California Fire News

Forest Service Chief Dismisses Importance of Environmental Review

Posted: 08 Dec 2007 11:41 AM CST

Source: Yuba Net
By: Sierra Club
Published: Dec 7, 2007 at 08:29

In response to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling this week against Forest Service rules that had exempted logging projects from environmental review, the Forest Service Chief Gail Kimball today made statements in the Associated Press implying that the overturned rule had been necessary to protect homes in California from wildfire.

The truth is that the Ninth Circuit's decision won't stop a single good project that is designed to reduce the risk of damage to communities. Appropriate, environmentally sound removal of small diameter trees and brush and prescribed burning will sail through environmental review and will not delay the right kind of community protection work. Inappropriate, environmentally destructive logging far removed from communities under the facade of "fuels reduction" does nothing to mitigate fire risk - it only lines the coffers of the timber industry and devastates wildlife habitat and watersheds. It should not be exempt from environmental review. Environmental review and public participation are vital to make sure our communities are safe.

In 2003, the Forest Service issued a sweeping nationwide policy exempting from environmental review any logging project less than 1000 acres that was in the so-called "urban/wildland interface." Sierra Club has supported many projects adjacent to communities that are focused on brush removal and prescribed fire. The Bush administration has instead prioritized logging thousands of acres, in many cases far from inhabited areas, without any public input and without any assessment of potential environmental harm.

One example is management of the El Dorado National Forest--rather than permitting very small projects that truly would not have significant impacts, the Forest Service planned project after project, many adjacent to one another, of around 980 acres in order to exempt them from environmental analysis. Most were not focused on brush removal and prescribed burns as the article states, but on logging large trees. To allow such exemptions wherever they wanted, the Forest Service cynically decided that large percentages, in some cases nearly all, of the national forests were "wildland/urban interface."

Sierra Club and Sierra Forest Legacy (formerly named Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign) filed a suit in October 2004 challenging the Bush Administration's "Healthy Forest Initiative" rule that eliminated a 30-year-old Forest Service practice of analyzing the environmental effects of timber sales up to 1,000 acres and prescribed burns up to 4,500 acres before allowing such projects to proceed. This week's ruling from the Ninth Circuit said the U.S. Forest Service erred because it: Exempted from the National Environmental Policy Act a huge class of logging classified as "fuels reduction" first, and then later gathered the environmental impact data; Failed to assess the cumulative effects of logging 1.2 million acres per year nationwide; Failed to assess highly controversial and uncertain risks of impacts; and Failed to put more specific constraints on what can be logged.

Related article: Source

Sierra Club Victory in Ninth Circuit Deals Blow

to Bush Administration's So-Called "Healthy Forests" Initiative

Court Rules That Administration Cannot Ignore Environmental Laws to Log Forests

San Francisco, California--In the case of Sierra Club v. Bosworth, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Forest Service erred when it conducted logging projects nationwide without prior analysis of their effects on the environment.

Sierra Club and Sierra Forest Legacy (formerly named Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign) filed the suit in October 2004 challenging the Bush Administration's "Healthy Forest Initiative" rule that eliminated a 30-year-old Forest Service practice of analyzing the environmental effects of timber sales up to 1,000 acres and prescribed burns up to 4,500 acres before allowing such projects to proceed.

Today's ruling from the Ninth Circuit said the U.S. Forest Service erred because it:

· Exempted from the National Environmental Policy Act a huge class of logging classified as "fuels reduction" first, and then later gathered the

environmental impact data

· Failed to assess the cumulative effects of logging 1.2 million acres per year nationwide

· Failed to assess highly controversial and uncertain risks of impacts

· Failed to put more specific constraints on what can be logged

Statement of Eric Huber, Senior Staff Attorney, Sierra Club

"This victory is a blow to the Bush Administration's cynical "Healthy Forests" initiative and will help protect millions of acres of national forest each year from destructive and unnecessary logging projects. This ruling will help ensure that vast swaths of our national forests are not logged without environmental reviews under the guise of forest management or fuel suppression. The Sierra Club supports forest management practices that actually seek to protect communities and our precious wild forests and minimize the risk of wildfires, but this case is just one more example of the Bush administration's disastrous overreach on environmental issues. The courts have once again had to tell the administration that it simply cannot ignore laws--environmental and otherwise--simply because it finds them inconvenient."

