Here’s a link to this site that has a presentation on the project and the final report of the students.
“After a five-month project timeline, we produced a report that includes:
Methods and step-by-step guide to use GIS to focus on sites based on social justice and environmental conditions.
An evaluation matrix with environmental, policy, and social conditions that we used to evaluate and score the redevelopment potential for 9 former sawmill sites
A guide with practical questions and resources for residents and organizations in rural communities that want to pursue public funding to support site clean up.
A comprehensive evaluation of how public policies influence site redevelopment.
Find the final report below and reach out to us. We’d love to answer questions and talk about how we can move this work forward.”
Map of California showing 208 former sawmill sites (yellow) identified in a database from the U.S. Forest Service and University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Our team used the database as a starting point for evaluating former sawmill sites. Map by Thomas Miller.
I’m seeing a trend here. Yesterday I posted that folks at CEQ and NSC (!) seemed to be making decisions that formerly would have been made by agencies. Well, the Democratic Science Committee seems to have produced a bill to organize the wildfire research trough without USDA and DOI. Sure, they are looking out for the agencies they are responsible for (they aren’t responsible for other science agencies).. but it sounds a bit like a takeover bid for research long done by USDA and DOI. Maybe legislators need to organize/collaborate in a way that coordinates budgets and responsibilities across committees?
For some of us, when the Science Committee says “premier science agencies” we wince a little, since we know that doesn’t mean us at USDA and USGS. It means Big Science or the Science Establishment which are, of course, the agencies the Science Committee works with. It seems like not much has changed since I was OSTP in 2000. I may have told this story before, but we have many new readers, so here goes.
For those who haven’t worked with the DC Science Establishment, you would be surprised how much of it is about getting more research money for their institutions; and for the Big Science agencies, that means Big Bucks. I worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy at the Old Executive Office Building, now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It is a terrific building to work in, very historic, fossils on the floors, boarded up fireplaces and so on. They had old-sized offices, which meant that we Agency folks detailed there (known as Agency Representatives) had desks right next to each other. Mine was next to a nice gentleman from DOE.
At the time, the Los Alamos fires were big news. Sure enough, folks from Los Alamos came in and gave their spiel about how it had been brought to their attention that wildfire is a thing, and they needed lots of bucks to study it. This happened in our office, so of course I asked innocently “doesn’t the Forest Service study wildfire?”. At the time, I was working for Forest Service R&D, and the wildfire research folks were in my group, in fact my Forest Service boss at the time was Bill Sommers, a fire/atmosphere/climate scientist. The Los Alamos folks just looked at me.. as if to say “they don’t really count, don’t you get it?”
I once had lunch with a Stanford physicist who was my boss’s boss in the OSTP chain of command. He said that the problem with USDA (no joke) was that they had capped indirect costs. Which was ironic given the Stanford yacht and weddings apparently procured with indirect costs.. He said “you can’t get the best minds working on something with a cap like that, no one from MIT would touch it.” I can’t really imagine MIT folks working on wheat breeding, for example, in Kansas. I was polite, since he was my boss’s boss, there but.. the lesson is that people really thought this stuff, and it sounds like they still believe their own hype (I thought that was the occupational hazard of politicians, but..)
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I’ve noticed a generalized splatter of wildfire-ish funding patterns in the last few days. The webinar yesterday at University of New Mexico on Chris Marsh’s work studying reforestation practices to help people planting trees was funded by NIFA, a USDA agency that funds extramural work, in this case via the AFRI competitive grant program.
For her part, Grimm, who is the principal investigator on the project, got to work developing a survey to find out how people were getting information about wildfires and what information they might be missing.
“The purpose of the project is to really understand Flagstaff community members’ experiences — the challenges they might have experienced with wildfire communication,” Grimm said.
She wants to look at what people learned about operations such as fire mitigation, property defenses and evacuation preparedness. Then she wants to examine communication during an event — actual messaging about evacuation and on-the-ground firefighting efforts. Lastly, she seeks to research the qualitative experiences of individuals after a fire — how and if people learned about flood risk, insurance and funding availability.
