I couldn’t easily find a copy of this report by searching or by checking the Deschutes website, nevertheless, here’s a report from Oregon Public Broadcasting; below is an excerpt.
Back in 2009, the Deschutes National Forest began a number of forest thinning projects to protect the community of Sisters in the event of a wildfire.
When the Pole Creek Fire began three weeks ago, fire managers knew there was a good chance they’d have a front row seat to see if those efforts worked.
Bill Aney is a fuels specialist with Forest Service. He helped write the report. Aney says it’s clear the those treatments did what they were supposed to do.
He explained, “Instead of having fire in the crowns of these trees the fire was just on the ground as it approached these areas. And as a result the forest stand and the area that was treated is in tact, survived the fires, looks really nice.”
If local recreationists can get along to support a recreation agenda, then why not national recreation interests? What’s up with that?
See this article about the Shoshone plan and recreationists… Here’s the article and below is an excerpt..
Wind River Front officials say the group represents a broad range of interests. Some, like Wild Iris, are directly affected by recreation on the forest. Others, like Hudson’s carpentry business, thrive in the area because people choose to live in Lander for the nearby recreational opportunities on the forest.
There’s no specific agenda the group is pushing due to the varying interests among recreationists, according to Hudson. For instance, some want less motorized use, while those who ride ATVs are looking for more trails. Some backcountry skiers want a section of Togwotee Pass closed to snowmobiling, whereas snowmobilers oppose such a ban. All of these interests are represented by Wind River Front.
Wyoming map of federal jurisdiction
A map detailing the jurisdiction of federal agencies in Wyoming. Conflicted interests are common among Wind River Front’s varied membership, so the group has chosen not to advocate one recreational agenda over another. (Wikimedia — click to enlarge)
Issues that are divisive among the group will be left out of the group’s official comments to the Forest Service, and individuals are encouraged to submit their own comments on the issues. As a result, while the group’s comments won’t oppose additional motorized use — including proposed connectors to create loops for ATVs — they will ask for better enforcement to keep motorized use on legal trails, Hudson said.
As a group, Wind River Front will submit some comments representing everyone in the network, but it will be more general, Hudson said. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that they want only a small area set aside for surface occupancy and oil and gas development.
On his passing, it’s worth reflecting how much of Dr. Commoner’s most well known ecological catechism has been embraced by natural resource professionals:
The U.S. Supreme Court left intact a rule issued in the waning days of Bill Clinton’s presidency to protect 58.5 million acres of forest lands, as the justices turned away arguments from states and industry groups.
The justices today refused to question a federal appeals court’s conclusion that the U.S. Forest Service was within its authority when it issued the so-called Roadless Rule in January 2001, eight days before Clinton left office.
Azusa, CA – Sunday, September 23, 2012: As children play, piles of trash including styrofoam plates, food containers, diapers and plastic grocery bags accumulate across the ground, trashing the East Fork of the San Gabriel Valley River in the Angeles National Forest on Sunday, September 23, 2012 in Azusa, Calif. (Patrick T. Fallon/ For the Los Angeles Times)
I thought it was interesting that on the previous post on the role of concessionaires (here), many of our usual readers did not weigh in. I don’t know what that means.. certainly we will have recreation funding problems, whether or not we do fuel treatments on the national forests and how that debate finally turns out. Maybe we are missing the forest for the trees..;). What do most taxpayers get from the national forests? Water, some wood, some energy, but mostly recreation.
It seems like there are currently two responses to “not enough money”… 1) give it to the Park Service (which gets funding from exactly the same place) or 2) use concessionaires. I would propose another, “design a funding process for the Forest Service that everyone (at least on this blog) can support, and then lobby the heck out of Congress”. For example, what if retirees, the conservation community and AFSEEE all joined together for heavy duty grassroots lobbying?
I would be interested in what you think of my idea, plus what are your ideas?
What triggered this was another article about trashed public land, with the answer (again) being getting the bucks from another pocket of Uncle Sam.
