Thank You, Dr. King

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Sure, Dr. King was concerned about the great issues of the day, war and peace and civil rights. But some of the things he said about peace also relate to environmental conflicts. Things to think about.

In honor of our holiday honoring Dr. King, I selected some quotes that may be worthy of our consideration with regard to our daily “environmental conflict” lives.

We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process. Ultimately, you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Thank you, Dr. King.

(note, this is a repost from 2011)

The Saga of Colt Summit Continues: Opportunity for Direct Action?

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colt-summit-table

Just when you think it might be done, because it went to court and the judge told the FS to analyze more and the FS did…

Maybe it’s time for some of the direct action proposed earlier on this blog. Here’s a link to the members of the Western Environmental Law Center Board of Directors. If I were one of the collaborators on the project, or any knowledgeable person in the area who supports the project (especially those with environmental street cred), I might organize with my collaborators to call them up, and invite each one to talk about your opinion of what action they should pursue, or maybe take a tour with the FS and the collaborators of the project area, plus some nearby areas that have had similar treatments to get an idea of what the completed project would look like.

My personal curiosity is why of all the possible environmental problems in the world, including in the interior West, they chose to spend energy, their funds, and your tax dollars litigating 597 acres of commercial thinning and underburning near Seeley Lake, Montana. Well, maybe based on the yarding acres there will be 706 acres commercially treated.. still..

As we’ve discussed on this blog, there are fuel treatment projects everywhere in the West (and south). Why of all of them… this one? Is it some kind of Montana thing? But who is from Montana? Doesn’t look like any of the board members.

Also, the news stories keep calling it a 2,038 acre “logging project” which is a bit of a summary.. but I don’t think the broadest category of “logging” would include “understory slashing and prescribed fire”. So is it really accurate to call it a 2,038 acre “logging project” or more accurate to call it a 2,038 acre fuels reduction project with 706 acres of logging? (People who work on this project: ifyou read this blog could you please send me the correct number of “logged” acres?) Note that the acres that would be logged were reduced by over 50% based on public comment.

Here’s the link and below is an excerpt.

MISSOULA — The U.S. Forest Service says it has successfully answered a federal judge’s legal questions involving a 2,038-acre proposed logging project in the Lolo National Forest about 10 miles north of Seeley Lake.

Lolo National Forest Supervisor Debbie Austin last week wrote there was no need for additional information about the Colt Summit Project proposed in 2011. The decision opens the way for work to start this summer.

“I have found no reason to further supplement, correct or revise my March 25, 2011, decision,” she said.

Four conservation groups — Friends of the Wild Swan, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Montana Ecosystems Defense Council and Native Ecosystems Council — sued in September 2011 to stop the project, saying it would harm lynx, bear and trout habitat.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy last June knocked down most of the plaintiffs’ claims and said the Forest Service properly studied the project’s effects on lynx and grizzly bears. The exception was the claim that the Colt Summit Project analysis violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not studying the cumulative effects of the project on lynx, a threatened species. The judge sent that portion of the proposal back to the Forest Service for further consideration.

Austin in August submitted a supplemental environmental assessment for public review and comments to address those concerns about lynx, which she said clears the way for the project to continue.

Western Environmental Law Center attorney Matt Bishop, who represented the environmental groups, said he was disappointed Austin didn’t issue a new environmental assessment but chose to reaffirm the old one. He said he needed time to review Austin’s decision before the conservation groups could consider their next move.

Pinnacles National Park: Story by Char Miller

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Photo: Zach Behrens/KCET
Photo: Zach Behrens/KCET

This is an article by Char Miller on the history of this once-national forest, then monument, now park.

I hate to excerpt from Char’s writing because it’s all interesting, but I chose the part that is perhaps more broadly applicable about the dangers of overreaching in pursuing what you believe to be good..and the longer view.

The political process that brought about the name change would also dovetail with his experience a century ago. As Hain rallied his friends and neighbors, he also had to reach out across the region to secure media attention, congressional interest, and executive branch action. Tapping into local, regional, and federal networks was essential to the success of his project.

It remains just as critical. Representative Sam Farr (D-Carmel), who has been pushing for this legislative change since the early 2000s, and has had the support of such powerful Democrats as Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, did not gain serious traction until he built up a bipartisan coalition that included chambers of commerce and environmental organizations, secured a Republican co-sponsor, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater), and agreed to drop plans to expand the monument’s wilderness area by 3000 acres. In a polarized Washington, the only way to secure even such a simple name change is to reach across the aisle.

