New West Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
I can’t believe I read the whole thing. And below is a boiled down list of what Senator Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009 really does.
But first, a few general observations.
One thing the bill does, no doubt, is provide a big challenge for its readers–as I’m sure it will the agency managers if they get a chance to implement it. The Wilderness designations are straightforward, but the lengthy (about half the bill) stewardship logging section and what is allowed or not allowed in the alternative areas (National Recreation Areas, et al) left me scratching my head on a few points.
Fortunately, Tester’s staff was kind enough to have a long conference call with me this morning to review the most confusing points before posting this analysis, so hopefully, I have the correct interpretation of what the bill really does for Montana and Montanans.
This is a very detailed and complicated piece of legislation. The 84-page bill actually does more than listed below, but most of the rest is administrative and legal procedure that would have little impact on the public, so I tried to concentrate on the significant points. I’m not listing these points in any order of priority, but roughly the same sequence they’re covered in the legislation. Enjoy.
Stewardship areas. The bill mandates that the Forest Service (FS) “mechanically treat” 7,000 acres per year in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and 3,000 acres per year in the Kootenai National Forest. To meet this requirement, the FS must create at least one “landscape-scale restoration area” (i.e. 50,000 acres or more) within a year of the bill’s passing, and the mandated cuts come out of this landscape-level area. The Seeley Lake Ranger District of the Lolo National Forest is included in the bill, but there’s no such requirement for a minimum cut.
All timber cutting mandated by the bill has environmental restrictions, such as removal of all temporary logging roads. In fact, all new roads and some existing roads must be either reclaimed or converted to recreational trails, with motorized use usually allowed on the new trails.
The required cutting come from more than 2 million acres of mostly roaded forestland in three national forests that has already been identified for timber management under current forest plans. There is some roadless country opened to timber management, but no accurate figure on how much, but practically most logging will occur in already roaded landscapes because this is the low-hanging fruit.
The bill also sets priorities for designating stewardship areas, prioritizing areas that already have high road density and where past logging practices have damaged fish and wildlife habitat (and needs restoration) or have high potential for bug infestations.
NEPA. The bill requires all stewardship projects to be in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.
Grizzly bears Any future logging plans driven by the bill must adhere to multi-agency Grizzly Bear Management Plans.
Money. Even though the bill clearly creates a lot of extra work for the FS, it provides no additional funding, but does state: “There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out this title.”
Senator Tester not only has a seat on the powerful appropriation committee, but also a seat on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which authorizes money for the FS, even though the FS is in the Department of Agriculture. This makes his staff hopeful necessary appropriations will be forthcoming.
Reporting and monitoring. Agencies must submit progress reports to Congress every five years.
Biomass projects. Sets up a system for cost-sharing and subsidizing “heat and power biomass systems” and calls for a study to see how biomass systems could benefit local communities, giving agencies 18 months to complete the study and come up with a plan.
Designates the following Wilderness Areas (609,000 acres total) on national forest land.All new Wilderness Areas are currently congressionally mandated Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) or Inventoried Roadless Areas:
Anaconda-Pintlar Wilderness Additions. 56,680 acres of contiguous roadless land added to the existing Anaconda-Pintlar Wilderness
East Pioneers Wilderness. 75,775 acres just west of Dillon, significantly down from the 87,500-acre Wilderness called for in the draft legislation written two years ago by the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership (BDP). The bill reduced the proposed Wilderness by about 10,000 acres on the north end of the East Pioneers because the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest (BDNF) official forest plan didn’t recommend this area for Wilderness, and the bill’s drafters gave preference to the FS plan over the BDP recommendations.
Dolus Lake Wilderness. 9,367 acres in the Flint Creek Range west of Deer Lodge, up from an 8,500-acre Wilderness proposed in the draft BDP legislation.
Electric Peak Wilderness. 4,653 acres southeast of Deer Lodge encompassed within the 22,037-acre Thunderbolt National Recreation Area (NRA), also created by the bill. The draft BDP legislation called for a 9,200-acre Wilderness.
Lee Metcalf Wilderness Additions. 18,950 acres of contiguous roadless land added to the existing Lee Metcalf Wilderness.
Highlands Wilderness. 20,392 acres south of Butte.
Italian Peaks Wilderness. 29,508 acres in the far southwest corner of Montana.
Lima Peaks Wilderness. 35,150 acres in the far southwest corner of Montana.
Lost Cabin Wilderness. 5,223 acres east of Dillon.