I know it sounds somewhat like Katrin Edgeley’s social science work also at NAU, so I looked to see who was funding Katrin. It looks like JFSP, NCAR and NSF (NCAR is what I call the Temple of Climate in Boulder, and is funded by NSF). Here’s what we know-wildfire is already a funding free-for-all among agencies. And the D’s on the Science Committee want to increase the food at the trough for their favorite pigs.
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But maybe instead of more bucks, there should be a panel of the current science agencies and potential research users (imagine that!) to 1) figure out current overlaps and gaps and 2) require coordination among the agencies. Before any of them ask for more money. Just a thought. But that would be a bill by the “Good Government” party which currently doesn’t exist. NSF’s budget for 2023 was 10.99 billion, while JFSP’s was 4 million. Wouldn’t it make sense for some committee or board across agencies to recommend funding for agencies to do the research that they’re good at? And coordinate so research isn’t duplicative? And involve the communities that would be using the science in what are the problems and priorities?
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Looking back through my career, it seems like there has been a tendency to move research from “what people say they need help with” to “what scientists want to tell higher level decision makers to do.” There’s also been a tendency to move from the specific and local to the abstract and international. And coupled a tendency to leave out local practitioners from involvement in priorities and in some cases having a voice at all. Check out this paper about practitioners and the IPCC.
With lots of remote sensing and machine learning, I fear that people will be left out of the equation. They may become the target of social science to see how they get the right “messages” via NSF’s “disinformation” research, and aren’t given agency in making decisions about what is studied and how. Missing that link, science may lose trust and legitimacy among ordinary people. What we see is anecdotal, what they tell us they’ve observed from a satellite is “science.” The time to strengthen those connections. between the people and what should be their science, is now. IMHO.
So.. one of the things we do here at The Smokey Wire is to learn from each other. Today is our first published FOIA. I asked USDA and CEQ for FOIAs on the fire retardant issue, because I was curious as to who was calling the shots for the Admin position and what their backgrounds were to be able to make those kinds of calls. Remember at the time, we didn’t know whether the judge would enjoin fire retardant while the FS was applying for a permit, estimated to be 2-3 years.
Some people in the emails I know, some people I’ve heard of, and some were a surprise. Please bear with me, as there are several things about this which are above my pay grade. Also, if I got this story wrong, please correct me in the comments or send me an email. I don’t reveal sources and I really want to get the story right.
First, it seems that key people involved were with White House NSC, the National Security Council:
The National Security Council (NSC) is the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his or her senior advisors and cabinet officials. Since its inception under President Truman, the Council’s function has been to advise and assist the President and to coordinate matters of national security among government agencies.
If so, I guess fire retardant is related to national security.. but wouldn’t almost everything fit in the broader scope of “national security” then? It’s pretty cool that our humble world has come to the attention of the “big guns” (so to speak),” but folks could wonder “why, why now, and do these people know anything about wildfire? And shouldn’t there be something more directly related to National Security for them to work on?”
So I’m quite puzzled, and maybe you good folks at TSW can help me out.
Second, how do different agencies use “deliberative process privilege”? Is this consistent across agencies/levels? And why are some names and emails in and others blocked out? I’m hoping our legal minds at TSW will have a breadth of experience in this.
Third, I did not want to bring Scott Streater’s article-related drama up in this, but it turned up. It’s interesting to see how things work at White House with media, at least with some media, for some things.
Fourth, I worked closely with CEQ when I worked at the Office of Science and Techology Policy during the Clinton Administration. In fact, the interagency task force I co-led was chaired by CEQ and OSTP. As I recall, at that time, CEQ mostly focused on NEPA. It’s interesting that fire retardant doesn’t seem to have a NEPA nexus, it’s more of a Clean Water Act thing. So it’s interesting how much CEQ seems to be in the weeds of FS policy right now. I’ll go out on a limb here.. I don’t think that having people make decisions who don’t really know about the issue is a good idea for the country.