This fraught context is why similarly worthy initiatives elsewhere have not yet succeeded. One of these is the Red Rock region of the Greater Canyonlands in southern Utah, which writer Stephen Trimble describes as a “magical rejuvenating” environment. Site of the some of the richest archaeological records of native peoples anywhere, replete with ancient granaries, cliff dwellings, and rock art, its forests, grasslands, rivers, and rock formations, according to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance it “shelters at least two dozen endangered or sensitive species as well as an unusually large number of species found nowhere else in the world.”

Little wonder that in the mid-1990s, after an extensive tour of the Red Rock region, a fact-finding group of prominent biologists, ecologists, and zoologists strongly urged the Bureau of Land Management to designate the site as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System to safeguard and preserve “Utah’s unique biological heritage.”

It still awaits that level of extra protection, and does so because of deeply divisive political context. Utah, after all, is a blood-red state, with an aggressive anti-federal politics that plays well among county commissioners, state legislators, and the governor, as well as the congressional delegation.

Among those ever ready to quash efforts to expand wilderness protections to places like Red Rock is Representative Rob Bishop (R-Brigham City), currently chair of the public-lands subcommittee of the Natural Resources Committee. He and his likeminded legislative peers are on record as wanting to strip these wild and scenic places out of federal hands and place them under state control so as to accelerate their economic development. In this hostile climate, calls for additional regulatory control over Red Rock and its unique archeological, biological, and geological features, have been dismissed out of hand.

In 1989, Rep. Wayne Owens filed the first of a long line of bills seeking wilderness protection for the area; he was a rare breed, a liberal Democrat in a thoroughly GOP-dominated state, and that surely accounts for why he found little support among his colleagues. When in 1992 he gave up his seat to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, his friend Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York carried on, filing one bill after another in coordination with Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). Note that none of these later initiatives has originated within the Utah delegation, and none will get to a vote until that collection of congressionals decides to support such legislation. As the Pinnacles example demonstrates, public-land legislation must have bipartisan (and home-based) support before it can get to the floor.

This roadblock is why the indefatigable Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) has pushed for President Obama to play Theodore Roosevelt, using the authority invested in the Oval Office through the Antiquities Act to declare a Greater Canyonlands National Monument. But it was another president’s use of this executive power finesse that partly accounts for Utah Republicans’ unwavering resistance to the establishment of another wilderness area in the Beehive State.

In September 1996, in the final weeks of a tense presidential campaign, incumbent Bill Clinton went to the Grand Canyon in Arizona — and on its south rim, signed into law the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a vast tract of nearly 1.9 million acres in southern Utah. Across the border, a political furor erupted that has never really died down. Clinton’s dramatic gesture, for all the environmental benefits it produced, made it exceedingly difficult for a subsequent Chief Executive to act as unilaterally. Red Rock will have to wait for a new, more accommodating political climate.

Yet as SUWA continues to fight for that better day, its activists might need to take the long view. After all, Schuyler Hain and other early promoters of Pinnacles had hoped to secure national park status for that iconic Central California landscape; they and their successors have had to plug away for more than a century before they achieved their original goal. Let’s hope Red Rock and the Greater Canyonlands get there sooner.

E&E News on House Committee, NEPA and Antiquities Act

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Here’s a link, and below is an excerpt:

Areas of agreement?

Despite their differences, both Bishop and Grijalva said they are optimistic that the 113th Congress could reach bipartisan compromises on public lands issues that have eluded it over the past two years.

Bishop, for one, said he could support conservation bills if Democrats are willing to allow management decisions on federal lands to be made locally rather than in Washington.

“I may surprise some people with what I’m willing to do if people are willing to make trades,” Bishop said. “If there’s anything that Grijalva wants to work with me on that moves it so local people actually control their own destiny, I’m actually very willing to talk to him about it.”

But Bishop acknowledged that there was little, if any, discussion last Congress about a viable package of lands bills that could pass Congress, despite the introduction of a handful of Republican-sponsored conservation bills.

The House’s biggest conservation act last Congress was passage of a bill elevating Pinnacles National Monument in California to full national park status. Some conservation measures reached the Senate floor last Congress, but the chamber, on the whole, didn’t accomplish much more. It, too, failed to introduce a public lands package.

Bishop said much of the subcommittee’s agenda will also depend on his discussions with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, with whom Bishop said he sees a greater chance at compromise.

Grijalva said he is willing to limit his ambitions for land protections in order to meet Republicans halfway.

