Sisikiyou County files suit re: owl “critical habitat”

I was just headed out, when this came in from Sisikiyou County Commissioner, Marcia Armstrong. My opinions of hoot owl varietals and “scientific” designations of so-called “critical habitat” are well known to people familiar with my opinions, and can probably be inferred by my choice of adjectives. Once this is posted, I will email the link back to Marcia so she can monitor (and maybe even participate) in any possible discussion on this. Also, so she can distribute to Brian and her own network of scientists, politicians, landowners, and resource managers.

NEWS RELEASE

SISKIYOU COUNTY CHALLENGES CRITICAL HABITAT

DESIGNATIONS FOR NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL

Contact: Brian Morris, County Counsel March 22, 2013

(530) 842-8100 or

[email protected] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Yreka, CA – Siskiyou County has joined with the Carpenters Industrial Council, the American Forest Resource Council, and a number of forest products companies to file a lawsuit in Washington, D.C. challenging the latest critical habitat designation for the northern spotted owl.

The lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to address violations of the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Administrative Procedure Act. The defendants are Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Daniel Ashe.

“With the new habitat designations, the Fish and Wildlife Service is doubling down on a strategy that has been failing for over two decades,” said Supervisor Marcia Armstrong. “We will not just stand by as forest health continues to decline, catastrophic fires increase, and our economy suffers the consequences of failed federal policies.”

“The County issued repeated warnings to the Fish and Wildlife Service about their flawed approach, but our request for appropriate coordination was denied,” said County Counsel Brian Morris. “This lawsuit should be a warning to other federal and state agencies that the Board of Supervisors will not tolerate violations of procedural and substantive laws when agency actions are hurting the people of Siskiyou County.”

Critical habitat for the owl was originally designated in 1992 and revised in 2008. A lawsuit successfully challenged the 2008 designations, and the court ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to start over again. The third attempt was completed in November 2012.

The lawsuit alleges that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to conduct proper analysis of economic impacts and consider detailed economic data submitted by a coalition of forest counties. The lawsuit also argues that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to integrate measures to fight the invasion of the competing barred owl into its spotted owl strategy, and that the agency’s determinations are legally unsustainable because of numerous errors in science, modeling, and statistical analysis.

“The repeated failures of the Fish and Wildlife Service underline the need for reform of the Endangered Species Act and the laws governing management of our National Forests,” said Supervisor Michael Kobseff. “We call on Congress to ensure that the current session does not end without enactment of reforms that will put our forests back on a path to healthy management and restore economic opportunity in forest communities.”

The County is working actively on federal legislation to establish a pilot project on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest demonstrating innovative, effective, and economical forest management practices.

The Interior Department will have 30 days to respond to the lawsuit. The timeline to get to a decision from the federal district court will likely take most of a year.

Conflict Resolution Learning, The Four Agreements, and Moving the Goalposts

So, for now, it’s hard for you all to go back through past posts. Fortunately, I can and I found one that I think has been overlooked again, again from John, who got me started on the ESA post here. I think John hit on a rich vein of gold for discussion, that may end up being deeper and more meaningful on this topic than anything we’ve had to date. Because I think it’s so important, and fundamental to helping Legal World and Physical World people to stop talking past each other, I’d like to bring up the Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz

You can read about where the Four Agreements various places including here. The author of the blog post, John Johnson, is a professor of psychology so perhaps it is the “best available science”, which, clearly, we should all use!. Suffice it to say that many people have found these helpful in working through relationships with others. Perhaps organizations can’t do these for various reasons, and that would be worth exploring. But I think that fundamentally “not doing what you say you are going to do” is the basis for serious trust problems, that clearly we have on both “sides” and in the middle.

They are:
1. Be impeccable with your word. Moving the goalposts of what you say you want to resolve an issue is one example, or not monitoring when you said you would, or not following BMP’s.

2. Don’t take anything personally.

Sharon’s 2a Don’t mean anything personally. Castigate the behavior not the person (or the sin and not the sinner if you prefer that language). I think it’s important not to get caught up in that and I will provide an example. I think using “organization x” “district ranger y” will help depersonalize the issues.

