduce fuel loads and help prevent catastrophic wildfire. Ecology submitted the updated Smoke Management Plan for review, approval, and inclusion in the State Implementation Plan in August 2022.

For more information on prescribed burns, restrictions and permits in Washington state, visit the Department of Natural Resources Burn Portal at: https://burnportal.dnr.wa.gov/

For wildfire smoke information in Washington state, including health risks, air monitoring and forecast smoke levels, visit Ecology’s Smoke and Fire Management page at: https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Air-quality/Smoke-fire

The interagency Washington Smoke Blog provides also real-time information on current wildfire smoke conditions and wildfire updates at: https://wasmoke.blogspot.com/

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Federal Land Management Agency Field Law Enforcement Officers Per Million Acres

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Thanks to Rich J. for pointing out this chart from this GAO report:

It definitely tells a story. Not a good one IMHO.  BLM land is important and conceivably people following the rules there is equally important.  And my observations on public land recreation is that many people don’t follow rules unless they think they might be enforced. It would be great to have a guest post from a BLM or FS field law enforcement person (or recently retired) and hear from them how to improve the situation.  If you have LE friends, please share this request.

Why Monuments and Not National Conservation Areas? More Monument-al Reflections

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A few quotes and reflections about Monuments. In some sense, they seem more about politicians getting credit from supportive groups, rather than good things happening on the ground. And those experienced with BLM processes please correct me if I’ve gotten some things wrong.

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First of all, there’s kind of a philosophical question about “protection.” If there are the many wondrous things talked about, say, in a Monument proclamation, then existing laws and regulations must have already protected them, so no biggy, really. To protect archeological sites on far-ranging areas like 1.1 mill acres, you probably need more law enforcement. The same groups that work so hard on Monuments (I’m talking big NGOs) could easily fund those kinds of collaborative efforts.

So if we go by the rhetoric, then there are unspecific future things that could be proposed, that we need to keep from happening before they are proposed, because we can’t trust existing statutes, regulations and processes to protect the environment. And the environment in this place is more important than elsewhere, for various reasons.

So what is this desire to Monumentize really about? For the Prez, it could just be politics as usual, rewarding friends with a frisson of punishing enemies (Utah is right next door to this one). But that’s not entirely it.

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I ran across an article in the Wall Street Journal about a rich person named Elaine Wynn in Las Vegas and the Basin and Range National Monument. This story is about Congress, but the principle’s the same..important ($) people want Monuments.

She has remade herself as a world-level art collector and a force in public art, supporting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and using her influence to help create a national monument designation to protect land around Michael Heizer’s City—a 1.25-mile-long earthwork sculpture in Nevada. She has taken her work in Nevada education to the national level: She is chairman of Communities in Schools, which provides resources to disadvantaged children. It recently received a surprise $133 million gift from MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife.
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Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, says Wynn was a key figure in the 2015 creation of Basin and Range National Monument, which protects the 704,000 acres surrounding Heizer’s City. President Barack Obama approved the designation. “When [Elaine] started making calls to Congress,” Govan says, “somehow I was received in a different way.”

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Let’s also look at this op-ed from the Durango Herald by an outdoor businessperson from last Friday.

“There is a new community-led movement for the president to designate the Dolores River Canyon Country as a national monument, which would open new avenues for local economic growth, increase resources to thoughtfully manage these wildlands and deepen the quality of life in our community. We believe that a landscape-scale national monument would open the door to better management and conservation, and provide additional resources to land managers to accommodate for sustainable recreation and continued access.”

Hmm. “New avenues for local economic growth”- what does that mean exactly? More people coming to town? But the area is overcrowded already. And as we’ve seen with the San Gabriels, a Monument does not necessarily come with more funding attached. I don’t know about “deepening the quality of life” but in other parts of Colorado, more people does not actually deepen the quality of life. And again, the author says “provide additional resources to land managers.”

I see several problems with this thinking. 1. More growth and people is not necessarily better, not if it leads to housing problems, etc. 2. Monuments need Monument plans, which distracts managers from.. actually managing (and reopen disagreements, which doesn’t necessarily “deepen the quality of life” at least not for the people involved). 3. Even if they did get additional resources, would the new number of bodies outstrip the new resources? and 4. Even if they did get more resources, as new Monuments pop up everywhere, they will be competing with each other and who is to say that a Dolores River Monument would beat out Chimney Rock, Brown’s Canyon, or Canyon of the Ancients, or Bears’ Ears or ..

