Region Archives: US West

The Trump administration has proposed drastically limiting the public’s say in how federal lands are used at a time when the president is pushing to fast-track logging, mining and oil extraction. That’s raising concerns amongst conservationists and environmental advocates, who worry that the changes could have a profound impact on Oregonians’ relationship with the lands around them. More than half the land in Oregon is federally owned, as is about 29% of land in Washington. …Under President Donald Trump, 16 federal agencies are now considering rule changes that could curtail or drastically limit this public input, which is required under the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA. Those proposed changes were announced in early July. The public has until Monday to provide input on the changes for the U.S Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. …Data shows that public comments can make a difference.

@US Forest Service

Four conservation groups — Native Ecosystems Council, Council on Wildlife and Fish, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Yellowstone to Uintas Connection — have filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the United States Forest Service and Flathead National Forest of ignoring its own scientists to push ahead on a logging project that would likely imperil grizzly bears, and cut old-growth forests. The lawsuit also claims federal forest officials have intentionally created two adjacent logging projects that would have likely violated federal laws if combined, and instead split them up into two smaller projects to avoid scrutiny. The Forest Service said it does not comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit claims that the Cyclone Bill Logging Project, 13 miles west of Whitefish, will cut and burn on more than 12,000 acres, which includes Canada lynx and grizzly bear habitat, both protected by the Endangered Species Act.

The Washington Forest Practices Board is proposing new legislation pushed by the Washington Department of Ecology that will affect all of us financially. The Washington Forest Practices Board (FPB) is supposedly an “independent” state agency responsible for establishing rules that govern forest practices in Washington state. It’s chaired by the Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove. …The FPB is proposing streams that are perennial with no fish should have the existing no-harvest buffers changed from 50 feet each side of the stream to 75 feet (or more). The proposal affects not only the stream buffer width, but the length of stream buffer and volume of restricted trees. Why does it affect you? All timber harvests are taxed by the state of Washington — 4% of the net log value goes back to the county the trees were harvested in. …You are affected by this proposed change in law that does nothing for fish.

The Trump administration’s tumultuous relationship with China is proving to be a major issue for some companies in Alaska’s forest products industry. That includes in Haines, where a timber sale that was supposed to kick off this spring has stalled amid China’s ban on US log imports. China announced the ban in March, citing concerns over pests like bark and longhorn beetles in US shipments. The move came the same day that China imposed retaliatory tariffs on certain US agricultural products amid President Donald Trump’s global trade war. The decision has had sweeping effects on companies that harvest logs in Alaska and ship them overseas. …The trade disputes have also hit Canadian lumber company Transpac Group. The company in March largely shut down its site on Afognak Island, just north of Kodiak, citing the ban and failed efforts to divert its product to other markets.

Throughout her two decades working on forestry issues, Jasmine Minbashian has often found herself at odds with the US Forest Service and the timber industry. Her environmental activism started during the second wave of Pacific Northwest “Timber Wars”. …She joined the North Central Washington Forest Health Collaborative in 2019. …The group is one of 19 forest collaboratives focused on public lands in Washington and Oregon that emerged in the wake of the “Timber Wars” in an attempt to find agreement around contentious forestry issues. …These forest collaboratives, touted as a model of consensus-driven conservation, have quietly become influential engines for federal forest management decisions across the West. But critics worry the groups are too aligned with timber interests that prioritize commercial logging, and that they helped pave the way for the Trump administration’s latest effort to expand logging on public lands throughout the country by skirting environmental protection laws.

There are obvious benefits to logging, grazing, prescribed burns, and mechanical thinning of California’s forests. When you suppress wildfires for what is now over a century, then overregulate and suppress any other means to thin the forest, you get overcrowded and unhealthy forests. California’s trees now have 5 to 10 times more than a historically normal density. They’re competing for an insufficient share of light, water and nutrients, leading to disease, infestations, dehydration and death. Up through the 1980s, California harvested 6 billion board feet per year of timber; the annual harvest is now 25% of that. We have turned our forests into tinderboxes. …For the sake of California’s water supply, its energy security, the safety of people living in the forests, and the health of our trees and wildlife, Californian needs to revive its logging industry. …It will also enable something counterintuitive: precious and endangered wildlife can thrive in a responsibly managed forest.

