THE VIEW FROM BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE
Tester’s Wilderness Bill, the Sweet and the Sour
Probably the only point everybody can agree on: It will be interesting to see what happens.By Bill Schneider, 7-23-09
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| The Wilderness Bill protects the watershed of the magnificent Kootenai River. Photo by Bill Schneider. | |
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Based on past commentaries and concerns with Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership draft legislation, I suspect many readers expect me to oppose Senator Tester’s Forest Jobs and Restoration Act of 2009. And I might, but not now. Instead, I’ve decided to keep my powder dry and reserve judgment until I see how the bill fares in the legislative process and what amendments win approval.
Right now, I definitely see it as a sweet-and-sour pill for Montana, the main reason for my indecisiveness. To summarize, here are a few things I like--and don’t like--about what could become Montana’s first wilderness bill in 26 years.
High Stakes Political Bet. In November 2006, moderate Democrat Jon Tester defeated long-time, powerful, conservative Republican Senator Conrad Burns by a whopping 3,562 votes. It’s safe to say that most people who want more Wilderness and most other environmentalists voted for Tester--and that vote accounted for far more than 3,562 votes.
During the long campaign, Tester promised several times to protect our roadless lands if elected, but to the dismay of many supporters, he did nothing for the first two years in office. Now, by dropping his ultra-controversial “jobs bill” in the congressional sausage maker, he has managed to alienate many wilderness advocates who were already growing impatient with his inaction.
I’ve already heard from a couple of dozen who said they regret voting for Tester and won’t next time, but our junior senator is obviously betting that he can trade off a slice of the green vote, people who definitely voted for him, for a slice of the business/jobs vote, people who probably didn’t vote for him, and come out ahead. The political pundits probably believe the left will always vote Democrat, regardless of what Tester does, and moderate always wins over liberal in primary elections.
We’ll have to wait four years to know if Senator Tester made the right bet.
Not enough logging. The timber industry is disappearing in Montana, and I am among those that would like to save it, if that’s possible. I actually don’t think this bill goes far enough to help it.
This is complicated issue, way too big for this column, and I’m not sure any such legislation can overcome powerful market issues like the nation’s inventory of millions of unsold houses. Briefly, though, assuming we have the technology to use small diameter trees, which I think we do, we should make much better use of our national forests that are already roaded. If logging companies would push for better utilization of second growth and bug-infected trees along permanent roads--for biomass, for alternative wood products, for pulp, whatever--and not push for access to the last old growth in roadless forestland, they’d have a lot of new friends.
My personal pet peeve is U.S. 12 up MacDonald Pass just west of Helena, which I ride frequently on my bicycle. Like many landscapes in Montana, it has turned brown with beetle-killed pines. I say log it, asap, right up to the shoulder of U.S. 12, with the appropriate water quality and other environmental protections, such as completely reclaiming temporary logging roads. This would not be an eyesore. It would be common sense. People would probably stop at pullouts and applaud the loggers. Ditto more millions of acres of national forest lining permanent roads statewide. (More later on this issue.)
Two bills are better than one. (Yeah, I know, unless you’re talking about Wild Bill.)
Putting too much into one sausage leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It gets too complicated trying to accomplish two different in not conflicting goals and serving two different constituencies in the same bill. Why not split it into two bills, the Montana Wood Products Industry Relief Act and the Montana Statewide Wilderness Act, that must be passed simultaneously--and add more areas to both pieces of legislation. It will be roughly the same amount of work, and we won’t have to do it again two years from now. The bill is, incidentally, already split up as “Title I: Stewardship and Restoration” and “Title II: Designation of Wilderness and National Recreation Areas,” so this seems easy.
Earth to the Forest Service. Basically, this bill cuts out the middle man, i.e. the Forest Service, in making timber-cutting decisions. Is this a good idea?
To be kind, the FS is in disarray, suffering lowest ever morale, and in bureaucratic gridlock over constantly changing political winds and the stress of dealing with appeals and lawsuits. That’s another story too long for this column, but this bill sure seems like a thinly veiled message to the FS to get it’s act together or Congress will start making land-management decisions.
It isn’t what you do; it’s how you do it. I usually agree with my friend Pat Williams, but in this case I must respectfully disagree.