Another interesting part of the op-ed is this..

Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper are leading the way to protect the Dolores River Canyon County, and have introduced legislation to designate a National Conservation Area to protect nearly 68,000 acres of the river corridor through Ponderosa Gorge. We are very supportive of this legislation and urge the senators to do anything they can to ensure it becomes law. However, the legislation does not encompass the entirety of the watershed, and politics in Congress are so uncertain that there may not be a viable path for the bill to become law.

If you take a look at the bill, it tends to have the same feel as a Monument; it is in fact very detailed about what’s in and what’s out. It has a FACA committee to be established within 180 days.. good luck with that! It’s got motorized travel only on existing routes, no new temp or permanent roads except for public health and safety, yes to grazing, but withdrawals from future minerals (401b). Uranium crops up again..

(1) IN GENERAL.—Nothing in this title affects valid leases or lease tracts existing on the date of enactment of this Act issued under the uranium leasing program of the Department of Energy within the boundaries of the Conservation Area.

UPDATE: BASED ON CORRECTION FROM TSW READERS

So there are National Conservation Areas.  Congress gets NCAs, the Prez gets Monuments.  One can imagine if political friends of an Admin want this kind of thing, it’s much easier to get.. just a stroke of a pen (OK, so obviously they do talk to some people in advance).   But of course, as with NCA’s, first they make the decision about what’s in and out, and then have public comment and an EIS on any decision space left. Which kind of leaves the impression.. yes, NEPA is superimportant, as is public involvement, including marginalized communities.. but not for really important decisions.

It seems like an advantage of Monuments that they can do some Service-First-y things with the FS; whereas I don’t know how they handle FS land in and around NCAs.

But anyway, for now, just for the BLM, we have a variety of conservation designations – Monuments, ACECs, NCAs, Wilderness, and WSAs. Perhaps other citizens find this to be needlessly confusing? And there’s more encouragement of ACECs in the proposed BLM public lands rule.

If I were elected President (a candidate of the Good Governance Party), I’d ask the Secretaries to make a table of all the existing protected area designations on the Forest Service and BLM. The table would include what activities are allowed and which not, with maps. For each specific area, I’d ask how much funding went to work within those areas. Then I think Admins and Congress would have a better picture of the whole array of land restrictions, and where the bucks actually get to the ground. I’d also think that some of these designations could be fitted into simplified bands across the FS and BLM as to what activities are in and out, to increase public understanding of, and perhaps make it easier to enforce, the rules designed to protect from impacts.

Steve Ellis Talks About Using Retardants

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Steve Ellis talks about retardants on behalf of the USFS retirees group, in a Jefferson Public Radio interview…. Almost 30 minutes. I haven’t listened to it yet. JPR’s July 24 interview with Andy Stahl is here.

When wildfires break out, one of the first tools is still the air tanker, dropping tons of red fire retardant into the path of the fire. The U.S. Forest Service is seeking a permit to use the red slurry under the Clean Water Act, the result of a lawsuit filed against the agency by Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

We recently spoke to the organization’s leader about the dangers of fire retardant, especially to waterways. Here we get a defense of the tactic from the National Association of Forest Service Retirees. Steve Ellis is the board chair of NAFSR and our guest, giving us an extended defense of the tanker planes and their payloads in firefighting.

Firefighters back off growing fires in dangerous dead forests north of Pagosa Springs in southwestern Colorado

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From the Denver Post — thanks to Nick Smith at HFHC for the link.

Firefighters back off growing fires in dangerous dead forests north of Pagosa Springs in southwestern Colorado

Federal officials declared “full suppression” approach to 1,133-acre wilderness fire but cannot engage it for now

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“There is no way to engage the fire because it is extremely deep in the wilderness. There are no roads. No trails. It is burning in extremely thick timber that is mostly standing dead and downed trees. It is extremely steep terrain. We’re not going to put firefighters at risk,” San Juan National Forest spokeswoman Lorena Williams said.

“We are developing plans for when the fire reaches terrain where we can engage it,” Williams said. “In areas surrounding the wilderness, we do have critical infrastructure — utility power lines, gas lines.”

 

 

 

BNIK Monument: Protected Only From Future Mining Claims? A Look at What Will Continue on the Monument

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Note: this post has been updated to reflect corrections on the mineral leasing vs. locatable question supplied by a member of the TSW community.