3. Don’t make assumptions. (see how real this is? Matthew thought I was doing that yesterday)

4. Always do your best. (not sure that this relates to our discussion, but still worthwhile)

Anyway, back to John who said here

When I took natural resource conflict resolution courses at the University of Montana (several years ago) the instructors talked about your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). If your BATNA outweighed what you’d be getting in the collaborative, it was time to think long and hard about going with the BATNA.

What do folks think about a situation in which a group starts in a collaborative process but then determines that their interests/needs won’t be met through a collaborative process? In other words, if you go into it looking to collaborate but determine your needs won’t be met are you then allowed to go to court?

So John caused me to think about a couple of things. One is that perhaps we could get a volunteer to teach a mini- course for us in conflict resolution. I learned from Keith Allred at the Kennedy School SES training. But the training I wanted to take from the USIECR was fairly expensive and I couldn’t justify it with waning budgets and looming retirement. So we should probably explore that further.. if we could all learn together. Maybe a project for a graduate student? Retiree?

The second is that we learned about BATNA’s and did exercises using labor relations. But using those same thoughts frames the question as “us versus them.” Before I retired, we had an excellent all day training on the “Partnership Agreement.” One of the things they talked about (I think in terms of administrative grievances or discrimination complaints) was “”negotiating in good faith.”

So here’s my example. This reminded me of environmental organization X. We had worked on Colorado Roadless for seven years. At each comment period they moved the bar. In fact, I had developed a table of all the different times they wrote (this is public) and told us what they wanted. Each time we gave it to them, and they moved the bar, which I showed in the table. They must think it is OK to do this, because they were getting more of what they wanted (or is that making assumptions?) But they were not being impeccable with their word as far as I can tell. Does the end justify the means? (I don’t know why it was so important to please them- they had the ear of R and D administrations, but that’s another issue).

So my answer to John’s question, is “just be upfront with your needs. Write them down. Share them. Then litigate if you don’t get your “needs” met. But don’t tell us that the real problem is that folks wrote one page instead of five pages on cumulative effects, when you really don’t want to cut down trees there.” It is perhaps too strong to say that that that behavior is dishonest, because the system works that way, but that’s how it feels to some of us in Physical World.

Blog Volunteer Needed!

Bob correctly pointed out that it’s a pain in the patootie to catch up on comments because the widget on the right hand side of the screen only holds 15 comments. I have exhausted my meager WordPress skills as it appears that that is an upper limit, based on what I can find out. There could be work-arounds but it would take some time and better skills than I have to suss them out.

Your reward would be deep appreciation from all of us and a six-pack (or equivalent in dollars) from me.

Lawsuit alleges MT FWP allowing trapping in occupied lynx habitat in violation of ESA

lynx_trapped_PhotoThis is a follow-up post to a few previous posts we had on the blog regarding Canada Lynx, including the fact that the US Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t produced a recovery plan for Canada lynx, even though the species was listed as “threatened” 13 years ago.  What follows is the press release from the conservation organizations, which filed the lawsuit. – mk
____________________

Helena, MT.  Three conservation organizations today sued the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission and the agency’s director for permitting trapping that kills and injures Canada lynx, a species protected as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The state permits trapping and snaring in lynx habitat, even though the Act prohibits harm to protected species. At least nine Montana lynx have been captured in traps set for other species in Montana since the species was listed in March 2000, and four are known to have died from trapping.

“In one instance, a young female lynx was found in a pool of her own blood, with extensive muscle damage, and an empty stomach – all from lingering far too long in a cruel, steel-jawed trap,” stated Wendy Keefover, Carnivore Protection Program Director for WildEarth Guardians, “Montana allowed this unnecessary death, which impedes lynx recovery, especially when it involves potential breeding animals.”

Population estimates for lynx in Montana are unknown. The best available science estimates that no more than 300 lynx inhabit Montana and that the population is declining from both indirect and direct threats such cutting the forests in their habitats, human encroachment, global warming, and mortalities from poaching and trapping.

Lynx are particularly vulnerable to traps and snares set for other species, such as bobcats, coyotes, foxes, and wolverines, and are potentially vulnerable to wolf traps. Lynx are easily captured as they are naïve about human scents, respond well to baits, and are easily attracted to visual lures.

Though lynx trapping is banned since the animal is protected under the ESA, Montana allows regulated trapping of a number of other species throughout the year. The conservation groups allege that trapping and snaring in occupied lynx habitat is illegal because the Endangered Species Act mandates that states prevent the “take” of “threatened” lynx.

