Community Sourced, Shared and Supported
The North American perspective..
Check out this site that shows current fires in British Columbia from an earth view. Also you can read some of the comments on the articles. What is the same as down here? What is different?
Plus they have posted other wildfire info, including a photo gallery, on the BC websites.
I wonder if we had one earth view site that showed all forest fires in North America each day, would that change our perspective on the issue and what to do about it?
Note by Sharon. This is the first of two guest posts by Derek. The second focuses on Montana.
There’s an exciting new change blowing across the West these days. It bodes well for the future of forestry. “Changing public values” was a phrase the Forest Service often used to justify reducing timber harvests. I’ve read a version of the phrase in every USFS revised forest plan put out since the 90’s. Well, public values are changing back again. Across the West, the public now wants more logging.
The Mountain Pine Beetle(MPB) epidemic that’s sweeping the west and fear of wildfire are driving the change. There’s always been considerable rural support for logging, but what’s really exciting is this new attitude is coming from people who were traditionally opposed to logging. Many people who consider themselves environmentalists are now seeing logging in a positive light. Forestry is back in vogue.
Another important shift is the public’s attitude towards the so called “radical” environmentalist groups who litigate timber sales (I’m not trying to be disparaging here. I only call them “radical” to differentiate them from “moderate” groups who don’t litigate). The public doesn’t perceive them anymore as being the underdogs taking on the timber baron establishment. To the contrary, the radical enviro groups have become the establishment. How could they not be seen in that light? They won the timber wars. For twenty years the papers have been full of stories about timber sale litigation and sawmill closures. Timber harvest on National Forests has dropped by 80%. For all practical purposes, the public now perceives the radical enviro’s as controlling USFS timber harvest levels. They’re seen as the ones in charge now. The radicals are now in the position of defending the status quo.
This is a very important “role reversal” as every politician knows that policy is really based upon public perception. With every future wildfire, whether justified or not, the public won’t be blaming the Forest Service, they won’t be blaming the logger, they’ll be blaming the radical environmentalists. Being held responsible comes along with being in charge. I think a lot of radical groups in the West recognize this role reversal and are responding by halting timber sale litigation. However, there’s some groups who persist in litigating even “healthy forest” timber sales.
Another result of these changing public values is that the radicals are losing the support of the much more numerous and pragmatic “moderate environmentalists”. Those that supported them when the Lolo was clearcutting 15,000 acres/year, will desert them when they litigate a healthy forest timber sale. This isn’t lost on western Democrat politicians who have relied on the moderate environmentalist base. They can now safely take on the radicals without offending the moderates, and maybe pick up a few Republican voters as well. The radicals are becoming a political liability.
I’d like to share a few cases from around the West that I put forth to support what I’ve said above. Colorado is suffering a massive pine beetle outbreak in the heart of their ski industry from Steamboat Springs to Vail. These are very pro environmentalist counties. They shut down the timber industry in the 90’s. A major sawmill closed in 2003 for lack of USFS timber. And now they complain the Forest Service isn’t moving fast enough to remove the dead trees. It’s amazing to me how peoples environmental idealism goes out the window when their property values are threatened by pine beetle and wildfire. Nothing explains a clearcut better than a MPB epidemic or a wildfire. The city of Frisco clearcut 40 acres of park land, and the Mayor told me he had only one complaint. The USFS is now proposing to do clearcut 5,000 acres around Breckenridge. Now every local, state and federal politician is calling for greatly fuels reduction projects, including clearcutting of dead trees, around communities.
Most timber sale litigation is based on the National Environmental Policy Act. This act created the environmental impact statement. Sen. Mark Udall, who’s consistently received a 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters, has recently sponsored legislation that would create “insect emergency areas” where NEPA review would be “expedited”. Seven years ago he proposed “taking funds from the timber sale program and reallocate it to protect fish and wildlife” in order “to protect rather that destroy our national forests”.