Mount Jefferson Wilderness. 4,465 acres just west of Yellowstone National Park (YNP).
Quigg Peak Wilderness. 8,388 acres east of Hamilton.
Sapphire Wilderness. 53,327 acres east of Hamilton. About half of the Sapphire WSA (51,000 acres), which is in the Bitterroot National Forest, is omitted from the bill, but will remain as a WSA and managed for wilderness suitability until Congress decides otherwise. The bill’s drafters increased the size of the Sapphire Wilderness over what was proposed in the draft BDP legislation, which called for a 43,500-acre Wilderness. Not all of the WSA on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge was proposed for wilderness in the bill, As a concession to the local snowmobile club, about 5,000 acres was withdrawn, but the bill’s drafters added 5,000 acres of non-WSA forestland to substitute for the withdrawal.
Snowcrest Wilderness. 89,798 acres near the northwest corner of YNP and east of Dillon, down from 92,000 acres proposed in the draft BDP legislation.
Stony Mountain Wilderness. 14,261 acres west of Hamilton, down from 15,500 proposed in draft BDP legislation.
West Big Hole Wilderness. 44,084 acre West Big Hole Wilderness, in two separate areas along the Idaho/Montana border south of Darby and encompassed with in a 94,237-acre West Big Hole National Recreation Area, a combination similar to the Rattlesnake Wilderness and NRA on the north edge of Missoula, although likely with more motorized use allowed. This is a dramatic reduction from the draft BDP legislation, which called for a 92,000-acre Wilderness.
West Pioneers Wilderness. 25,742 acres in two separate areas west of Dillon encompassed in a 129,252-acre NRA with bicycles and motorized recreation allowed on existing trails.. The BDP draft legislation called for a 34,400-acre Wilderness.
Bob Marshall and Scapegoat Wilderness Additions. 78,977 acres in two separate roadless lands adjacent to these existing Wilderness Areas, all west of Seeley Lake and north of Ovando. Also creates the 1,271-acre Otalsy NRA on the south end of the Bob Marshall Wilderness and contiguous to the proposed additions.
Mission Mountains Wilderness Additions. 4,501 acres of contiguous roadless lands to the Mission Mountains Wilderness northeast of Seeley Lake.
Roderick Wilderness. 29,869 acres in the Yaak area northwest of Libby, and the nearby 74,274-acre Three Rivers Special Management Area northwest of the Wilderness but not contiguous to it.
Release of West Pioneer and Sapphire WSAs Removes congressional protections and “releases” any of the West Pioneer and Sapphire WSAs not designated as Wilderness under the bill and specifically says the FS is no longer required to manage the two released areas to ensure their suitability for future wilderness designation. Keep in mind that the Bitterroot National Forest section of the Sapphires will remain congressionally protected as an WSA.
Designates five Wilderness Areas (59,000 acres total) on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). All are currently classified as WSAs.
Blacktail Mountains Wilderness. 10,667 acres east of Dillon.
Centennial Mountains Wilderness. 23,256 acres just west of YNP.
Farlin Creek Wilderness. A tiny 661-acre area southwest of Dillon.
Ruby Mountains Wilderness. 15,504 acres east of Dillon.
Humbug Spires Wilderness. 8,892 acres south of Butte.
Release of BLM WSAs. Removes congressional protections and “releases” seven BLM WSAs.
Lost Creek Protection Area. Creates 15,134-acre Lost Creek Protection Area on BLM lands west of Anaconda.
Recreational trail enhancement. Agencies “may” develop a plan “to provide enhanced recreational trail opportunities.”
Grazing rights. Guarantees grazing rights will be preserved in all Wilderness created b the bill..
Motorized Recreation. Prohibited in all new Wildernesses, but allowed in NRAs, Protection Areas and Special Management Areas, although in some cases, only snowmobiles, not on-the-ground motorized vehicles, and only on existing or new roads and trails. Off-trail motorized use is prohibited.
Mechanized Recreation. A new agency buzzword for “mountain biking,” and allowed in most of the alternative designations. In at least three areas (East Pioneers, Sapphires and Lee Metcalf Additions), the bill’s drafters made specific boundary adjustments as concessions to mountain bikers to leave popular trails open to bicycles.
Advisory committees. Calls for the formation of “advisory committees of local collaborative groups” to comment on stewardship projects.
That, in a nutshell, is what the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009 would do for Montana and Montanans.