As discussed in past commentaries, I’m still choking on the process of coming up with this legislation. I think the Three Rivers Challenge and the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project were sufficiently open to public feedback, but that’s not the case with the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, which was written by an exclusive few who refuse to alter or even discuss it with the media.
Senator Tester hangs his “transparency in government” hat on the local collaborative work and believes, apparently, that this justifies the secrecy revolving around the drafting of the bill, excluding all but staff and leaders of the three local collaborations. This bill belongs to all of us who have worked hard for more Wilderness. It’s our, not his bill, and more public input was needed in drafting the bill.
Yes, amendments are possible, if not likely, but starting with this stake so deeply in the sand makes accomplishing any change so much more difficult for the rest of us.
Perhaps the Big Greens had their way with Tester. To me, the Wilderness component of Tester’s bill seems much bigger than the logging component, and bigger and better than I expected. I’ve criticized the three Big Greens (Montana Wilderness Association, National Wildlife Federation and Montana Trout Unlimited) for how they’ve greased this bill in the backrooms, but after reading the final product, I’m saying to myself, perhaps they knew they had it going their way, so why take a chance of involving “non-supportive people” or playing in public? (For example, a week ago, I asked offered all three groups an opportunity to write a guest column about why this bill should pass, but not one even replied to my email.)
Don’t Wimp out on the Name. You’ll note I called it a “Wilderness Bill” in the headline because that’s what it is, so let’s call it like it is. The jobs and logging cover story has much less lasting impact on Montana and Montanans as the real meat in the bill--the designation of twenty new Wilderness Areas; the upsizing of five existing Wilderness Areas; and the creation of four National Recreation Areas, one Special Management Area, and one Protection Area.
Why are we so scared or embarrassed to tell the truth and use the “W word”? The misleading title may increase opposition to the bill because people feel like they’re being conned by the title and descriptions of what the bill actually does.
But still not enough for me. Even though the bill gives us 668,000 acres of Wilderness, it’s not enough.
Montana has many other deserving areas ready for Wilderness designations, areas that it most cases will never be logged--areas like the Great Burn or Rocky Mountain Front or the Bitterroot side of the Sapphires. Also, of the areas covered in the current bill, several should be increased in size to include deserving contiguous roadless country, especially the East Pioneers and West Big Hole proposed Wilderness Areas.
West Pioneers. If there’s a game changer for me anywhere among these 84 pages, it’s the release of 80 percent of the fabulous West Pioneers Wilderness Study Area, a congressionally mandated area (Montana Wilderness Study Act of 1977, 3.393) that has, with the exception of some questionable if not illegal motorized access, been managed as wilderness for 32 years.
This definitely should not be tolerated, and I really have a hard time believing Congress would undo the great work of legendary Montana senators Lee Metcalf and Mike Mansfield who fought hard for S.393, nor can I believe our leading green groups or Senator Tester can even suggest this without choking on their own words.
Those are a few of my initial thoughts on what could become the end of Montana’s Wilderness Drought--except for one point we all can agree on: It will be quite interesting to watch this play out politically.
FOOTNOTE: For a chronology of four years of NewWest.Net’s extensive coverage of this issue, click here.
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Comments
I actually agree with you for the most part on this one.
I'll skip the political calculus part, except I don't think the greens will abandon Tester in favor of a real Republican.
As for the beetle kill...70,000 acres of "logging" against millions of acres of utter waste is just an indicator of how stupid things are, in part because of mental-free "environmentalism." Silviculturalists know for a fact that even-aged old stands of pine are like a bunch of geezers in a crowd, it's a sure thing that most of them are vulnerable to getting sick. All at the same time.
You want travesty, you forgot Flesher Pass. That was really taking off five years ago, and I haven't been that way since, but I bet it's all gray. Not all of that wood was commercial by any means, but the loggable parts should have been in the program years ago, with the money plowed into prescription burns on the rest of it.
And yep, this is a wilderness bill. What...300 "jobs" that might be sued into oblivion anyway against 670,000 acres of big W and another quarter mil of MTB/sled/ORV half-wilderness?
And yep, you want more, and more will never be enough.
I don't think the Pioneers should have been on the table in the first place, being put there by the more more more faction that wasn't happy with the original intent of the 1964 Act.
Let's not forget the context of 1977, with the Watergate Congress and Jimmy Carter and Cecil Andrus spooling up to slam Alaska....