A part of me would like to scream hypocrisy, but a larger part admires the man for changing his mind. I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years. I used to think that all MPB killed forests would burn. But researchers in Colorado forced me to acknowledge to myself that many past epidemics I could remember never burned. I didn’t like to change my mind, but I would only be lying to myself. Screams of “it’s all gonna burn” are as ridiculous as screams of “they’re gonna log it all”. I still have no doubt that it raises the fire hazard.
And there’s no more litigation from the 27 some Colorado environmental groups that I Googled. A few years ago, before the pine beetle alarm bells went off, they ended two years of litigation on a puny 600 acre salvage sale. I admire them for changing their minds in response to changing public values. Unfortunately, Colorado’s last sawmill closed a month ago. I’m sure it didn’t help that they were hauling the logs 150 miles one way.
In Lake Tahoe, the USFS didn’t log for decades in order to protect the lake’s famous water clarity. You needed a permit, which was seldom granted, to cut any tree on your own property. After the Angora fire burned up 200 homes, the 20 some agencies regulating the lakes environment declared “wildfires are now the biggest threat to water clarity” and “thinning the forest is now the highest priority”. Wow. Sen. Harry Reid recently introduced legislation that would spend $135 million dollars to thin the forest around Lake Tahoe. No more litigation. Changing public values.
In Arizona, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) shut down the timber industry in the 90’s with litigation. These guys are the big boys on the radical enviro block. They’ve filed hundreds of lawsuits against the USFS. After the 2000 Rodeo fire burned off a half million acres, a “collaborative” group called the “Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership(GFFP)” was formed. It bills itself as a group of “environmentalists and business people(they don’t even mention loggers)” and it’s goal is to thin the forests around Flagstaff AZ. This last summer Arizona’s Governor published a study calling for the USFS to thin 30,000 acres/year.
Of course, there’s no sawmills left to take that wood. As part of a proposal to build a $300 million dollar OSB plant, the CBD recently signed a “memorandum of understanding” not to oppose thinning on 30,000 acres/year. I admire them for changing their minds.
The problem is, and this illustrates a big problem that will emerge down the road, do you think there’s a bank in the world that would loan $300 million dollars to a mill dependent on National Forest timber? The CBD’s memorandum means nothing. More litigation is only another group away.
The three cases above have two things in common. The majority of the public consider themselves to be environmentalists and they destroyed their timber industry. So now you have a future cycle of more fires, followed by more public demand to log to mitigate fire hazard, followed by more public frustration because there’s no infrastructure to do it, followed by more public anger at the radical enviro’s because the public knows they’re the reason there is no infrastructure now, and they’re the reason there won’t be. The only way you’re going to get any infrastructure is to guarantee the supply by exempting timber sales from NEPA litigation.
Oh it might take ten years. It might take another million acres burned in Arizona, another few million burned in California, a million burned in Colorado. But it’s inevitable. Congress wrote the law, Congress can fix it. I think the reason a lot of radical enviro groups are backing off litigation is they realize that wildfires are the biggest threat to NEPA. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind’s blowing.
In a decision issued today, the Ninth Circuit ruled that logging road run-off that is channeled by a system of ditches and culverts into navigable waters is point-source pollution regulated under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, which requires permits to limit the amount of pollution discharged to meet water quality standards. Although the case involved logging roads on Oregon’s Tillamook State Forest, its reasoning applies equally to the national forest system because the Clean Water Act directs that federal agencies be treated just like all others when it comes to water pollution.
This decision builds upon an earlier ruling that subjected pesticide spraying from airplanes to NPDES permitting. The ruling invalidates EPA’s long-standing silvicultural exemption from point source permitting.
Several responses to this ruling are possible. Here are my guesses. Will the State of Oregon appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court? Yes. Will the Court accept cert? No. Will EPA and/or its delegated state regulatory agencies seek to issue programmatic, general permits for logging road-related sediment discharge, much like it does for certain classes of in-stream gold mining? Yes (the court invites EPA to do so). Will forest road owners face increased scrutiny from citizen Clean Water Act lawsuits? Duh! Will road engineers start designing outsloping roads without culverts and ditches? Perhaps so.