FOOTNOTE: For a chronology of four years of NewWest.Net’s extensive coverage of this issue, click here. to view a map of all the proposed stewardship, wilderness and other designations, click here.
Tallies vary; but, there is “about” 5 or 6 million acres of candidate Wilderness in Montana, primarily in the form of WSAs and other roadless areas. Right now, all of these areas are under Vilsack’s direct control and may or may not be touched in the foreseeable future. This Tester proposal protects a bit more than 10% of that 5 or 6 million acres while releasing two WSAs and probably a bit more roadless than we expect. I understand that this is supposed to be a compromise, with both sides giving a bit; but, protecting 10% of the areas that should be protected still leaves those of us on the conservation side a long way from our goal and opening a “collaborative compromise” relationship with a 90/10 split seems worrisome. I might even be inclined to be more positive about a 70/30 split, but a 90/10 split seems skewed. What happens to that other 90%, that other maybe 4 million or more acres? Will it be another 25 years before the conservation side gets any more of it protected? If this is Tester’s big push to break the wilderness logjam, why propose only a 10% solution? If this is going to be Tester’s new model for a new collaborative beginning, why did the collaboration stop at only a 10% offering to the conservation side? What faith can we have that this kind of a lopsided beginning is only the beginning and that we should be happy with this start? As I have said before, I worry that the passage of this bill might be used as a political ploy to poison the well for further Wilderness protection. I can hear it now, “Tester gave them some wilderness; but, the enviros are never satisfied.” I’ve heard that before.
Again, essentially all of the roadless in Montana is under Vilsack’s control right now and there aren’t any big cracks in that armor, at least not right now. I don’t see any reason to panic, at least not yet; but, I fear that this bill could be exactly the kind of political ploy that could open that first crack in roadless protection. Why get spooked and chance it for a 10% proposal that, as far as I’m concerned, is rather insulting.
Speaking of getting spooked into taking the bait on a bad deal, lot’s of people seem desperate to convince the conservation side that NREPA is dead, will never be anything but dead, that we need to cut a deal while we can, and that we’re so hard up that even a 10% charity share is the best we’re ever going to get. I’ve played that game myself before; it’s nasty and I, for one, won’t fall for it. NREPA is still out there; our side is growing stronger with time while our opponents weaken; and NREPA will protect 100% of what needs to be protected.
The people in the NGOs who fight this would bitch if they were hung with a new rope.
Wilderness is like a ling cod. All the teeth point inward. The minute it is signed and sealed Wilderness, there is no going the other way, ever. Done and over. No way to back out. It it a one time deal.
So no matter your wish for something somewhere else. With support, this deal is a hell of lot more than nothing. It will take agencies a while to digest this much new designation. And, it is a collaboration which means everyone had to give something to get something. How bad is that?
Bill gets an A for reading the bill. That is more than most congressmen and women undertake. Tester gets an A for effort, and his effort is for naught if it is not heartily supported in Montana. And Bill gets another A for being a voice raised to note that Montana was on the short end of the new Wilderness stick for way too long.
Good for you. I don’t think anyone should comment until they have read all 84 pages of it…. and then had someone explain it!
The map has an awful lot of yellow and not an awful lot of green on it. Thanks for reading and summarizing this for us, Bill.
Real Mike,
If you are convinced that WSA and roadless under Vilsack’s control are not threatened, and thus you are comfortable with NO new big “W” designation right now, why the concern about “what happens to that other 90%”? It just stays under Vilsack’s armor, right?
Your trying to have it both ways? On your one hand, Vilsack’s governance is strong and great, therefore there is no need to designate 600k acres of new Wilderness. And on your other hand, you question how strong and great Vilsack’s governance is by asking what happens to the remaining undesignate WSA and IRA.
Is Vilsack strong and great or not?
What comes after Vilsack?
How about incremental steps to protecting the NREPA landscape?
Oh man . . . I’m so confused.
For some reason this bill makes me think back to the many treaties between the U. S. A. and aborigine people–few of whom could read English…
The very most this bill does is attempt to make Tester look good. The attempt fails.
July 22, 2009
It appears that Senator Tester and Pat Williams comments have done something to get everyone excited. What happened to the Bittercreek Wilderness Study and why wasn’t it included? Eastern Montana gets the short straw again?
Why wasn’t there something done for the Missouri River and The CMR and its livestock issue?
Living in Eastern Montana does not give me the familiarity to be for or against what Tester proposes. However, it seems that he is applying himself to help resolve our wilderness issues. He deserves credit for that and I believe in compromise. One sided decision making is not fair nor is it a way for governing our public lands, it should be for multiple-use.
