Logging and wildfires



guywhofishes

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logging in the badlands!!??? That's terrible!

Royce?... here boy!

Dave, where's the crawlers?
 

Brian Renville

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Forests manage themselves by lighting on fire. So did all the grass in North Dakota. 1000 years ago no one gave a shit. The people there went elsewhere and came back later. Now that folks live permanently in these areas there are issues. Now that intervention is necessary to save towns and cities there needs to be some management. Much in the same way code tells people they need to clean up their yards to avoid a spark turning the entire town into a fireball, dead and dying trees need to be cleaned up in order to avoid to prevent a forest from doing the same. There is many years of logging to be done in these forests without cutting down a living tree. Get it done. The carbon footprint the econuts love to talk about left by these fires is bonkers compared to some super dutys driving around.
 


gst

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Forests manage themselves by lighting on fire. So did all the grass in North Dakota. 1000 years ago no one gave a shit. The people there went elsewhere and came back later. Now that folks live permanently in these areas there are issues. Now that intervention is necessary to save towns and cities there needs to be some management. Much in the same way code tells people they need to clean up their yards to avoid a spark turning the entire town into a fireball, dead and dying trees need to be cleaned up in order to avoid to prevent a forest from doing the same. There is many years of logging to be done in these forests without cutting down a living tree. Get it done. The carbon footprint the econuts love to talk about left by these fires is bonkers compared to some super dutys driving around.


Ya we have to let nature take its course with these fires and let them burn naturally .............but hey we need to outlaw wood stoves..........

https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryb...sequences-for-many-rural-people/#2143dac77ee0

The mentality of those behind the agenda.
 

Apres

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gst i am interested in reading more about this if you have a chance could you post a link to a good article on the subject.

I shared the facts of the changes that were pushed thru back in the 70's and 80;s by those with the ideologies they would save the spotted owl from logging.
I would suggest anyone that beleives this has not had a bearing on the increase of the fire danger these communities face should probably go talk with them.
 


gst

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gst i am interested in reading more about this if you have a chance could you post a link to a good article on the subject.

.

There is a thread on here where that information was shared a while back. Any number of threads have shared information on the Acess to Equal Justice Act where by your tax dollars are used to pay for the orgs that have impacted these changes thru lawsuits.

here is one that has not been shared on here before.

http://forestpolicypub.com/wp-conte...vice-Land-Management-Litigation-1989–2002.pdf

ConclusionThis study analyzed a census of legalchallenges to Forest Service national forestmanagement initiated from 1989 to 2002; itrepresents the most complete picture of nationalforest litigation assembled to date.The results confirm many policymakers’ andstakeholders’ perceptions: three of every fourcases involve parties seeking less resourceuse; Region 6, the Pacific Northwest, experiencedalmost a quarter of all litigation; andNEPA was the statutory basis in nearly 7 ofevery 10 cases.

We expected variation in the number ofcases by Forest Service region. Other researchreported similar findings. However,the large volume of Region 6 cases was unforeseen,despite the public focus on thespotted owl and the Northwest Forest Plan.The underlying cause of this volume mayinvolve the region’s large number of bothendangered species and advocacy organizations.

Although logging was the focusof most lawsuits, other management activitiesaccounted for more than 60% of cases.

Planning cases (involving a challenge toa national forest’s land and resource managementplan) and logging cases each accountedfor more than 10% of all cases.Combined, salvage and logging cases represented37.8% of all cases. The Forest Servicewin, loss, and settlement rates in cases involvingthese activities were close to its overallpercentages during this time. The ForestService won more than 65% of cases involvingmining, road (construction or decommission),and special-use permits (issued atthe Forest Service’s discretion for a widerange of activities, such as concessions, skiareas, facility use, and tour guides). It lostmore than a quarter of its wilderness andwildlife cases. It was more likely to settle watercases (including dams, water diversion,and riparian zone management) than anyother category of case.


