Another Fuel Treatment Hit Piece: Billions in Feds’ Spending on Megafire Risks Seen as Misdirected

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Fortuitously,  I ran across this Bloomberg Law  piece: Billions in Feds’ Spending on Megafire Risks Seen as Misdirected

Just after posting the research paper on PODs. What a contrast!

We policy wonks know that the people get to frame problems. In wonk-land we disagree about framings all the time, because of course different framings lead to different solutions. I frame the problem as “how best for people to live with fire and protect the things we consider to be important, communities, watersheds, old growth and so on”.

According to some, the issue is framed as “protecting houses”.  As I have said, and observed, people don’t want fire to run through their communities.  They don’t like evacuating. They don’t like moving people from hospitals and nursing homes, companion animals, livestock.  There is plenty of community infrastructure, not houses, that needs to be rebuilt, power lines and so on. People and communities have huge economic losses.  I agree that we residents are a piece of the puzzle and have responsibilities. I don’t see it as either/or.  But my home hardening is not going to save our watershed.  For some reason, it seems like this framing doesn’t resonate with some..    To me, it’s also not very compassionate toward human beings (many old, sick, low income and/or of color).

At least two things seem to be gone from earlier discussions:

1. Bad Republicans in bed with the Timber Industry are the only ones who want this (excuse for logging).

2. Fires are really good!! And we should just let them go because they’re natural, and you can never have enough snags.  (Notice how this turned when they became thought to be made worse by climate change, now we have all kinds of data on public health risks, watershed impacts, dead fish, which are now considered to be bad).

But now..

It’s the  D-Controlled Congress who are not following the real “science” and are wasting billions of dollars .. once you lose the “bad timber industry” rationale, though, I think you need some kind of motivation for why everyone on both sides of the aisle are for it.  I don’t actually see a replacement rationale in this story.

When someone disagrees on climate science, they are seen to be fringy, investigated by Congress, deplatformed and accused of purveying “misinformation.”  In this case, though, the minority is thought to be correct (by some media elements).  So..  both get framed as “it’s about science” but that’s a code for “scientists we agree with.”

Two things strike me about the people quoted (but I know that both Jim and Tony have more nuanced views than maybe these quotes show).

  1. They frame this as being “managing wildfire to protect houses” but don’t consider the costs and dangers of evacuations.
  2. They also don’t consider other values that wildfires can impact, most notably watersheds.  Water, which we need as the climate changes and in fact many fire-y places have always had droughts.

“As the federal government focuses on forest thinning, no scientific consensus exists that removing vegetation, especially at a landscape-scale, will save communities in the paths of firestorms amid the West’s historic 23-year drought.”

But it will help fire managers control wildfires, hence PODs.  Are the majority of working fire scientists just wrong? Or is the choice of framing (“save communities” unintentionally leading down the wrong path?) From the Ten Common Questions paper..V. Should Management be Concentrated in the WUI?

“Fuel reduction treatments can support cultural, ecological, ecosystem service, and management objectives beyond the WUI. For example, treatments that restore the ecological resilience of old growth forests and patches with large and old trees are critical to long term maintenance of wildlife habitats (Hessburg et al. 2020) of seasonally dry forests and terrestrial carbon stocks, and slowing the feedback cycle between fire and climate change (Hurteau and North 2009). Treatments in watersheds that are distant from the WUI and protect municipal and agricultural water supplies are critical to minimizing high-severity fire impacts that can jeopardize clean water delivery (Bladon 2018, Hallema et al. 2018). For example, post-fire erosion and debris flows may cause more detrimental and longer term impacts to watersheds than the wildfires themselves (Jones et al. 2018, Kolden and Henson 2019).”

Note that these fire scientists frame the issue of fuel treatments and what values are being protected more broadly.

Here are the fire scientists who wrote the “ten common questions” paper:

Susan J. Prichard, Paul F. Hessburg, R. Keala Hagmann, Nicholas A. Povak, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Matthew D. Hurteau, Van R. Kane, Robert E. Keane, Leda N. Kobziar, Crystal A. Kolden, Malcolm North, Sean A. Parks, Hugh D. Safford, Jens T. Stevens, Larissa L. Yocom, Derek J. Churchill, Robert W. Gray, David W. Huffman, Frank K. Lake, Pratima Khatri-Chhetri.

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Some quotes from the Bloomberg Law article are below. I put links to the pubs of the quoted scientists in the article.  Judge for yourself compared to the folks above. My two cents is that Tony Cheng and  Michael Flannigan are voices worth listening to in this space. The others .. not so much.