Even Canada lynx that survive being captured in body-gripping traps endure physiological and psychological trauma, dehydration, and exposure as well as injuries to bone and tissue that reduces their fitness and chances for persistence. Trapping is also a source of indirect mortality to lynx kits since adults harmed or killed by traps and snares cannot adequately feed and nurture their young.

“Crippled or dead lynx can’t take care of their young,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “If we want to get lynx off the Endangered Species list, we need species’ recovery, not more mortalities and mutilations.”

“Baited traps lure lynx to injury and death,” said Arlene Montgomery, Program Director for Friends of the Wild Swan. “Montana has a responsibility to ensure that imperiled species are not harmed by trapping. Our goal is to make sure that the State does just that.”

The groups are represented by attorneys Matt Bishop and Greg Costello of Western Environmental Law Center, and Melissa Hailey of W. Randolph Barnhart, P.C.


Lumber finally rises from the forest floor

Will trees like this someday find a home other than a burn pile? Along a road in Wyoming.
Will trees like this someday find a home other than a burn pile? Along a road in Wyoming.

This article on lumber markets seemed timely for a variety of reasons. It seems to me that we are looking at a window where, if we can find a solution, we will be helping rural communities, sustaining forests and in some cases offsetting costs of fuel reduction and hazard abatement (dead trees along roads, see photo). And for those which would have been otherwise burned in piles, helping to sequester carbon. Seems like a win win, if we all can agree on sustainable practices.

Here’s the link and below is an excerpt:

Lumber prices hit an eight-year high last week, thanks in large part to the U.S. housing market thawing out after a long deep freeze and rising overseas demand.

“The last few years have been a slow recovery from the recession for wood products,” Phil Tedder, a forestry consultant at Resource Economics, told the Los Angeles Times. “The main consumer was new housing, and that obviously wasn’t very good. But now things are picking up.”

California’s long-established timber industry is also hauling itself off the forest floor. According to the Times, sawmills shut down by the recession have reopened, and trucking companies that deliver cut wood out of state are seeing business improve. The newspaper also notes lumber prices have jumped 40% just in the past year’s time.

Also, China’s seemingly endless hunger for raw materials has extended to American timber. The U.S. Forest Service says log exports from Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Northern California increased about 9% in the third quarter of 2012 — with 62% of those West Coast log exports going to China.

In a report from ABC News, timber industry newsletter Random Lengths said the composite price for the framing lumber used in home construction was up last month to $415 per 1,000 board feet, compared to $284 a year ago. Plywood and paneling prices are up sharply as well.

Group sues to stop Hebgen timber sale

Pages from lonesome wood rod

Another Montana project.. above is the map. You can click on it to get greater detail.

Here’s a link to a news story, below is an excerpt.

The area covered by the timber sale is along the western and southern shores of Hebgen Lake. The Forest Service initiated the project, saying logging would safeguard area cabins from wildfires.

But Mike Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies said some of the proposed logging is in roadless areas away from the cabins. The Forest Service would build six miles of logging roads and log 400 acres of designated old growth forest.

Both groups claim the old growth areas are habitat for lynx, grizzly bears and wolverines, all of which are rare. The Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service both determined in an assessment that logging would adversely affect grizzlies and lynx.
Garrity said the groups don’t oppose all the logging in that area, just the old growth sections.
“Their own fire expert says to start at the structures and work out, clearing the trees to create a defensible space, and they’re not doing that,” Garrity said.
This isn’t the first challenge for this area. The Forest Service proposed a similar sale but dropped the sale after Alliance for the Wild Rockies sued in 2009.
Garrity said the Forest Service loses money on timber sales, because it is usually unable to get enough money for the logs to cover its costs.
“Right now, when the government is authorizing less spending with the sequester, timber sales cost the taxpayer,” Garrity said.

In a couple of seconds, I was able to find this handy ROD. It’s in a pdf so you can search for old growth. You can look at the map and see how far the units are from private land (not very).. “roadless areas”?. But it would be handy to have the overlay of the units on Googlemaps.