The 2020 Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment summarizes findings about the status, trends, and projected future of the Nation’s forests and rangelands and the renewable resources that they provide. The 2020 RPA Assessment specifically focuses on the effects of both socioeconomic and climatic change on the U.S. land base, disturbance, forests, forest product markets, rangelands, water, biodiversity, and outdoor recreation. Differing assumptions about population and economic growth, land use change, and global climate change from 2020 to 2070 largely influence the outlook for U.S. renewable resources. Many of the key themes from the 2010 RPA Assessment cycle remain relevant, although new data and technologies allow for deeper and wider investigation. Land development will continue to threaten the integrity of forest and rangeland ecosystems. In addition, the combination and interaction of socioeconomic change, climate change, and the associated shifts in disturbances will strain natural resources and lead to increasing management and resource allocation challenges. At the same time, land management and adoption of conservation measures can reduce pressure on natural resources. The RPA Assessment findings and associated data can be useful to resource managers and policymakers as they develop strategies to sustain natural resources.
As Jon noted earlier in a different thread, it’s hard to know what exactly groups mean by no “logging”.. so I’d like to bring this discussion to the forefront, because it seems important that we understand what words mean. We can’t even tell if we disagree or not if we don’t use the same definition.
“The public wants the nation’s mature forests and trees to be protected from the chainsaw, and with good reason,” said Garett Rose, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “They store carbon. They protect imperiled species. They safeguard key waterways. It’s well past time for the federal land managers to adopt a rule that durably protects these climate-critical trees — and lets them be a key ally in the climate right.”
(I think Rose meant “fight.”) But chainsaws can’t distinguish if felled trees are going to the sawmill or not.
So let’s look at an E&E story..
The agency reported that more than 495,000 comments came through regulations.gov, and environmental groups say they delivered additional comments in person Thursday as the comment period ended on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking.
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“The primary threat to mature and older forests is logging, not wildfire or climate change,” the Pacific Northwest chapters of Great Old Broads for Wilderness said in a letter typical of advocates for limiting timber production. The organization called for a halt to logging on mature and old-growth forests while the service contemplates a formal rulemaking procedure.
So the GOB group made that claim. That’s not what the data show in the ANPR, though. Unless “primary” has another meaning.
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Agency officials haven’t said how they’ll proceed on regulations or even whether they plan to offer new limits on timber production. But because the call for comments follows President Joe Biden’s executive order directing an inventory of mature and old-growth forest, the timber industry and advocates for more intensive forest management said they worry the latest moves are the first toward heavier restrictions.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Sierra Club and Environment America said preventing the logging of mature and old-growth forests on federal land should be a “cornerstone of U.S. climate policy.” While federal protections such as wilderness designations and roadless-area limits on timber operations prevent logging in many areas of national forests, as much as 50 million acres of mature and old-growth forest on federal land doesn’t have such designations, they said, referring to the recent Forest Service inventory. “If the government lets timber companies chop them down, it will eliminate one of the most effective tools for removing the atmospheric carbon that exacerbates climate change. In addition, it would eliminate essential habitats for countless species and degrade the land,” the groups said in a news release.
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Environment America’s public lands campaign director, Ellen Montgomery, said Friday that while it’s not clear how the Forest Service will proceed, she doubts the administration would put such effort into the matter without planning to propose specific regulations. Time is short, though, she acknowledged, with Biden facing reelection in 2024 and the outcome uncertain. Although the rulemaking could touch on many issues, limiting timber production from national forests is an obvious choice, Montgomery said. “Logging is pretty simple to address,” she said. “We have complete control over what trees get logged or don’t get logged.”
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From the discussion in this news article, it seems like this is the old “no commercial harvest” discussion. But in many places, there is no market or infrastructure and trees are burned in piles. So it’s not clear what these groups mean exactly (we’ll look into their actual comment letters); if a fuels reduction project/thinning is proposed, would it be OK to fall the thinned material and burn it in piles rather than allow feds to sell it and be used? And it seems to be about “timber” and perhaps not so much about use for fuelwood or bioenergy? Because the Forest Service and other parts of USDA are researching uses for small diameter heretofore unsaleable material from both private and public lands. So does it really mean no cutting, no using at all, no commercial use, or no using for sawtimber?
