BYO TP, plus Conundrum Management

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People soaking in the Conundrum Hot Springs can also soak in the view of the beautiful valley, looking north.
Max Vadnais / The Aspen Times

When I am out of the blogging loop for awhile, and read a load of stories, there seem to be strange juxtapositions. Here are two stories, one about “not enough” use; the other about “too much” use. The common denominator seems to be “not enough money.”

I think we should be able to do better. I would call it a “third-world” approach to recreation- except that that would be a disservice to the third world.

Here’s the “not enough use” story: Forest Service to cut some services at old camp areas, here.

And one on the Conundrum Hot Springs area, currently big in the press for the dead cows, here, “Forest Service: Conundrum faces bigger woes than cows: Popularity of hot springs is affecting the beautiful valley.”

Save Virginia Tech’s Stadium Woods

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I got an email last night from a Christopher Risch, who just produced this short film on the effort to Save Stadium Woods – a rare fragment of old growth forest that supports white oaks over 300 hundred years old – on the campus of Virginia Tech.  The film is well-done, inspirational and raises important philosophical questions about development and the loss of habitat.

Here’s some more information about the issue.

Hidden behind Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium is an 11 acre tract of forest known as ‘Stadium Woods’. This woodland is a rare fragment of old growth forest that supports white oaks over 300 hundred years old. Stadium Woods is a living ecosystem and wildlife habitat that provides vital ecological functions, aesthetic and social benefits, and is a migration sanctuary for bird species from south and central America.

The Virginia Tech football program has proposed to clear a 3-5 acre portion of this old growth forest in order to build a 100,000 sq. ft., 90 ft. tall, $25 million, indoor practice field. We do not oppose the construction of this practice facility. However, we do believe that the proposed structure can be constructed elsewhere. The Friends of Stadium Woods are asking that you consider signing the petition below to help us save this one last remaining remnant of old growth forest.  Visit the Stadium Woods website to learn more.

Oil for Trees: Does the Land and Water Conservation Fund Offer a Devil’s Bargain? Essay by Char Miller

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Fleming Ranch in the San Bernardino National Forest | Photo: Maria Grants/Courtesy Trust for Public Lands

Here is an essay by Char Miller on the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Here’s a quote

Talk about a Devil’s Bargain.

By their very nature, such deals are unbalanced at best. It’s helpful to remember, then, that there is nothing clean about energy production. To drill or frack is to disrupt. To pump or dig is to pull apart. To dam up is to submerge. To clearcut is to splinter.

Even to capture the sun’s rays or harness the wind is to bulldoze ecosystems or flatten habitats.

Once developed, refined, or converted — dirty processes each — these fuels must be distributed. Doing so through pipelines, along transportation routes, or over the electric grid is to generate additional harms, environmental and human. Whenever we turn a key; power up a laptop, I-Pad, or smart phone; or fire up a generator, we despoil.

I have been behind in blogging due to developing a close personal relationship with the health care industry due to a family health issue. Tonight, as I went home to post this, I exited the parking structure at the Temple of Medicine to see a chopper coming in to the Emergency Room. Sorry, I don’t see the “despoiling,” or feel that the folks that used those gallons of fuel that helped to save a life are guilty. Nor the people who use radiation, or potentially polluting chemicals, or disposable needles to heal other people.

I do believe that we need to do our communal best to develop technologies and make choices that sustain our people and the environment.

In the words of NEPA, in 1969, (my italics)

The purposes of this Act are: To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man (oh, well, it was 1969!) and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.

There is no doubt in my mind (despite the lyrics to a song in the musical “Avenue Q”) that the devices that allow folks to participate in the world wide web do “stimulate the health and welfare of humankind.” So what kind of energy might do both, “prevent or eliminate damage” and “stimulate the health and welfare?”

Protection sought for black-backed woodpecker

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The AP has the whole story, with highlighted snips below.

Four conservation groups filed a petition with the U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday to list the black-backed woodpecker under the Endangered Species Act in the Sierra Nevada, Oregon’s Eastern Cascades and the Black Hills of eastern Wyoming and western South Dakota.

In addition to fire suppression, the groups contend post-fire salvage logging combined with commercial thinning of green forests is eliminating what little remains of the bird’s habitat, mostly in national forests where it has no legal protection.

“Intensely burned forest habitat not only has no legal protection, but standard practice on private and public lands is to actively eliminate it,” the petition said. “When fire and insect outbreaks create excellent woodpecker habitat, salvage logging promptly destroys it.”

Chad Hanson, executive director the Earth Island’s John Muir Project based in Cedar Ridge, Calif., filed the petition Wednesday with the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento. Co-petitioners are the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Ariz., the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project in Fossil, Ore., and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in Laramie, Wyo.

Hanson, a wildlife ecologist at the University of California, Davis, said the black-backed woodpecker has been eating beetles in fire-killed stands of conifer forests for millions of years and specifically in North American forests for “many thousand years — since the last Ice Age.”