My reservations on this bill are too lengthy for a "comment" email, but one thing I can state for sure: livestock grazing on public lands should be managed on a case by case basis, not guaranteed by an act of Congress. Plus, they are not, and never were, grazing "rights." Livestock grazing on our public lands is a privilege, requiring a permit which is alter-able and/or revocable, depending upon many factors including the permittee's performance, climatic conditions and wildlife/habitat issues. This portion of the bill is absolutely unacceptable.
My personal pet peeve is U.S. 12 up MacDonald Pass just west of Helena, which I ride frequently on my bicycle. Like many landscapes in Montana, it has turned brown with beetle-killed pines. I say log it, asap, right up to the shoulder of U.S. 12, with the appropriate water quality and other environmental protections, such as completely reclaiming temporary logging roads. This would not be an eyesore. It would be common sense. People would probably stop at pullouts and applaud the loggers. Ditto more millions of acres of national forest lining permanent roads statewide. (More later on this issue.)"
Wow Bill Schneider, how right you are on this one. I have been having the same thoughts while looking at bug-dead pines in Idaho. Removing them will also remove a lot of bug larvae, etc. Perhaps a different kind of more resistant tree could be re-planted
in the logged off areas. These forests were allowed to become a monoculture anyway, even if they weren't artificially planted to start with. Monocultures are way more vulnerable to pests.
I gained a whole new respect for you after reading this column - great piece!
Logging is hurting because logging is hurting, not because anyone is preventing the cutting.
You can't force a dead fish to swim.
John Gibson
Bill,
You column is generally very good but you ask a question for which there is a clear and easy answer. Conservation groups and logging groups that are willing to find compromise and work together to craft solutions that work for both need to put both components in the same bill. That is what negotiations and compromise is all about. If these different elements were in separate bills, one might pass and the other not and the group whose interest was represented by the one that didn't would end up with the proverbial "no loaf" instead of a "half loaf". This would be the worse of solutions for that group who would feel (correctly), shafted. Tester's bill is an organic solution springing from the people and interests he represents, not some top-down and one-sided proposal by a single interest group...that's what makes it work!
I have less faith that they could come up with the personnel and empirical data to ramp up to the stewardship programs, and the NEPA process for additional logging and wholesale land management that must entail.
I do wonder if they can get there from here.
The narrow view primarily serves political expediency by ignoring science, and long-term solutions that demand structural changes and a new, more wholistic management scheme. Tester is offering us the same old debate that pits the environment against jobs and subsidized commodity production. It takes us backwards, when we need to begin to move ahead.
I have to agree overall with your comment, but helping to save or create some jobs gets votes-- and also provides some jobs, no?
Aside from the deliberate ignoring of eco systems by the media & pols (the larger issue), in particular how does logging off trees dead from pine beetles, with suitable re-planting, interfere with wildllife corridors, old growth, or endangered species? I'd think that the gigantic wildfires waiting to get started in such areas are of much greater danger to all species than logging them off and replanting with more resistant, different and multiple species of tree.
Also if fires had been allowed to run decades ago in such areas, instead of being suppressed, we'd not have ended up with the monoculture-type pine areas that are now being offed by beetles.
My 2 cents anyway.
Our problem is this all or nothing approach by either side. Our problem is seeing forests as trees. Our solution should be trees to be saved for whatever purpose, and trees to used for part of the equation that allows us, as humans, to endure and prosper if in fact that is what we are doing. Log it all. Don't log it at all. Fight fire, and don't fight fire. We need forests for carbon sequestration and logging removes or diminished that ability. Fires put out vast quantities of aerosols, green house gases, particulates, and add to the climate change hysteria not matter how you want to quantify it. And middle ground is a sell out. Or middle ground is losing another slice of the salami, and soon there will be no salami to further slice.
I will never figure out why it is so hard to get the public mind to wrap around the idea, the historical fact, the preponderance of evidence, that fire purposefully set, for thousands and thousands of years, shaped the whole of the US ecosystem and determined which plants, animals, and climates were present when Europeans disembarked and began the conquest of a continent. They found this Eden of sparse forests of huge trees, and abundant agriculture beneath it. Game enough to support protein needs, and seas with fish for all. That those early arrivals brought disease that wiped out the residents, a pandemic of holocaustic proportion, was a result that produced a great change in the environment. And now there is this national belief that we can get back to there, from here, by doing nothing, by preservation of the dedicated land and a hands off approach, including letting is burn to rocks, and white snags.
