More Bucks From Congress if it’s a Park; What’s Up with That?

All US tax dollars come from the same source, the US taxpayer. In a couple of recent instances, people are sure that putting an area under the Park Service would get them more funds to do a better job of management.

Here are two examples, in Southern California here
“Diverse support shown for National Park Service proposal for San Gabriel Mountains, River” and here for the Valles Caldera.

The economic benefits of consolidated management of both the Valles Caldera National Preserve and Bandelier National Monument is one of several reasons the preserve should be taken over by the National Park Service, according to a recent study.

Caldera Action, which advocates for increased public access to the preserve, is touting an analysis from The Harbinger Consulting Group that, according to Caldera Trust Executive Director Tom Ribe, “produced more dramatic findings than we expected in terms of impact to the local economy.”

Harbinger says a Park Service takeover would net the Valles Caldera millions more in revenue.

The preserve was created by Congress in 2000 as a kind of private-public management experiment. It is now run by the Valles Caldera Trust, with a board appointed by the president and which has been charged with making the preserve a financially self-sustaining operation.

That, however, isn’t likely to happen. Other studies have shown the preserve won’t make nearly enough money to meet the federal requirement that it break even by 2015. The preserve’s annual operating budget is about $3.5 million; the trust typically raises, through grazing contracts and recreation fees, about $800,000 per year.

“Through fees and commercial resource management, the Trust has made gains in recovering some of the costs of managing the Preserve, but by all accounts, that experiment has not succeeded and is unlikely to do so,” the Harbinger report says.

U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall have been making this argument since at least last year, when they introduced legislation to fold the Valles Caldera into the National Park Service.

The report backs them up, saying National Park Service management would provide “more stable long-term benefits, more reliable resource protection, and superior visitor experiences.” Key findings in the study include:

Under NPS management, the preserve would support over $1 million more in sales to local businesses and nearly 50 more local jobs than it would if managed by the Forest Service with a similar operating budget and staff.
NPS management would generate in excess of $110 million in local economic benefits over the first 15 years.
In 2016, NPS operation of the preserve would be expected to support 202 local jobs, nearly $8 million in wages and $11 million in economic activity. And between 2012 and 2016, construction projects on the preserve could support an average of 50 local jobs per year.
Consolidated NPS management of the preserve and neighboring Bandelier National Monument would attract more visitors to the preserve and improve the visitors’ experience at both sites. Consolidation would also boost efficiency and create consistent policies and programs.
The National Park Service is more likely than the U.S. Forest Service to maintain a high and consistent level of funding, staffing, visitor services and resource protection.

Part of the reason NPS stands to make more money with the preserve than the Forest Service is that the Park Service would probably invest more money in the preserve upfront. “With a small number of notable exceptions,” the study notes, “the Forest Service does not tend to put in place the same level of infrastructure and visitor services typically associated with NPS units.”

Based on plans already presented by the Valles Caldera Trust, the analysis says a likely scenario for the preserve would include the addition of a main visitors center overlooking the Valle Grande, a loop drive with interpretive signs, a full slate of interpretive and educational programming, more trails and trailhead facilities, and one or two small campgrounds on the preserve.

The Park Service is more likely to raise the funds for these projects because of its budget process, the report says. NPS requests annual appropriations by line item for each of its parks — a certain amount for a particular park’s visitors center, for example. The Forest Service, on the other hand, receives appropriations for broad functional categories like fire-fighting, and has to spread those funds out among its areas.

Plus, the Park Service is a draw in itself, much more so than the Forest Service, according to the analysis. Informal surveys of visitors to attractions managed by the National Park Service have shown that “many travelers (especially international visitors) use the NPS website to help plan their visits,” the report says. “Over time, the Preserve would become widely known as part of the NPS system, and word of mouth from other parks in the region could encourage even more visitors to Bandelier and Valles Caldera.”

The bill to put the Valles Caldera under management of NPS has gotten a hearing in Congress’ Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Bingaman chairs, but has not advanced.

In a statement, Bingaman said, “The National Park Service is best suited for the long-term management of the Valles Caldera as it has a long history of protecting unique cultural and natural resources, while also increasing tourism to our nation’s crown jewels.”

For those curious about the study and the assumptions therein, here is a link to the study.

Maybe it’s time to consider changing the budget structure of the Forest Service to be unit by unit- or somehow otherwise equilibrating the budgets among agencies for equivalent kinds of activities. Perhaps there is something about lobbying for a park or for parks; that lobbying for a “fuels treatment” line item across the country doesn’t have the same resonance.