“Houses Spread Fire

Many wildfires also destroy communities far from forests because grasses are extremely flammable, said Erica Fleischman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.

Colorado’s most destructive wildfire, last December’s Marshall Fire, incinerated more than 1,000 suburban homes and buildings amid high winter winds in the plains of Boulder County—miles from the nearest forest.”

Really? Don’t do fuel treatments in forests, because..  grass fires exist?

“Most homes destroyed in wildfires burn because embers get inside the house through vents, not because they’re in the inferno’s path.

“It’s the houses that start each other on fire, not the forest,” said Jim Furnish, a retired deputy chief of the Forest Service.”

In the Marshall Fire, it was grass from wildlands that got the fire going and it transferred to residences.  It is a fact that fires can start in wildlands and spread to communities. I don’t really understand this argument.

“The package of wildfire bills would spend $182 million for wildfire risk reduction research, including the promotion and use of less-flammable building materials, at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology. Another $102 million is earmarked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for wildfire preparation, promotion of better materials, and to retrofit existing homes.

Federal money should be spent on helping homeowners remodel their homes to make them more resistant to the embers, Law said. They can install ember-proof vents, use wildfire-resistant landscaping, and clear gutters of debris.

Wooden fences can spread fire in suburban areas, and lawmakers could consider updating urban land use plans and building codes to ensure that homes and yard structures are built of less-flammable materials, said Tony Cheng, a co-director of the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes at Colorado State University. The institutes are receiving $20 million from the infrastructure law to compile data on fuels treatment efforts.

No Scientific Consensus

As the federal government focuses on forest thinning, no scientific consensus exists that removing vegetation, especially at a landscape-scale, will save communities in the paths of firestorms amid the West’s historic 23-year drought.

The science is clear that “there isn’t a great connection between home loss and these fuel treatments,” though they sometimes help firefighters gain a foothold on some fires, Cheng said.

Moore, the Forest Service chief, said the agency is confident that as homes are built deeper and deeper into the woods, its research shows that removing “overstocked” trees is the best way to protect them.

“We know where we do nothing, or where we do a little, we’re seeing the evidence out on the landscape,” Moore said, referring to recent megafires. “We feel compelled to do something.”

Megafires Uncontrollable

But scientists say that even though vegetation has built up in forests because of a century of fire suppression, the extreme drought and heat are making large-scale thinning projects ineffective.

“When the whole forest is a dry tinderbox, having one area where you’ve done a fuels reduction may not be anywhere near enough to reduce fire risk,” said William Anderegg, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Utah. “We are not doing nearly enough to tackle the root of the problem, which is climate change.”

It makes “intuitive sense” that thinning forests would dramatically reduce wildfire risks, but independent research doesn’t back that up, said Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, a forest advocacy group. Forest thinning is often motivated by logging interests instead of forest and community protection, he said.

“Are these thinning projects stopping weather and climate-driven fires?” he asked. “The answer is no.”

Clearing out forests may increase wildfire risk because it will further dry vegetation by exposing it to greater heat, sunlight and wind, said Michael Flannigan, science director for the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science at the University of Alberta.

Thinning 50 million acres at a landscape-scale is “wasting your time and money” unless fuels treatments occur very close to communities that could burn and are maintained so the trees don’t grow back, he said.

Often, wildfires just blow right through thinned forests, Flannigan said.

“Fire is opportunistic,” he said. “It jumps over rivers that are a kilometer wide. You’re not going to control it.””

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When I looked at this paper on which Flannigan is a coauthor, it modeled fuel treatments but not impacts of treated fuels on suppression tactics and strategies.  Maybe that’s another gap among scientists, and perhaps that’s a reason that we might find truer scientific answers about whether fuel treatments “work” by answering two questions before the study is designed:

1) Work at what exactly? Define what people intend to protect. Define what people want from fuel treatments.

2) Work on their own, or as a technique to help with operational fire management?

Flannigan is quoted as saying “you’re not going to control it.” And yet every day we have people working at controlling fires, and they mostly do. Check out the Hotshot Wakeup Twitter feed for videos. That’s sometimes true.. they are out of control.. but generally suppression works. And we are grateful to our wildland firefighter for making it so.

New Research Paper on PODs and Planning: Thompson et al.

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Here’s a new paper on PODs. It’s Open Access, so yay! Check it out, lots of interesting stuff.