Other speculations welcome.
Since our previous discussion was so close to this topic, couldn’t resist posting another essay from High Country News, this one by Eric Jantz.
Ask most people about how the environmental laws in this country get implemented, and you’re likely to meet with a blank stare. No one really knows the details, but the BP spill — combined with less well-publicized leaks from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant — signal to most people that the system isn’t working.
I’m a practicing environmental lawyer, and I’ll be the first to admit that our nation’s environmental law framework is dense and arcane. I’ll also be among those to second-guess whether it’s working. I suspect that one of the biggest problems can be summed up in the words “agency deference.”
Agency deference is the judicial doctrine that found its legs with the U.S. Supreme Court case Chevron v. NRDC in 1984. It precludes judges from revisiting decisions made by an administrative agency except in the most extreme circumstances. It’s also the doctrine that makes it nearly impossible for there to be any independent review of decisions made by agencies, some of which have become more like industry enablers than hard-nosed regulators.
Although it may not have been the Supreme Court’s intent, the Chevron case effectively gives administrative agencies nearly unlimited power over whether a community is subjected to pollution. Statistics bear this out. At the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, for example, agency decisions are overturned only 1.5 percent of the time. Other federal circuits report similarly dismal numbers. In other words, no one is watching the watchmen.
In a perfect world, where regulatory agencies are serious and neutral and where regulators are never influenced by politics, turning life-and-death decisions over to a class of technocrats might have made sense. But in the real world, regulatory agencies are more often than not under substantial pressure from elected officials to acquiesce to demands from regulated industries. These agencies are also often staffed by bureaucrats who anticipate plum jobs in the industries they regulate once their government pensions have vested.
The BP oil explosion and resulting leak in the Gulf of Mexico is a case in point. The now well-documented coziness between regulators and the regulated industry resulted in an environmental catastrophe that has cost millions of dollars, ruined countless businesses and harmed a vast ocean ecosystem.
So what to do? There are probably many legitimate solutions to the problem, from getting big money out of politics to abolishing corporate personhood. But three concrete things can be done immediately. First, the federal and state governments should adopt what’s known as the precautionary principle. It would require a polluter to prove that an activity, though risky, would not harm the environment. Using the precautionary principle would relieve pollution-impacted communities of the current burden of proving that a polluting activity was so risky and dangerous it should not have been attempted.
Second, state and federal judges ought to once again assume their review authority over administrative agencies. Even in light of the Chevron decision, our federal Constitution and all state constitutions give the judicial branch the authority to review the actions of the other branches of government to make sure they’re in line with the governing laws and constitutional provisions. Reviewing courts should carefully scrutinize agency decisions and act aggressively in revisiting agency decisions that put communities at risk. If expertise is the issue, then judges who have technical backgrounds should be recruited and appointed to the bench. Alternatively, judges could specialize in particular areas of administrative law and develop a deep understanding of the technical issues in that area, just as practicing lawyers do.
Finally, the judiciary needs to abandon what’s almost become a cult of the technocrat. Instead of throwing up their hands and relying on the “expertise” of agency bureaucrats, judges should begin to respect the expertise of the people that live in communities affected by a polluting industry. Members of communities impacted by polluting industry know who’s been sick in their neighborhoods and when they got sick. They know which water sources are discolored and smell bad. They know whose child has had a recent asthma attack. This kind of knowledge should not be subordinated to the knowledge brought in by hired guns with lots of letters after their names — although it usually is.
These suggestions meant to strengthen judges to do the right thing are by no means a panacea. But I think they’re a good place to start to make environmental laws mean something on the ground.
Eric Jantz is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a syndication service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is an attorney with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Reading this opinion makes me want to give a shout-out to the Deschutes for doing some excellent comprehensive NEPA work on their project.
No matter the height of the bar, with sufficient documentation the FS can leap it. The question is whether investment in documentation at that level is the best use of taxpayers funds.
See this story here and this one.