Vegetation – Old Growth Protection
45. Old growth stands in Compartment 709 will be avoided during unit layout. Unit boundaries for unit 17, 20, 25, 26C, 26B and 26A will avoid adjacent old growth stands 70907006 (unit 17), 70907029 (unit 20), 70906036 (unit 25/26c), 70904036 (units 26a/26b). These avoidances will require inspection of preliminary unit boundaries on the ground to ensure old growth stands are avoided.

I’m sure it is more complex than it appears from this glance, but that is what I’d expect a story to get at .. if Garrity says they are far away and going into old growth, what does the FS have to say?

Note for retirees and other local folks Even if the FS can’t share their perspective due to the litigation cone of silence, you can learn about the project and be available to the media. You can be spokespeople for CREATE. Part of CREATE’s mission is to ensure that good information is given to the public about projects. This is one “direct action” approach.

Trail maintenance and fire suppression also cost the taxpayer, so I’m not sure exactly what Garrity’s point is there.

Sharon’s review of document:
I think the ROD is convenient to use, and generally excellent with all the information you need to find right there. Would also like to see more photos and the units on Google maps. Maybe they are located somewhere else. A- Nice work!

Sharon’s review of news story:
Did not even superficially examine Garrity’s claims. D

Supreme Court throws out ruling classifying logging road runoff as industrial pollution

Here’s a news story…

Here’s the first sentence…

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with timber interests in a dispute over the regulation of runoff from logging roads in western forests.

It also sided with EPA in a D administration, who had just shoved a stick in their eye by issuing a surprise regulation on the eve of the Supreme Court taking the case… Just sayin’

But this is one of those cases.. what is the point here? More regulatory paperwork? Or is there some specific issue that relates to BMP’s not working? If so, what is it? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to have a meeting (open to the public) to discuss the specific water quality concerns, than to spend all the bucks to take the case to the Supreme Court? Unless folks just want to do it for the glory.. but it’s not glorious to lose, or is it?

Justice Scalia in his dissenting opinion agreed that the discharges from forest roads, aside from those four activities that have always required a permit gravel crushing etc., should not require a permit or that logging be classified as an industrial activity, but he did not like that the Court was asked to determine the intent of the EPA in their rule saying, “It is time for us to presume (to coin a phrase) that an agency says in a rule what it means, and means in a rule what it says there.”

Could someone explain why courts should determine what EPA meant by their rule? Or is it more complex than that?

Sometimes I think we need an Extension Service-like group to explain all these legal issues to the public. Maybe some law school will volunteer to run one as a pro bono effort?

Oh, and I guess The Northwest Environmental Defense Center filed a challenge to the new EPA rule on January 24th in the US Ninth Circuit. Is that the about the same thing? It seems very confusing.

Finally, I should add that I am a proud member of, and a volunteer with, the Society of American Foresters, who filed an amicus brief in this case.
But they were only one among many notable groups who did..
Here’s a link to see them all.

Of all the industries in the U.S. with all the environmental impacts they have, one has to wonder why this was it was so important to go after this one.. I’d like to hear someone (I know I keep asking this) articulate why they did this and what they hoped to accomplish, and why they picked this particular battle instead of the many others we might be able to imagine. In English, not legalese, and describing desired changes to the environment (Physical World).

Pew on the State of the News Media 2013

seattle-post-intelligencer-newspaper

This came across my desk through the climate change communications group at U C Boulder.. I think it’s interesting to share as it helps explain how we’re all a bit “on our own” when it comes to reporting of issues, and how reporters need our help, as experts, into the future. We also need really unbiased sources of information, which I hope this blog is, to some extent, both because of attempting to be fair and because we have both sides represented and available to critique. It’s somewhat scary for information other than what we can check for ourselves, though, I’ve gotta say.

Here’s the link and below is an excerpt:

In 2012, a continued erosion of news reporting resources converged with growing opportunities for those in politics, government agencies, companies and others to take their messages directly to the public.