Thanks,
Carlo Porteen
St. Marie, Montana
Bull trout and grizzlies, like all of Eastern Montana, get the short straw. INFISH, an ill-conceived, Clinton-era, federal scheme to avoid bull trout (and Yellowstone and westslope cutthroat trout) listing and recovery under the provisinos of the Endangered Species Act is codified. TU should know better. And in the Yaak, logging 3,000 acres per year seems extreme, especially when considering how poorly “multi-agency Grizzly Bear Management Plans” have performed in the past. I realize proponents could care less, and avoid talking about grizzly survival like the plague, but Yaak grizzlies are endangered. It won’t take much more logging/roads abuse to finish them off. These two fatal flaws in the (not to be confused with perfect) “not-nearly-good-enough” category, are unacceptable.
Don’t forget the quarter-million acres of NRA’s and “protection areas” which are wilderness in all but name…no mining, private property from willing sellers to block up into federal, the MTB/sled/ORV exemptions limited to existing use with the travel plan under secretarial oversight, and grazing under Wilderness Act language.
What I would really, really like to know is the Wilderness Act RARE 1 – 2 Melcher history of the recommended/not recommended status of each WSA parcel involved.
Overall, tho, this thing is moving the goalposts in only one direction. Never mind that much of the authority for this stewardship stuff is already contained in Omnibus 2009…about the only thing I think the bill actually does to help the woodies is that it kicks the B-D further up the priority list and allows the other segments under the regional quota. That’s the whole “compromise” in trade for nearly a million acres off the table. What a deal. What balance.
I thought the Tester deal had logging with road removal immediately after logging. And, tank traps and gates do keep out cars and trucks, but bikes might use closed and obliterated (ripped) roads if they are required to stay on the road, and on the roads only. Having more use than one is a good deal. Having many ways to use the public lands is even better. I would think by now there is some indication of where Yaak bears call home, the areas that they need for security. I would guess that is high, where the pine nuts and whistle pigs are, their food during times of easy human accessibility. It is very possible to only allow logging in winter when bears are sleeping. That will also feed a lot of deer and elk who come at night to eat the moss and lichens on newly felled trees. Loggers can adapt to about any conditions except for the no timber option.
baibait,
Perhaps if one could invision this in human terms — as eminent domain encroachment, perhaps. The 15-20 grizziles left have no place else to go. Fragmenting their last postage stamp of habitat reduces security and food, but mostly security is what’s already lacking.
When the bulldozers come, whether it’s an urban neighborhood, or a once-secure patch of forest habitat, it’s gone. No amount of “mitigation” can replace what’s been destroyed. These bears may be out of room, and time, already. This is like genocide, but for bears. The enablers must be stopped from taking callous, unecessary actions.
Bearbait I remember you a few weeks ago bad mouthing NREPA and large sweeping bills, now here you are slobbering over tester’s logging bill which is as large and sweeping as they come.
This bill would spell the end for MT public roadless lands.
Tester lied in front of his family in 2006 proclaimimng to protect these roadless areas.
Dont try to sneak up on any more cinnamon bears becuase your buddy told you to.
Go back to clear cut oregon.
My “slobber” was noting that Montana has a chance to add 600,00 or more acres of Wilderness. NREPA is not a chance. Tester is a chance. But when you go all in, and you lose, you are done in the real world. Committee chairs, rules committees, leadership, will all tell you that your chance came and went, and you didn’t have your ducks lined up, there was a stink that was going to stick to members without a dog in the fight, and this chance was it and it is gone. Tell that to your constituents. Both sides lose. There is no winner. Now or ever.
I don’t think that collaboration bills are perfect. I would not have included logging in an area like the Yaak just because that small
ESA listed population of bears is too precious to mess with, and if you try, all you have done is asked for the veil of certainty you thought you had with the bill to be undone by a US Court judge, and there goes the rest of the deal. Common sense would preclude critical bear habitat from logging lands.
On the other hand, there is probably land not available for logging in the bill that does have merit for multiple use. But not to the True Believers. Montana Wilderness Kool Aid. Step right up the Jim Jones fountain of True Belief.