The ForestService was more likely to lose challenges inRegion 1 (North Dakota
, Montana, andnorthern Idaho), and it also settled the mostcases in this region (28.7%). T

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http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/ne...cle_9e900755-2c18-5a50-900b-94e32d20df51.html

http://www.opb.org/news/article/lawsuits-target-forest-plan-in-oregon/

http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/2016.08.08-WOPR Jr. Complaint (1).pdf

Here is a link ot an article explaining the EAJA


https://www.eenews.net/assets/2011/07/11/document_gw_01.pdf

“Paying litigants to sue certainlyencourages legal action”(Thomas 2000, p. 9). Thisquote by former chief of the US Forest Service,Jack Ward Thomas, expresses concernsthat the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA;codified at 28 USC §2412 and 5 USC§5045) may be an incentive for litigationagainst the US Forest Service and other federalland-management agencies. The EAJAis a fee-shifting statute that allows litigants torecover attorney fees and other legal expenses(such as court filing fees) from thefederal government when they successfullysue an administrative agency.Numerous scholars have described theincreasing use of litigation as a tool to influenceUS Forest Service land-managementdecisions. Jones and Taylor (1995) completedthe first study, examining cases decidedbetween 1971 and 1993. They foundthat the frequency of US Forest Service lawsuitsincreased during these 20 years andconcluded that litigation was used as a toolto effect change within the agency.Malmsheimer et al. (2004) examined allpublished federal Court of Appeals casesfrom 1970 through 2001 in which the USForest Service was a defendant. They foundthat the number of lawsuits involving theagency had increased since 1970 and that“judicial review of national forest managementis intensifying”

3. The original intent of the EAJA hasdrifted with its use in national forestmanagement litigation. In our study,most EAJA payments were made to environmentalinterest groups with widelyvarying financial capabilities. We notethat many are quite well financed andtherefore not the class of plaintiffs forwhich the law was designed to provideaccess to the expensive federal litigationsystem. The increasing capabilities andsophistication of such public interest litigants,their relative financial resources,and the social desirability of an evolutionin the usage of the EAJA might beTable 8. Description and 2005 financial summary of the organizations listed as aplaintiff in more than one lawsuit against the US Forest Service, which resulted in EqualAccess to Justice Act award payments from 1999 through 2006, by number of timeslisted.Organization name Net assets ($) Revenues ($)American Wildlands 438,600 521,833Center for Biological Diversity 2,347,991 3,477,044Earthjustice 28,261,755 21,086,300Forest Guardians 511,326 764,626Heartwood 86,539 159,435Idaho Sporting Congress 31,657 60,428Kettle Range Conservation Group Tax extension filedKlamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center 73,199 350,684League of Wilderness Defenders 16,171 82,996Native Ecosystems Council Information not available on GuidestarOregon Natural Resources Council (now Oregon Wild)a 1,181,477 1,214,995Sierra Clubb 54,604,888 85,183,435Swan View Coalition 84,040 37,891The Ecology Center 1,166,694 3,158,765Total 88,804,337 116,098,442a Guidestar data from 2004.b Agency records repeatedly list the Sierra Club as an EAJA fee recipient. Because the Sierra Club is ineligible to receive fees as a501(c)(4) organization, the court awards were most likely awarded to the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.Source: Guidestar.org., n.d.Journal of Forestry • September 2011 357related topics of inquiry for future policystudies of fee shifting and the EAJA.

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That is the tip of the iceberg, but it should get you started..............perhaps you will begin to see why what happens out west in Federal forests and grasslands ultimately impacts designations here in ND.
 
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gst

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[FONT=&quot]08.29.17[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT][h=1]Daines to Radical Environmentalists: Stop Blocking Forest Management Projects[/h][FONT=&quot]U.S. SENATE — U.S. Senator Steve Daines today released the following statement on the Friends of the Wild Swan (FOWS), Swan View Coalition (SVC), Alliance for the Wild Rockies (A WR) and Native Ecosystems Council (NEC) 60-Day Notice of Intent to Sue under the Endangered Species Act, Beaver Creek Project. The Notice of Intent was submitted on August 25. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The Beaver Creek Project was developed in a collaborative fashion with the South West Crown Collaborative and others in the area with a goal to mitigate the threat of wildfire to the nearby Lindbergh Lake community. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“It defies decency that yet another radical environmentalist group would sue to block a needed forest management project that would reduce fire danger,” Daines stated. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The litigants used the Ninth Circuit's Cottonwood decision as their justification for suing to block the Southwest Crown Collaborative. Daines led the Montana delegation in introducing legislation to reverse the Cottonwood decision from the Ninth Circuit that is being used in this case to stop the project in the Flathead National Forest.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]There are currently five forest health project that have been in halted in Montana because of the Cottonwood decision: Stonewall Vegetation Project (today there are two fires burning on that potential project: Park Creek and Arrastra Creek), Greater Red Lodge Vegetation Management Project, East Boulder Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project and Bozeman Municipal Watershed Project (one court case, two projects) and the East Reservoir Restoration Project.[/FONT]
 