Having read through the Proclamation, my impressions were that 1) there’s a lot of human roads, powerlines, and other human development within the Monument, 2) not much is going to change except for some things about new minerals*, and 3) there’s a lot more planning and advisory groups and and public involvement. Which will keep agency folks likely tied up from doing the fuels and prescribed burning funded by Congress and managing recreation pressure. With reduced numbers of people and difficulty hiring- on the other hand, I didn’t see a required plan timeline (maybe I missed it). And it often takes two years to get all the FACA paperwork done, which would potentially take us past the beginning of the next Admin. It might have been simpler to say “hey FS and BLM, you’re doing a swell job at protecting things, we’re just going to order no new mineral leasing..”. But perhaps there’s no legal way to do that kind of surgical intervention focused on what appears to be the real target.

*update-“Uranium is not a leasable mineral under the Mineral Leasing Act. It is locatable under the Mining Law of 1872. So DOI is closing off the land to entry under the Mining Law to stop uranium development. Those holding mining claims will likely be required to go through a validity determination to determine if they have a commercially viable mine under the tests established by that process. It’s possible that the withdrawal from all forms of entry under public land law could prohibit wind and solar facilities that are permitted under FLPMA title V ROW. They are only allowed to use public land for wind and solar if they obtain a ROW permit under FLPMA the public land law statute. All the existing infrastructure is a FLPMA Valid Existing Right and protected by Fifth Amendment, FLPMA and terms of proclamation.”

“History: 1. Clinton designated a number of BLM monuments at the end and when Bush administration arrived they were left with the planning that does go through NEPA.
2. Obama’s 20 year withdrawal of this same area was challenged by NMA (National Mining Association) unsuccessfully in AZ and Ninth Circuit. NMA v. Zinke [Salazar] (2017) arguing the Secretary lacked withdrawal authority among other reasons. The litigation started in 2011 over the NEPA prepared for the withdrawal by Salazar.”

And going back to the previous post, remember that to the GAP 1 and 2 types, the whole Monument is now more Protected (roads and all) than a Forest Service Roadless Area, or even than it was two weeks ago.

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Interesting story by Bobby Magill in Bloomberg Law..

The monument will help the US atone for forcibly removing tribes from parts of the Grand Canyon when Congress declared it a national park more than a century ago, a senior White House official said, speaking to reporters Monday on condition of anonymity.

Hmm.. helping “atone”.  Why not just give the Park back to the Tribes directly?

Anyway..

The monument will help address past injustices and protect lands that many tribes refer to as their ancestral home, the official said. The land around the Grand Canyon shouldn’t be open to new mining claims, the official said. Mining companies are interested in the area to help boost a domestic uranium industry they see as key to bolstering emissions-free nuclear energy. Environmental and tribal groups worry uranium mining will contaminate water flowing through tribal land and harm the Grand Canyon.

But the monument isn’t expected to block Energy Fuels Inc. from mining for uranium at its existing Pinyon Plain Mine, which will be within the monument about 13 miles south of the Grand Canyon.
Some Mining Continues
The company’s rights to uranium and high-grade copper deposits at Pinyon Plain have been affirmed by federal courts, Energy Fuels Vice President Curtis Moore said. Even with the monument designation, the company is preparing for production to begin sometime within the next two years, he said. The company has other uranium prospects in the area, and if the monument threatens any valid existing rights to those minerals, “we’d probably have to pursue a takings challenge,” Moore said.

“It just doesn’t seem like great policy to be locking up our best uranium deposits,” Moore said, calling them “carbon killers” because they provide fuel for nuclear power plants. All valid existing rights to minerals within the monument, including uranium, will be preserved, White House officials said. The monument affects only future mining claims.

Back to the Declaration:

 All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of the monument are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, or other disposition under the public land laws or laws applicable to the Forest Service, other than by exchange that furthers the protective purposes of the monument; from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws; and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing.

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Public Involvement, some Service-Firstiness and Joint Planning

The Secretaries shall provide for maximum public involvement in the development of the management plan, as well as consultation with federally recognized Tribal Nations and conferral with State and local governments.  In preparing the management plan, the Secretaries shal1 take into account, to the maximum extent practicable, maintaining the undeveloped character of the lands within the monument; minimizing impacts from surface-disturbing activities; providing appropriate access for livestock grazing, recreation, hunting, fishing, dispersed camping, wildlife management, and scientific research; and emphasizing the retention of natural quiet, dark night skies and scenic attributes of the landscape.  In the development and implementation of the management plan, the Secretaries shall maximize opportunities, pursuant to applicable legal authorities, for shared resources, operational efficiency, and cooperation, and shall, to the maximum extent practicable, carefully incorporate the Indigenous Knowledge or special expertise offered by Tribal Nations and work with Tribal Nations to appropriately protect that knowledge.