Here’s the link to the LA Times article, and below is an excerpt. The subtitle of the article is:
“Cutbacks leave rangers outnumbered in dealing with car burglaries, drug deals, gold prospectors and rowdy parties along the mountain creek.”
Beautiful and clean may have been an apt description in the past. But it doesn’t fit today. Although water quality monitors say the East Fork is safe to swim in, the vicinity of the swimming hole was fouled by dozens of dirty diapers and, on some rocks midstream, human feces.
“I’ve lost count of the times I’ve pleaded with the Forest Service to get the trash out of the river,” said Mark Yeltsin, manager of the Camp Williams Cafe, the only commercial establishment on the East Fork. “They have a stock answer: ‘Sorry. We don’t have the resources.'”
Tom Contreras, supervisor of the 640,000-acre Angeles National Forest, said a few more rangers and cleanup crews would certainly enhance his ability to enforce laws on the river, but budget restraints have made that all but impossible. “We have one full-time technician assigned to that area — I wish we had more,” Contreras said.
Environmental and community groups say conditions have reached critical mass, not only on the river but across the San Gabriel Mountains. Something needs to change.
“We desperately need a new vision and management plan for the East Fork and the entire range,” said Juanna Torres, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club. “What we’ve got up there now isn’t working.”
San Gabriel Mountains Forever, a coalition of community and environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Friends of the River, is backing a plan that seeks to balance the crush of tourists with conservation. Essentially, it would transform the San Gabriels into a national recreational area co-managed by the National Park Service. The designation would make it eligible for additional federal resources, including law enforcement officers, interpretive signs and trash collection.
The National Park Service is completing a study of the proposal for submission to Congress and possible authorization next year.
What, there is need for law enforcement, but it needs to be “designated” before the funds will be available? I think something smells funny, but it isn’t the piles on the rocks, it’s something about the current budget process.
National Park Service Long’s Peak Trailhead, just up the road from concessionaire managed Brainerd Lakes.
I looked for Forest Service “presence” at Brainerd that day (several years ago) and this is all I found, in not the most scenic spot..At least Hooty made it to this site.
Oh, but this is why people actually go there.. some might argue that a site this beautiful should be acquired by the Park Service, who would end up charging..it’s all very complex. So this is a fairly unique post in that I don’t know as much about this topic as I do others.. so hoping others from the recreation world can help. If you are in the Forest Service and you know something that you think would help the discussion, please do, you can make up an alias in yahoo or google if you don’t want to use your name.
Off one of the trails from Brainerd Lakes.
Several years ago, I was intending to write a post for this blog, called “A Tale of Two Trailheads” comparing the management of Brainerd Lakes (concessionaire) and Long’s Peak (Park Service); never did, but here are the photos and the below article reminded me of it. Let’s just reflect on the two trailheads while we read the article.
The Denver Post had this article in the business section today, but I found it fairly confusing. Maybe some readers can help.
The first sentence is:
“A U.S. Forest Service push to privatize management of campgrounds is prompting a backlash from critics who oppose concessionaires charging day-use fees to access federal lands.”
Because before I retired we had the Mt. Evans case, which was about what I’ll call the “what for” question (WhatFor) “what services can you charge for?”, I thought that that was a separate question from “should concessionaires be allowed to run campgrounds?”, the concessionaire campgrounds (or ConCamp) question.
Why do we have to pay to go into public lands? The land belongs to the people, and the people should be able to use the land for free,” said 64-year-old Wimert, who began decrying day-access fees when he was charged entrance to pedal into Brainard Lake Recreation Area two years ago.
Somehow the Forest Service has lost its way. They are no longer caring for the land and serving the people. They are serving themselves,” he said.
Let’s compare Brainerd to Longs. Do we say if the Park Service charges to access Long’s, they have “lost their way” and are “serving themselves?”. No we’d probably say we are paying for the quality facilities they have there.
I don’t think the Forest Service is “serving themselves”. They didn’t have enough money to run these places, so partnerships seemed like 1) a way to provide public service 2) within the budget. Like everything, this had the unintended consequence of empowering a small vocal group to become active politically to get more goodies.