Apres

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Gst- I am fully informed about the environmental groups suing over everything and if they win they get reimbursed and if they lose they get reimbursed usually at a rate double what they are paying their lawyers. I was actually asking about the effects of logging or not logging on the spotted owl. If you have something on that. otherwise someday when I have more time I'll google it.
Thanks
 

gst

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I guess I am more concerned about the "effects" on people and their communities first............

But if you are indeed "fully informed" on these litigation actions and how they change and impact designations and federal agencies management plans...........why would you suggest they are irrelevent when it comes to federal lands management and designations here in ND in the other thread?
 

gst

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spotted owl important........rural hamlets not so much......

http://www.firefightingnews.com/env...rest-service-questions-ability-put-wildfires/



The Wolverine Fire in central Washington last summer was one of the worst wildfires on record. It started in late July of 2015 and burned until mid-September.
Now, one year later, a federal lawsuit has cropped up challenging the authority of the US Forest Service to shelve environmental laws to take emergency actions during a wildfire.
On Aug 16, a Eugene-based environmental group filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Spokane, saying that the “community protection line” that was built to protect rural hamlets was “unnecessary, destructive and violated the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement to assess beforehand the impact of federal actions.”
While fire officials said at the time that the 50-mile long, 30-foot wide protection line was to safeguard rural areas in Chelan County – the lawsuit alleges the fire remained miles away.
According to Capital Press, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics would like the Service to review how it fights fires, “before continuing to give incident commanders free reign to declare an emergency.”
A spokeswoman for the Washington Forest Protection Assoc. said, “The goal is to actively manage for healthy forests so we’re not put in a position to take extreme actions, but when we have to take extreme actions, we need to have that ability to act.”
According to the lawsuit, “logging, building fire lines and setting back burns are federal actions that could significantly affect the environment and require an assessment.”


Building the protective line for the lighting-sparked Wolverine Fire required logging more than “100 acres of spotted owl habitat and degraded scenery along forest roads enjoyed by visitors,” the lawsuit stated.
A post-fire report by the Forest Service also found that the fire harmed the environment too. Nineteen miles of fish-bearing streams were damaged and the risk of sediment eroding into critical habitats, for threatened and endangered fish species, was greatly increased.
The Forest Service declined to comment on the lawsuit.
 


gst

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http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=LEEDCC+

A wildfire first reported on the Custer Gallatin National Forest, west of Volborg, Wednesday morning is now estimated at 40,000 acres and continuing to spread quickly to the northwest.

Only about 70 personnel are currently deployed at the Sartin Draw Fire, which has spread across a swath of forest and range land including portions of Powder River, Rosebud, and Custer counties.

Evacuation orders are in effect for ranches and homes in the area of the fire, although Eric Lepisto, a Bureau of Land Management fire management officer, didn't immediately have an estimate of how many people or residences are affected.
 

gst

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An interesting article if one wishes to read and learn a bit. And get past the stupid accusations there are some good ideas here.

http://freerangereport.com/index.php...rious-reforms/


IS IT TIME TO RETHINK THE FOREST SERVICE?
Since the Clinton years, the Forest Service has undergone a great deal of change. The agency was producing over 12 billion board feet of timber in the late 80’s, and by the mid 90’s that volume dropped to 2 billion. To provide context, if that were converted to lumber, it would be a difference of approximately 18 billion feet of lumber. The total consumption of lumber in the United States in 2015 was 44.1 billion board feet. That’s nearly 41% all the lumber used to build homes, apartments, and other stick-framed structures. That’s astounding!
Since the change occurred, the Forest Service has been struggling to create an identity. That identity is unclear, but many of the current Forest Service employees want to do more for the land. What does that mean? Many of the leaders and line officers are doing their best to work with collaborative groups to develop management plans that work for everyone. I applaud the efforts. Praise notwithstanding, I wonder if those efforts will be enough?
Maybe it’s time for a complete overhaul of the system? Now, before you start to think that I’m advocating for the privatization or selling of Forest Service lands, I am not. At least not yet. I believe there are some ways to make some serious changes that can get us the products we need while allowing public input. It is my belief that the public participation is necessary so we can build a long-term social license to manage our forests for the benefit of all interests.