The confusion about what “logging” means led in the Colorado Roadless Rule to us using the term “tree-cutting” to clarify that trees can be cut without being removed. So that gets us into details of the prescription and the harvesting (or not) plan. Many years ago (fortyish?) the silviculturists in our area went on a field trip to Lake Tahoe, where they were removing fire-wood sized chunks in wheelbarrows because residents didn’t want the smoke from burnpiles. On the other hand, many of the people currently involved in MOG (in some interest groups) don’t have backgrounds in on-the-ground practices, so maybe they’re not aware of all these possible complexities.
Heller also quotes NAFSR (the Forest Service Retirees’ Organization)
The National Association of Forest Service Retirees, in a comment letter, said retaining and expanding mature and old-growth forest isn’t a goal grounded in law.
The association cited the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960, which established that all forest uses must be considered in planning and management of the land, and said further restrictions on harvest of mature and old-growth trees may go against parts of a 2012 planning rule that’s supposed to govern Forest Service policy.
Drawing on more recent legislation, the retirees group said the potential rulemaking could run against the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided money for stepped-up thinning of federal forests to reduce wildfire threats, including creation of forest fuel breaks.
Now I can’t speak for NAFSR nor other retirees (remember Jon and Jim Furnish and so many more are all retirees!) but I will add my own perspective (and I hope other retirees and others) do as well.
The Congress, at least the House, is interested in spending fuel treatment dollars wisely and getting the funded work done. Remember this “counting fuel acres accountability” bill from spring this year?
As for me, I really don’t care if such a proposed rule would be against MUSYA except for the fact that it would likely be litigated on that basis. What I mind is asking the agency and partners to revise or terminate the fuel reduction and resilience treatments they’ve been dutifully working on. We know that the Forest Service is having trouble finding skilled employees. It seems like setting them up for even more morale-busting confusion now and down the road. I want the few of them available to be working on PODs and prescribed and managed fire plans on my neighboring forests, and giving recreation the attention it deserves.
And if such a “no logging” proposal were to go through, then they would be placed in the weird “maybe-yes we can, maybe-no we can’t” space when AFRC and others litigate and at the same time Congress reacts. Which to my mind wouldn’t be good for employee nor partner morale.
Finally, where do the collaborative groups fit into such a proposed rule? Such a rule could potentially nationalize decisions and override agreements made with local and practitioner knowledge in specific places- as different as the Tongass and the Ocala.
I only recently started specifically looking for BLM cases, so I may be catching up late on some of them. Most seem to involve mining and energy. (This summary includes one Forest Service case.)
New lawsuit: Center for Biological Diversity v. Haaland (D. Nev.)
On July 7, CBD and Amargosa Conservancy challenged the BLM’s authorization of the Let’s Go Lithium mineral exploration project on federal lands in BLM’s Pahrump Planning Area, in the vicinity of springs in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, and two BLM Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. Lithium mining requires a lot of water. The project would involve up to 30 exploratory drillholes. The proposal allegedly violates FLPMA, NEPA and indirectly ESA (with regard to consultation on 12 species). On July 17 plaintiffs filed a motion for a temporary injunction. The article includes a link to the complaint. Also, according to this article, “under federal law, most exploratory projects on public land are not required to submit a plan of operation, complete an environmental analysis, or solicit public comment.” A representative of the Conservancy was quoted:
“We are collectively witnessing what is inarguably the greatest transformation of public lands in our nation’s history, and western Nevada’s Amargosa Desert is at the epicenter of this change. Renewable energy development and lithium extraction are the twin priorities driving this transformation forward at an unprecedented scale and pace.”
His reference to renewable energy was probably to the Interior Department’s recent sale of leases for solar development on 23,675 acres in or near the Amargosa Valley Solar Energy Zone, a designated solar leasing area with high solar potential and what the Bureau of Land Management in a 2012 analysis characterized as an area of low resource conflict. The BLM identified the Amargosa valley as one of 17 nationwide solar energy zones wherein solar energy projects are encouraged. (The BLM is currently processing 74 utility-scale solar, wind and geothermal projects on public lands in the western United States. An additional 150 solar and wind development applications are undergoing preliminary reviews.)
“Utility-scale solar does not have a huge annual consumption of water during operation, but construction activities can use thousands of acre-feet of water for a single facility. If BLM is going to develop tens of thousands of acres of solar in this area, it could potentially take tens of thousands of acre feet of water,” said Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin director of the Center for Biological Diversity. He contrasted the lack of a plan for this area with the BLM California’s Desert Renewable Energy and Conservation Plan.