“While the rhetoric may not be scaled down, I think there is some room for compromise on some scaled-back public lands issues, particularly around designations and acquisitions,” he said. “We can’t disengage from that bluster, but I hope we take some responsibility for the fact that it was a dismal, dismal performance [last Congress] passing legislation and getting legislation done.”

Reading the quotes from Bishop and Grijalva, it sounds like well, they could disengage from the bluster and actually do something productive. I wonder what it would take for the people in the middle to hold this committee accountable for something more productive than “rhetoric” and “bluster”?

Fire vs. Flood or East vs. West : Emergency Relief

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From the Denver Post editorial page here:

The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved more than $50 billion in emergency relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, a measure that is expected to move quickly through the Senate before being signed into law.

While some Republicans griped about what was included in the House bill and that it was not offset with cuts elsewhere, it’s what’s not in the bill that has us concerned.

Unlike a measure passed by the Senate at the end of the last Congress, the House legislation contains no money for areas in the West besieged by wildfires last year.

We have no complaint about Congress stepping up to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy. But the same spirit must extend to less populated areas in the West.

Wolves in Europe from New Scientist: Science Thursday

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This must be Science Thursday as I found a number of articles of interest to me, anyway. And perhaps to readers of this blog. First is an article on wolves, with an excellent photo you can find here.

GOODNESS, what big teeth you have, and what close ties to humans you have! And what negative attitudes you elicit from rural people all over the world!

Behind their cultural baggage, grey wolves are an evolutionary success story, giving rise to the domestic dog 10,000 years ago and, more recently, rebounding from centuries of persecution.

“There are wild wolves galore in Europe,” says Claudio Sillero, a conservation biologist at the University of Oxford. “They have recolonised vast areas of their former range and live almost unnoticed in populated areas.”

A wolf was recently spotted in the Netherlands, after an absence of over a century. There are ongoing calls from ecologists for them to be reintroduced to Scotland, where they’ve been extinct since the 1700s. In the US, arguments rage over whether their numbers are high enough to sustain hunting.

These wolves were photographed playing in the Black Mountain Wildlife Park, south of Hamburg in Germany, which has more than a thousand animals in an area of 50 hectares.

“While we think of wolves as masters of the wilderness in Europe, they thrive in human-dominated landscapes,” says Sillero. “Over 3000 wolves live in heavily populated areas of northern Spain and Portugal, and wolves from Italy have steadily colonised southern France.”

French farmers may not share Sillero’s enthusiasm, but with less persecution than in the past, wolf numbers are growing. For those of us in Europe, the howl of a wolf could one day become as familiar as the cries of foxes.

Then New Scientist also has an article on the hologenome which is interesting for us human beings as well as other forms of life. It talks about microorganisms being part of us and influencing our evolution.

There was another article about the “gut brain” here.

IT’S been a tough morning. You were late for work, missed a crucial meeting and now your boss is mad at you. Come lunchtime you walk straight past the salad bar and head for the stodge. You can’t help yourself – at times of stress the brain encourages us to seek out comfort foods. That much is well known. What you probably don’t know, though, is that the real culprit may not be the brain in your skull but your other brain.

Yes, that’s right, your other brain. Your body contains a separate nervous system that is so complex it has been dubbed the second brain. It comprises an estimated 500 million neurons – about five times as many as in the brain of a rat – and is around 9 metres long, stretching from your oesophagus to your anus. It is this brain that could be responsible for your craving under stress for crisps, chocolate and cookies.

Embedded in the wall of the gut, the enteric nervous system (ENS) has long been known to control digestion. Now it seems it also plays an important role in our physical and mental well-being. It can work both independently of and in conjunction with the brain in your head and, although you are not conscious of your gut “thinking”, the ENS helps you sense environmental threats, and then influences your response. “A lot of the information that the gut sends to the brain affects well-being, and doesn’t even come to consciousness,” says Michael Gershon at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York.

Assuming that these are observation are both true of wildlife and other species, it just gives us a hint about the many things about them that we do not understand.

And for those who like to apply science to decisionmaking, here’s an article about using “scientifically proven methods” to decrease alcohol consumption.

Salazar Returns and the Hazard of Working in Natural Resources

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In the Denver Post today we see a story about Salazar returning to Colorado and all the useful things he might do What I thought was interesting, given our discussions on this blog about him, was this paragraph:

But his current higher-profile gig meant more mano a mano with energy companies and Republicans. After the Deepwater Horizon well explosion, he imposed a temporary moratorium on the drilling technique and grew oil and gas regulations that infuriated the GOP on the Hill.