Perhaps, if a place is special, then it belongs best at the Park Service.. otherwise if it’s forested, the Forest Service and if not, the BLM. Maybe it’s time to put all federal lands together under one budget process and approach (if not department). Otherwise, there is likely to be increasing amounts of transferring as local areas try to increase their funding- with the transfers themselves incurring additional costs.

WUI Fuel Treatment Potential Zone of Agreement 1.0

We have been having a fascinating discussion about dead trees burning differently, but I wonder if debates about the science obfuscate an underlying reality of agreement. I am wondering, that’s all.

This morning, I am proposing that we may all agree that

Fuel treatments (completed with fuel removed) to create defensible space and change fire behavior within 1/2 mile of a community are generally OK.

I would like to throw this proposition out there and see what everyone thinks.. because if everyone agrees to this proposition (or and edited version), much of the “science” discussion is not relevant (historic patterns, etc.). We are interested in making conditions safe for firefighters by changing structure (not having jackstrawed piles of dead trees, for example) and fuel conditions around communities (we can discuss what “communities” means).

Some people think that we should just let the homes burn and not put firefighters in, thereby solving the problem (and saving much money, both for fuel treatments and for suppression) but this does not seem socially and politically realistic.

I would be interested to know what people on this blog think about the proposition. Feel free to propose edits. From this discussion, I’d like to move on to the question of fuel treatments that are not in the WUI.

Check out some of this paper and other photos from the Wallow fire and fuel treatments.

Spam Attack of Comments

All- AKISMET is a utility of WordPress that protects from spam and does a great job. Today there were 50 messages tagged as spam and I did not read them all. If you have sent a comment and it doesn’t show up it may have gotten in that list. so please send again. Thanks to all commenters!

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I take a class with required homework on Tuesday night, so there may be a slowing of response around that time as I do homework and go to class.

Summary of 10th Circuit Decision on 2001 Roadless

Thank you to Matthew Koehler for forwarding and to Mike Anderson, the author, for allowing this to be reprinted here.

Here it is..

Nibbled to Death By Neighbors: The Future of Public Lands?

One of the issues that you usually don’t hear much about in the press are “lands” issues. Lands people, in my opinion, are among the unsung heroes of the Forest Service.

If you talk to them, you will find out some of the problems facing public lands-
neighbors attempting to cut off access to the public, through
land exchanges, trespass and subsequently being granted the land through efforts of their Congresspeople, putting gates on public roads, signing public roads as private, removing Forest Service signs, and probably other approaches I have not yet heard about.

Because of the relative tininess of each individual action, it is difficult to get a handle on the overall size of the problem. I have heard that it is difficult to get the courts involved, again, due to the individual size of each incursion and the workload of the Justice Department- although some are successfully litigated. My understanding is that there simply aren’t enough people funded to keep an eye on these kinds of things to keep up with the need.

Here’s a discussion about the roads problem- the question raised was “how can you tell if the “private” signs are accurate?”

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to tell. In Wyoming, you can check the commissioners’ records at the local courthouse to find out the surveyed route of all the county roads, and get copies of the easements (or orders) establishing the road. Even then, you can get into issues regarding whether the county road has been abandoned, and reverted to private.

The forest service roads are not so easy, because the forest service is so bad about either maintaining their roads, or keeping records regarding which ones are public and private. It is not uncommon for private inholders in the forest who block a road through their property, which was built and maintained by the public long before their property was private. The Forest Service (or the public) is left to file suit to enjoin the blockage, and they usually conclude it is not worth the money to bring suit.

I just finished working on a lawsuit where this precise issue was involved, and the forest service won the suit, but they had allowed the road to remain blocked for over a decade. If they hadn’t convinced the U.S. Attorney to bring suit to establish a trail along the old railroad bed passing through the same property, they would never have sued just to reopen the road.

There are several theories under which the forest service, the local county commission or the public can sue to enjoin a landowner from blocking a public road. (prescriptive easements, R.S. 2477, implied easement, simple lack of right) Sadly, the amount of historical research necessary to prevail in those suits means that few ever get brought, due to the cost. The private landowners know this, so they routinely just block the roads, and dare anyone to do anything about it.

The worst abuse I’ve seen in Wyoming is where a private landowner (with buddies on the county commission) will grant an easement for a county road, get the county to pay to build the road, then convince the commissioners to abandon the road later. The landowner, in the process, just got the taxpayers to build him a nice long driveway, thank you very much. I can point to a couple of these in my county.

Here’s a story in the Denver Post yesterday about a land exchange. It’s not clear to me why one individual’s desire to join pieces of property is more important than traditional rights of access for the public.

At the root of the controversy is the fact that the swap is being carried out with legislation rather than through an administrative process as most of the land swaps in the country are done.

That means there is no environmental review process before the trade takes place: There are no formal public hearings that would put a spotlight on the trade rather than making it just another item on a county commission’s agenda.