I wonder if they need alternatives and an EIS ? “The Important People made all the Important Decisions without involving you, but you folks directly impacted are allowed to color within the lines we’ve drawn” -kind of demoralizing, I would think.

Tribal Nation Co-Stewardship

Lots of Secretaries’ “exploring” this and that language. again it sounds like standard policy under the 2021 Joint Secretarial Order number 3403. But maybe there are differences, perhaps knowledgeable people can point them out?

 The Secretaries shall explore opportunities for Tribal Nations to participate in co-stewardship of the monument; explore entering into cooperative agreements or, pursuant to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, 25 U.S.C. 5301 et seq., contracts with Tribes or Tribal organizations to perform administrative or management functions within the monument; and explore providing technical and financial assistance to improve the capacity of Tribal Nations to develop, enter into, and carry out activities under such cooperative agreements or contracts.  The Secretaries shall further explore opportunities for funding agreements with Tribal Nations relating to the management and protection of traditional cultural properties and other culturally significant programming associated with the monument.

The Secretaries shall consider appropriate mechanisms to provide for temporary closures to the general public of specific portions of the monument to protect the privacy of cultural, religious, and gathering activities of members of Tribal Nations.

There’s a Tribal Commission to give input on the plan and management of the Monument.  There’s also a FACA Committee with a RAC-like list of the usual suspects.

 The advisory committee shall consist of a fair and balanced representation of interested stakeholders, including the Arizona Game and Fish Department; other State agencies and local governments; Tribal Nations; recreational users; conservation organizations; wildlife, hunting, and fishing organizations; the scientific community; the ranching community; business owners; and the general public in the region.

The Monument Already Has Lots of Human Structures  and Those Things Can Be Expanded and  New Ones Built

Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to preclude the renewal or assignment of, or interfere with the operation, maintenance, replacement, modification, upgrade, or access to, existing or previously approved flood control, utility, pipeline, and telecommunications sites or facilities; roads or highway corridors; seismic monitoring facilities; wildlife management structures; or water infrastructure, including wildlife water developments or water district facilities, within the boundaries of existing or previously approved authorizations within the monument. Existing or previously approved flood control, utility, pipeline, telecommunications, and seismic monitoring facilities; roads or highway corridors; wildlife management structures; and water infrastructure, including wildlife water developments or water district facilities, may be expanded, and new facilities of such kind may be constructed, to the extent consistent with the proper care and management of the objects identified above and subject to the Secretaries’ authorities, other applicable law, and the provisions of this proclamation related to roads and trails.

Transportation Planning

For purposes of protecting and restoring the objects identified above, the Secretaries shall prepare a transportation plan that designates the roads and trails on which motorized and non-motorized mechanized vehicle use, including mountain biking, will be allowed.  The transportation plan shall include management decisions, including road closures and travel restrictions consistent with applicable law, necessary to protect the objects identified in this proclamation.  Except for emergency purposes, authorized administrative purposes, wildlife management conducted by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, and the retrieval of legally harvested elk and bison, which are otherwise consistent with applicable law, motorized vehicle use in the monument may be permitted only on roads and trails documented as existing in BLM and Forest Service route inventories that exist as of the date of this proclamation.  Any additional roads or trails designated for motorized vehicle use must be designated only for public safety needs or the protection of the objects identified above.

It’s not clear to me if temp roads for fuel treatments would be OK..”public safety” “protection of species (species being an object identified above)?” But those wouldn’t be system roads so.. and here’s more on veg management:

The Secretaries may carry out vegetative management treatments within the monument to the extent consistent with the proper care and management of the objects identified above, with a focus on addressing ecological restoration; wildlife connectivity; or the risk of wildfire, insect infestation, invasive species, or disease that would endanger the objects identified in this proclamation or imperil public safety.  Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to alter the authority of any party with respect to the use of prescribed fire within the monument.