NREPA is not Montana. It is six or seven states. It is a game changer, politically, in some districts, either way. This Congress has too much on its plate with the Sun God’s Hope and Change, (bet you won’t have any in your pocket when he is done with universal health care….and you won’t get much of that either), agenda taking all the tv time. The only time the Congressional peacocks can get face time on the tube now is if they get a sunday invite to the pundit’s faire. You do have to understand that NREPA needs a dozen affected senators, and some who live in those states, too, on board with enthusiasm. Will not happen. The fight will be severe, and names will be taken. If the Sun God’s over reach continues, and he mentally pummels those good old men who deliberate law for a long time until they might vote, the Sun God will lose favor with his party as he puts their tenure in jeopardy. And that is just about Gitmo, health care, TARP, GoldmanSachs o’ dough. I wonder if GS is shorting Obama? You know damn well they will find a way to short health care.
All I have said is that Tester is a chance. I add that I don’t think logging and grizz is a doable mix. Bad policy, a bad move, and will need to be removed and something added for the loss to whoever thought logging ought to be included. I guess I wonder what that end of the world is doing in the bill, in the first place. Didn’t Baucus pay PCT enough in the Farm Bill? Log those PCT to Montana lands after they grow trees again in the next century. Maybe a bear will move there in the meantime.
Looking at the facts of the plan it’s apparent that wilderness was simply made to be a joke or an afterthought. The wilderness protection reductions form the original BDP are laughable. There are as much as 50,000 acre drops form the original deal.
This is a sham and an embarrassment to the conservation community, nothing more.
It is obvious there is no such thing as enough for enviros who want everything…except actual work….for themselves. Absolutely nothing is as important as their exclusive use of the forests, all of the forests. Believe me when our creditors, the Chinese, call in their loans, they will not only clear cut the timber to ship to their country, they may make the enviros work to do it.
Bearbait, I love the congressional peacock description, hits the nail on the head.
Todd you are a wing nut moron how does 90% logging to 10% wilderness seem fair. You wing nuts are so brainwashed you defend that scumbag tester. You allow bush and his cronies to take away our constitution and rights and bad mouth universal health care. You think they didnt rob uor children already?
This bill allows big govt to make the decisions about forests
you wing nuts will be the death of the northern rockies
This bill requiring annual NEPA documents, 7000 acres of treatment, new monitoring, a year is unrealistic. Unless funding increasing dramatically and stays up (not likely), the Forest Service won’t be able to keep up with the requirement.
The NEPA documents are complex to start with and with appeals and litigation, history shows the agency won’t be able to keep up.
Actually todd
It is you wing nuts who want to road and log our very last roadless, wild places. We just want to protect our last old-growth forests which are far far from the majority of forests in MT.
I would say its your crowd that wants the forest for it’s exclusive use.
Get off your ass and ride a horse or actually walk in the woods or would that be too much and you cry they’re locking you out of the woods
The idea of “fragmentation” in harvested landscapes for G bears is a canard, Steve and Bait…Chris Servheen showed some tracks from the Swan a couple years ago to the IGBC committee. The tracks were assembled from hourly positions. The bottom line was twofold: One, the bears pretty much moved faster at night than during the day. Two, the distance from roads peaked during the day, but was essentially zero at night. The driver of location was not infrastructure, but activity.
Also driving location was food, which is affected by vegetative makeup. Tracks were all over logged areas and roads at night.
Never mind the bear planted into the Cabinets that was aced by a train down by Noxon as she apparently was heading into the Bitterroots. And the other found dead about 15 miles north of the Clark Fork in the lower Thompson. That is “fragmented” country up the wazoo.
I will concede, however, that there were conflicts and mortalities, but the fact remains that “roadless” is probably not essential to bear survival and success. Keeping travel speeds down on highways, or underpassing them, is probably more valid. Same for railroads. And doing something to instill fear of humans in bears would help, too. And the cessation of using bears as a surrogate for politically driven land policy goals would be helpful as well.
Skinner,
Why then are bears concentrated in Wilderness areas and National Parks? Neither the Yaak, nor the Swan are growing very many bears. The ongoing security requirement for females with cubs is quite different than saying you saw some grizzly bear tracks in a logged unit. Without reproduction, it’s just a matter of time before they’re gone. The Yaak needs wildland recovery, not industrial logging.
Skinner: that the grizz experts of the century show the truth, that does not mean that the Yaak deal is good politics or policy. Some places are meant to be. Maybe that is one. It has real validity if there is similar protection in Canada. There has to be core area to gain outward migration, especially to the vast Wilderness areas of Idaho to the south. Like you suggest, a pointed, devoted, safe migration path south with rail road, highway, and other man made hazards mitigated by fences and over and under passes, will do a lot more to get that job done than any other program that has a chance of getting through the Congress. What a great public works opportunity. What it would do is give bear validity to all that ground in perpetual protection to the south. Make berry picking a little more exciting in Idaho.