I’m a big fan of PODs’n’PLANNING, that is, I think the FS should put a time-out on plan revisions (after all, now we don’t know where the Mature and Old Growth potential rule will go, which could upend all that) and just do EIS’s for PODs and other fire management related decisions requiring NEPA, including POD maintenance through time.  PODs’n’PLANNING would necessarily take into account the resource values (including old growth) that would be desirable to protect from wildfires.  Perhaps by putting into the “wildfire management strategies” box we will get away from the old “fuel treatments don’t work; just protect houses” discussion.  Note that the protection of water and ecosystem function  are included in Fig. 6 below.  A girl (even an old lady) can dream…

Through a combination of conceptual strategic frameworks and real-world examples, we have demonstrated the potential value of PODs to support wildfire preparedness and response as well as fuels mitigation and forest restoration. A key argument here is that PODs can provide rich opportunities for innovation in both backward-looking evaluative and forward-looking anticipatory frameworks, by leveraging place-based collaboration, science-driven analytics, and risk management principles. We argue that PODs help us prepare for the future by facilitating more informed and adaptive wildfire management strategies and help us learn from the past by providing a logical platform for nuanced performance measurement clearly linked to locally defined fire management objectives. Key aspects of the PODs concept include (1) instilling boundary spanning and anticipatory lenses into wildfire planning efforts; (2) stressing monitoring, learning, and improvement of best practices; (3) co-producing knowledge and infusing analytics with expert knowledge; and (4) delineating fire management and analysis units in ways that are relevant to fire containment operations by linking features like roads, water bodies, and fuel type transitions.

Three salient areas of opportunity for PODs highlighted in this paper are supporting climate-smart forest and fire management and planning, informing more agile and adaptive allocation of suppression resources, and enabling risk-informed performance measurement. These efforts can be synergistic, as the presence of robust plans and decision support can for example support timely identification and communication of incident resource capacity needs, which in turn can support effective response, which in turn will be captured in next-generation performance measures. Similarly, effective assessment and planning based on risks and control opportunity can inform development of fuel break networks and strategic containment units that facilitate both intentional restoration of beneficial wildland fire as well as containment efforts to slow the spread of undesired fire. In sum, enhanced performance of the wildland fire system is premised in large part on enhancements in planning capacity and capability at local levels, and we believe PODs can play an important role in this space.

PODs are by no means a panacea and real challenges remain. The pace and scale of environmental, social, and organizational change is leading to ever more extreme wildfire behavior and consequences. Within this environment, we will likely continue to experience increased negative outcomes even where planned mitigation efforts and response strategies are well organized and based on the best available science. The PODs planning framework is no exception. We outline some potential pitfalls, broken down by thematic area with a description of potential failure modes (Table 7). Some of the themes relate to social aspects of the collaborative process planning process, and lessons learned from previous studies have found that a dedicated and coordinated effort is essential (Greiner et al. 2020; Caggiano 2019) and recommend following the best principles for collaborative engagement and stakeholder involvement to ensure PODs are designed effectively (Talley et al. 2016). Other themes relate to the dynamic nature of the problem and highlight how outdated assessments, plans, and mental models can diminish the value of PODs. The current wildfire crisis will likely result in substantial change to our wildfire management approach including the need to engage new partners, take advantage of emerging technologies, and explore critical resource needs.

New scientific study identifies ambitious network of protected areas

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Today, a group of prominent scientists—including the former Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—released a new scientific study “envisioning a bold and science-based rewilding of publicly owned federal lands in the American West.”

Their “rewilding call is grounded in ecological science and is necessary regardless of changing political winds. Our objective is to follow up on President Biden’s vision to conserve, connect, and restore by identifying a large reserve network in the American West suitable for rewilding two keystone species, the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the North American beaver (Castor canadensis).”

Below is a press release conservation groups issued hailing the scientists’ western rewilding blueprint.

UPDATE: 30+ pages of supplemental material in support of the scientific study is also available here.

HAILEY, IDAHO—Conservationists today hailed a new scientific study that identifies an ambitious network of protected areas, with wolf and beaver restoration as a centerpiece, as a sound strategy for restoring native ecosystems and wildlife diversity on western public lands. The benefits of this proposal would contribute significantly to stream restoration and help mitigate drought, wildfires, and climate change. The study uses scientific modeling to identify  eleven large-scale reserves, then identified connectivity habitats to allow the dispersal of native species among the Western Rewilding Network.