This article also summarizes a number of lawsuits over renewable energy proposals.
Court decision in Western Watersheds Project v. McCullough (9th Cir.)
On July 17, the 9th Circuit affirmed a district court holding that the Bureau of Land Management had not violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal laws when it approved the Thacker Pass lithium mine. This did not address the district court’s order that the BLM complete additional analysis of how the mine will handle waste and tailings in accordance with the 1872 mining law, and it means the mine development can continue while that analysis occurs. The court also ruled the BLM acted “reasonably and in good faith” in its consultation with tribes. “This is the first time in public land history that we have a major project violating a number of provisions but is allowed to go forward,” Roger Flynn, the director of the Colorado-based Western Mining Action Project, told the 9th Circuit panel during oral arguments in Pasadena on June 27. (The article includes a link to the opinion, and here is further background.)
Here is an interesting perspective from “The Voice of the Automotive World.”
In other news, the mining company has sued protesters for what they deemed “nonviolent prayer” protests at the mine site. Lithium Americas was forced to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office when protesters got “dangerously close” to construction equipment.
On June 20, eight environmental groups challenged the Coronado National Forest’s approval of the Sunnyside and Flux Canyon exploratory mineral drilling projects in the Patagonia Mountains for copper, lead, zinc and silver (discussed here). On July 13, they gave the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service a 60-day notice of intent to sue for Endangered Species Act violations affecting Mexican spotted owls, yellow-billed cuckoos, jaguars, and ocelots. On July 14 they asked for a preliminary injunction on their existing claims. We also discussed another mine in the same area that was being fast-tracked for its rare metals by the Biden Administration. From this article, it does not sound like there will be litigation on the Hermosa Project.
In September 2020, a coalition of conservation groups including Friends of the Floridas, New Mexico Wild, WildEarth Guardians, Gila Resources Information Project, and Amigos Bravos sued BLM to reverse the agency’s simultaneous approvals of construction and operation of a dolomite mine, and the exploration activity required to prove the value of the mineral claim in the Florida Mountains in southwest New Mexico. On July 12, 2023, the Federal District Court for the District of New Mexico heard oral arguments involving violations of NEPA and FLPMA.
As discussed here, the lawsuit against the BLM’s decision to allow Ormat Technologies to develop geothermal resources in Dixie Meadows east of Reno in habitat for the recently listed Dixie Valley toad has been on hold at the request of the developer. BLM has now decided, “As a result of its ESA consultation efforts and new information it has determined that it would be prudent to revisit the environmental review underlying the project. BLM does not intend to authorize any such new construction until the conclusion of the environmental review.” Ormat supports the delay.
The public is invited to attend a virtual informational engagement session about the mature and old-growth forests initiative on Monday, July 24 at 2pm ET. Information will be shared about where we were, where we are, and what is next. The session will be an opportunity for you to share your thoughts, concerns and to ask questions. We value your time and aim to make the 2-hour session informational, interactive, and worthwhile!
To attend, please register for the virtual Zoom meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation with a meeting link.
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Several of us attended one today for specific kinds of partners. It was very helpful to understand where the FS is coming from. I’m still confused about how data that is not ground-truthed (not actually true) can be used to make national and regional decisions, but that’s kind of a more epistemological question. Also I’m getting fairly leery of mapping exercieses.. data has confidence intervals associated with it… map colors not so much. Anyway, I think it’s well worth it. It’s also interesting to hear others’ points of view and realize how very different different parts of the country are and how hard it will be for the FS to develop a regional or national policy that makes any sense.
“The situation has grown so dire that the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California saw 42 resignations in 48 hours in May, officials said.”
I guess we’ll see Congress extend the extra pay, but the firefighters want other issues addressed, too.
Montana wildlife agents sometimes use drones to chase grizzly bears away from farms and ranches on the high plains. (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks)
Some of us have been working on the BLM Proposed Rule and the FS ANPR, so I thought a nice Friday roundup with people agreeing on stuff would be relaxing.