Signs of the shrinking reporting power are documented throughout this year’s report. Estimates for newspaper newsroom cutbacks in 2012 put the industry down 30% since its peak in 2000 and below 40,000 full-time professional employees for the first time since 1978. In local TV, our special content report reveals, sports, weather and traffic now account on average for 40% of the content produced on the newscasts studied while story lengths shrink. On CNN, the cable channel that has branded itself around deep reporting, produced story packages were cut nearly in half from 2007 to 2012. Across the three cable channels, coverage of live events during the day, which often require a crew and correspondent, fell 30% from 2007 to 2012 while interview segments, which tend to take fewer resources and can be scheduled in advance, were up 31%. Time magazine, the only major print news weekly left standing, cut roughly 5% of its staff in early 2013 as a part of broader company layoffs. And in African-American news media, the Chicago Defender has winnowed its editorial staff to just four while The Afro cut back the number of pages in its papers from 28-32 in 2008 to 16-20 in 2012. A growing list of media outlets, such as Forbes magazine, use technology by a company called Narrative Science to produce content by way of algorithm, no human reporting necessary. And some of the newer nonprofit entrants into the industry, such as the Chicago News Cooperative, have, after launching with much fanfare, shut their doors.

This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands. And findings from our new public opinion survey released in this report reveal that the public is taking notice. Nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to.

At the same time, newsmakers and others with information they want to put into the public arena have become more adept at using digital technology and social media to do so on their own, without any filter by the traditional media. They are also seeing more success in getting their message into the traditional media narrative…(more)

Reflections on the Senate Committee Hearing by JZ , and Brainstorming Possible Solutions

JZ sent a comment on the “collaboration is bad for NEPA” thread here. I took part of it out and made a separate post.. as there is a need to ask this larger question . I agree with JZ that the Senate discussion was much more deep and serious. There’s a lot to examine there, including the testimony. They are looking for ideas (that would be acceptable to the Administration, an unknown) so I would propose that we do some brainstorming about solutions that both sides might find acceptable right here on this blog. Mac has proposed Trust lands (as did Jay O’Laughlin in his testimony), some have suggested giving land to the states (don’t think folks on this blog think that’s a good idea), place-based legislation is not popular for a variety of reasons, what else is there?

Here’s what JZ says:

Today’s Senate E & NR committee hearing had a markedly more professional and solution oriented tone than a similar hearing the House NR committee a couple weeks ago:

http://naturalresources.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=206115

The end messages of each of the hearings seems to be the same though. The FS isn’t doing enough (logging) and can not fulfill their mission and provide for local communities. These are issues that have been raised to the point of repeated congressional attention.

What, pray-tell, is at the root of the Agency’s inability to accomplish its mission and provide more logs/timber/jobs particularly here in Region 1??? (the most appealed/sued region in the country).

Is it declining budgets? Lack of workforce (retirements, etc)? Probably a major factor.

How about “analysis paralysis” (over thinking/analyzing the same comments) and dealing with antiquated forest plans and the threat of appeal/litigation? I’d venture this is even more of a factor.

Update: Here’s a story from the Oregonian, and what Wyden said

Wyden supports more cutting but, “Short-cuts like selling off federal lands or ignoring environmental laws cannot be expected to pass the Senate or be signed by the President.” Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian
“We now have across the country cash-strapped rural counties facing deadlines later this spring to decide about retaining teachers, whether or not to close schools, what to do about law enforcement and roads and other basic services,” Wyden said.

So, readers, do you agree with anyone at the hearing? With JZ? What are your solutions to the problem, in additional to the ones mentioned above?

EIS’s I’d Like to Review: Artificial Life

artificial life

Perhaps we need a new feature for the blog entitled “EIS’s I’d like to review” …this one is from the New Scientist here.

For the first time we are close to creating artificial life from scratch. So says Craig Venter, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and famed for creating the first cell with a synthetic genome.

“We think we’re close, but we’ve not submitted a paper yet,” he said at the Global Grand Challenges summit in London this week.

Venter announced in 2010 that he had brought to life an almost completely synthetic version of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides, by transplanting it into the vacant shell of another bacterium. Venter’s latest creation, which he has dubbed the Hail Mary Genome, will be made from scratch with genes he and his institute colleagues, Clyde Hutchison and Hamilton Smith, consider indispensable for life.

The team is using computer simulations to better understand what is needed to create a simple, self-replicating cell. “Once we have a minimal chassis, we can add anything else to it,” he says.

Venter’s quest to engineer algae to produce more oil than usual is also going well. “We’ve been able to increase photosynthesis threefold, meaning that we get three times as much energy per photon [of sunlight] as from natural algae,” he says. He also announced that his programme to scour the oceans for novel microscopic life has so far turned up 80 million genes new to biology.