Here’s an AP story.
What was interesting to me about this one is the mention of the judges’ origin
The majority opinion was written by Justice Milan Smith, the brother of former U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and an appointee of President George W. Bush, whose administration tried and failed to scrap the Northwest Forest Plan in order to allow more logging…
Smith had harsh words for the dissent written by Judge Richard Paez, a President Bill Clinton appointee, calling his position “extreme,” and noting that the entire court had decided in 2008 to give deference to the Forest Service on science matters.
Interestingly, the third judge Richard Tallman was also appointed by Clinton (albeit he was an R). I just think that it is interesting that the author of the article chose to bring up the political affiliations of the judges, but only two of three.
And the decision here.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes. But the whole opinion is worth a read. I was impressed by the fact that despite the the NW Forest Plan explicitly allowed this treatment, it required this level of judgment to see the allowed activity come to pass.
Our highest deference is owed to the Forest Service’s technical
analyses and judgments within its area of expertise,
Lands Council, 537 F.3d at 993; nonetheless, our dissenting
colleague would have us halt the Forest Service’s Project
because he does not like the Forest Service’s approach to
solving the problems addressed. We went en banc to foreclose
precisely this type of second-guessing of the Forest Service.
See id. at 988 (noting that “in recent years, our environmental
jurisprudence has, at times, shifted away from the appropriate
standard of review and could be read to suggest that this court
should” “act as a panel of scientists that instructs the Forest
Service” how to perform its expert duties). The Forest Service
thoroughly considered various reasonable approaches to “protect
and enhance conditions” of the LRSs, NWFP S. & G. at
C-11, and offered a plan that does not “run[ ] counter to the
evidence before the agency or is so implausible that it could
be not ascribed to a difference in view or the product of
agency expertise,” Earth Island Inst. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 442
F.3d 1147, 1156 (9th Cir. 2006), abrogated on other grounds
11568 LEAGUE OF WILDERNESS v. ALLEN
by Winter v. Natural Re. Def. Council, Inc, 129 S. Ct. 365
(2008). Far from conflicting with the protection of LSRs,
carefully controlled logging is a tool expressly authorized by
the NWFP for long-term LSR maintenance.
On the other hand, here is what the Sierra Club website says about the same project:
Five Buttes Timber Sale
Five Buttes Logging SurveyFive Buttes Logging Survey, Oct 07
Photo by Marilyn Miller Our initial September 2008 legal victory stopping this large old growth timber sale is being contested during 2009 by a USFS appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court, so we are again in court to protect this area from severe logging harms. Our legal victory has been essential in helping protect Deschutes National Forest spotted owl Late Successional Reserve (LSR) habitat. The timber sale is currently under court-injunction stopping the sale and logging of the remaining five timber sales. For more pictures of destruction caused by logging the first Bass Sale tract of this timber sale, see the Five Buttes Photos page. Visit the Forest Service Five Buttes Project page for the FS documents related to this project.
Volunteer efforts achieving this legal victory have thus far protected old growth ponderosa pine as well as spotted owl mixed conifer old growth forests. Volunteer efforts in 2009 are needed to ensure our legal victory is not overturned and the area logged. Before our legal win, logging devastated one-sixth of the area forests, with the felling and removal of 200 to 400 year old ponderosa pine trees – that had survived centuries of recurrent fires – under the shameful pretense of “fire risk reduction”. The case has set important precedents that help our ongoing efforts to prevent harmful logging in several other area timber sales also.
Many many thanks to our wonderful team of attorneys, and to all the volunteers, staff, and allies who have helped achieve the initial victory – for the wildlife and natural forests. May we again prevail during this 2009 agency legal appeal! See the joint conservation organizations Five Buttes Press Release for a summary of this victory. The Court’s Summary Judgment Opinion provides the details of the decision. The Five Buttes legal appeal is available on the Comments and Appeals page. (3-09-09)
It’s not really about the documentation, is it?