“This scientific blueprint for large landscape conservation, and its focus on retiring public land livestock operations and restoring wolves and beavers is a major call to action for policymakers in Congress and the administration,” said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist and Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project. “The ecological success of Yellowstone National Park shows that this combination restores biodiversity, and replicating this success across the West is an enterprise well worth our collective efforts.”

Of the 92 threatened and endangered species encompassed by the proposed rewilding network, the scientists analyzed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service findings finding  that commercial uses of public lands were major contributors to species endangerment. Livestock grazing is the most common threat, imperiling 48% of the species, followed by mining (22%), logging (18%), and oil and gas drilling (11%).

“Rewilding can bring us real wolf recovery in the West – it’s no longer a pipe dream,” said Kristen Boyles, managing attorney at Earthjustice. “Climate change adds even more stress to wild places, and scientific visions like this show us a path toward rebuilding our natural heritage.”

Changing the management in the proposed reserve network will enable restoration of  these essential ecosystems including, importantly, drought mitigation. Specifically, the recommendations call for retiring  livestock grazing allotments, and restoring gray wolf and beaver populations.

“History has shown us that, over time, rewilding efforts, protection, and restraint can restore wounded landscapes,” said Maggie Howell, Executive Director of Wolf Conservation Center. “Letting beavers and wolves do their essential work is an effective way to unleash nature’s self-healing powers to reestablish vital ecological processes and make the land and its creatures resilient in a time of climatological stress.”

The study cites the restoration of streams and riparian systems, amelioration of altered fire regimes, and climate mitigation through increased carbon storage as collateral benefits of implementing the reserve design and its recommended protections. Aspen woodlands, which support an elevated diversity of native species – but are presently in decline – would be a key beneficiary of the plan.

“This study makes it crystal clear that it’s time to fully invite nature back to America’s public lands,” said Randi Spivak, Public Lands Program Director for the Center for Biological Diversity.  “If we are to succeed in conserving 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, the recommendations by these authors are necessary steps to saving life on earth”

The paper’s authors justified the prescription of significant changes in land and wildlife management in the reserves because “we believe that ultra ambitious action is required.” They cited drought, changing temperatures, massive fires, and biodiversity loss as key ecological crises facing western ecosystems.

The scientists consider this network a natural complement to a Sagebrush Sea conservation proposal, and found that the two networks, if fully implemented, could protect a combined 22% of western states. If strongly protected, these lands could be counted toward the 30% by 2030 goal articulated by the Biden administration under their ‘America the Beautiful’ initiative.

“This paper is a roadmap for the Biden administration to turn aspirational words about protecting 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030 into meaningful action,” said Sarah McMillan, Senior Adviser at WildEarth Guardians. “The colliding extinction crisis and the climate emergency demand bold action. With logging, mining, oil and gas drilling, and livestock grazing remaining a significant threat to federal public lands, we must stop this endless resource exploitation and start conserving, reconnecting, and restoring at a landscape scale. The ecological and economic benefits of the rewilding plan presented in this paper would be significant, and would accumulate over time, as riparian areas, clean water, and biodiversity are restored and climate change is mitigated through increased carbon storage.”

Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

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Folks, here’s the Forestry section of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Apologies for the formatting. I cut and pasted this from the text of the act. The full text is here. Note the definition of hazardous fuels reduction project….

 

Subtitle D—Forestry

SEC. 23001. NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM RESTORATION AND FUELS REDUCTION PROJECTS.

(a) APPROPRIATIONS.—In addition to amounts other wise available, there are appropriated to the Secretary for fiscal year 2022, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to remain available until September 30, 2031—

(1) $1,800,000,000 for hazardous fuels reduction projects on National Forest System land within the wildland-urban interface;

(2) $200,000,000 for vegetation management projects on National Forest System land carried out in accordance with a plan developed under section 303(d)(1) or 304(a)(3) of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (16 U.S.C. 6542(d)(1) or 6543(a)(3));

(3) $100,000,000 to provide for environmental reviews by the Chief of the Forest Service in satisfying the obligations of the Chief of the Forest Service under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 through 4370m–12); and

(4) $50,000,000 for the protection of old-growth forests on National Forest System land and to complete an inventory of old-growth forests and mature forests within the National Forest System.

