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The
nation's forest chief warns of four threats to our national forests
- Timber cutting, road building no longer agency's primary mission
(Note:
It's time NOW, if you've not yet done so -- or if the below article
gives you other comment thoughts that you'd like to submit -- to EMAIL
your comments on "The Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Draft EIS"
to: r6_biscuit@fs.fed.us Please
do this immediately: the public comment period ends January 20, 2004.
A sample letter crafted by the Audubon Society in Ft. Worth, Texas,
may give you ideas, although likely very unlike their letter; it is
pasted below.) January
17, 2004 By
Rocky Barker rbarker@idahostatesman.com or
208-377-6484 The
Idaho Statesman P.O.
Box 40
Fax:
208-377-6449 To
submit a Letter to the Editor: editorial@idahostatesman.com
U.S.
Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth told employees Friday how to help
him rebuild trust in the agency as they set up a thinning program to
reduce the threat of fire. "I
want people to be darned sure it's a fuels treatment project and not a
timber sale project cloaked up," Bosworth said at the Idaho
Environmental Forum. The
University of Idaho graduate in charge of managing 191 million acres
of national forest was in Boise as part of his campaign to change the
way people look at the Forest Service and the problems it faces in the
future. No
longer, he said, does the agency consider timber cutting and road
building its primary mission. The
new threats to the nation's forests are fuel buildup and fires,
motorized recreation, the loss of open space and invasive alien
species. "It's
time to stop fighting those old battles from the past," Bosworth
said. "The wars have been fought and won 15 years ago." The
timber harvest on national forest lands has dropped from about 11.5
billion board feet in 1989 to about 2 billion board feet today, enough
to built 133,000 homes. The agency has eliminated 10,000 miles of road
since 2001 and built only 900 miles of new roads. Leftover
from the polarizing debates over the size and scope of timber cutting
is a lack of trust the agency must overcome if it is to be successful,
Bosworth said. Congress and President George Bush have cleared away
many of the institutional obstacles that Bosworth had characterized as
"analysis paralysis" The
Healthy Forests Restoration Act approved last year by Congress allows
more timber and brush to be cut and cleared with less environmental
scrutiny. So did administrative actions promoted by the Bush
administration.
Now
Bosworth hopes to increase the speed with which the Forest Service
treats the more than 73 million acres of national forest and nearby
communities threatened by wildfire. Critics have charged the new rules
reduce the public involvement in the decisions of how and where to
thin, log and burn forests. Instead,
Bosworth is challenging his employees to get the public involved early
to help shape the program. "I want people to engage the public
better than we have in the past," he said. Boise
attorney Bernie Zaleha, a member of the board of directors of the
Sierra Club, one of the nation's most powerful environmental groups,
remains skeptical that the Forest Service's intent is fuels treatment
and not timber sales. He
said a 518,000-board feet timber salvage sale in Southwest Oregon,
where the Biscuit Fire burned in 2001, is an example of a timber sale
disguised as a fuels reduction project. "If
what he said was true, they would not be doing the Biscuit sale in the
name of fuels reduction," Zaleha said. Invasive
species
Bosworth's
second threat is invasive species. He pointed to the spread of spotted
knapweed in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, the killing of 95
percent of Idaho's western white pine by blister rust and the loss of
wildlife habitat from yellow star thistle as examples of a slow but
insidious destroyers of public lands. "These
invasives could have more effect on biodiversity than anything else
going on," Bosworth said. Loss
of open space
The
third threat, he said, is the loss of open space. The threat to the
national forests is the fragmentation of important wildlife habitat
and such impacts as the spread of invasive species. The
agency contributes to this loss, he said, when it forces ranchers off
the land in their efforts to prevent damage to watersheds and range
from grazing. He said the agency needs to find ways to restore the
health of the land without destroying the rancher's business. "We
need creative new solutions," he said. Ted
Hoffman, a former president of the Idaho Cattle Association, a rancher
and veterinarian, applauded Bosworth's recognition that the agency has
needlessly hurt ranchers. "That's
a profound comment," he said. Motorized
recreation
The
fourth threat, Bosworth said, is unmanaged motorized recreation.