Now. one of my previous bosses would say something like “campgrounds are a chance for us to touch the public, to be there in uniform, to help members of the public be outdoors. Nothing can be more important than us to be there for them. The Park Service “gets it”, we need to “get it” also.” Even though he had a lot of passion and desire, and about as much power as someone is likely to get in the Forest Service, in my opinion, he couldn’t do anything because the bucks aren’t there (and now there is an entrenched political group supporting it). If you, as I do, think that this is important, I wish we could all work together to do something.. agitate for a separate budget line item for campgrounds, or ???
“The Forest Service is allowed under current federal law to keep all the money they bring in from a campground, so there are no efficiencies gained by contracting a private company,” she said.
In Colorado, seven national forests covering 14.5 million acres include 1,268 non-fee sites and 540 fee areas with 469 recreation sites operated by concessionaires. Nationally, half of all Forest Service camping sites — 82 percent of the reservable camping sites available under the National Recreation Reservation Service — are managed by concessionaires. Thirty years ago, the Forest Service primarily operated its own lands.
Concessionaire operations are a big money business. According to the Forest Service, a small campground concession with one to three developed sites can produce revenue ranging from $50,000 to $105,000. A larger campground with 10 to 12 sites can generate more than $1 million in annual revenue.
Total campground concessionaire revenue nationally is estimated at $35 million.
My understanding is something along the lines of “there is no money to hire someone to empty the toilets and do maintenance, and campground fees alone can’t pay for those people.”
Therefore, concessionaires seem like a good idea because it’s that or shutting them down. And of course concessionaires only want the best ones, so that leaves the Forest Service with the less popular ones that have fewer visitors. And of course, the FS has lots of rules and regulations and hiring and pay requirements, which maybe the concessionaires don’t have to follow, which I assume (???) is how they can make a profit.
The funds going back to the Forest don’t help if it’s a net loss.
The increasing use of private concessionaires is riling some users just as a national program aimed at boosting private investment in federal recreation sites gains momentum. The Washington D.C.-based American Recreation Coalition soon will unveil a dozen pilot programs — at least one of which is in Colorado — that would forge public-private partnerships allowing for-profit concessionaires to invest in upgrades like on-site storage of boats at marinas and improved facilities at campgrounds.
I think all of us really need to look at this cautiously, but this is about ConCamp, it seems like, not what the lawsuit was about which is about WhatFor. It seems to me that NEPA provides for good discussion of projects, but not so much programs like this. I wonder what sort of public involvement has been done with broader topics like the role of concessionaires?
The lawsuit argues that the Forest Service’s permitted concessionaires charge fees “even when visitors do not use any facilities or services of the area, but simply wish to enter Forest Service lands to engage in undeveloped recreation.” The lawsuit also contends that issuing special permits without public involvement to concessionaires who charge fees does not meet the federal requirement for public notice of pricing changes.
In 2009, the Forest Service proposed cutting the camping fee discount for interagency passes like the Golden Age and Senior passes from 50 percent to 10 percent, citing concessionaire concerns over lost revenue. In 2010, the agency scuttled the reduced discount proposal. Still, concessionaires don’t have to accept the passes.
The first paragraph seems to me like it’s about the WhatFor question but whether concessionaires need to follow the same rules the FS does? The second paragraph seems to be about ConCamp- I don’t see why concessionaires wouldn’t have to follow the rules. After all, following the rules is one part of why it’s expensive for the FS to run them in the first place.
Finally, Derrick Crandall is quoted as saying:
“We are trying to broaden the use of public lands,” said coalition president Derrick Crandall, pointing to stagnant visitation to Forest Service campgrounds when compared to private campgrounds. “We are looking at ways to bring these worn-out, outmoded facilities up to levels we expect at ski areas. We really see this initiative as a win-win for everyone.
Now the other thing I’ve noticed about say, parts of the Med-bow and the Bighorn, is that few people are camped at the campgrounds, but many, many people are dispersed camping throughout the forest. First, you have to pay money, second you have to follow rules, third you are right next door to your neighbors, fourth you can’t make up configurations of RV’s, horse trailers and tents that fit your friends and family. I have been on different parts of both of these forests at times when all the likely dispersed camping spots have been filled and the campground is relatively empty. It seems that in spots (at least where I’ve seen a lot of dispersed camping), people don’t want FS campgrounds not because they’re not nice enough (State Parks, Park Service and KOA) but because they are too “nice.”