“Now, it’s very rare,” he said. The best science suggests there are fewer than 1,000 pairs in Oregon and California, and fewer than 500 pairs in the Black Hills, the petition said.

“Such small populations are at significant risk of extinction, especially when their habitat is mostly unprotected and is currently under threat of destruction and degradation,” the document said.

Richard Hutto, a biology professor and director of the Avian Science Center at the University of Montana, has been doing post-fire research since the early 1990s. He said it would be difficult to find a forest-bird species more restricted to a single vegetation cover type than the black-backed woodpecker is to early post-fire conditions.

The California State Fish and Game Commission agreed in December to add the woodpecker to the list of species that are candidates for protection under the California Endangered Species Act. State Commissioner Michael Sutton said a two-year review of the bird’s status is warranted because some Forest Service plans allow “100 percent salvage logging of burned areas, which is the preferred habitat of this species.”

For more information about black-backed woodpeckers, their habitat needs and the ecology of recently burned forests, check out Listen to the Message of the Black-backed Woodpecker, a Hot Fire Specialist from the February 2009 issue of Fire Science Brief from the Joint Fire Science Program.

UPDATE: Here’s a copy of the petition and here’s the press release from the conservation groups.

Sustainability of Large-Scale Forest Biomass Energy Prodution Questioned

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Over at the Summit County Citizens Voice, Bob Berwyn notes a study that throws cold water on some folks zeal for “Large-Scale Forest Biomass Energy.” According to Berwyn, the study, by the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and several universities suggests that such large-scale production “may be unsustainable and is likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions in the long run.” Here are a few “concerns” raised by the study:

  • The general assumption that bioenergy is carbon-neutral is not valid.
  • The reduction of biomass and lost carbon sequestration by forests could take decades to centuries to be “paid back” by fossil fuel substitution, if paid back at all.
  • There are significant concerns about the economic viability of biofuels, which may require government mandates or subsidies.
  • A higher demand for biomass from forests will increase prices for the biomass, as in Germany where they have already increased in price 300-600 percent from 2005 to 2010.
  • An emphasis on bioenergy production from forests could lead to shorter rotation lengths, questionable management practices and increased dependence on wood imports.
  • Negative impacts on vegetation, soil fertility, water and ecosystem diversity are all possible.
  • Fertilizer use, another important source of greenhouse gas emissions, could increase.
  • The use of fossil fuels in the Industrial Revolution allowed previously degraded forests to recover in much of Europe and the U.S., while industrial-scale use of forests for biomass would likely reverse this trend.

Full study from GCB Bioenergy (2012) here (pdf)

Also reported at Science Daily
The source feed for all these reports and the “full study” link, from Oregon State University, is here

Colorado Roadless- The Little State That Could

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Wildflowers and Italian Mountain near Stewart Mine in the Elk Mountain-Collegiate Roadless Area in the Gunnison National Forest.
Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project

Colorado Roadless may win the prize for most comment periods (6th?). Perhaps the USG should have Regulation Oscars.. I have ideas for categories.
FYI- I will do the same kind of media watch for this as for the planning rule, so please send any press pieces I haven’t posted here..
Here’s the link to the press release.
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Announces Proposed Colorado Roadless Rule

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2011 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the publication and start of a 90-day comment period for the proposed Colorado Roadless Rule, developed collaboratively to address the needs of Colorado’s unique and precious roadless areas.

“We are committed to the protection of roadless areas on our national forests, areas vital for conservation of water resources, wildlife and for outdoor recreation,” said Vilsack. “These areas also provide an important driver of economic opportunity and jobs in rural Colorado communities.”

This proposed rule, in development since 2005, reflects the interests of thousands of Coloradoans and stakeholders from across the country who contributed to its development.

“The Forest Service cares deeply about protecting Colorado’s roadless areas,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “Through collaboration, I believe we have developed a proposal that will afford better, lasting protection to these treasured areas, and we welcome additional comments in order to develop a successful approach for conservation of this special resource.”

The proposed Colorado Roadless Rule:

Puts more than half a million acres into a higher category of protection than the 2001 Roadless Rule;
Provides an updated inventory to protect high-quality backcountry areas with true roadless characteristics by removing substantially altered acres from the inventory and adding new acres containing a high level of roadless characteristics;
Removes existing ski areas from the roadless inventory;
Provides special protection for the headwaters of cutthroat trout streams;
Provides flexibility for temporary road construction for underground coal activities, such as methane drainage wells, on 20,000 acres in the North Fork coal mining area; and
Provides flexibility for temporary road construction for fuels treatments and ecosystem restoration to within one-half mile of communities.