(b) RESTRICTIONS.—None of the funds made available by paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a) may be used for any activity—

(1) conducted in a wilderness area or wilderness study area;

(2) that includes the construction of a permanent road or motorized trail;

(3) that includes the construction of a temporary road, except in the case of a temporary road that is decommissioned by the Secretary not later

than 3 years after the earlier of—

(A) the date on which the temporary road is no longer needed; and

(B) the date on which the project for which the temporary road was constructed is completed;

(4) inconsistent with the applicable land management plan;

(5) inconsistent with the prohibitions of the rule of the Forest Service entitled ‘‘Special Areas: Roadless Area Conservation’’ (66 Fed. Reg. 3244 (January 12, 2001)), as modified by subparts C and D of part 294 of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations; or

(6) carried out on any land that is not National Forest System land, including other forested land on Federal, State, Tribal, or private land.

 

…

 

(3) HAZARDOUS FUELS REDUCTION

22 PROJECT.—The term ‘‘hazardous fuels reduction project’’ means an activity, including the use of prescribed fire, to protect structures and communities from wildfire that is carried out on National Forest System land.

 

 

Resort Towns: Affordable Housing for Workers, Living in Cars and Camping on Nearby Federal Land

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This interesting article by Bruce Finley of the Denver Post may be pay walled so I will try to hit the highlights; it focused on Colorado mountain towns, but the problem is certainly wider.

Across mountainous western Colorado, cars as cocoons for sleep and sanity serve as last-resort shelters helping hundreds who provide services stay around. Yet “parking is at a premium,” said Margaret Bowes, director of the Colorado Association of Ski Towns, welcoming the creation of new designated overnight lots.

“It’s just a safe place to park where people aren’t going to be bothered by police,” Bowes said. “These are the people keeping our communities running. We need them here.”

Not that vehicle living is easy for workers who, after completing shifts cleaning, cooking and shop-keeping, can face disapproving glances and have to slip strategically into toilets and showers.

Local business manager Scott Link, 45, recalled: “the things that come with this — the depression, the paranoia” — after a three-year stint “trying to keep a really low profile” while living out of a white camper truck with his two pit bulls.

“I was losing my mind. I was close to killing myself,” said Link, who moved back to his native southern California for a change of venue after his grandmother died and then found housing with his girlfriend in Buena Vista, 24 miles north of Salida (pop. 5,752).

The Colorado Sports Recycler shop he manages has become a popular hub where he and colleagues inject humor into hard times by creating bumper stickers.

“One less Sprinter” stickers, poking fun at the high-end Mercedes camper vans roving around the West, quickly sold out.  “Now, it’s like even living out of your car is gentrified,” explained Brendan Gibbs, 37, sitting with Link in the shop one recent evening before heading back to his latest public land parking spot. He earns nearly $30 an hour building towering houses he reckoned he could never afford.

Next bumper sticker in the works: “Salida: where the locals live in motels and tourists stay in houses.”

The squeeze has intensified as the internet enables expanding commercial use of housing for short-term rentals and a COVID-19-era influx of well-to-do people fleeing dense-packed cities drives up prices.

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The designated overnight zone in Centennial Park by Salida’s public pool won’t be a magnet because only workers sponsored by employers can receive window-sticker permits, Nelson said. “This is designed for the workforce, not just whomever is rolling into town.” Similarly, the campers are available only for workers.

Mayor Dan Shore supported these innovations, navigating neighborhood criticism by emphasizing economic imbalances with houses costing more than ten times the annual median income of around $60,000. “These are workers who serve you and your families.”

But longtime resident and logger Kirby Perschbacher, 70, demands better, urging town leaders to focus on broader economic problems rather than settling for a temporary fix. Perschbacher sees newcomers flocking from cities and transforming Salida as the problem.

“They don’t want to work. They want somebody to serve them. They are creating a servant class,” Perschbacher said. “Our workers should be paid enough so that they don’t have to live out of their cars. It might be better not to put a band-aid on it. This is a pretend fix.”

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On Wednesday afternoon, a man who grew up in Salida sat in his brother’s parked pickup truck with the door open, a blue cruiser bicycle parked beside it, along banks of the Arkansas River. He was savoring shade given by a towering cottonwood tree near where a sign said “no overnight camping.”

Their parents bought a house in Salida for $25,000 in 1975. The family sold it, and the man said he and his brother would be hard-pressed to re-purchase it for under $700,000. He’s worked as a sheriff’s deputy and for a state government agency in the past and now, at age 52, had worked most recently installing carpet.

“It is still my town,” he said, asking that his name not be published for fear this would bring trouble from other residents. He knew about the new SOS parking lot option. “I can’t afford a permit,” he said.