If the FS charged $10 a head for dispersed camping per season during deer and elk season (livestock and people) there might be enough that we wouldn’t need concessionaires. I wonder if we need a recreation policy FACA committee in DC?
Anyway, this is all very confusing to me, and I know we’ve had good discussion about this on this blog in the past, hoping we can do so again.
According to Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, all of the trees in this picture that are not painted orange would be cut down as part of the Bozeman Watershed logging project. Photo by Cottonwood Environmental Law Center.
The Gallatin National Forest’s Bozeman Watershed Logging Project has been the subject of much debate and commenting here at the blog. Well, it appears as if the next chapter of the story has been written, as the Bozeman Daily Chronicle took another look at the issue in this morning’s paper. Excerpts from the article are highlighted below [emphasis added]:
This summer’s Millie fire prompted renewed calls for thinning the forests south of Bozeman to protect the city’s water supply from fire. However, upgrades to the water plant are nullifying the argument that the water supply needs protection. The Bozeman water plant’s antiquated filtration system, built in 1984, couldn’t filter much more sediment than what is carried by the streams on a normal day. Any increase in the amount of sediment in Bozeman or Hyalite creeks was a source of concern.
But that will change when a new $43 million system comes online in a little more than a year, said water treatment supervisor Rick Moroney. Construction started a year ago. “It adds an important extra step – sedimentation – which makes it vastly superior,” Moroney said. “I can’t guarantee it could handle everything, but it will be able to handle the sediment from a fire.”
The new facility removes the urgency from one side’s argument in what is now a 2-year-old battle over a forest-thinning project.
In March 2010, the Gallatin National Forest published its Bozeman Municipal Watershed Project, a plan devised with the city to harvest, thin and burn 4,800 acres in the Hyalite and Bozeman creek watersheds.
The $2 million project had the stated objective of protecting the watersheds that provide 80 percent of the city’s summer water supply from being polluted after a severe fire. But wildfire doesn’t pose the only risk to water quality.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, the Montana Ecosystems Defense Council and the Native Ecosystems Council opposed the project because more than seven miles of new logging roads would be required, and such roads can add as much sediment to area streams as a fire….
Hydrologist Mark Story said decades of research show roads are responsible for 90 percent of the sediment produced during logging. The groups argued thinning wouldn’t prevent a wildfire, which would add still more sediment. “There’s no science that will fireproof a watershed,” said Michael Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “We have no problem with thinning as long as they can do it without building roads that are just as bad for the watershed.”
As interesting as Guerin’s original article was, perhaps even just as interesting has been the discussion taking place in the comments section to the article – a discussion that includes some of the leading fire scientists themselves. Below are some excerpts from the on-line comments section, but the entire comments section is certainly worth a read:
Richard Hutto
Sep 19, 2012 09:02 AM
Swetnam and Brown “…questioned how ponderosa pines could regenerate if Baker and Williams are correct about severe fires having scarred Western landscapes for generations.” They regenerate the same way most wingless pine seeds do–by animal dispersal. I have numerous photos of Clark’s nutcrackers and Mexican jays extracting seeds from cones on severely burned ponderosa pines (see photo evidence on our facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/AvianScienceCenter). The more you learn about severe-fire ecology, the more it all makes sense–plant, beetle, and bird adaptations that are apparent even in many of our dry mixed-conifer forest types!