The great denial of aboriginal genius in landscape management does no good for the public lands of this country. We lose whatever heritage forests we have left to annual fire, piece by piece, all the while bemoaning logging. Zero maintenance of the very practices that brought about the vegetative responses that are valued and sought have no champions in environmental protection professionals, those workers in the back halls of Congress working to "save" the environment in exchange for personal wealth. We no longer can get there from here. "Burn baby burn, black is beautiful" forest management is just that. A slogan of disinterest bought by posturing Congress, by budget oversight, of an agency at wit's end as to exactly how they might manage their resource by daily litigation. They can't. That is the simple answer. They/we can't, they/we don't, they/we aren't. Malignant neglect is the current path, the status quo.
Tester does not provide the answer. I don't think it is much of a step towards resolution of the reality of the process that has to take place to get where the policy makers would want by their stated goals. But it is all that is now offered that might have a tiny political chance of becoming reality. I really don't care much one way or t'other.
Having a forest or not having a forest, which is the crap shoot when allowing fires to burn unfought, is a climate changer. There are many areas of trees that will never be there again in the current configuration if fire burns those living fossils of forests past that somehow cling to life on the edges of survival. Perhaps it is the needles in the sky condensing fogs and heavy clouds to drip water to a tree below that allows the process to continue. Lose that cloud wringer, that precious water gift, and you never get trees to grow there again. They climate changes of the ages have resulted in those collections of age old survivors who cling to precarious site. The present climate will not support reproduction. Lose the forest and it is gone forever. It happens every summer.
We have species on the brink of extinction is my backyard due to the end of aboriginal burning. And the protectors have a devil of a time getting permitted to set controlled fires to reclaim meadows, fens, aboriginal garden fields, to renew the habitat of species of concern.
I do wonder if the concept of NREPA is the absolute wrong way to go about preserving all that the proposition purports to serve. I wonder if, like the failure of public education, is that things get too big to work. The one room school, with kids of differing ages, all working together to know the subjects, resulted in every kid getting a great education. As schools grew larger, kids began to be dropped by the wayside, until we get to today with our 40% failure to graduate high school record, despite tons of money, effort and time to not have that happen. The structure became too great to encompass the goal, the laws of diminishing returns driving the process.
Maybe great conglomerations of areas with minders specific to each one, would bring the diversity and results that fostered the great forests of pre-European North America. Tribal management. Family group management. Small groups across a vast landscape, all doing to their land what would allow them to survive and in cases, prosper. The diversity of that thousands of groups working with their specific areas of influence, is how we got to where the academics think we ought to be. The one size fits all Wilderness proposal is diametrically across the aboriginal mindset of how to gain the wanted goal. The homogenous diversity of the USFS is about how they relate to each other, but has nothing to do with a diverse landscape that will result in multiple micro systems of species. Diversity of thought is not permitted, by law, by enviros, by loggers, by habit. The lodgepole monoculture, the weed douglas fir monoculture, are the result of European landscape neglect, not management. And fire across the landscape will not bring changes. Treating each acre, over a very long time, with a multitude of people making decisions on how to manage, would produce the diverse forest and useful forests and range that most would accept.
There is no real new concept here. It is ancient, in fact. But should be examined because the new paradigms which seem to change with every political upheaval, are not working, either.
I see you backed down from your enviros protecting land lets dope growers run wild argument. You didnt even respond to my FACTS about the correlation between the timber industry and there opposition to industrialized hemp in particular plum creek.
This bill destroys roadless areas plain and simple which is a campaign promise tester made in 2006 in front of his family and friends. Destroying our last old growth will not help prevent fire or give people jobs. It only takes our tax payers money to rpae our last wild places.
TESTER LIED,OLD GROWTH DIED
Dont fall for this bs bill just cuz your hungry for the Big W in MT
http://www.wilderness-sportsman.com/wsblog/2009/07/18/montana-tester-lays-a-stink-bomb-with-new-forest-bill-pdf-map/#comment-43303
bait you live in OR why dont you go to the new west OR
the treatment of your states public lands is not wanted or appreciated by people in MT.