Salida code enforcers pulled up just then in a white van marked “community services.” Two officers got out and Sean Lombard, Taser stun gun on his belt, approached.

“You can’t stay here overnight. Stay out of the city if you are camping,” Lombard said.

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Kort also owns a campground. The fees for camping range from $22 a night to $56 a night at a KOA facility west of Salida. On BLM and U.S. Forest Service land, rangers increasingly enforce 14-day limits on parking and camping in one place, struggling to manage human impact on delicate natural terrain.

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There appear to be  many dispersed camping spots around Salida that are not necessarily “delicate” terrain.  Also, people could drive to different ones every night or every 13 days.  It would be interesting to hear from federal land managers with their concerns and solutions.

Now Comes the Hard Part of the IRA: The Problems of Siting Wind and Solar, by Sammy Roth of LA Times

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Wind turbines in California Desert from BLM website

 

Like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill does for fuels projects, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) or Big Climate Bill, or whatever, puts enormous bucks in the pipeline (so to speak) for solar and wind (as well as other) projects. The key thing about solar and wind, though, is the massive footprint.  As usual, Sammy Roth of the L.A. Times does a good job of presenting diverse perspectives in this article. We’ll discuss the Build Back Better forest-related leftovers in this bill in another post.  NB: “an area much bigger than California.”

But finding good sites for all those renewable energy projects — and contending with opposition from landowners, Native American tribes and even environmental activists — could be just as challenging as getting a bill through Congress.

Across the country, local opposition has slowed or blocked many renewable energy facilities, and land-use conflicts are likely to intensify. Princeton University researchers estimate that zeroing out U.S. carbon emissions by 2050 could require installing solar panels and wind turbines across more than 225,000 square miles, an area much bigger than California.

“There’s this misperception that there’s plenty of land,” said Eric O’Shaughnessy, a renewable energy researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “That is true, but [solar and wind farms] have to go in specific places.”…

Two recent studies help explain the sources of that opposition — and what might be done to alleviate local concerns.

The first study, from researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explored 53 renewable energy projects that were delayed or blocked over more than a decade. It found that the most common sources of opposition were concerns about environmental impact and land use.

California and neighboring states have seen both types of conflicts. Some conservation groups have tried to block solar and wind farms in the Mojave Desert, citing potential harm to desert tortoises, golden eagles and Joshua trees, among other animals and plants. Just this month, Ormat Technologies Inc. paused construction of a geothermal project in Nevada while federal wildlife officials study whether it would harm the endangered Dixie Valley toad.

Then there’s San Bernardino — California’s largest county by land area. Three years ago, it banned solar and wind farms on more than 1 million acres, spurred by locals who worried that the sprawling projects would industrialize their rural communities.

….
Local people (of all ethnicities, Indigenous or not)  can also be concerned about wildlife, bird and other impacts.  Even people who might not always agree with conservation groups (e.g. ranchers).

Some clean energy advocates consider that type of opposition to be, at best, NIMBYism and, at worst, thinly veiled climate denial.

Philosophical Questions: Can Indigenous people be NIMBY’s or be dismissed at climate denialists?  When do local people have legitimate concerns about any kind of new infrastructure and who decides whose concerns can be dismissed?

But Lawrence Susskind, an urban planning professor and the MIT study’s lead author, said local concerns of all kinds need to be taken seriously. His research has convinced him that speeding up the clean energy transition will be possible only if developers take the time to make a good-faith effort to gather input from communities before dumping solar and wind farms on them.

Too often, Susskind said, companies exclude local residents until the last minute, then try to steamroll opposition — to their own detriment. His study cited 20 projects that were blocked, some by lawsuits or other forms of public resistance.

“If you want to build something, you go slow to go fast,” he said. “You have a conversation, not a confrontation.”

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I agree and wonder how does” going slow to go fast” fit with getting it done by 2030? Or would it be more honest (yes I know, politicians (!)) to say we are on a path, this is the best path we can agree on, and we’ll get to where we get to.

Stanford University researchers hope to facilitate similar compromises for the rest of the country.

Not to diss Stanford, but should there be others engaged in developing those compromises across the country? I would tend to see this as a role of State government. For example, I’d see at least Colorado School of Mines and CSU involved, the former the energy experts, the latter the rural people, wildlife and agriculture experts. This big bag o’ bucks is an opportunity to build governance bridges IMHO.

