On March 5th the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest issued a Notice regarding their intent to add WFU (Wildland Fire Use) in the guise of AMR (Appropriate Management Response) to their FMP (Fire Management Plan) portion of their LRMP (Land and Resources Management Plan). We discussed this previously [here].
In short, the RR-SNF wants to do whoofoos, i.e. Let-It-Burn fires. When lightning ignites a fire next summer on the RR-SNF, the fire dudes there will not do initial attack, or if they do, it will be half-hearted. They will not put any serious effort into containing, controlling, or extinguishing the fire, but instead will just let ‘er rip.
Chances a better than good that their whoofoo will explode into a firestorm and burn half a million acres or more. There is a likelihood that their whoofoo will burn out of the mountains and down into the valleys where ranches, farms, and rural homes will be destroyed in the inferno. There is every reason to believe the RR-SNF whoofoo next summer will make it all the way to town, and Medford, Grants Pass, and/or Ashland will be incinerated.
You see, it happened before. In 2002 the RR-SNF had a Let-It-Burn fire called the Biscuit Fire. The Biscuit Fire burned half a million acres, including over 100,000 acres of prime spotted owl habitat (50 known nesting sites were destroyed). After it burned the entire Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area, the Biscuit Fire kept going (imagine that!) and came raging down on the communities of the Illinois River Valley in a 12-mile-wide front.
The USFS had earlier decided not to do initial attack, and to just Let-It-Burn. Their excuses were that no firefighters were available during the summer fire season, and that it would be too expensive and a waste of money to fight the Biscuit Fire when it was small. But when the Biscuit Fire came roaring down upon the communities, the USFS realized that it would be bad form to burn out whole cities.
Every firefighter in the state and then some were called in (it turned out there actually were firefighters available). While radical arsonist wackos staged anti-firefighter demonstrations off to the side, the USFS threw everything but the kitchen sink at the Biscuit Fire. Grants Pass and Selma were saved, but it cost a pretty penny. In the end $150 million was spent on fire suppression on the Biscuit Fire, the most expensive fire in U.S. history.
But no lessons were learned from that experience. Now the RR-SNF wants to do it again! In fact, they want to permanently enshrine whoofoos in their Fire Management Plan. It’s Madness Motors time at the RR-SNF!
The Western Institute for Study of the Environment has prepared Comments to submit to the RR-SNF, as is our legal right to do. We post a link to those Comments [here]. Warning, the W.I.S.E. Comments to the RR-SNF are 168 pages long and 2.65 MB, so be prepared to wait a bit while they download.
March 31, 2008 | 11 Comments | Topic: Saving Forests, Federal forest policy
The US Forest Service is set to release its new “scorched earth” policy on March 29th. The policy will encourage Let It Burn fires on 15 National Forests. The Let It Burn policy will be installed by formally adding Wildland Fire Use (WFU or whoofoos) to the Fire Plans on the 15 forests.
The Let It Burn policy was instigated by the Wildland Fire Leadership Council, a Federal Advisory Board that includes representatives from the five fed land management agencies (USFS, BLM, NPS, USFWS, and BIA) and is heavily influenced by BINGOs (TNC, TWS). See [here].
The new Let It Burn policy will be installed by altering or adopting language in the Fire Plans known as “Appropriate Management Response” (AMR). The changes will be made without public input or Environmental Impact Statements (EIS’s), even though whoofoos fires have huge impacts on plants and animals including Threatened and Endangered Species. The Let It Burn fires will also impact:
• Non-listed flora and fauna
• Historic/cultural resources
• Water and watersheds
• Air quality and airsheds
• Carbon emissions
• Public and worker safety
• Local economies
• Recreation opportunities
• Soils
• Hydrology
• Transportation networks
• Social resources
• Fisheries
• Invasive and noxious weeds
• Insects and disease
• Wilderness and roadless areas
• Wild and scenic rivers
• Scenic quality
• Short-term and long-term productivity
• Irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources
• Wetlands and floodplains
• Farmland, rangeland, and private property
• Energy sources
• Civil rights and environmental justice
The new USFS scorched earth policy was predicted by this blog, and now it is coming to pass, without public notice in most cases and without the appropriate NEPA process (EIS’s) in all cases. The new policy also violates the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) among others.
Read more
March 28, 2008 | 7 Comments | Topic: The 2008 Fire Season, Federal forest policy
by Julie Kay Smithson, Property Rights Research [here]
To the Klamath Basin of Oregon/California - Would that PacifiCorp and its customers all stand on their hind legs and STSSTTS: Send The Settlement Straight To The Shredder!
