Specifically Addressing the Impacts of WFU
Two emails came in today that address the question of NEPA analysis of WFU fires. Why does the USFS create Environmental Impact Statements and follow the NEPA process for some fairly innocuous projects, but shuns NEPA like a curse when planning WFU fires that result in major environmental impacts?
The WFU fires are planned well ahead of time, sometimes years in advance, including the mapping of the specific areas to be treated and the training of personnel to do the burning. In that respect they are no different from prescribed fires, except the ignition timing and location are accidental! What’s logical, scientific, professional, or responsible about that?
Furthermore, the “Wildland Fire Use, Implementation Procedures Reference Guide” states very specifically in the Foreword:
Prior to implementing wildland fire use under the standards in the 2005 Guide, local units must have ensured compliance with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA) requirements.
There is no wiggle room in that statement. Yet no National Forest has completed any Environmental Impact Statement or Section 7 (ESA) consultation or Section 6 (NHPA) consultation regarding WFU.
It should not be necessary to sue the USFS to force them to comply with laws that they know and state categorically they must obey.There has to be some integrity within the agency. They should not be doing “catch me if you can” skirting-the-law forest management. WFU should have complete NEPA examination with application of the best available science and public review with opportunity to appeal.
Oh yes, the emails. Here they are:
Hi Jane [Jane Kollmeyer, Forest Supervisor, Sawtooth NF],
Thanks for sending the pictures. Seeing that blackened country with those steep, fragile soils sharpens the reality of the tragedy. The one showing the plantation that burned on August 18 makes a liar out of the team spokesman who told the people at the senior center on August 26 that he had walked all of the plantations and none of them were touched by the fire.
Jane, can you explain to me who determined that the “Maximum Management Area” would be 109,000 acres? When was it determined? What kind of environmental analysis went into that decision? How much public involvement was included? Was an Environmental Impact Statement published with a Record of Decision?
A few months ago, there were many articles in the newspaper about what a serious impact a cell phone tower on Galena Summit would be. It generated a lot of letters to the editor and other public interest. Your decision came out saying that you had made a thorough environmental analysis and you were not going to allow the tower because the damage would be too great.
I don’t care a lot about the cell phone tower, but when I compare the impacts it would have created to the damage done by the 34,200 acre and growing South Barker Fire, they aren’t even in the same arena. It is like comparing a pimple to terminal cancer.
It seems very dictatorial to me that after 100 years of effort on the part of the Forest Service to protect and improve the soil stability, scenic values, timber values, fish and wildlife habitat, and livestock forage, that you can come along on the spur of the moment of a lightning strike and decide the whole area should be burned up. By closing all of the roads and trails, you have prevented the public from being able to see what you are doing until it is too late.
Several residents have told me the crews are doing a good job of trying to protect structures, but it seems like you have forgotten that the reason the structures are there is the scenic beauty of the area. I’m not sure the cabins will have much value if the surroundings are ashes.
This has been going for a solid month and you have reportedly spent $4.6 million after the fire budget was depleted. Now would be a good time to take advantage of the cooler nights and put this thing out before it does reach 109,000 acres.
Glenn
Glenn,
ATTA BOY!! You do a very good job of asking an important question, that is: How can the outfit, in good conscience, arbitrarily make decisions that have major environmental effects, when on the other hand we obsesses so much about such little things, like that Galena Cell Phone Tower, or a fire salvage timber sale.
It seems to me that fairness and equity within NEPA would at the least require the outfit to do a separate EIS to address the Wildland Fire Use on each Forest and visibly allocate the areas it is to be used in, like they often have done with Motorized Travel Plans. No where, to my knowledge, have they specifically addressed the impacts of Wildland Fire Use, or compared it with other potential alternatives, e.g., a proactive combination of prescribed fire coupled with mechanical vegetation management.
Carl
by bear bait
by Bob Z.
bearbait:
Of course the Governor’s positions appear to be hypocritical, insincere, ignorant, and contradictory… because they are.
But that certainly doesn’t mean they are illogical: because they aren’t.
Here is the logic: rural Oregonians (”rubes”) who live in the forested areas of the State generally don’t vote Democrat, and form a minuscule portion of the voting public. They can all burn and go to hell, so far as a Democratic Governor (Kulongoski) is concerned.