We keep trying to stop the fires
Essay -Published in High Country News here August 12, 2010 by Char Miller
Scorched earth and gnarled oaks lit up like flares. Blackened skies and the whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopters aloft as evacuees huddle in a local school. This quick-cut imagery can mean only one thing in California: The summer fire season has begun.
Although the first major fires in the Southern California counties of Kern and Los Angeles have been contained, the larger lessons to be drawn from this trio of late-July fires already are obvious. The stunning devastation from last summer’s Station Fire, and the political inferno it ignited, is driving a much-more aggressive firefighting response this summer.
Take the wind-whipped Bull Fire. It started July 26 in the Sequoia National Forest, and within three days had swept through 16,000 acres of grass and brush along the Kern River, near the town of Kernville. Nearly 2400 fire-fighting personnel battled the blaze, at their command an impressive arsenal of 124 fire engines, five bulldozers, 16 water tenders, and 14 helicopters. That ground and air technology, combined with 99 hand crews doing the essential back-breaking labor to clear fire lines around the perimeter, was a sign of the seriousness with which this early outbreak was taken.
Every bit as significant was the swift reaction to the West Fire. It flared up July 27, not far from major wind farms. The same gusting force that turns those turbines propelled the fire through the kindling-dry landscape; within two days it had burnt through an estimated 1400 acres. However small it may have appeared, the West also drew a major crew to extinguish it: more than 1000 firefighters from county, state, and federal agencies worked in conjunction with eight helicopters, nine fixed-wing aircraft and a fleet of engines and dozers.
They also got a governor. Not one to miss a fire-action photo-op, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made an appearance at Tehachapi High School, command post for the West’s operations. He did what governors should do, praising the first responders and declaring Kern County a disaster area, a declaration that frees up additional state funding for the emergency. But his most critical contribution was in showing up. His presence underscores that politics, not science, is determining when and how fires will be fought.
True, one reason so many firefighters raced to the West Fire, and another 1750 were quickly dispatched to the fast-moving 14,000-acre Crown Fire near Palmdale, is that these areas have not burned in a very long time. The fuel load, and thus the level of fire danger, was (and remains) extreme.
Yet another reason why so many resources were hurled at Bull, West, and Crown fires is the searing memory of the 2009 fire that got away. Last August, a small, arson-ignited fire in the Angeles National Forest blew up into the single largest conflagration in the history of Los Angeles County. When the Station Fire finally was brought under control in October, it had torched more than 250 square miles of the San Gabriel Mountains, killed two firefighters and destroyed countless structures.
Its charred acres have become an in-your-face warning to firefighting agencies across the state. So have Congressional hearings that charged the Forest Service with mismanagement and media investigations that unearthed damning evidence about a possible cover-up of its actions. Because no agency head wants to endure such public scrutiny, and because no one wants to bear witness to the anguish of burned-out communities, every fire now is going to get hit hard.
This is not the smartest response. Not all fires must be controlled; some are essential to maintain ecosystem health. Not all firefighting makes economic sense, either. Yes, the commitment to protect human life is non-negotiable, the swift punishment of arsonists is essential and the need for more funds to fireproof the wildland-urban interface is critical.
But it is also true that Californians and other Westerners must become a lot smarter about where they choose to live. If they decide to reside in fire zones, they need to learn how to safely inhabit those areas so as not to endanger the lives of those racing to their rescue.
In the immediate aftermath of the Station Fire, these cautionary insights have gone up in smoke. Now that fire has become so politicized, whenever and wherever sparks fly, a small army of firefighters will storm in and flame-retardant will rain down.
Char Miller is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a syndication service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is director of the environmental analysis program at Pomona College in California and the author of Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism.
One of my favorite political scientists (Elizabeth Theiss-Morse) co-authored a book a while ago entitled Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes Toward American Political Institutions (1995). The authors remind us, if we ever needed reminding, that the democratic process is slow and often characterized by compromise, uncertainty, disagreement and conflict. But the authors find in their exhaustive survey that Americans tend to actually dislike such democratic processes, including debate and publicly hashing things out, seeing it not as informed debate but rather as haggling or bickering.