If — and that is a massive “if” — the draft “settlement” were about “saving,” “restoring,” or otherwise “helping” any species of fish, “endangered” or otherwise, it would neither utilize questionable science and computer modeling nor present itself as “the only real solution.”
The Klamath Basin of Oregon and California is a wonderful place for people to own property, responsibly utilize resources, raise families, crops, livestock, and live what was coined as the American Dream.
Always waiting in the wings for a chance to shatter that dream have been various entities with an insatiable addiction. No matter how much they control, they want more. Place whatever name you wish on them; I’ve dubbed them GangGreed. To their way of thinking nothing is sacred. Indians, farmers, fishermen (commercial, recreational and subsistence), ranchers, timberers, miners, ranchers are all in their way.
Yanking the four dams — J.C. Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2, and Iron Gate — to ostensibly “restore the ecosystem” does not help any species. In fact, it will destroy property rights and property values, put a greater strain on irrigators and energy customers (can you say higher rates?), incorporates species-ism (favoring one species over another), and will take a fertile, human-enhanced basin from thriving for all to controlled by a few. How many farms, ranches, homes, businesses, towns, schools, etc., will be left when “ecosystem restoration” is complete? The real answer should make your stomach turn and your heart sick. What is planned for this entire area is for a few very powerful entities to take it over, control it, own all the natural resources, and then generously “allow” whatever in the basin happens to be done by the tenants. Think of the feudal systems in England and you’ll have a clear picture.
March 27, 2008 | 2 Comments | Topic: Saving Forests
Here are two recent news articles on rural politics in Oregon. Just to let you know how we high rate out here.
Number One:
Rural areas will lose a voice in Salem [here]
MATTHEW PREUSCH, The Oregonian Staff, March 23, 2008
BEND — Among the victims of Oregon’s darkening fiscal picture this year is the state’s only rural policy director.
Not that rural Oregonians are surprised. As they’ll tell you, getting the short end of the stick sort of comes with the territory.
In April 2004 at the Elks Lodge in John Day, Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed an executive order creating the Office of Rural Policy.
“The new Office of Rural Policy will assist the state in better understanding the unique needs and issues of rural Oregon,” Kulongoski said as eastern Oregon leaders looked on. Many hoped it would help bridge the state’s much-maligned urban-rural divide.
But the hope of some of those people who stood beside the governor has turned to bitter disappointment. At the end of this month, the office will disappear and its director and only full-time employee, Jim Azumano, will be out of work.
“From start to finish, it has been one of the most sorry situations I have ever been a party to,” Laura Pryor, a former Gilliam County executive and one of the office’s early supporters, said in a recent e-mail to colleagues.
The office never received regular allocations from the state’s general fund, relying instead on short-term federal grants and other miscellaneous funds.
Last year, the governor’s office asked for $400,000 to support the office, but the 2007 Legislature authorized only enough to keep it running for nine months. Lawmakers also asked Azumano and office supporters to come back with a report justifying its existence.
“I don’t know what they’ve done, other than have on the governor’s masthead a recognition that this administration cares about rural issues,” Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a Ways and Means committee member, said during a hearing on the office last June.
March 26, 2008 | 5 Comments | Topic: Politics and politicians
The five most recently retired Chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service have sent a letter to Congress in support of HR 5541, the proposed Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act). The purpose of the FLAME Act is to create a budget mechanism for funding wildland fire suppression without penalizing the rest of the USFS land management programs. The letter is posted in full below:
March 24, 2008
To the Honorable Nick J. Rahall II, Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives
Dear Mr. Chairman
This letter expresses our support for HR 5541 – the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act).
Last year we wrote to you of our concern about the way funding of fire suppression on the National Forests was handled in the Federal budget. We pointed out that it was putting the Forest Service in an untenable financial position. We urged you to find a way to finance emergency firefighting costs outside of the agency’s discretionary budget. We believe the FLAME Act will accomplish this.
Unfortunately, since we wrote to you the situation continues to deteriorate. Proposed funding for fire suppression, reflecting the rising ten-year average cost, increases by $148 million in the FY2009 proposed budget. Fire funding is approaching 50 percent of the Forest Service budget. As a result, staffing for basic stewardship of the National Forests is well below that needed to protect and manage these valuable public lands. In the last six years, the available staff on the National Forest System has declined 35 percent. The number of resource specialists available for basic inventory and monitoring has declined 44 percent; the number of personnel to provide services to the 192 million annual recreation visitors have declined 28 percent, and the number biologists and technicians available to manage some of the most important fish and wildlife habitat in the nation has declined 39 percent. Loss of these essential personnel is intolerable. Our nation must find a way to fund the increasing costs of protecting these lands from fire without decimating the organization needed to protect and manage them for the American people.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for taking the initiative, along with Congressman Grijalva and Congressman Dicks, to separate the costs of emergency fire suppression from the discretionary budget of the Forest Service and the other land management agencies. We also appreciate the recognition by the Agriculture Committee of the need to solve the problem. If money is appropriated for the FLAME Fund, we believe this will create the opportunity to rebuild the capability of the Forest Service to protect and manage the resources of the National Forest System for the benefit of the American people. We urge enactment of HR5541 – the FLAME Act.