That is one reason a national watchdog group devoted to overhauling the way the government trades public land is looking askance.

The Western Lands Project in Seattle is questioning the transparency and is troubled that Koch included land in two states (Colorado and Utah) and land involving two federal management agencies. Those factors guarantee the trade must be done through legislation.

“The thing that bothers me about this bill — it appears to me this whole thing was engineered to keep it out of the normal public process. All of our questions could have been answered if this hadn’t been done legislatively,” Western Lands director Janine Blaeloch said.

Goldstein said Koch is only interested in having a much larger ranch in Gunnison County so he can hunt and ride horses and have a place to put his extensive collection of Western memorabilia. He has had enough of people trespassing from the quarter-mile-wide strip of public land that runs through the ranch. The trade would fix that.

Hmm. If there is public access, and people trespass on nearby private land, and the proposed solution is to cut off public access, then there is not much hope for much public land. Another solution would be to not buy (or sell) land that is adjacent to roads with public access.

Readers: do you have these kinds of problems in your neck of the woods?

Bosworth Op-Ed on Tester’s Bill

Thanks to Terry Seyden for this one!
From the Billings Gazette, here.
Guest opinion: Tester’s jobs & rec bill would benefit Montana forests

By DALE BOSWORTH

As regional forester for the Forest Service here in Montana and as chief of the Forest Service in Washington, D.C., I have watched how the heavy traffic of opinion about public land management has grown more and more contentious, until our management processes resemble traffic jams. When so much comes to a halt, our forests suffer.

More recently however, I’ve found cause for encouragement in the local community partnerships on three national forests in Montana, partnerships that laid the groundwork for Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.

Like many Montanans, I read the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act when it was first introduced and I let Sen. Jon Tester know that I supported his efforts, but I also took the time to offer a few suggestions. Then, over the next couple years, I watched as something very uncommon happened. As the suggestions came in, changes were made and the bill got better and better.

Timely land legislation

With the news that the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act may move forward in the Senate as part of the Interior appropriations bill, it’s important to recognize why this legislation is both necessary and timely.

First, there are many areas in Montana that are long overdue for being protected as wilderness. Almost half of the elk harvested in Montana come off the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, where most of the lands in this bill are located. The elk are there because the backcountry is there. Many of these special places, from the Sapphires to the Centennials, have been in limbo for decades, and it’s time for Congress to act.

Second, Sen. Tester’s bill will enable the agency to take a larger, watershed approach to managing our forests. It gives the agency tools to help it succeed. And, it requires the use of stewardship contracting to accomplish much needed restoration work on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenai National Forests. This tool allows the Forest Service to harvest timber and reinvest that income in other local projects like removing unusable roads so that elk can flourish, or restoring streambeds to support native fish. I strongly support the use of stewardship contracting and I believe it is the tool of the future for accomplishing needed work on national forest system land.

Unprecedented Montana partnerships

Third — and perhaps most important — this bill is based on collaborative efforts across Montana. Members of communities from Deer Lodge to Troy who have historically been at odds did the hard work of working together. And they have stuck with it. That itself is huge. We need to make sure these efforts are rewarded so that we can build even stronger partnerships in the future.

The chairman of the Senate appropriations committee said this about the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and the work that went into it: “Decisions on how to use and protect our natural resources are never simple or clear-cut. They require commitment and fortitude. They force conversations and compromise. They make us stronger by overcoming differences and looking toward the future.”

I commend Montanans for working together on this vision. After a career of 41 years as a steward of our national forests, I’m truly encouraged by their commitment and fortitude.

Dale Bosworth of Missoula served as U.S. Forest Service Northern Region forester from 1997 to 2001 and as U.S. Forest Service chief from 2001 to 2007.

Fire Experts Surprised by Intense Fires in Beetle Killed Stands

The Saddle Complex fire burned so intensely that it created its own weather, which further fueled the fire. PHOTO COURTESY MAGGIE MILLIGAN.

Check out the Bob Berwyn’s interview with Matt Jolly from the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory and the video clip here.
From the Summit County Citizen’s Voice

2001 Roadless Upheld in 10th Circuit

DENVER-#354753-v1-WY_v__USDA_10th_Circuit_Opinion

Of course, some could argue that the NEPA is now stale… the circle of life..

Piece from Summit County Voice here.

Science: Beacon of Reality – AFS Keynote by Bob Lackey

Here’s a paper by Bob Lackey, well worth reading, especially for any of us practitioner/scientist types. He’s got a great deal of real world experience in the natural resource science policy world. I think the whole paper is interesting but excerpted the section below that addresses some of the issues we discuss regularly on this blog.