Winter logging is a night deal, but the bears are off hibernating. No conflict. If habitat is the issue, then food on the ground is a must. Roots, berries, bugs, rodents, spring calves and fawns all come into play. Logging helps habitat by putting the contact zone with the sun at ground level. It hurts habitat if it is done with no regard to security cover, security belts. And obliterated roads and gates, tank traps, are a valuable management tool. So is patrol. As the population increases, the patrol effort needs to see an uptick. Today’s paper lists the latest dope grow found on public land in Oregon. This one in the roadless area of the Snake River canyon out of Baker City. Both arrested tenders were Mexicans here illegally. Just like the others caught so far this year. Not one Anglo hippy dope grow found and people arrested. And, no indication of who is growing the opium poppies in the Coast range openings. But two plantings found, so far.
So in the roadless areas, not being patrolled with any confidence or regularity, are a free for all dope grow deals for the Mexican drug cartels. Unintended consequences. And they are not organic operations with third party oversight. It is kick ass pesticides and jury rigged creek diversion with ponded fertilizer chemigation through drip lines. Organized and financed. Getting caught is collateral damage and you beat that with a huge effort and many people. Overwhelm the land managers and Federal police effort. And all the while the counties without access to resource money have to spend money to jail, defend, and try the perps that are caught. literally taking the money from education at the local level.
That is your public lands at work saving the world. It can’t be done at the court house. It has to be done in the field. Half the USFS people have no business being in the field today. Too large and out of shape. And the USFS cops are an entity of their own, segregated from the rank and file, because they are always looking at them for some white collar crime. Sort of like Internal Affairs in the cop shows on TV. Not your friend. I have to wonder how information makes it to them in that adversarial deal. Less threatening to anonymously report it to the sheriff or the state cops. Which leaves the USFS cops to keep on writing traffic tickets on the Federal hiways. Yes, I am cynical.
I will not buy that the Tester deal is perfect in any way. It is open to criticism. I am only saying that most of it makes sense, and most of it is in SW Montana, and the Yaak deal is in far NW Montana. So drop it and get a bill that allows some logging and forest health prescription, which is logging for tree spacing, for thinning, for fire damage reduction, and for the purpose of getting back to a mature forest of widely spaced trees. Stand removal fire doesn’t do that. Logging will. We don’t have the aboriginal millennia to have constant, almost annual fire result in a forest of widely spaced, very mature, survivor trees from multiple fires across the landscape, which became dependent upon almost annual anthropogenic fire to maintain the resources for the animals the evolved with fire, the species that survived, and the species that came to depend on that fire. We no longer can get there from here by that means. So we short cut some fire removals, and log trees to gain that spacing. Use our brains and technology.
The old U of Montana Forestry deal would enter a stand repeatedly and take some stems. Always ones that would stand muster in the mill. In the end, you have the broken, bent, and dwarfed left. That was the Weyerhaeuser experience at Klamath Falls. Their solution was to clear cut and plant. And then sell the 620,000 acres. In an other fifteen years, there will be an large scale thinning on those lands. But it will be for spacing. The wood will go to some sort of earth friendly biomass use deal. And the owners will go about creating the kind of forests that will not be lost to stand removal fire. And the bordering USFS lands will look like hell as they do now. The green of the private lands and the reds and browns of the public lands. Noticeable. I think that is what the Tester plan would produce. Over a long time. A forest with less fire threat, and a forest with the ability to meet new societal goals, even if that is to sequester carbon dioxide. A green forest on the Kodachrome scale. Fire is the absolute worst thing that can happen as far as carbon, greenhouse gases, particulates in the atmosphere, go. The worst. And if it were not, then why drive electric cars, ride a bus or light rail? All the reduction in gases will be replaced by wildland fire in a day of extreme fire behavior.