Obama on Wednesday congratulated Salazar for his work in this area.

“Ken has helped usher in a new era of conservation for our nation’s land, water and wildlife,” he said in a statement. “Ken has played an integral role in my administration’s successful efforts to expand responsible development of our nation’s domestic energy resources.”

Even Salazar’s biggest foes universally wished him luck Wednesday — but noted they hoped to work with another Secretary who would better serve energy interests.

“I’d like to thank Secretary Salazar for his service,” said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma. “He has worked very hard the past four years and no doubt sacrificed time away from his family in order to do the job. I look forward to working with his replacement on what I hope can be pro-growth energy policies.”

From an energy-company vantage point, Hercules Offshore executive Jim Noe agreed.

“We remember the tough days that followed the Deepwater Horizon incident during which Secretary Salazar presided over a moratorium on permits that created significant uncertainty for energy production and energy security,” he said. “The legacy of the Interior five-year plan has charted a course for the fewest lease sales in a generation.”

In the coming years, Salazar may try to renew some of his Republican friendships in Colorado and strengthen his moderate tone to appeal to a swing audience.

“Clearly there were troubles on his watch,” said Craig Hughes, a Democratic consultant who ran the successful Obama campaign in Colorado last year. “But he is seen as a problem-solver, of trying to get things done. Regardless, he probably comes out of this with more enemies, and he probably comes out of this with more friends.”

It’s interesting that this focuses on enemies made in the oil and gas industry, while we have mostly discussed here his foibles according to environmental groups. I suspect because there are few outlets that report both sides of the story.

but check out the Denver Post editorial page here, that lets us know that both sides were unhappy…

They say Interior under Salazar has suppressed energy production through of unnecessary red tape and onerous rules. And while we have no desire to defend every regulation, the fact is that the previous administration drifted too far in the other direction. Its Minerals Management Service had been an Animal House in which employees not only partied with industry executives but also, according to a federal probe, “had sexual relationships” with some.

“In the prior administration,” Salazar said one year after being on the job, “the oil and gas industry were the kings of the world. Whatever they wanted to happen, happened.” He exaggerated, to be sure, but with a grain of truth.

If anything, Salazar’s Interior didn’t crack down fast enough along the Gulf Coast. Indeed, before BP’s Deepwater Horizon blew in April 2010, the Obama administration had been authorizing offshore permits without adequate environment reviews as fast as its predecessor.

Nor has Interior under Salazar always left environmentalists cheering. They’ve objected to decisions allowing limited drilling in the Arctic, lifting protections for the gray wolf in several states and refusing to use the polar bear as leverage to address climate change.

Salazar said this week that his proudest achievements include expediting justice for American Indians after years of litigation over trust lands and breaking the logjam for clean-energy projects on federal lands.

It’s also interesting that now Salazar is a good guy about his past activities..

CARBONDALE —Foes of natural-gas drilling in Thompson Divide would like to see Interior Secretary Ken Salazar take the same action when he leaves office in March that he took when he started the job four years ago.

Salazar, a former U.S. senator from Colorado and native of the San Luis Valley, canceled oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land in Utah in February 2009. He said drilling posed too much of a threat to spectacular landscapes in areas such as Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument.

Conservation groups are trying to prevent additional land in the Thompson Divide area west of Carbondale from being leased. They also want to work with oil and gas companies to “retire” existing leases.

Thompson Divide is a 221,000-acre expanse of public land that runs from Sunlight Mountain Resort to McClure Pass, west of state Highway 133. Roughly 100,000 acres of public land in the area have never been leased, said Peter Hart, attorney for Wilderness Workshop, one of the organizations fighting gas drilling there.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is drafting legislation that would prevent future leasing in the area, but it faces an uncertain future.;

Are these the same parcels that were were going to be bought back based on this article?

Yes, Wilderness Workshop did sign the letter supporting Grijalva that we discussed here. As Andy said in his first comment on that post, strange way to win friends and influence people.

My lesson from all this is that working in natural resources may be hazardous to your relationships. And for some reason if the Denver Post were to succumb to pressures facing journalism, who would be left to tell both sides?