This is a long and comprehensive story, well worth reading. It’s interesting that bipartisan lawmakers agree, but not so much the FS and NPS.
For Hickenlooper, a longtime booster of outdoor recreation, it makes complete sense for Congress to step in and clear up any confusion or questions about whether fixed anchors can continue to be used across many types of federal land.
“We wanted to make sure there was absolute clarity that this is an essential part of wilderness areas as well as our National Parks,” Hickenlooper said.
Back in Washington D.C., Hickenlooper got language that would allow the continued use of fixed anchors for rock climbing in wilderness areas added to a bill that is now awaiting a full senate vote.
Over in the House, a bipartisan pair of Western lawmakers, GOP Rep. John Curtis of Utah and Colorado Democrat Joe Neguse, is working to pass similar legislation. During a hearing on the PARC Act, Neugse said it’s simply about ensuring a clear standard for a practice that’s been going on for years.
“There are a number of national forests that have in effect changed the rules of the game, right? They’ve begun to treat these fixed anchor devices differently than they have been treated previously,” he said.
Curtis added it’s about “creating a predictable standard for the rock climbing community, who have been using wilderness areas since their inception, and, if I might say so, are among our most predictable caretakers of these wilderness areas and who care deeply about protecting them.”
The House version of the policy is also awaiting a full vote in the chamber.
But this idea may have a hard climb ahead of it. The National Forest Service and the National Park Service have both raised concerns, saying it would, in effect, be changing the Wilderness Act by allowing permanent installations in areas that are supposed to remain as pristine as possible.
And earlier this year, Chris French, Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, said in the hearing that the policy is also unnecessary, because they’re already working on guidance around the issue.
“I believe you’ll see that almost every issue that’s been brought forward in your bill will be addressed,” he assured the House committee members.
According to a spokesperson for the Forest Service, the agency is close to publishing the long awaited draft guidance, which would then be open for 60 days of comments. But they don’t have a set timeline for how soon that will be out.
I like this story about grizzlies from the Cowboy State Daily. Since on TSW we mostly hear that this or that FS project needs to analyze for grizzlies more, this is a nice break- farmers and ranchers seem to be dealing with grizzlies coming back to the plains – of course with lots of help from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks folks..
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Managing Wyoming’s grizzly bears has come with its challenges, but Montana wildlife officials have a unique quandary – prairie grizzlies.
“People in the ‘gap areas’ (between the Yellowstone and Glacier park ecosystems) were already used to black bears” and so they’ve adjusted to grizzlies moving in, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks department spokeswoman Danielle Oyler.
“Whereas the folks out on the plains, they didn’t have black bears there. So having grizzlies show up has been a huge challenge,” Oyler told Cowboy State Daily.
Montana’s prairie grizzlies are an “unintended consequence” of the overall grizzly recovery program, FWP bear management specialist Wesley Sarmento told Cowboy State Daily.
“There’s a lot of folks uncomfortable with grizzlies being out here,” said Sarmento, who is based in Conrad, Montana, about 60 miles north of Great Falls. “They didn’t expect to have grizzlies out here. And in the original planning documents for grizzly recovery, there was no mention of grizzlies being out here.”
Home On The Range
Grizzly bears are well-adapted to life on the prairie. They evolved from brown bears on the wide-open steppes of Russia, and at one time occupied most of the Great Plains.
But in Montana, they’ve made a home on the range. Grizzlies have pushed well into northern prairie habitat around small communities such as Conrad and Augusta, Oyler said.
“They go well out into the prairies now. They are definitely out in prairie settings,” she said.
The land there is largely private, mostly vast grain farms and cattle ranches, Sarmento said. And adjusting to grizzlies has been tough for prairie folks.
“Kids used to able to run free in the summers and go down to the creeks and go fishing,” he said. “And that’s a lot harder to do right now because of the chance of a grizzly encounter.”
Even so, the grizzlies are probably there to stay, Sarmento said.
“There is a breeding population of grizzlies on the plains, and it’s more and more every year,” he said.
Bruins Making A Comeback
Grizzlies are popping up in many places across Montana where they haven’t been seen in decades, Oyler added. Even some larger communities, such as the state capital of Helena, have bruins nearby.