If protecting resource use is going to be universally fought by the enviros in this deal, Montana will not see a Wildernss bill, maybe ever. The Congress is not a place where a one representative state can demand anything. You have to be one tough SOB to pick fights on that playground. And there are few who defend you. So, Tester is a start. Something. No Tester is nothing. You get nothing. All the while the political game can undergo serious change before you ever get another chance. I would take the bird in hand with slight modification. Toss the Yaak and replace it with a protected migration infrastructure bill to create jobs. Miles of fence, many underpasses and overpasses, and after that is done, monitor it for success or failures. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Sorry, Steve, but I seem to recall that the Kendall bear locations sure looked like an upside down U rather than as a big blob with a central “core,” which raised the question in my mind about whether the “core” concept of “conservation biology” is always valid, and whether or not the issue of land designation overrides the actual physical conditions present on that land in terms of food and water.
Never mind the genetics issue and whether or not a “migration corridor” is truly cost-effective as opposed to transplantation of problem bears (especially problem females) across areas.
Bear, I’ll disagree and declare obliterated roads are not a management tool at all. Stable road prisms should be left in place for future reuse in the next management cycle. That’s why so many roads are not one-time blade-offs. It’s an investment made so the future is essentially “free.”
The fact is, temporal road closures, done in a way the public can respect, would be just as effective in terms of habitat security. Part of the idea is contained in Montana’s rotating entry cycle in its Swan management regime. There are windows opened for harvest operations in order to make sure habitat requirements are available across the spectrum in each GMU home range. That makes sense to me, which is probably why after I discussed the idea with Jim Morrison of FNF way back in 1995, I never heard anything more about it from the Feds or any environmentalist.
Finally, let me loop back around a bit to the Endangered Species Act. All this yap about corridors and whatnot ignores the fact that ESA management is not logical. The salmon hatchery issue is a case in point…why the heck are some salmon more equal than others? A 50 pound king is still a 50 pounder that did a good job in the ocean, right? It is a functional creature with all the attributes. I have never heard of credible science showing salmon that, if hatched in a stream, will not imprint as intended and return thereto.
And while I understand that adfluvial bull trout are REDD-specific, again, why not try placing hot fry in barren redds? Why does the ESA not specifically encourage such?
My point is that grizzly populations could in fact be pretty easily re-established in a LOT of places if all the ESA baggage weren’t attached. Same with wolves. All these species are being used, through the ESA, as surrogates for other political aims.
Dave, you make a very good point about the relocation of problem bears being a good way to spread genetics. Grizzlies are racking up frequent flier miles between the Shoshone NF area between Cody and Yellowstone and the Teton area back and forth. It looks like the whole area around Yellowstoen and for miles out are overloaded with predators, so why not take some of those bears to the Yaak area?
Incidently the bear killed in eastern wyoming near Hulett had migrated from the area around Cody/Yellowstone if I am not mistaken. That is a very long ways, nearly across the entire state.
Just one clarification: the little one-square-mile Farlin Creek WSA, now proposed wilderness in the bill, is contiguous to and would essentially be part of the East Pioneers wilderness.
Good summary; thanks, Bill.
bearbait do you even know who makes herb or “dope” illegal.
The timber industry of course, we could make numerous timer products from hemp. They along with the petroleum industry are to blame for for destructive pot farming not conservation. Your just grasping hold of any probelm and attempting to make it appear as though its the greens fault for locking up all that land.
Also there are many experienced, in-shape and serious outdoorsmen that work in the field for USFS. Alas always resorting to your logging and fire suppression will make the forests more healthy. We all know the correlation between mtn pine beetle outbreaks in lodgepole forest and complete fire suppression.
Honestly bait you blow more wind than a microburst through a slot canyon. Your ways are coming to end dont pretend the tester logging bill is fair in any way. Keep defending the crooked politicians and then bad mouth big govt.
That is the funniest letter I have read in a long while tracker. The timber and petroleum industires are responsible for growing pot????
Keep smokin’ dat hemp, Tracker. The Mexican Timber Cartel and Pemex are driving the roadless area dope and poppy plantations?
Logging is bad and dope is good. That is your argument? Sell it to the voters. And up and down vote in Congress: ban logging and grow narcotics. Yeah or Nay. Probably the fastest way to get a new body of folks elected to the Congress.
bearbait and todd do you know how to make a connection or do a little research. Bearbait trying to blame pot growing on enviros portecting roadless is as absurd and contradictory not to mention hypocritical thing for a former logger to claim. You guys should read the War on the Greens and maybe you’ll realize your doing the bad-mouthing work for giant corporations like weyerhauser that bait seems to have some connection to.