The proposed Colorado Roadless Rule and Revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) will be printed tomorrow in the Federal Register, but today are available for review and comment online either at the Office of the Federal Register’s website or at the Forest Service website at http://roadless.fs.fed.us/colorado.shtml. Upon tomorrow’s printing, the Forest Service will take comments on this proposed rule for 90 days. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack and Chief Tidwell will consider public input prior to making the decision on the final Colorado Roadless Rule and EIS, which is expected to be signed in late 2011.

Stahl Runs for Board of Commissioners Using Forest Compromise Experience

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We’ve probably all wondered whether our carefully developed peace-seeking skills could be better used to benefit the world outside of natural resource-related discussions. I think it’s great that Andy is pursuing this.

Here’s the link.

Stahl said that’s given him experience where it counts, which is in working with people with sharply divergent views and getting them to agree to compromise solutions.

Stahl said that’s a skill that appears to be lacking on the current county board, where conservatives hold a 3-2 majority. It’s a split that at times seems to produce enough sparks to melt iron.

Reducing that discord is where Stahl is hanging his political hat.

Getting elected wouldn’t change that split, but Stahl said his experience trying to broker solutions among environmental enemies would help him end what is sometimes seen as the acrimonious standoff between the board’s conservative and liberal members.

“What you learn by being a representative for people of different interests is that there’s actually a lot of commonality of interest,” he said. “We all care about this place we call Lane County. We all care about jobs.

“I don’t think that the polarization that has infected Washington, D.C., needs to infect us.”

Stahl said that proof that he can broker workable compromises comes in a draft proposal being pushed in Congress by Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio, who wants to introduce a bill based on Stahl’s idea to open up logging on second-growth forests on what are known as Western Oregon’s O&C timber lands, forests owned and managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Under the plan, land with old growth trees and in key watersheds would be protected.

The idea is to open up land that’s suited for timber harvest, with counties receiving a portion of the logging sales, thereby boosting a key revenue source for counties while permanently protecting remaining old growth and other environmentally sensitive terrain.

The idea has opponents on both sides — and even Stahl said DeFazio’s version needs important changes.

But Stahl said it shows he can bring adversaries to the table, noting that it has brought together the liberal DeFazio and conservative Republican Rep. Greg Walden.

“Before my idea, it was all polarized,” Stahl said. “All of a sudden you have Peter DeFazio talking to Greg Walden for maybe the first time in history on a forest issue.”

Sage Grouse- Spotted Owl of the Interior West?

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Here’s a story in the Salt Lake Tribune. A quote below.

20th-century crash » Scientists estimate humans have slashed the sage grouse range by about half since Europeans settled on this continent. And Sommers’ memories of a late 20th-century plunge are backed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that grouse numbers have fallen 30 percent since the 1980s, likely to fewer than a half-million birds.
story continues below

In Utah, the Division of Wildlife Resources’ annual counts (22,000 this year) have dropped 1 percent to 2 percent a year since the ’80s — an improvement over steeper 1960s and ’70s losses.
Biologists don’t see hunting as a significant factor, and the practice continues in most states that are home to the birds. But it likely would end after an endangered-species listing. Utah already has stopped the hunting of the much rarer Gunnison sage grouse, which live around Monticello and in western Colorado.
Utah and other states are hustling to produce conservation plans this spring to convince federal officials that they can save the greater sage grouse without wide-ranging federal restrictions. They’re racing to complete prescriptions for the bird’s survival before the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management start revising their grouse protections in the next year.
For guidance, they look to Wyoming, sage-grouse central. With perhaps 40 percent of the species, the Cowboy State already has produced a plan and has a working group stocked with industry and wildlife groups trying to apply what they call common sense to save most of the birds.
Fish and Wildlife Service officials, who will rule on the bird’s legal status by 2015, say they like the model but it needs to apply to a larger swath of the range that covers most of the interior West.
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What’s killing birds? » As the name implies, sage grouse need sagebrush. They eat its pungent greens in winter, when bugs and other plants are under snow, and hide under it to avoid eagles and other predators. In decades past, pioneering plows converted brush to wheat and other crops, shrinking the bird’s home.
Today, the biggest threat is what biologists call “fragmentation,” a catch-all term that includes residential subdivisions, roads, wildfires, windmills, power lines, pipelines and gas wells.
“The future of the economy of the West is probably tied to the future of the sage grouse,” said Tom Christiansen, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s sage-grouse point man and adviser to his state’s working group.
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Note from Sharon:
Interesting statement by Terry Donahue in the comments. I wonder what others know about this. I also think that the “canary in the coal mine” analogy is easy to assert, harder to prove.

Livin’ With Bears- Boulder, Colorado

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A bear falls from a tree after wildlife officers tranquilized a bear that climbed about 15 feet up a tree at the University of Colorado's Williams Village housing complex. (Courtesy Andy Duann / CUIndependent.com )

This photo intrigued me when I first saw it. Here’s the story. You might want to watch the video with the students’ reactions.