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Chad Hanson
Sep 22, 2012 12:54 PM
In the artice Malcolm North incorrectly states that the General Land Office data used by Williams and Baker is a “very scant data set” that does not allow for extrapolation to the landscape scale. In fact, this GLO data comprises thousands of sites over entire landscapes. The data used by Williams and Baker, in fact, is by far the largest data set ever used to address the historic occurrence of high-severity fire in ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests. As for the comments by Swetnam and Brown, who imply that ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forest does not naturally regenerate after high-severity fire, this assumption is contradicted by the scientific literature. Savage and Mast (2005) (Table 3) found hundreds of stems per hectare of natural regeneration following high-severity fire in Southwest ponderosa pine forest. Haire and McGarigal (2008) and Haire and McGarigal (2010) had similar findings, indicating substantial natural regeneration of ponderosa pine and other tree species even in large high-severity fire patches, especially within about 200 meters from the edge of high-severity fire patches (which accounts for most of the area experiencing high-severity fire), and lower but still significant levels (for the purposes of establishing new forest stands) even farther than 200 meters into high-severity fire patches. Similar results have been reported outside of the Southwest in mixed-conifer and ponderosa pine forests (Donato et al. 2006, Shatford et al. 2007, Donato et al. 2009, Collins et al. 2011 [Plumas Lassen Study 2010 Annual Report]). There are likely numerous mechanisms for this, including seed survival (which may occur more often that some assume), dispersal by animals, and dispersal by wind.
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Peter Brown
Sep 25, 2012 02:34 PM
Hey, all I know is what the photo above shows: recent high severity fires in Front Range ponderosa pine forests are not coming back as dense even-aged stands of trees. Far from it, in fact. That photo was taken this past June, almost 10 yrs to the day after Hayman took out about 50,000 acres of forest with nary a living tree left. You could search for days for a seedling that was not planted by either FS and Denver Water (they’ve planted a few 1000s of acres, but still a lot of treeless landscape out there). Maybe those corvids are busy as bees somewhere, but they’re not having much luck with re-establishing those 50,000 acres very fast. And it’s not just Hayman; wander around in any recent fires in the Front Range and see how treeless those areas still are.
And this is in the exact same area we reconstructed fire history before the fire (published in 1999) that was the first fire history in a ponderosa ecosystem that provided concrete evidence of crown fire. But the crown fire patches we reconstructed were acres to 10s of acres in size, not the 1000s to 10000s of acres we’re seeing today.
And hence the crux of the question: what was the scale of crown fire relative to surface fire in the historical forest, and how has that changed today? No one disputes that *passive* crown fires occurred (where fire spread across the landscape was primarily through surface fuels, but occasional trees or patches or trees would crown), whereas current fires are dominated by *active* crown fires (with fire spread mainly through aerial fuels). One other point about the uncharacteristic nature of recent fires, at least Hayman: 400-600 yr old trees we sampled in our 1999 study that had recorded multiple fire scars (i.e., had experienced 6, 8, 10, 15 *surface fires* in their lifetimes) all died during Hayman. Hanson, I have to laugh every time I see your report on “the myth of catastrophic fire” [link here, added by MK] because in the cover photograph there is what looks to be a dead tree that takes up the entire left side of the photo, with what sure looks to be a catface with maybe 8-10 fire scars recorded in it. An incredibly unintended ironic comment on your entire thesis in that paper. Here’s a tree that experienced 8-10 surface fires in its lifetime, and then dies in a recent high-severity fire.
————
Richard Hutto
Sep 25, 2012 02:54 PM
The picture above is indeed instructive; it shows that there are no big ponderosa pines! Why? They were all harvested before or after the severe fire event…might that have something to do with the fact that there is little recruitment? The more unnatural treatment a forest gets, the more unnatural the result.
The fact that charcoal trees have fire-scars is also instructive. Of course fire-scarred trees eventually burn down…that’s the point! If they didn’t burn down every 300 years or so, on average, they’d live 4,000-5,000 years, just as the other tree species that REALLY have a history of avoiding severe fire do. A little more perspective from evolutionary ecology might help here.
Again, nobody is arguing that some dry PIPO forests are in an unnatural state, and getting unnatural results from recent fires…the BIG point is that the story applies to a small proportion of western forests, and to almost none of the mixed-conifer forest types.
Below is an analysis of the Angora Opinion, and here is a link to the opinion. For those of you who think that litigation is about making the FS follow the law when it egregiously oversteps, check out what the judges had to say about the plaintiff’s points.. it’s not a long read but does show you the complexity of the legal framework (check out the discussion of MIS monitoring) and the nature of the plaintiffs’ arguments in general.
