Region Archives: US West

Washington faces significant social and economic risks if anti-forestry groups succeed in persuading the Board of Natural Resources and candidates for commissioner of public lands to close an additional 77,000 acres of public working forests, including those in Lewis County. These working forests, known as Department of Natural Resources (DNR) state trust lands, are not just sources of timber; they provide clean water, wildlife habitat, climate change mitigation and recreational opportunities. The proposed closure severely impact public schools, local public safety agencies, public health services, universities and other essential community services. Under the state constitution and state law, DNR state trust lands must be managed to generate timber harvest revenues for defined beneficiaries, including public schools, local public safety agencies and various community services. This proposal to shut down working forests not only threatens these critical services, but also jobs throughout Washington, leading to negative impacts for the state’s infrastructure and economy.

Since the Pacific Northwest’s “timber wars” of the 1990s, the federal Northwest Forest Plan has managed conservation and logging interests in regional forests. The plan was formulated by a team of scientists from several fields, tailoring their rules to mandates from Congress. The Forest Service announced that it was looking to update those rules. But Oregon environmental advocates say those rules, among many others issued by federal regulatory agencies, could now come under threat. The Supreme Court overturned what’s known as the Chevron decision, a longstanding precedent that lower federal courts should defer to agencies — staffed by experts — on “reasonable” rule changes to enforce legislation. …Associated Oregon Loggers said the Chevron reversal will require Congress to legislate more precisely, reducing ambiguity in individual regulatory agencies’ mandates. “While small business forest professionals often support federal agencies’ expertise in public forest management projects, this change may help reduce politically driven agency overreach,” the association said.

SEATTLE — As temperatures soar across Washington this week, so too will the risk of wildfire, state officials say. The hot weather (expected to hit triple digits in some places), ongoing drought and heavy gusts of wind form the three pillars of what is expected to be “near record” wildfire danger, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center’s Monday morning briefing. Risk will be at its highest on Wednesday for the area east of the Cascade Crest, stretching toward the Idaho border, the center’s analysis shows. The National Weather Service issued a fire watch through that evening for portions of Asotin, Columbia, Garfield and Walla Walla counties, citing the dry and unstable conditions. “It is essentially the perfect weather recipe not only to spark wildland fires but, after a potential ignition, to expand them,” said Ryan Rodruck, communications manager with the state Department of Natural Resources. And the vast majority of wildfires are sparked by people.

Teresa Leger Fernández

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two years after the U.S. Forest Service sparked what would become the largest and most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history, independent investigators say there are gaps that need to be addressed if the agency is to be successful at using prescribed fire as a tool to reduce risk amid climate change. The investigation by the Government Accountability Office was requested by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández after communities in her district were ravaged in 2022 by the Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon Fire. The congresswoman wanted to know what factors the Forest Service had identified as contributing to the escape of prescribed fires over the last decade and whether the agency was following through with reforms promised after a pause and review of its prescribed burn program. The report made public Monday notes there were 43 escapes documented between 2012 and 2021 out of 50,000 prescribed fire projects.

COEUR D’ALENE — A new wildfire mitigation project will seek to improve overall forest health here, Idaho Panhandle National Forests announced. Called the Highway 95 Hazardous Fuels Project, it will bring $2,194,800 to state and private lands and $2,778,500 to federal lands in North Idaho. One of 10 projects selected nationwide through the Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership, the project will address 829,453 acres of high-risk forestlands in Kootenai, Bonner, and Boundary counties over the next three years, aiming to mitigate hazardous fuels with active treatment of more than 7,700 acres. “This project approaches wildfire threat from the landscape perspective, regardless of who owns or manages the land,” says Jeff Lau, North Idaho shared stewardship coordinator for the Forest Service and Idaho Department of Lands. “By partnering across agencies and with private landowners, we are working towards a level of regional wildfire resilience that no single entity could achieve on its own.”    

At sunrise in the beautiful lands of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in Ashland, Oregon, a group of tribal youth gather to begin a busy day of outdoor projects in their ancestral homelands. The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest is working collaboratively with partners such as Lomakatsi Restoration Project, a non-profit organization with a long history of partnering with the Forest Service across Oregon and northern California to provide ecological forestry workforce training programs and help lead community watershed restoration projects. Working through Lomakatsi’s Tribal Youth Ecological Forestry Training Program, the inter-tribal crew is comprised of enrolled members of the neighboring Klamath Tribes, Pit River Tribe, and Fort Bidwell Paiute Tribe. During the year-long program, tribal youth ages 18 to 30 years old are paid to train and earn professional certifications that support careers in conservation, ecological restoration, cultural resource management and wildland fire. 