Grazing and Fire Suppression

Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to prohibit grazing pursuant to existing leases or permits within the monument, or the renewal or assignment of such leases or permits, which the BLM and Forest Service shall continue to manage pursuant to their respective laws, regulations, and policies.

Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to alter the authority or responsibility of any party with respect to emergency response activities within the monument, including wildland fire response.

Military Uses and Fish and Wildlife

 Nothing in this proclamation shall preclude low-level overflights of military aircraft, flight testing or evaluation, the designation of new units of special use airspace, the use or establishment of military flight training routes, or low-level overflights and landings for wildlife management conducted by the Arizona Game and Fish Department over the lands reserved by this proclamation.  Nothing in this proclamation shall preclude air or ground access to existing or new electronic tracking communications sites associated with special use airspace and military training routes.

Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the jurisdiction or authority of the State of Arizona with respect to fish and wildlife management, including hunting and fishing, on the lands reserved by this proclamation, or to affect the State’s access to the monument for wildlife management, including access prior to and during the development of the management and transportation plans provided for above.  The Secretaries shall seek to develop and implement science-based habitat and ecological restoration projects within the monument and shall seek to collaborate with the State of Arizona on wildlife management within the monument, including through the development of new, or the continuation of existing, memoranda of understanding with the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

 

Does Monumentizing Really “Protect”? And Various Admin and Other Groups’ Thoughts on 30 x 30

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This is the CEQ USDA DOI and Commerce joint write-up on how to achieve 30 x 30

 

I am going to go out on a limb here..I think the way some groups in tight with the Admin, or possibly the Admin itself (can’t easily tell), have chosen to classify federal lands for “counting” in 30 x 30 is messed up and potentially meaningless. To get started,  I think it’s important to define terms.   I’m going to capitalize Protection when I mean “protected areas as defined by various entities, that is, GAP 1 and 2, for the 30×30 effort.” In the next post, we’ll look at what’s in and what’s out based on the recent Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument (BNIK NM) declaration.  It seems to me mostly like BAU for the BLM and FS, but requiring another planning process :(.  I’m not sure that most of the reporters read the declaration itself and not just the press release.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a very powerful political entity and here are their policy recommendations.. it sounds like a laundry list of what the Biden Admin has been doing recently.

In a November 2022 report from its series on executive action to address the nature crisis, CAP took a deeper look at some of the most powerful conservation tools available to President Biden. In particular, the report identifies the top eight most impactful opportunities for near-term executive action. These include opportunities to designate new protected areas; expand national wildlife refuges; exclude sensitive and sacred places from drilling and mining; and establish national rules to guide conservation of U.S. Bureau of Management lands and the country’s oldest federally owned forests. In another publication from the same series, CAP highlights specific community and Tribally-led proposals for national monuments and marine sanctuaries already primed for executive action, from the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada to the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary in California. Enacting these recommendations will deliver real conservation benefits and should be prioritized.

They also indicated that to them, talking about “what counts” is beside the point.

However, heated arguments about “what counts” can miss the much bigger point behind this national “30×30” conservation goal. The ambitious 30×30 target can, and really must, be an inclusive call to action—a promise to jointly address the climate and biodiversity crises by accelerating the pace at which the country is protecting nature.

As a scientist,  I see two problems with CAP’s formulation. First, if you are indeed thinking about climate and biodiversity, then to make progress you would absolutely need to define what you want specifically, and various risks, and identify tradeoffs.  Second is that, of course, just Protecting something does not actually address both climate and biodiversity.  Not a burned tree nor a cheatgrass seed cares much about lines on maps (back to the BLM sage grouse habitat paper).

A simple example is this Oregon Public Broadcasting story about the Bootleg Fire and carbon credits (which is a good article to read anyway).  If you take out the cap’n’trade carbon credits part of the story, you have “adios, carbon we thought we had” from the area.  You can say that somehow this wouldn’t have happened if it had been in a Protected area, or somehow wouldn’t have had negative effects on biodiversity and carbon simply by drawing a line! How cool is that? But not actually real in terms of biology.

So the question that CAP raised is actually pretty important.. what’s in and out for 30 x 30? Defenders of Wildlife, for example, and the State of California, think it should only include Gap 1 and 2 acres.

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I couldn’t find a place where the Biden Admin says what counts to them  toward 30 x 30.  I did find that CEQ, Interior, USDA and Commerce wrote an interesting paper on how to achieve 30 x30 that leads with “Pursue a collaborative and inclusive approach to conservation” (see table of contents above).  There were also statements by the Admin about how working lands should count.

