Region Archives: United States

The state of Alaska sued President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday seeking to block its decision to reverse a policy begun under his predecessor Donald Trump that had opened vast swaths of the Tongass National Forest, the largest such wilderness in the United States, to logging and mining. The state’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Anchorage, said the January decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to restore protections for 9.37 million acres (3.76 million hectares) of the southeastern Alaska forest undermines the state’s economy by prohibiting timber harvests and mining for essential minerals. The state’s lawsuit said the USDA decision was made without properly explaining its reasoning, in violation of federal law. The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Alaska said the protections reduce state tax revenues, increase the need for state expenditures on remote communities near the forest and prevent economic development.

A month after the Custer Gallatin National Forest supervisor approved a 15-year, 39,909-acre logging project near the western border of Yellowstone National Park, three conservation groups have filed notice they intend to sue to halt the work. The Center for Biological Diversity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Council on Wildlife and Fish filed the notice with the Department of Interior, Custer Gallatin National Forest and Fish and Wildlife Service on Sept. 6. In a 10-page letter, the groups argue the work is a violation of the Endangered Species Act. The groups contend the Forest Service failed to properly analyze the project’s effects on grizzly bears and lynx, harming their habitat. Both animals are listed as endangered species. …The logging, first outlined three years ago, is meant to reduce wildfire risk around the community of West Yellowstone, improve the diversity of habitat and also supply regional sawmills with lumber.

Lightning strikes sparked three more wildfires in the last week: one near Springerville, one North of Forest Lakes and one near Young. Last week the Valentine Fire had grown quickly… But the 154 firefighters who scrambled to respond weren’t putting it out; they were putting it to work. Crews have also opted to confine the low-intensity Labor Fire on the Black Mesa Ranger District to allow it to consume brush, grass and downed and dead wood. …The return of thunderstorms and rain this week means crews use backfires to contain the fire in an area of about 4,000 acres, reducing the risk of future, high-intensity fires. …We’ll have to figure out how to live with fire… That’s the only way to restore the fire-adapted ecosystem unbalanced by a century of logging, cattle grazing and fire suppression. But one hopeful study has demonstrated that thinning and managed fires work.

WASHINGTON STATE — U.S. Rep Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, co-introduced a piece of legislation that would boost job training programs in the forestry and timber industries. The Jobs in the Woods Act comes in the wake of the labor shortage in the forestry industry and related fields. If passed, the bill would create a grant program for nonprofits, state governments and colleges to use on forestry workforce training programs. “The only way we’ll keep the woods working for future generations is if we provide the next generation a pathway to pursue careers in forestry,” Perez said. “This bipartisan bill will make that possible and connect people to careers in this critical field that is essential to Southwest Washington.” …In recent years, labor shortages in the timber industry have harmed the growth of forestry and manufacturing. 

An interorganizational team of scientists has identified “opportunity hot spots” across the U.S. West where forest managers could target their efforts to mitigate the risk of wildfire-related carbon loss. As both climate change and wildfires have intensified, so too have concerns about the release of carbon that has been stored by trees for decades or even centuries, according to the researchers, who came together from federal, academic and nonprofit institutions. With the goal of reducing such loss and benefiting adjacent communities, they mapped out the optimal spots for mitigation efforts — publishing their findings in Environmental Research Letters. “Our approach can help land management agencies plan where to invest in proactive forest treatments that simultaneously reduce wildfire-caused carbon loss and protect communities from wildfire,” lead author Jamie Peeler, a landscape ecologist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Montana, said in a statement.

Additional coverage in The Conversation by Jamie Peeler, University of Montana: The US is spending billions to reduce forest fire risks – we mapped the hot spots where treatment offers the biggest payoff for people and climate

A plan to protect threatened and endangered species in Oregon’s Western state forests by limiting some logging will move forward, despite a recent attempt to make last-minute changes that could have further delayed it. The Oregon Board of Forestry decided Thursday not to vote on a controversial proposal from Chair Jim Kelly that would have allowed logging on some land currently earmarked for conservation under the pending Western Oregon State Forest Habitat Conservation Plan. If Kelly’s proposal had been approved, key votes on the plan likely would have moved into the summer rather than spring of 2024, continuing to delay federal protection for 17 vulnerable animal species. The plan was originally slated to be finished in fall of 2022. Environmentalists said they were concerned about Kelly’s proposed changes, while timber industry representatives said they felt relieved. Several people on … board expressed confusion over Kelly’s decision to propose changes so late in the process.