So, what does this mean? I’m not entirely sure, but here are some concerns that I have that need addressed:
Personnel: This is out of hand. Employees are always moving. This isn’t a reasonable system for managing forests. There are plenty of real organizational plans developed by business and other government agencies that work better. We need competent, qualified leadership that stays in place and builds a team. Average tenure within a forest should be 10 years or more, not 2 to 5 years. This is especially critical when you consider the time horizon under which forests need to be managed. Longer term continuity needs to be created with the community and collaborative groups. Our collaborative group, the Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition is in its 15th year, no members of the forest service leadership were on the Colville National Forest when we started. Many positions have changed 3 times or more.
The scope of work: Why does the Forest Service need to do all the work that they are currently doing? In British Columbia, Canada the Ministry of Forests doesn’t do all of this extensive environmental evaluation. They task it to the forest license holder that must be reviewed and approved. Isn’t this how we typically do inspections? The Forest Service could quickly shift into an oversight role rather than partial implementation. The US Forest Service has approximately 34,000 employees to carry out management activities on 194 million acres. The Ministry of Forests, Range, and Natural Resource Operations in British Columbia manages 232 million acres with 3,600 employees.
Accounting: This system of budgets for carrying out work with no regard to the value of materials produced is broken. They do have a system for developing market pricing, but it’s not related directly to the cost of management activities. Why can’t we figure out what actions and outcomes create sufficient revenue over costs and incentivize more of that to offset other costly efforts? I understand that this is a federal agency, but we can all do the math. It’s not complicated, and we should know how we’re managing our resources.
Regional Offices: Why do we have regional offices and why are they located where they are? Should the Forest Service really have fully staffed offices in metropolitan markets? Why can’t the rules for each region be set by reasonably sized Washington DC office and then handed down to each Forest Supervisor? It appears that there are too many bureaucratic layers getting in the way of progress, not solving problems.
Recreation: Why can’t we figure out how to have world class recreation facilities on our National Forests? It’s certainly possible to have excellent recreation sites, facilities, and trail systems. It isn’t difficult to do, yet the forest service fails to maintain signs, maps, and information areas. We need and deserve better. We have more than enough resources to create revenue to cover the cost of creating and maintaining world-class recreation facilities.
Product supply: I have heard that we need to increase the “pace and scale” of restoration so many times it makes me roll my eyes. These words are empty. Why don’t we have large projects in places where we have an infrastructure to buy the products? I don’t mean a few thousand acres. These should be 200,000-acre project areas that last 20 years or more. Larger if needed and agreed to. They need to be strategically planned to reduce fuels in such a way to break up the continuity of dangerously dense forests. We can restore forests while providing a significant increase in supply to the market

Post-fire restoration: We need a plan to address the landscape when a fire comes, before the fire burns. This way there is no confusion on where or how we are going to manage after our forests burn. Places that are protected (Wilderness, Monuments, Backcountry, etc.) regenerate naturally. Areas slated for management get restoration treatment as soon as it’s safe and prudent for work to begin. We can and should develop collaboratively approved plans ahead of time.
Land Allocation: Our lands should be managed actively where appropriate, restored with a conservation ethic where applicable, and protected where necessary. Simple enough. Why can’t we identify the acres where we have the most common ground and get to work. The areas that have conflict can be identified and designated for a future solution. Until that solution is determined the status quo is maintained. The overwhelming driver of these efforts should be the local communities and the groups that work collaboratively within those national forests.
These aren’t all the issues, but some significant ones. The way the Forest Service is conducting business is outdated and ineffective. We need a re-organization. Our nation needs to decide what we want our federal land managers to be doing and then rebuild the organization to fit desired outcomes. If we continue down this path, the issue will continue to get worse. None of us can afford that.
I will be working on a comprehensive plan based on my experiences and observations to develop the Forest Service of the future, and I will share it here when it’s complete.
 
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