Why do mexican cartels grow pot becuase it’s profitable and illegal. Who contributes funding to keep it illegal the timber and petroleum industry. We could creater timber and petroleum products from hemp. This is ancient history dating back over a centruy ago. If it were legalized they wouldnt be growing in these areas. Do I have to explain everything to you in a slow and obviuos manner or do you even know anything about these issues as you claim to. You guys are dumb as toast and claim to know about public lands issues. You necks make me sick
Will there ever be a discussion thread in the NW conservation section that doesn’t involve wild, far flung conspiracies and overwrought emotional conclusions?
Mike: I am not right now able to point you in the right direction, to sources, (UofMontana school of journalism must have library stacks full of old time newspapers and handbills) but in my lifetime of reading US history, and that of the West, I have read many newspaper opinions and handbills from the last 150 years that were a lot more passionate and overwrought than anything I have read in Comments on New West. I am of the thought that Americans are about as passive and unemotional in their public thoughts, writings, spewings, as ever in the history of our country. From Thomas Paine to today, the level of vitriol and emotion is far less, the speech watered down with the admonitions of playground supervisors fighting bullying in first graders. I sometimes wonder if our country, really does, and we as citizens, really do, give a shit anymore? Is the whole of the discourse just some choreographed dance of submissive quitters, looking at the easy way to prosperity, happiness and eternity? This deal of a representative government is hard work for the citizen. Hard, demanding work. That takes passion, and passion is emotional, and happy or angry, and is a commitment to speaking out the best you know how. Some are a whole lot better at it than others. The messages are all valid. All a part of a whole. We do have to listen. We don’t have to agree.
I can’t dismiss Obama lectures because he wants to talk “folksy”, and the left should never dismiss a Sarah Palin because she sounds “folksy” because that is who she really is. If you have followed their speeches and press conversations lately, they both forget the “g” in “ing.” Obama is talking down to her level in his discourse with America. Both sound eerily the same in speech patterns. The folksy delivery can come from Columbia or the University of Idaho. My point: the messages are different, but the delivery of those two is pretty close to the same. How that is received by the press has been different, and for no reason other than a media bias. We have heard Obama Bombast. We have heard the Rev-er-end-dah Obama. We have heard the folksy, “we gotta get a better plan” Obama. And C-Span can show you some Congressional bombast and vitriol. Ever listen to Nancy Pelosi? She can call you names to make you blush. New West commentators are no more than a reflection of our country. The good and the bad. If find that refreshing. Or I would not read it.
I think there tends to be a feeling among some that conservatives are to keep their mouths shut, keep the money rolling in and stay out of the forests. It is up to them to figure out how to feed a nation and keep the energy coming for everyone without intruding on the special kingdoms of the envrionmental elites.
There definitely seems to be an attempt to divide the nation into classes, note the constant harangue that Sarah Palin didn’t even go to an “Ivy League” school….as though she would have learned anything there. On top of that she is from a working class family, and the political elites including, I’m sorry to say, Republicans are not about to have anyone breaking out of their class, equality country or not.
I’m not sure how environmentalists and liberals in general got the idea that name calling and the nastier the better proved how superior to commoners they are.
huh all your response is that my points are far flung conspiracies.
I You loose wingnuts ahahha i’ll call you whatever I want
you badmouth and call us ecoterrorists i dont think neck or calling you dumb for that is out of line suck it up wing nuts your ways have pissed me off to unimanigalbe degrees and this bill represents all that is worng with your views and political env. policies. The wealth corporations have convinced you the greens are out to get you…oh no the greens the greens
get real we dont need any more roads when there is a multi-million backlog on forest service roads already. We dont need your tax payer subsidized logging or you necks cutting down the last roadless areas. Just leave those places be will you for once.
Your ways are madness and i dont care if i being overemotional and reactionary this bill pushes the same failed land views.
Its time to get emotional and demand we save our last roadless areas in the entire USA. No compromise on that, demand the forest service inventory all roadless areas including the univentoried portions. Dont let these sheisty bills pass because we’re hungry for the big W in montana. Promises were made and broken we have a right to be pissed.
todd
why do you think Plum creek contributes so much funding to keep even industrialized hemp illegal. Gee could it be that hemp is a major competitor with timber products. Why did Hurst and all the other timber barons spen massive amounts on runnining anti-marijuana campaigns and ads in the 1930′s in support of the Harrison Tax act which made cannabis illegal. Far flung conspiracy? I dont think so. You guys just dismiss everything with an egotitsitical you know whats best and whats really going on attitude, yet you never do any research or know your history.
Todd you started the name calling so therefore you are a hypocrite to the highest degree. I meerely stooped to your level.