Actually, nobody here cares about logging that much. There are not enough mills to make a market for small woodlands owners, let alone public timber. But we do give a damn about losing the timber industry to have it replaced with intentional firing of the forest in the name of "resource benefit." A dead tree is a dead tree. It can be 5 , 55, 550 years old and it is still a dead tree. And you start from zero. O age trees are not old growth. That is what we get more and more from the new management regime embraced by the liberals, the people haters, the spewers of vitriol, that seem to have a lot of time to scatter their hate of anyone not being a True Believer as they are. And here I thought religion was not a part of government, and we end up with animists ruling the rural aspect of America. Wild horses---essentially the same history in American as Russian boars, feral housecats, Norway rats, wild burros, llamas et al, but with Federal protection more useful and more expansive than that for grizzly bears. Go figure.
I could give a damn if Tester wins or loses. I have said only that Montana has a chance to gain Wilderness, which is evidently a big deal, and not forthcoming for two decades, with the Tester bill. There is nothing else to vote on or that will see the light of day in this Congress. Part of something is better than all of nothing. My view of political reality. I am not endorsing or declining the Tester bill. My fight is with NREPA which does run asunder in Oregon, and is a pipe dream for those who draw lines on a map like French generals in Paris. Grand idea that won't work.
If we are to be energy independent, using all our renewable resources, which are wind, biomass, solar, deep well thermal, ocean tide and wave, we have to be able to economically send that power to where it is needed when available. Our reliable hydropower is maxed, and has a fish responsibility that is only enhanced by expanded grids to deliver the power. Hydro and fossil run 24/7. The rest are as dependable as teenage help. Here, gone, slow, fast, don't show up when forecast. And to run a power grid that works better than Baghdad's, there is an urgent, real need for a hell of a lot more transmission gridding, and those will have to pass the various mountain ranges because the straight line is the shortest way. Gerrymandering a power line to twice its needed length to avoid myriad environmental and aesthetic issues is not feasible.
My concern is that there be a master plan for power gridding, and then do the Wilderness deals. After the fact is not going to allow for reasonable, reliable use of renewable power. The example of the proposed line to tie in SW California wind with San Diego, which has been configured in a public process driven by Tribal concerns, USFS land, BLM land, ESA species concerns, viewsheds, and the damned thing is twice as long as it should be, and thus loses more power than it ought along the way. Not a very good use of wind power and solar panels in desert, government's huge subsidies and mandates for renewable power, and just another reason California is in the tank. What they want, and what they can afford, are two entirely different things. Need vs. Want. Need can be met. There often is not enough money in the world to address want.
And that is the Tester bill. Montana has to address wants and needs. Being disappointed is part of growing up.
come on i doubt wilderness designation is going to interfere with many power grid shemes. That is an argument like fire starting in wilderness areas and burning out from there becuase there arent enough to fight the fire. No wilderness is left that massive that would greatly interfere with energy concernes nor should people who build homes in fire prone areas near wilderness areas expect fire fighters to risk life,limb and tax payer money to bail them out of their own follish decisions.
NREPA was not just drawn at random there are truly educated professionals who have created that plan not just timber barons and select, corrupt env. groups.
NREPA does not even affect Oregon very much except for the north eastern tier which is extremly roaded and degraded.
No more old gorwth cut, No more roadless areas roaded
I'm reminded of a great Allen Iverson press conference from a few years ago...(liberties with wording taken by me)
"Now I know that I'm supposed to lead by example and all that but I'm not shoving that aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about SNAGS. We're talking about SNAGS man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about SNAGS. We're talking about SNAGS. We're not talking about the forest. We're talking about SNAGS."
"Hey I hear you, it's funny to me to, hey it's strange to me too but we're talking about SNAGS man, we're not even talking about the forest, when it actually matters, we're talking about SNAGS."