He
is telling every national forest to force motorized users to stick to
roads and trails. "The
day we can take off-highway vehicles cross-country across the national
forests are over," he said. Bosworth
has the support of the organized motorized recreation community for
this, said Bill Dart, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition,
a national group based in Pocatello dedicated to motorized access on
public lands. "We
support limiting use to roads and trails on most places on the
national forests," Dart said. He
pointed to an initiative by the Boise, Payette and Sawtooth national
forests that would ban all cross-country motorized travel. Officials
of the three forests will allow travel to continue on all current
routes. Then the Forest Service will do a local review of all routes
to see which ones are appropriate. "We
think theyre on the right track," Dart said. Bosworth's
success in restoring trust in the agency will come if people on the
fringes of the debate, both on the environmental side and the
development side, lose their appeal, said John Freemuth, a Boise State
University political science professor. "You'll
see the people that oppose everything get marginalized," Freemuth
said.
To
offer story ideas or comments, contact Rocky Barker http://www.idahostatesman.com/Story.asp?ID=58699 News
Release No: RR-SNF-2/12/03 December
12, 2003 Contact:
Judith McHugh jmchugh@fs.fed.us
or 541-659-2851 Biscuit
Fire Recovery Project Draft EIS Public Comment Period Extended
Medford,
Oregon The public comment period for the Biscuit Fire Recovery
Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has been extended
by 15 days and now ends on January 20, 2004. In
choosing the length of the extension, Conroy sought a balance between
busy holiday schedules and the economic losses anticipated from
further wood decay. In
the last two weeks, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management have conducted four public open houses. An oral public
hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, December 17, 2003, from 5:00
to 9:00 p.m. at the Josephine County Fairgrounds Pavilion Building. Up
to 3 minutes will be allotted for any individual who wishes to
comment. A court reporter will record all comments. The
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Draft EIS was publicly released on
November 21, 2003, for a 45-day public comment period and was
scheduled to end on January 5, 2003. All written, faxed, or electronic
comments should be sent to: Scott Conroy, care of ACT2 Enterprise
Team, P. O. Box 377, Happy Camp, CA 96039, faxed to 530-493-1776, or
e-mailed to: r6_biscuit@fs.fed.us.
The DEIS is posted on the Internet at http://www.biscuitfire.com For
more information about the Biscuit Fire Recovery DEIS, contact Judy
McHugh 541-471-6500. Other
related websites: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/siskiyou In
case you think that not living in or near this area means there's no
need to get involved, here's what the Ft. Worth, Texas, Audubon
Society, has for its members at SAMPLE
COMMENT LETTER End
of Ft. Worth Audubon Societys Sample Letter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- My
own comment letter (please
borrow any parts that you wish for your own letter): Mr.
Scott Conroy r6_biscuit@fs.fed.us
Mr.
Conroy: This
email, in its entirety, is to be construed and accepted by you as my
official Public Comment on the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Draft EIS,
and also my continued intense interest in this project. I expect to
remain on your mailing list for hard copies of all actions
contemplated by the Forest Service in the Siskiyou National Forest,
including but not limited to, the area known as the "Biscuit
Fire." In
violation of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), the
Forest Service has done no economic analysis relating to The
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Draft EIS. I have both Volumes of
this Project, as well as the seven maps of the seven current
Alternatives and the map titled, Biscuit Fire Recovery Project
Draft EIS Vegetation Change. This, even with no other
considerations, should require an extension -- both for the Forest
Service. I recommend that the Forest Service immediately begin this
NEPA-mandated economic analysis, and that it also create and offer for
public comment, an alternative that involves real timbering:
including, but not limited to, salvage harvest after such fires as
happened in 2003 in the Biscuit Fire. While
Alternative 7, at first glance, looked promising, its 'decommissioning
of 14.8 miles of existing roads' and 'prescribed burns' do nothing to
regain the health of the Siskiyou National Forest or the Biscuit Fire
area. Alternative 6
-- as printed in Volume I of the DEIS, The Biscuit Fire Recovery
Project, October 2003 -- the Maximum Salvage Alternative, is
my preferred alternative, due to its being the only Alternative that
is doing a real, concerted effort to clean and replant. 193 miles
of 50' wide fuel treatment and replanting 36,918 areas in the IRA
(Inventoried Roadless Areas), among other planting and reseeding
activities, is the only Alternative that will help the forest
recover and keep this unnecessary and needless sort of 'fire event'
from occurring again. I
want my thoughts duly noted by the Forest Service that even this
Alternative (6) is not enough -- that I believe, from many
conversations and study about such large forests and their health,
that much more timber harvesting is needed, not just 'salvage
harvest.' I also recommend strongly that many 'inventoried roadless
areas' be recommissioned as roads, reopened to both visitors of the
national forests and to the timber industry for responsible timber
projects and firefighting. It
has been noticeably absent from Forest Service and 'environmental' and
'conservation' groups' documents and public statements, that trees --
like all people, plants and animals -- have life expectancies.