Stanford’s Dan Reicher told The Times he has convened more than 20 groups — representing the solar industry, environmental advocates, Native American tribes, the agriculture industry and local governments — in an “uncommon dialogue” to discuss land-use conflicts involving large solar farms. It’s modeled after a dialogue he convened for the hydropower industry and conservation groups that led to an unprecedented agreement between those long-warring factions.

Reicher hopes the solar discussions will lead companies to make smarter decisions about where to build projects — and do a better job communicating with local residents and conservationists when they think they’ve found good locations.

“Done well, siting is a highly technical process that also lends itself to significant input,” Reicher said.

O’Shaughnessy agrees on the need for public engagement upfront.

The Lawrence Berkeley researcher was lead author of the second recent study, which found that solar and wind farms typically are built in rural areas with low-income populations — and those projects can be either a benefit or a burden to those communities, depending on local factors. Construction jobs and tax revenue can be a boon, while loss of agricultural land can be a big loss.

Renewable energy facilities can also destroy land held sacred by Native American tribes or disrupt treasured views.

The potential harms from solar and wind energy pale in comparison with the dangers of oil and gas drilling and other fossil fuel projects, which, unlike renewable energy, can expose residents to cancer-linked chemicals and other toxic substances. The low-income communities of color that have borne the brunt of fossil fuel pollution are also especially vulnerable to climate change consequences.

Note that “solar and wind farms typically are built in rural areas with low-income populations”. If we look at places in the interior West anyway where build out has occurred, this seems to be the case.  They may be particularly vulnerable to climate change consequences, but sometimes are, and sometimes aren’t communities of color.

I also think there’s a difference between drilling impacts and the impacts of other fossil fuel infrastructure (refineries) that is not clear here.  For one thing,  drilling may not be close to communities at all, as we see in much federal lands drilling.

Taking steps to ensure that solar and wind farms in vulnerable communities don’t worsen ongoing injustices is important, O’Shaughnessy said. It’s a priority for the Biden administration, which has set a goal of delivering 40% of the benefits of federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged neighborhoods — an initiative known as Justice40.

“There will be projects that move forward despite some degree of local opposition. That’s inevitable,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It comes back to making sure there are participation processes in place to do this as fairly and equitably as possible.”

The key question is whether enough clean energy can be built fast enough to avert climate catastrophe.

Susskind, the MIT researcher, thinks it’s doable. He said renewable energy companies should be willing to redesign their projects to avoid sensitive lands and to offer financial compensation to people or businesses who feel they’re being harmed.

“More stuff would get built faster,” he said.

The national trade group Solar Energy Industries Assn. agrees with that assessment.

Ben Norris, the group’s director of environmental policy, said in an interview that engaging with communities early — and giving them a real opportunity to be heard — is “the hallmark of good project development.” He said it’s an area the solar industry is working to improve, in part through the Stanford initiative — and the Senate deal makes it more important than ever.

“This is such a historic opportunity that we’re on the cusp of that we need to get it right,” Norris said.

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I see a tension here.. going slow to go fast, vs. climate emergency and do it now. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Roadless Area Protections to be Codified?

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The Wilderness Society says:

On July 29, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5118, The Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act. H.R. 5118 is a package of nearly 50 bills aimed at curbing wildfire and drought and improving forest management. The Wilderness Society applauds the inclusion of the Roadless Area Conservation Act in the package.

The Roadless Area Conservation Act would codify the 2001 Roadless Rule, and would provide permanent protection for inventoried roadless areas in the National Forest System by barring the construction and development of roads, timber harvesting and other development.

I looked at the text of the bill and found this:

SEC. 208. Protection of inventoried roadless areas.

The Secretary of Agriculture shall not authorize road construction, road reconstruction, or the cutting, sale, or removal of timber on National Forest System lands subject to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as published on January 12, 2001 (66 Fed. Reg. 3243) except as provided in—

(1) subpart B of part 294 of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on January 12, 2001);

(2) subpart C of part 294 of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on October 16, 2008 for Idaho); and

(3) subpart D of part 294 of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations (as provided for Colorado on July 3, 2012 and December 19, 2016).

The bill was sent to the Senate, where my guess is it’ll die.