They conclude that:
People do not wish to see uncertainty, conflicting opinions, long debate, competing interests, confusion, bargaining, and compromised, imperfect solutions. They want government to do its job quietly and efficiently, sans conflict and sans fuss. In short, we submit, they often seek a patently unrealistic form of democracy.” Americans, they find, want “stealth democracy”—democracy without the mess. They want, for example, both procedural efficiency and procedural equity. “Just as people want governmental services without the pain of taxes, they also want democratic procedures without the pain of witnessing what comes along with those procedures.”
Americans, it seems, are quite demanding.
I keep thinking of this work as I read letters submitted to the USFS regarding the new planning rule. I’ve now read dozens of these things. And one thing most seem to have in common is a desire for an expedited and more efficient planning process. Of course, who wouldn’t want such a thing, it’s boilerplate.
But then, in the next breath, most of these letters demand the USFS to analyze something in more rigorous fashion. This runs the gamut from analyzing ecosystem services, climate change, watersheds, restoration areas and priorities, biodiversity, cumulative effects, motorized recreational access, tribal reserved rights, and multiple possible timber production levels.
It seems that even those groups whom have complained most loudly in the past about the process predicament and various planning pathologies want the agency to study something of their interest in more thorough fashion in the future. Take, for example, the letter written by the Blue Ribbon Coalition, whom “fear we are poised on the brink of creating a fatuously self-indulgent planning process even further removed from the ground.” (btw, I’m stealing the great line “fatuously self-indulgent, just excellent).
But then, without hesitation, the letter asks the agency to study various things in more detail, like properly analyzing lost recreational opportunities. The group also wants the USFS to include in plans at least one EIS alternative that enhances the importance given to recreation in the agency’s multiple use sustained yield mandate.
I’m guilty of this too. So the question, perhaps, is whether we have a patently unrealistic understanding of democracy…and planning? And if so, what gives?
Martin Nie
Here’s a link to an article on a Red Rocks Scenic Area near Sedona, Arizona.
Here’s a link to the bill.
Here are some quotes from Senate candidate Glassman’s website:
National Forests are far more development-friendly than other types of federal land and are vulnerable to land swaps that could ruin the scenery. The community and the U.S. Forest Service have already put in place protections within the Forest Management Plan. However, that plan is not a permanent answer. The Sedona Community Plan calls for “maintaining existing limits of the private lands and preserving the National Forest lands within the city.”
Establishing a National Scenic Area would codify plans already in place, having been developed with the Forest Service and Verde Valley community leaders at the same table. It would restrict land swaps that could leader to development further into the Red Rocks. Establishing the NSA would open up the Sedona area to more federal grants to protect this natural resource.
This idea, at least as told here, seems to fit in with the idea that forest plans are necessary, but not sufficient to protect areas from development.
It sounds like some people are afraid that by revising, they will lose important agreements that they have made through forest planning, e.g.,Amendment 12. They seem to be saying that really important agreements should not be revisited through planning. That is the same kind of thinking that led to rulemaking in Idaho and Colorado roadless- there are important land use decisions best not revisited through planning.
I see some paradox here in that we have worked for years on planning rules and plans, to say what you can and can’t do in specific areas. If many feel that “lines on maps saying what you can and cannot do” need to be codified through a more permanent process, what is left that is important and essential to do in forest planning? At the risk of sounding heretical, would it be more cost effective to do lines on maps once and codify than to revisit every 15 years?
If we did this, we could have each forest develop more of a visionary plan with learning objectives and monitoring that would not need to be in regulation.
I also wondered whether it is true that a designation will make it easier to get federal grants? If so, once word gets out, I would see a potential for a serious case of nation-wide Designation Proliferation.
Interesting article on Dave and current FS climate change efforts here.
Also, I think the chosen advertisement at the Times site is interesting, for Hidden Gems by Pew Environment. I always find the advocacy/analysis tension at Pew to be interesting.
For example on their homepage:
“The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life.”