Wildfires are getting more catastrophic and expensive. For the last decade, Oregon policymakers haven’t been able to agree on how to pay for them. And while lawmakers emerged from this year’s legislative session with a plan to fund wildfire prevention, there’s still no dedicated funding to fight large fires like the Cram Fire, which has burned nearly 100,000 acres in Central Oregon. The total wildfire budget for the next two years is less than the state spent last year alone. And in some cases, costs that used to be borne by insurance plans and private landowners are now the responsibility of all Oregonians. A similar phrase cropped up during multiple interviews with policymakers: The consensus lawmakers reached this year is a good “first step.” What’s less clear is if it’s enough. ….“Oregonians writ large, are going to be the ones to pay for it,” said Casey Kulla, with Oregon Wild.

The U.S. Forest Service will abandon its nine regional offices as its parent Department of Agriculture consolidates out of Washington, D.C., according to a memo released on Thursday by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country,” Rollins said in a statement announcing the reorganization. “We will do so through a transparent and common-sense process that preserves USDA’s critical health and public safety services the American public relies on. We will do right by the great American people who we serve and with respect to the thousands of hardworking USDA employees who so nobly serve their country.” The reorganization plan left many Forest Service experts wondering what the benefit would be, including former Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, who served during the George W. Bush administration.

Since the mid-1990s, so-called blooms of bark beetles have affected nearly 80% of Colorado’s 4.2 million acres of pine forest, reducing decades-old trees into firewood. In the process, they’ve literally laid the groundwork for some of the state’s most devastating forest fires, from the 2016 Beaver Creek Fire in Walden to the 2020 East Troublesome Fire in Grand County. Despite rendering postcard views into wildfire fodder, West does not call these beetles a pest. Like fire, they’re just a part of nature here, filling a vital biological niche in their native habitat. In the long term, experts say they even make forests healthier. “Bark beetles serve as the ecological sanitizers of the forest,” said West, who helps manage Colorado’s 24 million acres of state forestland. One paper, published in the journal Nature in 2020, points to the surprising ways bark beetles are reshaping the landscape, for better or worse.

Washington, D.C. – Oregon’s U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden announced today the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is investing $9,622,000 in 17 projects in Oregon to boost the creation of innovative wood products, develop more markets for uses of mass timber and renewable wood energy, and increase the capacity of wood processing and manufacturing facilities. This federal funding is critical to ensuring the state’s leadership in the wood products industry, while helping to restore healthy forests and reduce wildfire risk. The wood products industry is essential to Oregon and the entire Pacific Northwest’s economy. Sustainably sourced materials for many types of wood products can improve the resiliency of our forests. For example, removal of small diameter trees and brush can help reduce wildfire severity and spread. The investments for Oregon are part of a broader suite of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s USFS Wood Innovations Program grants for public, private, and non-profit sectors, totaling $80 million for projects across the country this year.   

The state’s top public lands official is urging lawmakers to restore the spending to previous levels after they cut it by about half this year. If state funding for forest health and wildfire prevention isn’t ramped back up in the next legislative session, it could hinder efforts to prevent severe fires in the coming years, Washington’s top public lands official and others warned this week. The state Legislature approved House Bill 1168 in 2021, which committed $500 million over eight years to the state Department of Natural Resources for wildfire preparedness and response. State spending had largely kept up with that target until this year, with the department receiving $115 million in the last two-year budget and $130 million in the one before that. Then this year, as lawmakers confronted a budget shortfall, they slashed the wildfire preparedness funding to just $60 million for the next two years. 

REDDING, California — In firefighting, drones get used to see hot spots in the dark, map the size of fires and look for damage. But the recent Green Fire also proves the flying robots also are effective in starting backfires on terrain firefighters cannot safely get to in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. “If the mission is dull, dumb or dangerous, send the drone,” said John Schuler, a firefighter and US Forest Service spokesperson on the Green Fire. Drones can go where no firefighter can: Into remote areas that are difficult to impossible for crews to reach, and where manned aircraft have trouble flying due to smoke or other safety concerns. Firefighters like those on the Green Fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest are using drones to check fire size and directions wildfires are moving. They do the latter by dropping ping pong balls full of chemicals, said Schuler.