The interesting thing about using Gap 1 and 2, as per Defenders and others, is that, say Forest Service Roadless Areas are not included, as they are not “permanent,”  but places like the San Gabriel National Monument are included as Protected.  Having worked for years on Roadless, they seem pretty permanent to me.  I’m sure if you tried to measure “intactness” they would beat the SG National Monument or even parts of Yellowstone (Gap 1) by a mile.   It seems like a serious general flaw that these definitions consider recreation-even industrial scale- as no barrier to Protection. And in GAP1 all you need is a “management plan” to maintain a natural state.. not actually a.. “natural state” whatever that is.

Which as far as I’m concerned from any biological point of view, is pretty meaningless.  So let’s move on to the new National Monument.

Here’s a link to the Monument Proclamation- now remember that all these acres were managed by BLM and the Forest Service under their multiple- use mandate.  But GAP- wise, just the President’s signature on a piece of paper transforms them into Protected.

There’s lots of verbiage about how declaring the area a Monument will “address the legacy of dispossession and exclusion” but the actual actions in the Monument sound like BLM and FS current policy.

Conserving lands that stretch beyond Grand Canyon National Park through an abiding partnership between the United States and the region’s Tribal Nations will ensure that current and future generations can learn from and experience the compelling and abundant historic and scientific objects found there, and will also serve as an important next step in understanding and addressing past injustices.

Then they make the case for historic and scientific significance that they need to make for the Antiquities Act and to argue that 1.1 mill acres is the least amount of acres necessary  I do see this as heading to the Supreme Court if some people with lawyers care enough.

If you read through the paragraphs, it sounds like the BLM and the FS have been doing a swell job. You could also get the impression that almost any area could equally qualify with historic habitation by Native people, early Euro-American history, biodiversity and scientific interest. Here’s an example:

Protecting the areas to the northeast, northwest, and south of the Grand Canyon will preserve an important spiritual, cultural, prehistoric, and historic legacy; maintain a diverse array of natural and scientific resources; and help ensure that the prehistoric, historic, and scientific value of the areas endures for the benefit of all Americans.  As described above, the areas contain numerous objects of historic and scientific interest, and they provide exceptional outdoor recreational opportunities, including hiking, hunting, fishing, biking, horseback riding, backpacking, scenic driving, and wildlife-viewing, all of which are important to the travel- and tourism-based economy of the region.

Yup, sounds like the point is to keep protecting what the BLM and FS already protected..

Next post:  let’s see what is going to continue, and what will change, at BNIK NM.

 

Forest Service Wins- Fremont-Winema National Forest with CE 6

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This is usually Jon’s round-up territory but I thought it was so interesting it deserved a post of its own, plus it’s my old stomping grounds. Thanks to a friend of The Smokey Wire, it came via a Law 360 article.

Law360 (August 7, 2023, 8:27 PM EDT) — An Oregon federal judge has thrown out environmentalists’ lawsuit attempting to block commercial lumbering in a national forest, ruling regulators properly determined the timber thinning projects were exempt from stringent environmental review.
The U.S. Forest Service correctly approved logging almost 30,000 acres in the Fremont-Winema National Forest over three projects aimed at improving wildlife habitat and timber stands, U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane said in a Friday order granting the service’s motion for summary judgment. In the same ruling, Judge McShane turned down a summary judgment counter from the groups, Oregon Wild and Wildearth Guardians, ruling they hadn’t shown the USFS granted unlawful exclusions from environmental review for logging and waited too long to challenge the exclusion category itself.
The environmental groups sued last year, alleging the forest service used categorical exclusion six to create a loophole that let logging companies bypass impact analysis of the South Warner, Bear Wallow and Baby Bear projects in the national forest. The exclusion may also be invalid since it has now been used to approve big, commercial logging projects without considering their environmental consequences, the groups alleged.
But Judge McShane, in his Friday ruling, said the exclusion’s language permits commercial logging and has no limit on the size of timbering projects. Instead, it bars herbicide use and restricts road building, the judge added. The forest service explained how thinning the forest would improve habitat for birds, turtles and deer, cut back overcrowded conifer trees and reduce the risk of insect infestation, Judge McShane said.
The USFS, therefore “reasonably determined that thinning to improve wildlife habitat and favorable timber stand conditions” fell within the scope of the exclusion, the judge ruled.
Turning to the groups’ challenge to the exclusion itself, Judge McShane said opponents had missed the six-year deadline to get the 1992 rule overthrown. Conservation groups were not entitled to an exception from that deadline, the judge added.
Oregon Wild and WildEarth Guardians argued that the forest service never determined commercial logging had no significant impacts when it approved the thinning exclusion, a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
But in order to receive an exemption for the case under the Ninth Circuit’s decision 1991 decision in Wind River Mining Corp. v. United States , opponents had to make a substantive challenge that the forest service lacked legal authority to make the exclusions, Judge McShane said.
“The problem in plaintiff’s argument is that NEPA is a procedural statute,” the judge said. “NEPA directs agencies to create categorical exclusions and requires certain procedures for doing so. It does not dictate specific substantive results.”
The USFS declined to comment Monday. A representative for the environmental groups did nots represented by Natalie K. Wight and Sean E. Martin of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon. The environmental groups are represented by Oliver J.H. Stiefel, Erin E. Hogan-Freemole and Meriel L. Darzen of Crag Law Center.