A federal court judge in Montana has halted a logging project near White Sulphur Springs in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest after he said the U.S. Forest Service failed to take into account a decline in nesting goshawks, which violated federal law. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council successfully argued before federal magistrate Kathleen L. DeSoto that both the U.S. Forest Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service hadn’t properly considered the species, which are considered an essential indicator of old-growth forests. …DeSoto found that the Forest Service’s lack of monitoring the goshawk population violated the National Forest Management Act as well as the National Environmental Protection Act. …DeSoto found officials had data showing the population was declining and that the project would likely harm the species. It had failed to include that information in its assessment.

MONTANA — A federal judge has directed the Fish and Wildlife Service to do a better assessment of how roads affect grizzly bears in Montana’s Flathead National Forest. In a significant — but incomplete — victory for environmentalists, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen on Friday concluded that the Forest Service’s approval of a management plan had relied upon a “flawed” FWS biological opinion prepared as part of its Endangered Species Act responsibilities. Christensen specifically faulted the federal agency consideration of forest roads’ impacts on the bears’ behavior “FWS acknowledges that road avoidance behavior has negative consequences for grizzly bear populations because displacement from important habitats results in lowered survival rates during the non-denning season,” Christensen wrote, adding that the agency nonetheless “fails to explain” some of the implication in how it calculates the extent of forest roads. [to access the full story a Politico subscription is required]

WASHINGTON — A swath of timberlands in King County has traded hands, according to public property records. The land was sold by an entity affiliated with the Weyerhaeuser Company for $25.6 million. Industry reports show that the deal appears to have included more than 600 acres of land. The buyer was an entity affiliated with Oregon-based Green Canyon Timberlands LLC, which is affiliated with Chinook Forest Partners… a capital investment management group focused on forestland. The company manages working forestland in the Pacific Northwest. …In 2021, Weyerhaeuser sold 145,000 acres of timberland for $266 million to Hampton Lumber, according to previous reporting from The Registry. The land in that deal consisted of “high-quality” forestlands spread out across Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, King, Chelan and Kittitas counties.

QUINCY, California – Nearly three dozen federal law enforcement officers have been assigned to monitor the Rainbow Family Gathering. This unauthorized gathering could bring thousands to Plumas National Forest in the days leading up to the 4th of July. …This large unauthorized gathering is happening about 5 miles north of Antelope Lake in Plumas County, just west of Janesville. The Plumas National Forest held a virtual meeting Tuesday night sharing photos of this gathering and past gatherings. The Rainbow Family Gathering is a counter-culture group that began in the 1970s and sets up camp in a different national forest each year.  There are currently more than 516 people participating. Between now and July 4th that number could grow to 10,000. Forest Service officials said there are 177 vehicles on site and they expect the impacted area and roads to cover 900 acres. Residents are concerned about the impact on the environment and the fire danger in the forest. 

Additional coverage in SFist, by Jay Barmann: Rainbow Family Gathering Ordered Out of National Forest For First Time, Threatened With Fines

…Advocates say there’s currently no national policy to protect mature and old-growth forests on public lands, but a new proposed nationwide forest plan amendment from the U.S. Forest Service would change that. A draft environmental impact statement (EIS) was issued on the proposal last week. A recent federal inventory determined that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service together manage some 32 million acres of old-growth forest, with another 80 million acres of mature forests. …Some say the current approach to old-growth protection is piecemeal, or “forest by forest.” So a number of environmental groups called the Forest Service’s proposal “a step in the right direction.” …The timber industry has also raised issues with the proposal, with the American Forest Resource Council calling it a “politically driven process.” The group said the proposal does little to address the principal threats to old-growth, like wildfires, insect infestations and disease.