Hypocritical, contradictory, insincere, and ignorant (regarding natural resource management, anyway) voters (”liberal Democrats”) form amazingly large portions of the Willamette Valley voting population, however. They are responsible for both electing Kulongoski, and listening to him as if he is, indeed, “Green” and makes good sense. They want to take him bowling, and act like he can really bowl, because TV says he could.
Liberal Democrats would rather breathe carbon monoxide rather than carbon dioxide, because they can’t see carbon monoxide and because the Governor says carbon dioxide is bad.
There are no forests near the voting liberal Democrats, but there is grass seed. They can see the smoke. The Governor makes enemies of a few hundred farmers that make smoke that tens of thousands of people (”voters”) can see. Seems logical, don’t it?
by YPmule
Last night I read all 75 pages of the “Wildland Fire Use, Implementation Procedures Reference Guide” - for a ‘lay’ person, it was a bit tough to consume in one sitting, but I think I pretty much understood it.
http://www.nifc.gov/fire_policy/pdf/wildland_fire_use_guide.pdf
It says right in the forward exactly what Mike quoted about NEPA, and I am astounded at the lack of due process (is that the right word?).
It seems they think they have an “out” by saying that declaring WFU is an emergency situation. But their forest plans including the FMT and FMU’s are done way in advance and they include WFU. So I agree that these forest plans need public scrutiny. Heck, even part of their decision has to include public opinion, so maybe that is why these plans are not put out where people can see them?
Was talking to a friend in N. Idaho yesterday, he was complaining about the “yuppies” that wanted to ban field burning up there. I gave him some rough figures on field burning vs. forest fires that I could remember from reading this site, and he was as angry as I was by the time we got off the phone. Folks can’t stand a bit of smoke that is beneficial smoke, but they must love the crud that comes from forest fires.
Even so-called suppression fires are used as WFU, but they just call that “point protection.” Was just talking to a neighbor this evening, we were looking at the devastation that once was the western watershed for Johnson Creek. As volunteer firefighters and property owners we were here watching the crown fire. He shook his head and said “This won’t come back, not even in my kid’s lifetime.” - I said it won’t ever come back, it will be something else, but it will never be forest ever again. Instead of a fuels break to protect our village, it will be fuels for the next fire.
Please explain how Clean Air Act violations are assessed. If the Oregon governor can be actively campaigning to stop a maximum of 50,000 acres of 3 ton per acre material being controlled burned due to health concerns for humans, how in the hell can a WFU event that spews that much material on a thousand acre fire be tolerated and in fact, encouraged by the same left of center governor? Does not make sense to me. Does not follow any logical trail. And then you add to that, the destruction of the recreation opportunity you get with wildland fire, and its aftermath, you know the leaders are smoking dope or are just dopes themselves.
Spotted Owl habitat? Are woodpeckers their prey base? Because after the fires, their habitat is fragmented (a gentle mosaic of burned and unburned is fragmented habitat!!!) if not totally destroyed, and so is the habitat for their prey base, and their security cover is gone. All the very same things that were drilled into us about “bad logging” now happen with “good fire”. Bullshit! I call Bullshit!!! Can’t have it both ways. Half of the greenies and the USFS are liars, because one side of this or the other is lying. Not being truthful.
Watershed values? Burning entire watersheds helps them? Maybe in a sage steppe overrun by juniper, but not heritage forests of centuries old trees now snags. Bullshit!!! You can’t burn the riparian zone and not heat water. You can’t remove the cover that slows erosion in runoff periods. You can’t heat the water to boiling and save aquatic life. Bullshit!! I call Bullshit!!!
Clean Air? Need I say another word. It is wildland fire we are talking of.
This WFU deal is fuel removal on the cheap, but the joke is that when it is over, there is even more fuel with a higher chance of ignition. That dog don’t hunt!!!!
This is Stalin keeping the Nazi Armies at bay by denying them access to resources. Classic communist “bare earth” defense of the wildlands. Idiocy in a recognizable form. Poor judgment or no judgment or just plain stupid. McNamara’s “destroy the village to save it from communism” plan for Viet Nam… only it is now the USFS plan for the forests in their care. What else can it be??? Tell me. Please.