So that’s the legal side. I’m finding out more about the projects themselves. Interestingly the South Warner Project seems to be linked to MOG at least in the minds of some.

The South Warner Project includes commercial logging of large, old trees under the guise of “timber stand and wildlife habitat improvement,” said John Persell, Staff Attorney at Oregon Wild.  “It is yet another example of why a national rule protecting mature and old-growth forest stands is needed to address the climate and biodiversity crises.”

As a former NEPA practitioner, I wouldn’t have rolled the dice on Category 6, but if you’re going to roll the dice, you should go big, like 30K acres.

Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument:1.1 Mill Acres of Not-Mining?

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Exact size and boundaries of monument are not yet known.
Source: Bureau of Land Management

As for me, to know that with a flick of a pen the President can undo the painful and laborious work of RMPs and Forest Plans, it would not encourage me to spend volunteer hours working on them.  For employees, it reminds me of my old expression about planning.. “the pay’s the same” and “if you’re not the lead mule, the scenery never changes.” But maybe that’s just me.

The WaPo has an interesting story on the  Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument (proposed with so far unknown boundaries).

Federal officials have started telling tribal and environmental groups to be available for a potential Grand Canyon announcement early next week, which would fall during Biden’s travel, said four of the people, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an announcement not yet public.

Who needs those pesky old maps.. or talking to people in the area in some kind of public process?

“No decisions have been made,” White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in an email. “But I can tell you that President Biden has conserved more land and water in his first year than any president since JFK, and his climate protection record is unmatched.”
Apparently there are Important People and Groups who think that Biden hasn’t done enough things they want, so we can expect a flurry of “things those groups want” prior to the election.  Again, as  a volunteer, commenting on the FS MOG ANPR, the BLM public lands rule,  reducing royalties for solar and wind, the CEQ NEPA regs, more regs for oil and gas.. it’s a lot.
The way that the WaPo describes it, it’s all about uranium and Tribes that don’t want it.

Advocates have been lobbying for a monument designation in part to honor long-standing Native American connections to the Grand Canyon. For the Havasupai Tribe, Baaj Nwaavjo means “where tribes roam,” and for the Hopi Tribe, I’tah Kukveni means “our ancestral footprints.” Other tribes, including the Hualapai, which means “people of the tall pines,” also have advocated the designation.

“This monument will show that we are beginning to protect the lands of the world,” Dianna Sue WhiteDove Uqualla, a Havasupai Tribal Council member, said in a July statement anticipating the decision and provided by a coalition of monument advocates.

This is one of those areas in which it looks like low-carbon energy sources runs into the 30×30 idea, as well as Tribal spiritual values.  But we might be able to figure out who’s really holding the cards by comparing the Biden Admin position across different projects.  Anyway, here’s the industry position:

Industry officials said they will explore ways to fight the decision. They said it would lock up some of the country’s highest-grade uranium deposits at a time when such fuel would be useful to the country’s clean energy and geopolitical goals. Russia provides more than 20 percent of U.S. nuclear fuel, and Congress is actively exploring new laws to boost U.S. uranium production and enrichment in response to Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

In an email, Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development for Energy Fuels — one of the few uranium miners with operations in the United States — blasted the decision as making “zero sense.”

He said it contradicts several of the administration’s stated policies, including “supporting clean energy production and punishing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.”