A grizzly was recently spotted roughly 30 miles south of Billings, as the crow flies, in the the Pryor Mountains. The Pryors extend into Wyoming and are adjacent to the Bighorn Mountains. It was the first verified sighting of a grizzly in the Pryor range since the 1800s.
Grizzlies need only the basics to reclaim habitat, Oyler said.
“What’s ideal for them is good food and availability of cover,” she said.
For cover on Montana’s northern plains, grizzlies have taken advantage of natural river bottoms as well as “shelter belts” of trees and shrubbery planted by humans for wind breaks, she said.
There are abundant natural food sources for grizzlies, depending upon the season, Sarmento said.
In the spring, grizzlies can feast on roots and fresh green prairie grass, he said. And they also might occasionally kill whitetail deer fawns.
During the summer, they switch to gorging on wild berries and chokecherries. In the fall they can finish off wounded deer that escaped human hunters or eat gut piles that hunters leave behind.
The trouble begins when they develop a taste for livestock, Sarmento and Oyler said. It might start with grizzlies raiding carcass dumps where ranchers leave piles of dead cattle.
“They get into ranchers’ ‘dead piles.’ And, unfortunately, they sometimes kill ranchers’ livestock,” she said.
Even when cattle carcasses have decayed, grizzlies can get ample calories and rich nutrients from the bones, Sarmento said. But FWP doesn’t like the bruins hanging around carcass piles, because it puts grizzlies in close proximity to people and livestock, upping the chances for conflicts.
“We’ve started a carcass clean-up program” to help mitigate such grizzly magnets, he said.
Piles of grain spilled during harvest can also draw grizzlies, because grain is an easy and calorie-packed meal for the bears, he added. So FWP also encourages farmers to be diligent about cleaning gain spills.
This grizzly was recently tranquilized and collared by Montana wildlife agents for guard dog research project testing to see if livestock guard dogs are effective at keeping bears away from farms with grain spills. (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks)
‘Young, Dumb Bears’
Older, wiser bears have managed to adapt well to the northern plains without raising a ruckus, Sarmento said. But with juveniles trying to strike out on their own, it can be a different story.
“For the most part, the bears are pretty good at staying out of trouble. Most of the bears we’ve had trouble with are young, dumb bears,” he said.
Those are typically bears that have recently separated from their mothers and push “east, even farther out on to the prairie” in search of new territory, Sarmento said.
What’s more, they can be much younger than Wyoming sub-adult grizzlies, which usually separate from their mothers around age 2 or 3.
“This area is a system of relatively low risk and high resources for grizzlies. In these kinds of systems, we see young bears getting kicked out on their own by their mothers as yearlings, instead of the typical two-year-olds or three-year-olds,” he said. “And the yearlings can be really dumb.”
Hazing Usually Works
To help keep grizzlies — particularly the young, dumb ones — from getting crossways with farmers and ranchers, FWP has found that hazing is effective, Sarmento said.
“Most bears respond to hazing,” he said. “We use dogs, rubber bullets or cracker shells.”
Cracker shells fire a charge from shotguns. The charge explodes in mid-air, like a large firecracker.
FWP also uses drones to chase bears away from places they shouldn’t be, Sarmento added.
When hazing doesn’t work, FWP might trap bears and relocate them to mountain wilderness areas. There have been only a few cases in which wildlife agents have had to kill prairie grizzlies, he said.
FWP has also launched a guard dog program on some farms, he said.
“We’ve found that dogs are pretty good at scaring grizzlies away from farms where there have been gain spills,” Sarmento said.
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Please feel free to add any stories for discussion in the comments.
Court decision in Friends of the River v. U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (D. D.C.)
On June 21, the district court required the Corps to release documents about dam operations that it had tried to withhold using the deliberative process exemption (Exemption 5). That exemption requires that a record be pre-decisional and deliberative, and also that its release would cause foreseeable harm. The Corps provided mostly “generalized explanations” for not providing the records, and did not articulate “[a] link between the specified harm and the specific information contained in the material withheld,” as required by the Freedom of Information Act (such as emails, in particular). FOIA applies government-wide and this type of response from agencies is not unusual (says a former Forest Service regional FOIA coordinator).