Man Sets Forest Ablaze After Trying To Light Spider On Fire; Wyoming Officials Caution Against That: Cowboy State Daily

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I don’t know why it is, but it seems like many Interior West media outlets are full of bad news. Here are the themes:  things are worse than we thought, and other people (particularly people in the Interior West) are really messed up.  I think here of Wyofile, Mountain West News Service, and the High Country News, for example.  Then there’s the Center for Western Priorities (if only Republicans would go away, we’d live in rainbow and unicorn country) but at least they don’t claim to be unbiased.  And the writers are generally very earnest (if perhaps they have a tendency to fit facts to predictable narratives).  But after looking for interesting tidbits among all these sources, it’s always good to come back to.. the Cowboy State Daily – not least for comic relief. Some of you Forest Service folks may remember the humor of a Law Enforcement newsletter that I remember on the Data General.  I wonder if they are still writing them? It was a round up of LE stories told with a laconic sense of humor.

This article highlights forest spokesperson Aaron Voos of the Medicine-Bow Routt National Forest. Check the link to the Deseret News in the story for other weird fire starts. One of my favorites was that riders need to check behind them because horseshoes on rocks give off sparks.

Happy Friday, everyone!

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The spokesman for Medicine Bow National Forest is warning visitors to avoid lighting spiders on fire, at least outside of a fire ring, or else they could cause a wildfire like a Utah man did this week.

“That’s a first, I’ve never heard of that one,” forest spokesman Aaron Voos told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday. “You should definitely not try and burn spiders. We can all learn from that.”

On Monday, a Utah man saw a spider while hiking in Springville, Utah, according to the Deseret News. For an unknown reason, he attempted to light the spider on fire and sparked a 60-acre wildfire.

Cory Martin, 26, was arrested on suspicion of reckless burn and possession of marijuana after police discovered a jar of the drug in his belongings. The fire had been 90% contained as of late Tuesday.

Voos said in Medicine Bow National Forest, the most common types of fires are caused by unattended, or neglected, campfires.

According to the National Park Service, around 85% of wildfires are caused by humans, either through negligence (such as leaving a campfire unattended or discarding a still-lit cigarette) or arson.

“Any sort of scenario where you are responsible for an ignition source, whether it’s a lighter to burn a spider or a chainsaw or a car muffler, you’re responsible for your actions,” Voos said. “You need to utilize that ignition source safely. You need to be aware of any fire restrictions. It’s very important that you follow basic guidelines.”

Voos said the only way burning a spider would have been (technically) OK is if the arachnid had been inside of a fire ring, which is established to keep campfires from spreading.

A human-caused wildfire, the Sugarloaf Fire, is currently burning within Medicine Bow and has grown to 839 acres as of Wednesday.

Voos did not say whether he believed the fire was caused by a person attempting to burn a spider or any other insect, only that the source of the fire was still under investigation.

Worrying finding in California’s climate initiative reveals problem with using forests to offset CO2 emissions

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“Climate forests”? Nice idea, but…. see this article in Phys.org is here. Excerpt:

Researchers “found that the estimated carbon losses from wildfires within the offset program’s first 10 years have depleted at least 95% of the contributions set aside to protect against all fire risks over 100 years. Likewise, the potential carbon losses associated with a single disease and its impacts on a are large enough to fully hinder the total credits set aside for all disease- and insect-related mortality over 100 years.

“In just 10 years, wildfires have exhausted protections designed to last for a century. It is incredibly unlikely that the program will be able to withstand the wildfires of the next 90 years, particularly given the role of the climate crisis in exacerbating fire risks,” said co-author Dr. Oriana Chegwidden, of CarbonPlan.

 

R-6 Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Monitoring Dashboard: 2021 Fires and Updates

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You can click on this screenshot to make it larger.

Here’s the link… seems to me that much learning could occur and be shared via this Dashboard.   Rumor has it that Region 5 (California) wants to be included. Seems like BLM would be a natural as well. My understanding is that FTEM itself is interagency, although at this point the Dashboard is only used by Region 6 of the Forest Service.

2021 was a year of both some West-side fires and the Bootleg as well as some Washington fires.
There is a new feature added called “Complexity Level” that takes into account the number of treatments on the site (say thinning, prescribed fire versus one entry).

A few thoughts.. I looked at the Little Bend Creek fire on the Umpqua and noticed many treatments occurred on relatively few acres (7 to 35 ish). It’s hard to imagine those sizes having much impact on “contributing to the management of the fire” but I suppose it’s possible. It’s interesting to look at the treatments also (e.g., would you expect a precommercial thin to have an impact on wildfire? what does that stand look like?) And of course, it’s always interesting to look at places you’re familiar with and the photos.  Please share your own observations in the comments.

As always, feedback to the designers is appreciated. Scroll down on “how to interact with this dashboard” and there’s a link where you can enter questions, feedback and suggestions, and technical issues.