It starts with the cones. They’re usually gathered in the wild, from whitebark pine trees several thousand feet above sea level somewhere in the West. The cones get shipped to the U.S. Forest Service’s Coeur d’Alene Nursery, where they’ll sit on drying racks for a few months. …That’s how some 300,000 whitebark pine seedlings came to be in two greenhouses at the Coeur d’Alene Nursery. …The vast collection of whitebark seedlings is just a fraction of the output of this nursery. …That makes this sprawling government farm on the western edge of Coeur d’Alene a key player in conserving the trees. Of all the Forest Service’s nurseries, it produces the most whitebark seedlings. It’s also been involved in scientific efforts aimed at identifying the best trees to propagate and developing the next generation of whitebark pine seeds. In other words, the road to recovery runs through Coeur d’Alene. [to access the full story, a Billings Gazette subscription is required]

OREGON — In a landmark decision, a Ninth Circuit panel Wednesday upheld a lower court’s ruling that prevents Scott Timber, a private logging company, from clearcutting old growth trees within Oregon’s Elliott State Forest. The ruling protects the marbled murrelet, a seabird species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown ruled that the proposed logging of the 355-acre Benson Ridge parcel would violate federal protections for the marbled murrelet because it would destroy the forests where they live and nest. Logging in the area would also injure the murrelets, because it would disrupt their breeding, McKeown added. “The district court correctly applied this standard to the facts before it,’’ McKeown wrote. …The panels’ decision marks the first time a private timber company has been held accountable in Oregon for potential violations of the Endangered Species Act.

Related in Oregon Public Broadcasting: Timber companies can’t log former Elliott State Forest parcel

MONTANA — If a federal judge stops the timber sales that are part of the Pintler Face Project, the largest employer in Powell County, Sun Mountain Lumber, might not be able to keep its mill running, said a lawyer representing the company. Another company, Iron Pine Co., would have to lay off 12 people, said Julie Weis, of the Haglund Kelley Firm in Portland, Oregon. …But if the court allows the project to continue, it means 1.1 million acres of lynx habitat will be erased from a single national forest map, and without any opportunity for the public to comment, argued Rebecca Smith, a lawyer representing conservation groups who sued the U.S. government earlier this year. ..Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen heard arguments in a case over a timber project and mapped lynx habitat in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. 

PORTLAND, Oregon —The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service announced an investment of over $2.88 million to fund five Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) projects in the Pacific Northwest for fiscal year 2024. This funding is part of a larger $12 million national investment in GNA projects for the same period. These projects aim to enhance watersheds, restore forest health, and reduce wildfire risks in Washington and Oregon. The funding, made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, allows the Forest Service to partner directly with state agencies to support watershed restoration, improve forest health, and reduce wildfire risks through state-implemented projects. …”These projects are important for forest health and resiliency,” said Jacque Buchanan, USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Regional Forester. “It’s also good forest management to leverage the capacity, resources, and expertise across federal, state, Tribal, and local agencies. Using the Good Neighbor Authority strengthens our collective efforts and also greatly benefits the local community.”

The U.S. Forest Service has set fire to more land than ever before in national forests across California. Preventative burning, or prescribed fires, have burned 63,878 acres of forest land, eclipsing the previous record set in 2018 when 63,711 acres were “treated” through the entire year …“We’re fully committed to increasing the scope and pace of our hazardous fuels treatment work in California, and it shows,” said Jaime Gamboa, Pacific Southwest Region fire director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Restoring natural fire to these ecosystems not only helps mitigate threats to communities but also increases forest health overall.” …“Reintroducing fire also minimizes the spread of pest insects and disease, recycles nutrients back to the soil, and improves natural conditions for native flora and fauna”. …For an interactive map that shows where these fires are taking place across the U.S., click here.

PORTLAND, Oregon – With wildfire season underway, Oregon lawmakers held a briefing with the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center for an outlook on the 2024 season — identifying one region in the state as a “hotbed” for potential fire risk. Attended by Oregon Senators Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici — Fire Weather Meteorologist Jon Bonk said the wildfire outlook is a mixed bag. According to Bonk, aside from Southern Oregon, temperatures on the whole have been cooler in the last three months. Additionally, officials said drought areas have diminished. However, they are seeing drought expansion across north-central and northwest Washington as of June 18. …Even though drought levels have improved in some areas, Bonk said Oregon’s rain levels are below average going into wildfire season. As part of a nationwide wildfire forecast, Southeast Oregon is expected to be a “hotbed” for wildfire potential in August and September.