ESA delays
New lawsuit: Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. Ariz.)
On June 22, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failure to meet statutory ESA deadlines related to listing 13 species. The claims include failure to issue final rules to list the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, Peñasco least chipmunk, Mt. Rainier white-tailed ptarmigan, 4 unlisted distinct population segments (“DPS”) of the foothill yellow-legged frog, 6 Texas freshwater mussels and the wider ranging pyramid pigtoe mussel; failure to issue an initial timely 12-month finding for the tall western penstemon; and failure to finalize critical habitat protection for the Pacific marten coastal DPS. The article on mussels provides access to the complaint.
Court decision in Chapman v. U. S. Forest Service (E.D. Cal.)
On June 23, the district court “screened” a case from a plaintiff not represented by an attorney (“pro se”) challenging special use roadway permits for a commercial recreational development on private land, adjacent to the Stanislaus national forest and adjacent to plaintiff’s property. The court held,
Plaintiff’s complaint fails to comply with Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8, 18 and 20 and fails to state a cognizable claim upon which relief may be granted. As Plaintiff is proceeding pro se, the Court will grant Plaintiff an opportunity to amend his complaint to cure these deficiencies to the extent he is able to do so in good faith
Court decision in Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Gassman (D. Mont.)
On June 26, the district court held that the Kootenai National Forest failed to adequately analyze the effects of the Ripley vegetation management project on grizzly bears and Canada lynx, especially the cumulative effects of roads on grizzly bears, both public and private. The record provided no evidence that lynx were not present in the area. The court also stated, “The court and the public should not have to embark on a scavenger hunt through a nearly 30,000 page administrative record to find information that the biological opinion itself was supposed to disclose.” More in this article.
Red Rocks Lake Wilderness water diversion
New lawsuit
On June 26, Wilderness Watch, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Gallatin Wildlife Association, and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, challenging its plan to construct and operate a water-diversion pipeline to help arctic grayling within the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness Area in a national wildlife refuge in southwestern Montana. They allege violations of the wilderness act, especially in light of other measures that could be taken to help the species, and question the science. Fishery groups have supported the proposal. (Interesting how the two articles had different takes and quotes on the issue.)
Dismissal and attorney fees for Monroe County Board of Commissioners v. U. S. Forest Service (S.D. Ind.)
On June 27, after the court granted a preliminary injunction against the Houston South Vegetation Management and Restoration Project on the Hoosier National Forest (discussed here), the Forest Service agreed to dismiss the case and pay attorney fees of $70,000.
Court decision in Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Jeffries (9th Cir.)
On July 3, the circuit court affirmed the district court decision and upheld the Ochoco National Forest’s approval of the Walton Lake Restoration Project against claims of NEPA violations. (The opinion includes a short summary.) Also, in relation to deliberative documents, such as those subject to the FOIA ruling above, the court held that they need not be included in the administrative record in litigation.
Court decision in Donohoe v. U. S. Forest Service (9th Cir.)
On July 6, the circuit court dismissed NEPA claims as moot for the “Bridge Project” and the “Trail Project” on the Custer-Gallatin National Forest because they had been completed, and ESA claims were dismissed additionally because of failure to give the agency a notice of intent to sue.
Mountain Valley Pipeline
Continuing saga
On July 10, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals halted construction of the last section of the 303-mile Mountain Valley pipeline to run through the Jefferson National Forest while it considered a petition for review by parties who have been opposing the project from its outset. On July 14, attorneys for the pipeline asked the Supreme Court to vacate the stays ordered by the circuit court based on language in the federal debt ceiling legislation. Opponents of the pipeline argue that Congress acted outside its constitutional authority because the Mountain Valley debt deal provision (discussed here) effectively determined the outcome of cases still before the courts, a separation of powers issue.
In the “not yet news” category, “The BLM is reviewing the court’s decision and has not issued any new guidance regarding corner crossing,” says the agency referring to the issue of walking between isolated sections of public land. On the other hand, its director says, “Our solicitors think it’s pretty clear.” The view from the outside? “Until we get a declaration from the 10th Circuit yay or nay, we’re still going to do a little bit of head scratching.”