Trees do not 'live forever.' 'Old growth forests' do not simply exist
in perpetuity. It is neither realistic nor responsible to give
schoolchildren or their parents the wholly wrong idea that such is
true. In this public comment, I am hereby recommending that the Forest
Service contact Bruce Vincent of the Provider Pals program based in
Libby, Montana, to secure the experienced, responsible help that he
and this program can give to our forests and to the American people. http://www.providerpals.com/media/news/journaldoc.html Bruce
may be contacted at: ppals@libby.org
or 406-293-8822. The
Biscuit Fire area of the Siskiyou National Forest is a glaring symptom
of 'forest management practices' gone terribly wrong. Huge
artificially dense fuel loads on the forest floor, caused by the
LACK of responsible timber practices -- knowledgeable and caring
timber practices that would have kept any fire from becoming
catastrophic -- precipitated the massive destruction of this
fire. Another factor that made the Biscuit Fire so massively
destructive to people, trees, birds, animals, and water, was the
removal -- by vertical mulching or other means, or the outright closure
-- of many miles of forest roads. Such actions by the Forest
Service are consummate to 'arbitrary and capricious' denial of
responsible management of this National Forest area that is where the
Biscuit Fire raged, and others like it in many states. I
have included the official Department of Interior Bureau of Land
Management definition of 'vertical mulching' for your perusal.
Please bear with me and read this definition, which, although it is
addressing an area in California, can and will be coming to other
states and federal lands: Vertical
Mulching
- A high priority recovery need for the federally-listed desert
tortoise and other sensitive species occurring within the California
Desert is the restoration of unauthorized routes, or road reclamation
(refer to West Mojave Route Designation, Ord Mountain Pilot Unit,
Biological Resource Screening Components; Bureau of Land Management
1997). Such restoration allows for the protection of large
contiguous blocks of habitat that are relatively unencumbered by
vehicle use impacts and related activities. Restoring
unauthorized routes would significantly reduce identified habitat
fragmentation occurring within designated tortoise critical habitat
units and yield tremendous positive benefits affecting recovery of
this species. Of the 22 major threats to the tortoise identified in
recent research, ten would be significantly reduced by restoring
unauthorized roads and trails, including the following:
fire, off highway vehicle recreation, animal collection, garbage
and litter, handling and manipulation, invasive weeds, noise,
vandalism, predation (by ravens and similar subsidized predators), and
non off-highway vehicle recreation. The Barstow Field Office of
the Bureau of Land Management is currently seeking support among potential
cooperators to use "desert tortoise habitat compensation"
funds for road and trail restoration. Such funds are occasionally
generated, pursuant to guidelines in BLM's Desert Tortoise Rangewide
Plan, when habitat-impacting projects are approved within
the range of the tortoise that cannot be fully mitigated on-site. In
the past, these "habitat compensation" funds have typically
been used to acquire private inholdings within designated tortoise
critical habitat units. Recently, however, the Barstow Field Office
determined that compensation funds generated by several large-scale
projects would enable cooperating agencies to protect/enhance a
much larger amount of tortoise habitat if these funds were used for
route restoration, rather than habitat acquisition. Both
methods of offsite habitat compensation are necessary for
long-term recovery of the desert tortoise and other sensitive species
in certain critical habitat units, and these options should be
carefully evaluated on a case-by-case basis. To accomplish both
tortoise habitat restoration and route designation objectives in
critical habitat units, BLM staff have developed a reclamation
strategy commonly referred to as vertical mulching." This
technique involves the placement of structure (live vegetation, rocks,
dead shrubs and "snags," bunch-grasses, and various woody
material) within the confines of the closed roadway surface, both on
the ground surface and in a vertical manner, designed to conform with
adjacent vegetation and terrain. Use
of this technique is further described below. Discussion:
Lessons learned by BLM over past decades have shown that route
designation cannot be effectively implemented by simply installing red
carsonite "closed to vehicle use" signs on or adjacent to
unauthorized routes of travel. Efforts must include encouraging
vehicle travel on designated open routes, and making designated
closed routes literally disappear into the landscape. To
begin this disappearing act," decompaction and mulching
techniques must be applied to closed routes, extending at least to
the visual horizon, especially where the closed routes intersect
with other routes. The Barstow Field Office has demonstrated that
unauthorized roads and trails can be economically restored through use
of vertical mulching techniques. These techniques involve placement of
boulders and organic structure, such as live/dead and down vegetation,
within the disturbed soil portion of affected roadbeds. Only
vegetation, rock and woody structure native to the immediate closed