And the supporters of obstructionist environmental groups are wondering why Tester left them out of the loop when he was drafting this bill.
do you even know how a forest works. SNAGS are important habitat for numerous avian species. Look at the biscuit fire in Oregon. It doesnt make sense economically or ecologically to "salvage log" after burns. Certainly not burned lodgepole that has no market value. The alliance for wild rockies was left off the table with testers bill becuase they have the guts to stand up for wild country and are a pew trust recipient. The pew trust recipients include the wilderness scoiety and trout unlimited, the comapanies behind the pew trust include dow chemical and other large corp. with bad env. records. I dont know the details behind this timber sale or lawsuit however logging at all in the beaverhead does'nt make sense. We all know this is dry country much of it east of the divide. Why would you log in these areas when there are much more suitable areas for timber harvest. Could it be the locals are all timber barons who want to log wherever there are trees and dont understand ecological concepts or dont care. Certain env. lawsuits are frivilous and prevent thinnig and other progress however logging even in burns on the beaverhead is a disaster. Unless your thinning to prevent catastrophic fire as a result of fire suppression championed by the right for decades then it shouldnt be done on the beaverhead. Treehugger you actually applaud testers shady dealings with select, corrupt env. groups thats pathetic. What does this have to do with NREPA. NREPA was drafted by scientists, locals and real outdoorsmen who care about wild country. Testers bill was drafted by timber barons, greedy ranchers and corrupt env. groups. If anyone is obstructionist its the people who want to keep cutting old growth and roadless areas in the naem of "forest health" or "fire suppression"
The Rockheads, et al, have made it entirely an adversarial process, made up the rules as they went along. North Korean Kim kinda diplomacy. Nobody can deal with them. They are mere obstructionists. There will be no Wilderness, no logging, just a lot of fire. The Feds are looking for deep pockets now to blame for every fire and pay for the USFS management costs. We live in interesting times.
tryingto blame catastrophic fires on enviros again and again. If I remember correctly who suppressed fire for decades and created these unatural conditions the right wing majority in the rockies. Come on I know you know about the biscuit fire research done by the Oregon state student that disporved all the logging companies data on salvage logging. It became clear logging was permitted on the biscuit sale soley to proove they have the power and to poke enviros in the eye. How immature and greedy can these companies be. Certain environmental groups are sue happy and dont know much about real ecological principals. However alliance for the wild rockies is a good group who hasnt sold out to testers logging bill. I'm sure they have a good reason to oppose the timber sale. You insistent blaming on enviros. for fires, mtn. pine beetle etc is pure propoganda that the people responsible for all this have created to bail their own asses out. Sadly most people east it up and cant do theor own research or think for themsleves.
anyone who doesnt view enviros as the scapegoat for disastirous env. policies and agree with dangerous new logging bills is not considerd just a bad guy but a "eco-terrorist"
The logic evades people who have a lifetime in the woods, including emeritus faculty at Oregon State like Mike Newton.
Conifer seeds travel on the wind. Not just the year of the fire, or the year after. Every year. One of the issues with tree loading and fuel concerns is that in-growth after planting results in too many stems. In the Tongass in SE Alaska, the problem following clear cutting is the 40,000 or more stems per acre that show up in the first five years, all without planting one tree. And it takes forever for dominance to assert itself by some tree with a special advantage that allows it to overshadow and outgrow a neighbor. The Biscuit Fire naturals will show up on mineral earth every year. That "loss" of some seedlings to salvage logging is not a problem. It was just a fact that had people who don't know sour owl shit from apple butter concerned. The problem came when emeritus faculty, embarrassed by the shitty science, thought the paper should be pulled. The agenda driven enviro faculty contingent, their financial well being coming from public sources, the Feds, doing work in national parks, for the USFS, protected their turf and the turf managers. Academic dust-ups to protect fragile egos and the flow of dollars from the likes of the Pew Trust and all the usual suspects in MegaEnviro NGO who need controversy to further their agendas, is what the Donato deal became.
Think about it: If there is dead wood on a standing tree, hard limbs and slipping bark, how does logging change the amount of fuel? How does logging increase the fuel load? Fiber is removed, lots of it, (the objective learned so well from the Tillamook Burns) and limbs and debris end up on the ground, where they will end up in time no matter what. There is no way to increase the amount of dead material except for more trees dying. And trees die for at least four years or more after a fire. Insects get the weakened ones, and others cannot take the loss of shade from now needless neighbors.
The real research from the Biscuit began long before the fire, in the Babyfoot Lake NRA. A long time running, very well delineated soils research project. The real learning about the results of fire of differing intensity is coming from those soil plots with years of documentation before they were burned over. And the control is that segment of plots that did not get burned over. The loss of up to 3" of topsoil, all the mineral fines and organic material, is one finding. An average of an inch of soil loss to the plume. The loss of nitrogen and CO2 from the soil in tons per acre. All leaving with the plume. Conflagration is an environmental game changer. To encourage it is poor public policy and is supported by people with a selective agenda of science to fit their idea of how the world should be run. Donato, poor science, filled that niche, and the ecobabblers have been selectively using that poor paper ever since.