Monument advocates have said only 1.3 percent of U.S. uranium reserves are in the Grand Canyon region.

That’s not my question.. mine would be “why do you need 1.1 mill acres to say “no uranium mining here”?”  Maybe that will come out in the announcement.

The announcement would help kick off an effort to promote Biden’s climate agenda, including progress from last year’s major climate-spending law, the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden is planning a three-state tour, with other stops in New Mexico and Utah, to talk about billions of dollars of investment that the law has prompted manufacturing companies to commit to making equipment that produces cleaner energy.

Arizona has become a major focus for Biden and other Democrats as they have gained ground politically in the state. The state has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of their big spending bills, with more than $8 billion in planned investment in a giant battery factory and other manufacturing developments, especially near Phoenix, according to the advocacy group Climate Power, which tracks such announcements.

In case you’re curious, here’s what the Biden Admin Energy Department had to say about the IRA and nuclear

Momentum is building for U.S. nuclear energy and the investments and tax incentives included in IRA guarantee a commitment to nuclear energy that will continue well throughout the nation’s journey to net-zero.

Wouldn’t a serious climate policy identify areas where renewables and mining are to occur? Otherwise it seems a bit like a leaf fluttering on random political winds.

For example, Tribes and environmental advocates tried to block the Thacker Pass lithium mine, also land considered to be sacred.  The Biden Admin was on the side of the mine. I guess we’re left to think that some Tribes are more important than others, some ENGOs are more important than others, or some States are more important than others based on some kind of political calculus.

Monumentizing Doesn’t Magically Produce More Funding: San Gabriel Version

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There’s an interesting LA Times article on the San Gabriel National Monument.  It’s easy for a Prez to designate something.. it’s easy to to claim that it’s now under “permanent protection”.. not so easy to have enough money to manage visitors..

Nine years after President Obama upgraded the region to monument status — an act intended to foster a cleaner and safer wilderness — park officials and volunteers have been struggling to cope with the consequences of surging visitation, particularly in summertime.

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But how exactly would making a Monument itself make something cleaner and safer?  And it’s not a Wilderness (granted I don’t exactly know what the reporter meant by wilderness). Maybe the Angeles needed more funding, not a Monument designation. I wonder how often this kind of “magically more money” thinking is involved in Monumentizing.

Refuse has been a health concern in the area since 2000, when the California Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered the Forest Service to reduce trash levels in the East Fork to zero within three years.

In response, rangers and volunteers were stationed at popular picnic sites to direct visitors to roadside trash bins and provide them with information about environmental issues and litter laws. They also posted “No Littering” signs printed in English and Spanish.

That strategy was abandoned a few years later because of budget cuts.

Now, there is renewed talk of devising strategies to limit visitors and instruct them on how to be better stewards of the environment.

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The flood of ill-behaved tourists isn’t the only reason for the area’s problems. Implementation of a management plan for the East Fork, finalized in 2019, was stalled by COVID-19 and a lawsuit.

“We desperately need an East Fork stewardship plan that is adequately funded and staffed,” said Isaac Brown, a senior scientist at Stillwater Sciences, a consulting firm specializing in restoring rivers and floodplains.

The Forest Service has long complained of high turnover rates in management, chronic budget cuts, and being unable to pay wages high enough to attract sufficient numbers of “forestry technicians” to remove all the trash that accumulates each day along the East Fork. Pay for such positions in Angeles National Forest start at about $43,600 a year, officials said.

Most of the Forest Service’s budget is set aside for wildfire protection, as well as repairing campgrounds, roads and infrastructure damaged by torrential rains earlier this year, officials said.

Some critics see a connection between chronic overcrowding and the promotional efforts of large nonprofits that seek to increase access to the monument. Critics say the organizations have failed to take into account the toll on wildlife and habitat.

A discarded BBQ grill rests atop a heap of trash beside a river.
Piles of trash have not only blighted the landscape in San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, they have also raised contamination concerns for one of the region’s largest watersheds.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Belen Bernal, executive director of Nature for All, a coalition of environmental and community groups that has long campaigned for more parks and safe outdoor opportunities in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, agrees — up to a point.

“It’s true that we are looking at increased access,” Bernal said. “But during the summer months it’s a whole different ball game. This is a management issue.

“We’re not entirely happy about the situation in the monument. Just a year away from its 10th anniversary, it still doesn’t have enough restrooms, dumpsters or even a visitor center.”