Sincerely,
signed:
R. Max Peterson, Chief, Forest Service 1979 – 1987
F. Dale Robertson, Chief, Forest Service 1987 – 1993
Jack Ward Thomas, Chief, Forest Service 1993 – 1996
Michael P. Dombeck. Chief, Forest Service 1997 – 2001
Dale N. Bosworth, Chief, Forest Service 2001 – 2007
March 24, 2008 | 10 Comments | Topic: Federal forest policy
Excellent testimony was given by Paul H. Beck, Timber Manager, Herbert Lumber Company, Riddle Oregon, to the U.S. Senate on March 13th. His talk was designed to dispel eight myths about old-growth, forestry, and sawmilling here in Oregon. I think he succeeded.
Paul’s full testimony is [here].
Selected excerpts are [here].
Kudos the Paul Beck. He hit every nail square on the head. Whether the Senators understood a word he said is another matter, but I did and I liked every sentence. He quoted Charles Kay on anthropogenic fire, who in turn cited M. Kat Anderson and Stephen Pyne. He explained how modern fires are different and threaten the existence of our forests. He gave the correct prescription for saving our forests through scientific thinning, fuels management, prepared fire, and advanced forest restoration treatments. He clearly described the manner in which a variety of sawmills and wood products manufacturers must play a vital role.
Paul Beck gets it. Please read his testimony. It is filled with the truth.
Comments are welcome here.
March 22, 2008 | 3 Comments | Topic: Saving Forests, Federal forest policy
The Angora Fire last June erupted on mismanaged USFS land adjacent to South Lake Tahoe, exploded into a fire storm, incinerated 3,100 acres of public forest and 254 private homes, and caused an estimated $140 million in damages.
Since then a great deal of soul-searching has gone on. The Governors of Nevada and California appointed an emergency California-Nevada Tahoe Basin Fire Commission to investigate the fire and related matters, while the usual suspects and likely targets of their investigation scurried for cover.
The US Forest Service was the first to absolve themselves of blame, pointing the finger at homeowners while the fire was still burning. They followed that offensiveness with a glossy report written by Tim “Whoofoo” Sexton (the Father of Whoofoo flew out to Tahoe for some R&R, recalcitrance and recrimination). Old Whoofoo determined that the pathetic sub-merch thinning the USFS did in the Angora watershed “saved” the subdivision, even though the subdivision burned up. The Orwellian doublespeak would have made Joe Stalin proud.
Others to cover their tracks were the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA - pronounced “trippy”) and the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board (LRWQCB - pronounced “lackwits”). Those bleeding heart libby/fascist agencies have been monkey-wrenching every suggested fire safety measure for decades. Their mindset was that disturbing a pine needle on private land was a crime against Mother Nature, thus fueling potential holocausts all around the lake.
Supercilious BINGO-serving politicians have actually set up a program whereby the US Treasury is used to purchase building lots in the area, for the purpose of allowing them to fester in unmanaged condition. The USFS is now the confused owner of some 3,800 “urban intermix” lots, 1/4 acre mini-wildernesses in the otherwise privately-owned strip of land surrounding the lake. This useless waste of your money has created firetraps in every residential neighborhood, waiting to explode into flames. Furthermore, Trippy and Lackwits have prevented any fire hazard reduction on the “urban intermix” lots by concerned residents who were willing to do it for free, just to save their own homes from impending firestorms.
March 22, 2008 | 3 Comments | Topic: 2007 Fire Season, Saving Forests
by Bear Bait
I’d be lying if I said I was sitting here contemplating my navel. I am too fat to see it and too dumb to contemplate it.
What I am really doing is reading my American Art Review Magazine [here] that came today. I like to look at art. Even went to a chichi art auction this week. Saw some truely beautiful works.
Here on the Left Coast we see California plein aire paintings all the time. The dudes and dudettes that went out into the country erected their easels and went about painting what they saw. Sort of like photography but with paint brushes and palette knives. In both media the artistes collected visions of a place in a time.
It would be a damned interesting art show that could put a collection of early 20th century paintings together with photos of the same places at that time in California, Oregon, and the rest of the West, and contrast them with photos of the same places today.