This is from the AFRC newsletter by Scott Horngren.
In a significant opinion issued on September 20, the Ninth Circuit emphasized that an environmental assessment (EA) is not subject to the same requirements as an environmental impact statement (EIS). The case, Earth Island Institute v. Forest Service, involved a challenge to the EA prepared to salvage and rehabilitate the area damaged by the Angora Fire near Lake Tahoe.
Previous Ninth Circuit opinions have indicated that the requirements for an EA are not similar to the requirements for an EIS. The Angora opinion builds on those cases and makes a definitive statement that where the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations impose an analytical requirement for an EIS, that requirement does not apply by implication to an EA. The Ninth Circuit explained that “a court should not impose upon the agency its own notion of which procedures are ‘best’ or most likely to further some vague, undefined public good.” Plaintiffs complained that the Forest Service had not responded to comments discussing black-backed woodpecker studies submitted by Dr. Chad Hansen. But the court held that “the duty to disclose and respond to responsible opposing viewpoints imposed by [the CEQ regulations] applies only to [EISs], not [EAs].”
The court also held that “an agency’s obligation to consider alternatives under an EA is a lesser one than under an EIS” and that an EA need only consider a no action alternative and a preferred alternative. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy (NEPA) by not considering an alternative that would limit removal of all snags greater than 16 inches in diameter. The court held that leaving these snags “weighing more than 1 ton per tree, would not achieve the Project objective of reducing the risk of severe wildfire.” When the purpose of the project is to reduce fire risk, “the Forest Service need not consider alternatives that would increase fire risk.”
Finally, the court explained that, under the 1982 viability planning rule as amended by the 2000 interpretative rule, the species viability requirements apply only to the extent that they are incorporated into the relevant forest plan. The court found that the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU) Forest Plan did not incorporate any species monitoring requirements for viability at the project level. Therefore, population monitoring was only required at the forest level under the LTBMU plan. Significantly, the court also held that, at the project level, the Forest Service need not assess the habitat quality and quantity for species if there is no population monitoring requirement at the project level. Additionally, the court held that since the Forest Service was not required to monitor populations at the project level, it also did not have to determine the quantity and quality of habitat needed for viability at the project level, given that the analysis of habitat quality and quantity for a species is in effect a proxy for population monitoring. Therefore, an absence of detailed information about the habitat quality and quantity to “maintain viability” of the blacked-backed woodpecker at the project level did not violate the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).
This case is a significant victory for common sense in NEPA and NFMA compliance by the Forest Service in the Ninth Circuit. Its implementation by the agency should free up resources that can be better used to improve the health of our federal forests and the infrastructure that depends upon them.
Jemez mountains salamanderThanks to Terry Seyden for this link.
Well, we’ve been discussing a woodpecker who likes fires and specifically post-fire habitat.
In this story we find an animal that apparently doesn’t like them so much and appears to be also rare. I wonder how a pattern of burning for woodpecker habitat in the Sierra would affect their local salamanders?
One of the chief threats facing the lung-less amphibian is the combination of an overgrown forest and the likelihood of severe wildfire, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
While the salamander has evolved over centuries with low-intensity fire, the waves of fast-moving, intense fires that have charred tens of millions of acres in the West over the last decade is a problem.
Biologists say that between 1995 and 2010, severe fires have burned more than one-third of known salamander habitat on national forest lands.
In 2011, the Las Conchas Fire burned nearly 18,000 acres of salamander habitat.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service points to fire restoration, logging, grazing, roads, trails and recreation as other threats to the salamander.
Aside from the proposed listing, the agency is suggesting setting aside more than 140 square miles in three New Mexico counties as critical habitat for the salamander.
The agency will make a final decision on the salamander after a 60-day comment period.
Environmentalists have been pushing for salamander protections for more than two decades.
Hmm. I hope if they figure it’s hard to stop fires, they won’t shut instead stop “fire restoration,” logging, grazing, roads, trails and recreation instead…