route vicinities are used. The estimated cost for restoring tortoise
habitat using this technique is $500 per acre, using current
technology. The target restoration areas consist of roads and
trails that facilitate a variety of anthropogenic impacts to
designated desert tortoise critical habitat. The specified collection
and installation of mulching material occurs under the supervision
of a qualified natural resource specialist, archeologist, biologist or
technician, to ensure a minimization of impacts to biological or
cultural resources. Areas adjacent to where route
closure/rehabilitation is planned may occasionally be used to gather
dead vertical mulching material, in a manner designed to avoid causing
local dead and down habitat loss, yet also accomplish restoration
objectives. In no circumstances are shrubs that shade animal burrows
or that are located adjacent to cultural resources, removed for use as
mulching material. However, live and dead vegetation from the
immediate region, salvaged from land clearing or road maintenance
operations, may occasionally be used as mulching material in such
restoration projects. Memorandums
of understanding developed between land management agencies and local
transportation departments, regarding salvage and storage of native
material for this application, can facilitate large-scale projects. The
use of pitting, ripping, or other scarification techniques within the
confines of route or roadbed soil disturbance is sometimes necessary
for rapid site recovery. Such scarification is done with hand-tools or
through the use of heavy equipment and machinery (toothed rake,
pitter, or similar device pulled by a tractor). After scarification,
the live or dead vegetation is placed in a vertical fashion within the
confines of route or roadbed soil disturbance, in a manner designed to
conform to adjacent terrain and vegetation. The Barstow Field Office
is able to restore Mojave Desert habitats for about $500 per acre, due
to relationships and agreements it has in place with the California
Conservation Corps and other local young adult labor groups.
Under an existing agreement, the California Conservation Corps will
match BLM contributed project funds on a dollar for dollar basis. As a
consequence, funds generated by large habitat-disturbing projects
could also qualify for matching by the state of California, in the
form of matching labor funds available via the use of the California
Conservation Corps. Conclusion: Vertical mulching can be an economical
technique for restoring unauthorized roads and trails in desert
tortoise and other sensitive species habitats. In some
circumstances it may provide much more bang for the buck
when compared to traditional forms of offsite compensation. Its
application in selected areas of the California Desert will reduce
anthropogenic impacts to the listed desert tortoise, contributing
significantly to the recovery of this threatened species. References:
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 1997, West Mojave route designation,
Ord Mountain pilot unit, biological resource screening components.
California Desert District BLM Office, Riverside, California. http://www.blm.gov/nstc/resourcenotes/rn16.html
End
of definition. The
above definition contains highly questionable content --
from the standpoint of 'protecting' or 'restoring' the health of any
plant or animal, endangered or otherwise. It certainly bids each
reader to consider: whether the actual intent is to remove people's
ability to visit, use in any way, or enter such lands to exercise
responsible, multiple use of these touted 'public lands.' How can
responsible forest practices take place in ever-increasing vast areas
from which roads have been 'vertically mulched'? How can any effective
firefighting take place in these areas? The answer, in my studied and
thoughtful opinion, is, "It can't." Simply
locking up an area -- which, in effect, is the federal implementation
of The Wildlands Project, whether admitted or not -- and walking away,
is NOT doing anything positive for the 'species biodiversity' that is
touted as the end result of such activity. It is, in fact, creating a
LOSS of diversity, along with the very real fact that no human ingress
in such areas is a de facto denial of people from the very lands that
their taxpayer dollars paid for, lands that were there for public use!
If
the Forest Service intends to pursue such human-unfriendly 'management
practices,' including the removal of vast swaths of America from the
use or visitation by the American People, it should immediately cease
any operation under the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) banner,
because trees are a renewable resource. That is why the Forest Service
was placed under the USDA in the first place, because timber is part
of agriculture. The
'ripple effect' of ash and mudflows clogging and damaging streams,
loss of both flora and fauna -- both endangered and not -- and the
destruction of a beautiful National Forest, rankles with me. While
I am not a timber authority, I do know enough from my years of
property rights and resource providing research and activism to
recognize poor 'management practices' when I see them. This is of
great concern to me, as it rightfully should be to all Americans who
value the natural resources of America that their taxpayer dollars
purchased. Julie
Kay Smithson 213
Thorn Locust Lane London,
Ohio (OH) 43140 740-857-1239
or propertyrights@earthlink.net
End of my official public comment. |