My guess is that the vegetative conditions pictured today would not be the one that drew artists and photographers to those spots so long ago. And therein would lie my argument that “preservation” is a charade. I don’t think even art is “preserved” but instead “conserved” for the long haul. Old oils need periodic attention to keep their luster, clarity, and brightness.
I would also say that about forests, but that would draw lots of loud opposition. The very idea that forests need “conservation” to keep their luster, functions, clarity, and brightness is anathema to many. Or at least enough so that our forests continue to decline, even in their “preserved” state (sort of like pickles in Grandma’s pantry).
March 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Federal forest policy
In the Notice issued by the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest regarding amending that Forests’ Land and Resource Management Plans “to allow for the full range of Appropriate Management Response strategies for the management of wildland fires” [here], the RR-SNF Forest Supervisor Scott Conroy is quoted as saying:
“Land managers throughout the West have learned over the last forty years that there are ecological benefits of having fire on the landscape as it can provide for a renewal of the Forest. It is a natural cycle of life in a forest,” said Conroy.
To reiterate, Conroy said the ecological benefit of forest fires is “forest renewal.” What then is “forest renewal”? What is he talking about?
The old purpose (old as in yesterday) of forest management on the RR-SNF was to protect old-growth forests, or in the parlance of the USFS, “late successional stands.” No cutting, no thinning, no roads, no human impacts of any kind are allowed currently, because the ancient forests are to be preserved.
But now the RR-SNF proposes to “renew” those forests by burning them down. To me that means killing all the old-growth trees, indeed killing all the live trees, and replacing them with new seedlings and/or germinants, or whatever sprouts back after the catastrophic, stand-replacing fire.
What else can “forest renewal” mean?
I ask you: do you know what “forest renewal” means? Do you have some definition of it? Please feel free to comment on this post and explain it to me.
I am quite familiar with the laws and regulations governing the USFS and their management activities. Nowhere that I know of is “forest renewal” mandated, or for that matter, even mentioned. I could be wrong, however.
Is “forest renewal” one of the tasks the U.S. Congress has assigned to the USFS? In what law or regulation is that directive found? How is “forest renewal” defined in that directive, if it exists?
Another possibility is that Conroy is making it up, that no directive for “forest renewal” exists. If so he is operating outside the law. That would imply some sort of extra-legal activity. One could even construe that behavior as criminal, in that potential case.
But before I call for a Justice Department investigation of the RR-SNF Forest Supervisor for high crimes and misdemeanors, it behooves me to determine just what “forest renewal” means and if it is a real thing or not. It appears to be forest murder and catastrophic destruction of living trees, particularly protected old-growth stands. But that might not be the case.
Does anyone reading this have any legal knowledge or expertise regarding “forest renewal”? It is legal? Is Conroy operating within the law, or committing a horrendous crime?
I would appreciate your sharing any citations or legal verbiage indicating one way or the other. Thank you.
March 19, 2008 | 15 Comments | Topic: Saving Forests, Federal forest policy
Janet writes:
I noticed in news stories about Mr. Bonnicksen study that it was not peer reviewed and the study was funded by a foundation that gets money from logging companies. Also, some other experts who were interviewed for a story said Bonnicksen’s estimates were on the high end. Seems like you folks had a problem with a certain study out of OSU that wasn’t peer reviewed so I’m wondering why you are fine with this latest Bonnicksen study not being peer reviewed?
Janet, Holy cow! Did you ever get all that backasswards and twisted around! Let me try to straighten you out so you won’t be so desperately confused and disoriented.
1. Dr. (not Mr.) Bonnicksen, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Forest Science at Texas A&M University, Visiting Scholar at The Forest Foundation, and the author of the greatest book ever written about our forests, America’s Ancient Forests – From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery.
Dr. Bonnicksen holds a bachelor’s degree in forestry, and master’s and doctorate degrees in wildland resource science (he studied under Drs. Harold Biswell and Ed Stone at UC Berkeley). He has researched the history and ecology of ancient forests for more than 30 years, and has authored more than 80 papers and articles on forest ecology and resource management.
2. Dr. Bonnicksen is the originator of restoration forestry. His work has emphasized the fact that Native Americans were an integral part of America’s forests. The forests and the people who lived here formed an inseparable whole that developed together over millennia. He has endeavored to return our forests to sustainable, historical conditions and to protect, maintain, and perpetuate America’s forests.
3. Yes, Dr. Bonnicksen’s recent work was supported by the Forest Foundation, and that organization includes a timber company among its benefactors. But did you ever stop to think that every academic pursuit in California is supported by timber companies, through taxes, grants, and by the lumber that holds up the buildings on campus as well as your house?
March 18, 2008 | 16 Comments | Topic: Climate and Weather, Saving Forests