The restoration of gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park has helped revive an aspen tree population unique to the region, a new study has found. Quaking aspen, one of the few deciduous tree species in the northern Rocky Mountain ecosystem, is once again thriving, after suffering severe decline during the 20th century, according to a new study. “This is a remarkable case of ecological restoration,” lead author, Luke Painter, at Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences, said. The decline in aspen growth occurred in tandem with a surge in Rocky Mountain elk, which had lost a key predator following the elimination of wolves from the region by 1930. …At the same time… aspen recovery hasn’t been uniform across northern Yellowstone — and the growth is subject to numerous potential threats including climate change and encroachment of coniferous trees, are possible such factors. And other herbivores have increased in the region.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have analyzed 96 years of forest census data to better understand ecological changes and inform management practices. Their study reveals concerning homogenization trends. This means the forest has become less diverse over time, losing trees that played a critical role in its ecosystem. The researchers analyzed census data from Trelease Woods, which the university acquired in 1917. Homogenization was linked to the spread of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle, and Ophiostoma fungi, which causes Dutch elm disease. Many deciduous forests are losing diversity, co-author Jennifer Fraterrigo said. …She worked on the study with her former graduate student, Jennifer Álvarez, who is currently an environmental assessment researcher at the Illinois State Geological Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois. Integrative biology professor James Dalling and former NRES forest ecologist John Edgington were also co-authors on the study.

The state of Washington will get about $20 million for wildfire fighting efforts after a months-long delay, a Washington congresswoman confirmed Thursday. The Trump administration distributed $280 million in federal funding to forestry agencies across the country, according to the office of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington. The money will help fund the Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ efforts to train and equip wildland firefighters across the state. “The state of Washington is in the middle of an active and dangerous wildfire season,” Cantwell said in a news release. “After questioning the Chief of the Forest Service and the Secretary of Agriculture, I am pleased that Washington — and all states — are finally receiving the funding they need to prepare for and respond to wildfires this summer and in the future.”

Additional coverage from the Bellingham Herald: Could Trump budget cuts hurt WA wildfire fighting efforts? We asked an expert. “According to Robyn Whitney, strategic advisor to the State Forester, the Washington Department of Natural Resources, will operate at full capacity this summer, regardless of possible federal budget cuts.“

Nathan Magsig

If you’re from California, you’ve likely seen it — our once-thriving forests are turning into graveyards of dead trees, and the threat of wildfire looms larger every year. Since 2010, over 27 million trees have died in Fresno County alone. The combined effects of drought, beetle infestations, and bureaucratic gridlock have left our forests vulnerable and our communities exposed. The tragic 2020 Creek Fire, which devastated entire neighborhoods and ecosystems, is just one of many examples of what happens when we fail to act. Let me be clear: this is not just a forestry problem. It’s a public safety emergency, an economic threat, and an environmental crisis — all rolled into one. …Our policies have not kept up with the crisis. Regulatory and budgetary roadblocks have stifled forest management efforts. Even when we have willing landowners and local governments, they’re hamstrung by red tape and a lack of resources.

A major logging project in Montana can continue after a federal judge on Tuesday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by four environmental groups. Last year, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved the Round Star logging project, which covers 28,300 acres of land about 13 miles west of the city of Whitefish. …The agencies also approved the construction of nearly 20 miles of permanent roads in the national forest. …The four conservation groups — Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, Council on Wildlife and Fish and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection — sued to stop the logging in January, and filed their motion for a preliminary injunction months later. By that time, the logging was already underway. …Though the timing of the motion wasn’t a dealbreaker for the motion, DeSoto also found that the plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed on the merits of the case.

Brad White

Colorado Fire Chief Brad White, of Grand Fire Protection District No. 1, says he’s worried “there’s not a lot of extra help to be had this summer.” Mass layoffs and voluntary resignation programs under the Trump administration have reshaped federal agencies, like the U.S. Forest Service, that typically work in close coordination with local and state officials to not only battle wildfires but prepare for and protect against them. Colorado is made up of vast swathes of federal land. The U.S. Forest Service alone owns about one-fifth of the state’s land, with most of that in the mountains, where the federal government is the largest landowner in many counties. But federal land management agencies have shed thousands of employees in just six months. …Colorado officials are concerned that these cuts could disrupt years of wildfire preparedness and make the state more vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires.

After months of deliberation, a years-old vision to restore local control of some of Pacific and Wahkiakum counties’ most productive timberlands is a step closer to becoming a reality. Last Tuesday, representatives from the Columbia Land Trust presented to both sets of commissioners a near-complete draft of the charter for the Upper Grays River Community Forest. The document lays out the legal framework and governance structure for a working forest in the upper Grays River watershed, which will straddle the boundary between the two counties. “The purpose… is to provide a legal entity… to undertake, assist with and otherwise facilitate the acquisition, ownership, maintenance, harvest, and management of a community forest or forests within Pacific County and Wahkiakum County to provide economic, environmental and community benefits to the public,” the charter’s fourth article reads.