Groups seek protection of Whitebark Pine under the ESA

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The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and WildWest Institute filed a lawsuit yesterday in Federal District Court in Missoula against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in response to the FWS’s July 2011 decision that the whitebark pine is “warranted for listing as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act” but precluded by higher priority actions.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has already concluded that whitebark pine faces numerous threats, including climate change, that are so pressing that whitebark pine is in danger of extinction,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “This is the first time the federal government has declared a widespread tree species in danger of imminent extinction from climate change.  Since the Forest Service still has proposals to clearcut whitebark pine, all we’re doing is asking the court to move the listing process along a little faster so we can protect what’s left under the Endangered Species Act.”

The plaintiffs are requesting that the Court declare the agency’s decision is contrary to law, set aside or remand the decision, and compel the agency to promptly set a reasonable date to issue a proposed Endangered Species listing rule for whitebark pine.

Whitebark pine is a slow-growing, longed-life tree with life spans up to 500 years and sometimes more than 1000 years.  Whitebark pine is a keystone — or foundation — species in western North America where it increases biodiversity and contributes to critical ecosystem functions.  Those include providing highly-nutritious seeds for more than 20 different species including Clark’s Nutcracker, grizzly bears, black bears, Steller’s Jay, and Pine Grosbeak.

“People who spend time in the high-country realize that whitebark pine are dying at alarming rates due to impacts associated with climate change,” explained Matthew Koehler, with the WildWest Institute.  “We cannot sit back, do nothing, and watch a critically important component of our high-country ecosystem just disappear and go extinct before our eyes.  This isn’t just about the whitebark pine, but about the future viability of these high country ecosystems, including the species that rely upon that habitat such as grizzly bears and Clark’s Nutcrackers.”

The role the pine seeds play in the ecosystem is fascinating.  Clark’s nutcrackers crack open the pine cones and collect the seeds in specialized throat pouches.  The birds then cache the seeds in small piles in numerous shallow holes on the forest floor.  If the Clark’s nutcrackers, or other wildlife species, don’t come back to eat all the seeds, new trees sprout.  Additionally, red squirrels collect and bury larges caches of whole pine cones in middens.  Grizzly bears unearth the caches, carefully pry off the scales of the pine cones with their claws, and then pull out the seeds with their tongues.  Studies in the Yellowstone National Park area show that grizzly bears obtain one-quarter to two-thirds of their energy from the seeds.  The 30-50% fat content from whitebark pine seeds promotes survival and reproduction of female grizzly bears that rely on this fat not only to hibernate, but also to support lactation.  When pine seeds are plentiful, grizzly bears have more surviving cubs.  And in years when pine seeds are scarce, the result is more conflicts with humans and more dead grizzly bears.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that climate change will result in the whitebark pine population shrinking to less than 3% of its current U.S. distribution by the end of the century.

Copy of complaint: http://ncfp.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/whitebark_pine_complaint_filed_01-15-13.pdf

Collaborative Groups Hash Out Stewardship Deal in Eastern Oregon

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malheur2Thanks to Terry Seyden for this one..

Here’s the link and below is an excerpt. I thought it was interesting how they grappled with the issue of being local..

Sounding exasperated, Harney County Judge Steve Grasty warned the mostly Grant County audience: “If we don’t get this one right, you are going to see what Burns looks like.”
He noted the loss of industry there.
“We have nothing. You couldn’t identify five jobs outside of the federal payroll that come from the Malheur National Forest,” he said.
He also protested the lack of attention to Harney County’s concerns.
“You would not have met in Harney County if I hadn’t called,” he told Raaf. “This is wrong, to make Harney County the weak sister in every conversation we have.”
He urged the Forest Service to keep the percentage of timber low in the stewardship program, noting that the counties rely on the regular timber program for what little revenue it provides, and to open up the pool of contractors qualified to bid.

Britton was concerned about the idea of a “single winner,” and also suggested giving the contract to a nonprofit which would then then split up the work among the local timber and mill operators.
Forest Service officials said that could be considered if there was broad support for the idea, but there are questions about how the scenario would play out. The bid evaluation process pegs past performance, along with community benefits, among key criteria.

Britton’s suggestion drew opposition from industry representatives.

Russ Young of Iron Triangle said a nonprofit would just add another layer of bureacracy and also take its own profits from the top to fund its own organization. There are no “non-profit nonprofits,” he said. There are always winners and losers in business, Young said, but if an industry bidder loses to a nonprofit, “we all lose.”

Shelk also objected to the nonprofit idea, and said parceling out the work to multiple companies would further dilute the sawlog volume. He said the one-winner concept will still mean a “net win” to the communities, in terms of employment.