The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views
Community Sourced, Shared and Supported
From the AZ Daily Sun: “U.S. Forest Service hopes new minimum rates can help clear forests” — thanks to Nick Smith of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities for the link. In areas with no-value biomass, paying to have it hauled away may be an option to leaving it in place or burning it. The U.S. Forest … Read more
This is the second of two posts on the Washington Post story here about the Medicine Bow Landscape Vegetation Analysis LAVa project. All project information available here. As to environmental groups, there’s a quote from Chris Topik, at The Nature Conservancy: “If we are going to have a chance at combating climate change, forests are … Read more
You don’t expect the Washington Post to take an interest in what’s going on in Wyoming, so this story was something of a surprise. The take-home message is that forests are trying landscape-scale NEPA. We’ve heard from many scientists and others that we need to “increase the pace and scale of treatments to get fire … Read more
Everybody wins? “So were Flagstaff officials prescient when they proposed what, at the time, was one of the first municipal partnerships with a national forest to have lands outside city boundaries thinned at city expense?” “Hindsight is 20-20, but it sure looks that way to us. Armed with a $10 million budget, the Forest Service … Read more
By Jay Lininger http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20140202old-growth-logging-undercuts-forest-restoration.html The old “yellow-belly” ponderosa pines anchoring the majestic forests of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim grew up long before European settlement. Precious few remain. More than 1,000 of them will be lost forever in the “Wild Buck” timber sale later this year, undercutting U.S. Forest Service claims that it is restoring … Read more
Found these PSAs for Colorado Forest Products (TM) in my email this afternoon. The Colorado State Forest Service is very excited to announce that next week our first series of public service announcements (PSAs) featuring our Colorado Forest Products™ program will begin airing on the networks of 9News (KUSA, KTVD). The creative process involved with … Read more
I think it’s interesting to observe how the existing industry who effectively provide jobs and make things that people use (“timber industry”) is often referred to pejoratively..”corporate logging interests.” Or people using firewood for energy; it’s really fairly invisible to the national discussions. However, new uses of wood for energy apparently have a different filter … Read more
Given recent discussion of 4FRI contractors and the difficulty of selling trees in Arizona despite years of efforts, this article talks about the Black Hills, which seems to be selling 20K acres per year and is asking for bucks for 30K. I couldn’t reproduce the photo of the photogenic Forest Supervisor, Craig Bobzien, and Senator … Read more
The following article, written by Claudine LoMonaco, appeared in the Santa Fe Reporter recently. The article provides a number of details about a series of alleged lies, deceits and questionable business practices concerning Pioneer Forest Products, described as an “under-the-radar company from Montana” that “lied about its work history in its proposal to the federal … Read more
Here’s a story from the Rapid City Journal on attempts (with CEQ) to design NEPA documents and decisions in a more flexible way. Here’s an AP story as well, not so clear about the NEPA, more about the funding. Black Hills National Forest officials will rely on streamlined regulations and extensive commercial tree thinning in … Read more