I find it interesting that in the last week, the US Attorney in Sacramento has successfully sued and gained decisions and consent from the Union Pacific RR for a fire from their right of way that burned over 50,000 acres of USFS land. $102 million dollar settlement for "damage to the grandeur of the area", among others. And then this week, $14 million from PGE because a pine tree along their powerline fell on it, and started a fire. PGE was negligent in allowing a decayed tree to stand near their power line. That will be a game changer. Across the West, there will now be a concerted helicopter logging effort to take every tree that can possibly hit a utility line and burn USFS land. The unintended consequences of having a three teams of US Attorney lawyers in Sacramento, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles to sue on behalf of the USFS for fire from private land. That private landowners are prevented from suing the USFS for fire trespass, from negligent USFS fire fighting effort, makes this a prime candidate for legal reform that will be addressed in the future by Western legislators and congressmen.
The gist of that is the "fire for resource use" can burn you out and there is nothing you can do about it. But if your tree falls on a power line in a micro burst, a common event, and burns the USFS land, you will get sued for suppression costs, for habitat damage, for loss of grandeur of the landscape, for ESA listed animal habitat, for the volume of legally unsellable timber lost at merchantable values. All those burn barrel fires that end up on public land, good luck. You will lose your land, and all you have. If only because you don't have the dough to pay the retainer to be represented in a Federal civil lawsuit. ObamaNation has no end of your money to sue you. And is going to. The low hanging fruit of 1999 and 2000 fires with big pocket ignition sources will run out, but the funding for the three teams will not. Unless, of course, the Congress specifically pulls it.
Which all leads to fire. If the Attorney General of the US is suing for resource and aesthetics loss as a public monetary value loss, the loss of timber, of clean air, of "grandeur of the landscape", if the fire came from private lands, how is it they cannot fight fire, destroy the very same values, in the process of "fire for resource use" and prevail in court against Joe Sixpack or MegaCorp? The precedent has been set. Only procedural issues can be appealed. This cries for a Congressional solution. The issue needs to be tied to candidate tails in the upcoming elections of 2010. And, how can the defenders of fire make their case all the while the US Govt is denying the case for "beneficial" fire. The Feds are suing and winning cases for damage from fire to the very same resources the Enviros, and you Tracker, say are beneficial. Explain the two track vision of fire. Is fire good and to encouraged, no matter the ignition source? Or is fire bad, and it damages tangible resources and intangible ones, all of which have a monetary value? And what happens when a "fire for resource benefit--ignition source unknown" ends up being a negligence case or arson. How will damages be assessed if no attempt at suppression was made?
The US Attorney has changed the fire game rules. What now?
Don't know if the Byzantines had cans, but they did have worms.
The cross/crit and anguished cries from all directions ensure that there will be NO solutions to any of this--ever. These forest issues will just continue to bungle along, indefinitely.
first of all this is a blog not an essay posting website, try to fit your thoughts into a more concise manner. How is logging the biscuit fire with large douglas fir snags etc. going to help mimic and help the ecosystem? Fire has been suppressed by the righ wingers and the para military Fire portion of the USFS. Fire burning in areas that have been unaturally suppresed will be burn hotter, cause crown fires etc. and be unaturally severe. Who is to blame for that part of the problem...not the enviros.
Certain natural fires in natural condititons do burn down to mineral soil, this is a somewhat rare natrual event that appears to be cyclical over a dozen year period. You cant put out every fire that is started deep in the mtns. because you fear it might burn some trophy home twenty miles away on a ridge they had no business building on. Fire is not one of my areas so much so I dont know much about the various lawsuits etc.
These burned forests are an increasingly rare ecosystem particuarly in sw oregon. How can you justify logging an area that provides ideal habitat for numerous avian and terrestrial species. It seems now that after every burn you have folks wanting to salvage log the burned trees or they'll just go to waste.
come on bait grow up you tongass days were horrible and slavage logging is horrible to the ecosystem.