SAWTOOTH NATIONAL FOREST NEAR KETCHUM — Rich Bauer still remembers the moment he first set eyes on the Beaver Creek Fire, a mega wildfire that aggressively torched close to 115,000 acres west of Hailey and Ketchum 10 years ago. While local crews responded quickly to the Beaver Creek Fire, federal resources were stretched thin by two other major wildfires in the state — the Pony and Elk complexes — and were slow to arrive. …Driven by heavy, hot, erratic winds out of the south and west, the fire exploded on Aug. 16, when it made aggressive runs into several drainages that spill into the Wood River Valley, like Deer Creek and Greenhorn Gulch. …In the end, firefighters pulled off a veritable miracle, saving all but one home located at the base of Imperial Gulch in the Greenhorn subdivision. “To lose only one home with such an intense fire was unbelievable — it really speaks to the passion of our local crews,” Bauer said. 

PORTLAND Oregon — The World Forestry Center is using art to spark conversations about wildfire and forests with their newest exhibit “Obscurity: Life Inside the Smoke.” FOX 12′s Ayo Elise gives an inside look at the exhibit that’s now on display through December.

Forest thinning is improving the robustness of older trees and enhancing native biodiversity on federal lands in eastern Oregon, evidence that collaborative efforts to restore forests are working, research by Oregon State University shows. The study led by James Johnston of the OSU College of Forestry involved long-term monitoring and research partnerships between OSU, the U.S. Forest Service and local groups in Oregon’s Blue Mountains. Published in Forest Ecology and Management, the findings illustrate the collaboration’s success in “securing federal investment and delivering science products that measure forest treatments’ effectiveness,” Johnston said. …The scientists found that tree radial growth was greater in thinned stands beginning three years after thinning, and the abundance of glucose and fructose was lower in treated stands, suggesting trees were using carbon reserves for leaf and wood production.

SAWTOOTH NATIONAL FOREST NEAR KETCHUM — Rich Bauer still remembers the moment he first set eyes on the Beaver Creek Fire, a mega wildfire that aggressively torched close to 115,000 acres west of Hailey and Ketchum 10 years ago.  …The wildfire, which would become the valley’s largest blaze in recorded history, had been sparked by lightning a few days prior, late in the evening of Aug. 7, about 13 miles southwest of Hailey in the Beaver Creek drainage. It would not be fully contained until Aug. 31. …While local crews responded quickly to the Beaver Creek Fire, federal resources were stretched thin by two other major wildfires in the state — the Pony and Elk complexes — and were slow to arrive. …A rural spur-canyon situated between Hailey and Ketchum on the west side of the Wood River Valley, Greenhorn Gulch became a scene of apocalyptic fire behavior and heroic firefighting efforts.

Washington’s Western gray squirrels are in trouble. So much so that state officials are considering uplisting the squirrels from threatened to endangered. The change comes after a periodic status review. It’s getting harder to find a Western gray squirrel in the state. Right now, they mostly live in a few spots: the Okanogan, in north-central Washington; Klickitat County, near the Columbia River; and in the South Sound area. Historically, these large, tree squirrels commonly roamed low- to mid-elevation forests, where they could find lots of oaks, pines and Douglas firs. Declining habitat is a big problem for the squirrels. …The squirrels like forests “on the edge,” forests with full canopies that transition from dry conifers to deciduous trees, Linders said. The squirrels also like open spaces where they’re safe from predators. …Squirrels help spread out truffle spores that attach to tree roots, which helps the trees take up water and nutrients for the soil.

A federal magistrate judge recommended on Thursday that the U.S. Forest Service stop cutting larger, mature-growth trees East of the Cascades.  The recommendations are a potential victory for six conservation groups that filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service last year, a response to a change made in the final days of the Trump Administration to allow the removal of trees larger than 21 inches in diameter.  A U.S. District Court judge will get final approval, and the Forest Service could potentially appeal the decision.  In 2020, the Forest Service changed a plan protecting Eastside Screens — a plan for managing about 8 million acres of land in Eastern Oregon and Southeast Washington — which had prohibited the removal of trees larger than 21 inches in diameter.  The Forest Service has said it needed to cut certain larger trees in order to prevent the spreading of wildfires.