Statement of Craig Thomas, Executive Director of Sierra Forest Legacy

"In California, since the adoption of the Bush Administration rule, we have witnessed the gross abuse of discretion and ramp-up of logging with limited environmental review that we feared. Logging without environmental safeguards damages our forests and the public's trust in Forest Service management."

Forest Service sued over fire management plans

Related article: source

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- An environmental group sued the U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday, claiming the agency's fire management plans for certain forests in the Southwest are inadequate and produced without enough public input.

Forest Guardians accused the agency of developing fire plans for a pair of forests in New Mexico and two others in Arizona without studying the potential impact on the environment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

The group filed its lawsuit in federal court in Phoenix. It wants the court to order the Forest Service to open its plans to public and scientific review.

"The system is broken as it is and it's not working," said Bryan Bird, public lands director for Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians. "... We need to get out our pencils and erasers and work at it."

Art Morrison, a spokesman for the Forest Service's regional office in Albuquerque, said Wednesday he had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment. But he noted that any time individual forests develop management plans federal laws are followed and the public is given a chance to comment.

Specifically, the suit targets fire management plans for the Carson and Lincoln forests in New Mexico and the Apache-Sitgreaves and Tonto forests in Arizona. However, Forest Guardians believes the agency failed to consider NEPA and the ESA in other cases, as well.

Bird said the fire plans -- which spell out how and where prescribed and natural fires can be used -- should be reviewed and updated each year. He contends that's not happening.

He also complains that the plans call for putting out fires even when letting them burn would be better for the landscape and for the agency's budget.

"The Apache-Sitgreaves, Tonto, Carson and Lincoln national forests require suppression of all non-prescribed, human-caused fires," the lawsuit reads. "The (fire management plans) also restrict the Forest Service's authority to use naturally ignited wildfires to accomplish management goals by limiting wildland fire use to certain wilderness areas and fire management units that make up a small fraction of the forests."

Forest officials have said that a central priority for the agency's Southwestern Region is restoring fire to its natural role. But they have acknowledged that meeting that goal requires a delicate consideration of both the environment and the need to protect people, property and natural resources.

Emily Irwin, the region's fuels specialist, said in a previous interview that some areas in the Southwest have greater potential to use fire as a management tool because the risk to nearby communities isn't as great. But other areas are becoming more populated, and the values at risk make fire a difficult option.

"It's really the right prescription at the right time at the right scale," she said. "It's understanding a strategic plan and then knowing tactically where those treatments fit in. It's the big picture."

While Forest Service policy recognizes that fire is essential to western ecosystems, Bird calls it "just lip service." He contends that the Forest Service still suppresses nearly all fires.

"If these same fires were allowed to burn, they could economically control fuels leading to greater safety for communities and firefighters as well as healthier forests as a whole," he said.

Regional officials have said that more forests are beginning to use fire to their advantage. For example, the Tonto and the Coconino forests in Arizona for the first time this year allowed a wildfire to burn and clear out dead and dry vegetation, Irwin said.

Overall, she said, the Southwest region conducts fuel treatments on about a quarter-million acres each year and most of that is done with fire. The region covers more than 22 million acres in New Mexico and Arizona.

Morrison added that many forests in the region are in the process of reviewing their fire management plans. He said they are following in the footsteps of the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico, which has had a successful fire use program for decades.

But Forest Guardians argues that more needs to be done so fires like those in Southern California and a recent blaze just south of Albuquerque that burned several thousands acres and three homes can be avoided.

"It's a really good time for the Forest Service to take a really hard look at how they manage fire in the Southwest," Bird said.

On the Net: Forest Guardians: http://www.fguardians.org U.S. Forest Service Southwestern Region: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/