This link is not biased and explains slavage logging.
http://www.nativeforest.org/campaigns/wildfire_info_center/post_fire_9_7_03.htm
oh and bait if you want to talk about faculty at universities being biased I think the we all know most forestry departments are intertwined with the timber industry.
I think I see where you're coming from. In your response you seem be talking about the Beaverhead-Deerlodge forest located in the land of make believe. I was talking about the Beaverhead Deerlodge forest located in Montana. The forest that has potentially an all time high number of dead snags currently available for the various birds species to utilize. Perhaps you missed the part where I pointed out that logging would take place on only 6% of one fire's area and also leave most snags over 15" on those acres .The Beaverhead-Deelodge covers 3.35 million acres making this sales total potential impact 0.00049% of the forests land base.
It's called scale. Let us all know once you've figured how that word applies to land management decisions.
your lame attempt at sarcasm only puts your lack of intelect and originality on display for all.
I never opposed your salavage logging bill but if AFWR is concerned about some details then it might not be a great sale. They dont just blindly oppose all logging/thining despite your perception that they do. I was mostly refering to the biscuit fire in sw oregon which is a far way land form montana. Did you even click on the link I provided related to post fire slavage logging.
Your support of tester leaving out AFWR in his logging bill is appaling. You actually support corrupt forest management policies and you dont even know it.....pathetic...
One goal of the Wilderness Act is to preserve the wild nature of the landscape by making it as free from human commercialization as possible. In that sense, wilderness is a place of self-discovery. Commercial enterprises are prohibited in Wilderness, with a narrow exception for commercial outfitting and guiding as long as it is both "necessary" and "proper." Rather than preserving wilderness character, Tester’s bill declares all current commercial outfitting permits "necessary" without bothering to go through the normal, periodic public involvement processes which even non-wilderness areas of the national forest system go through in order to determine whether commercial outfitting should be allowed.
The bill gets even worse. The US military and national guard can land aircraft (helicopters, presumably) in the Highlands proposed wilderness. How can that be called wilderness? How about ATV use for trailing of sheep, instead of doing it on horseback in the Snowcrest proposed wilderness? Tester’s bill also mandates that motorized use continue for other ranching activities in the Snowcrest proposed wilderness regardless of whether motorized use is necessary to continue those activities.
These exceptions are not all inclusive. There are many others in Tester’s bill that weaken wilderness as both a place and an idea.
Ironically, Tester’s bill gives the agencies less ability to protect wilderness character of the "wilderness" in would create, under many circumstances, than even non-wilderness portions of the public lands. Tester’s bill is really about setting aside commercial, non-motorized backcountry recreation zones where motorized use and structures for non-recreation activities, normally prohibited under the Wilderness Act, are encouraged if not mandated. That’s not wilderness under any definition. There’s nothing sweet about this bill.
Gary Macfarlane
6%
six out of one hundred
0000000001000000000100000000010000000001000000000000000000010000000000000000000100000000000000000000
Let's say the burned area averages 250 trees per acre. That leaves about 6,883,333 trees for the birds and 495,600 trees for the timber sale. Except the 495,600 number is probably too high because the news report stated that snags would be left on the cut acres. 6,883,333 -vs- 495,600
And before you tell me this is just one sale, most fire salvage sales I've seen on federal lands have averaged less than 10% of the burnt area being proposed for harvest.
It would appear to a rational person to be a reasonable compromise.
do you even actually read what I posted or just blow through it with hate and disdain. Any truly rational person would oppose testers logging bill.
I never opposed your dumb slavage logging sale
your like a little kid who just wants to bicker for the sake of it
so shut your big yap
why are you so intent on salvage logging
did you read the article I posted. It's been proven to neither reduce fire danger or be economically or environmentally beneficial.
In fact it is one of the most destructive forms of logging on public lands. Oh wait i'll stop I must be acting irrational again.
I read your article. I saw that is was written by a man you works for a another male known locally in these parts as "The Boy Who Cries Wolf". Really, is that the best that you can come up with? as for the substance of the article, I'm not very impressed, it read like a lot of whining over court cases that were lost by your side of the argument.
the article is true it does'nt matter who the author it's not a biased acount. If you still think slavage logging is good for the forest, fire danger etc. then your just stubborn. Perhaps a pro salavage logging paper by weyerhauer would feed your misconceptions better?