In case you are unfamiliar with Bob and his work, here’s his bio.

But, for scientists who take their civic responsibilities seriously, all is not well. Far from it.
Specifically, for scientists at least, advocating personal or organizational policy preferences has become widely tolerated as acceptable professional behavior.

Scientists may even be encouraged to do this by a portion of our professional community. The risk: we will diminish ourselves and the scientific enterprise when we allow personal or organizational policy preferences to color our scientific contributions.

This is a morass into which we scientists must not allow ourselves to slip. As scientists, we have a special role, an exclusive role because we are uniquely qualified to provide technical knowledge that is based on rigorous scientific principles.
It is this policy neutral knowledge that the public and decision-makers sorely need.
Is the scientific enterprise at risk? It is! A recent U.S. national poll revealed that 40% of the general public has little or no trust in what scientists say about environmental issues. And, about as bad, the remaining 60% were not overly positive either. I suspect that similar results would be found in Canada, especially relative to fisheries science.

How pervasive is this distrust?

I have a good friend who has worked for several big national environmental
organizations. When I shared with him some of the ideas I planned to present today, he stopped me cold with a blunt reality check:
“

Bob, you’ve got to move into the 21st century. Science is a weapon in the policy wars. We buy the most believable scientists we can find and send them into court to battle Government scientists. Eventually the judge gets overwhelmed by the minutiae and orders the parties to go away and work out some kind of a compromise. This is how it works now. When this happens, we nearly always win because the agency just wants to make the case go away. And, best of all, they usually agree to pay our legal costs. That’s the real world, my friend!”

What did I say to warrant this rant?
But he was more upfront than most policy advocates, and I’ll accept that his is a sound political strategy, for an advocacy group, but it is a corruption of science and the scientific enterprise. He is paid to understand and manipulate the political and legal system to achieve his organization’s goals. Fine, but it is still a corruption of science.
What role should scientists play in policy debates? How can they best provide
leadership? How does a scientist lead from behind?

First, scientists should contribute to and inform policy deliberations. This is not only the right thing to do, but it’s an obligation, especially if our work is publicly funded. I also do not hold with the notion that it is sufficient for fisheries scientists to publish their findings in scholarly papers, papers that only a few technical experts will ever read. I take it as a given that scientists also should provide, and explain, the underlying science, including uncertainty, around important policy questions.

Second, when scientists do contribute to policy analysis and implementation, and they should, they must exercise great care to play the appropriate role. Unfortunately, working at this interface is also where some scientists mislead or confuse decision makers by letting their personal policy preferences color their science.
It is so easy to do.
Let me share a slightly embarrassing story that demonstrates one consequence of
allowing policy preferences to infect science. It involves a veteran Government lawyer, someone I have worked with for years.
We were relaxing in a Portland pub after spending a long, long day listening to dueling scientists testifying in an Endangered Species Act trial. I was trying to convince him, from my perspective as a scientist, that it seemed reasonable to expect opposing litigants to at least be able to agree on the basic science relevant to a particular court case, the so-called “scientific facts of the case”. After all, the legal debate should be over interpretations of the law, not science, right?

Perhaps I was badgering him a bit too much, but his response to my pestering jolted me:

Bob, you guys have no credibility. All of you spin your science to lend support to whatever policy outcome you or your organization favors. I’m not sure science was ever a beacon of truth, but it sure isn’t now, at least not in the legal arena. I watch scientists routinely misuse science in case after case.”

No credibility? Science spin? Misuse of science? He was wrong, wasn’t he?
No — he was not entirely wrong. Let me offer an example.
The most common misuse of science is to assume a policy preference and then
incorporate that policy preference into scientific information. Such science is called normative science, and normative science is, unfortunately, increasingly common.
Let me be unequivocal. Using normative science is stealth policy advocacy, plain and simple. Ignorance is no excuse.
Who would do such a thing?
It happens and it happens often.
An example from this part of North America: the case of the 160 year decline in wild
salmon and the role of dams. Here is a big insight: dams have an effect on wild salmon
populations and the effect is negative.

Along the West Coast, it is common for scientists to be asked to gauge the likely effects on wild salmon of removing a particular dam, or building a particular dam.
This is a legitimate and appropriate role for fisheries scientists, and one that we are well positioned to play. But, there is no scientific imperative to remove, or build, dams. Policy imperatives come from people’s values and priorities, not from science.
All of the policy options regarding the future of dams have ecological consequences,
some of which may even be catastrophic from a salmon perspective, but ecological
consequences are simply one element that the public and decision makers must weigh in choosing from a set of typically unpleasant alternatives.

Hardly a week passes that I don’t receive an online petition from an advocacy group
asking me, and other scientists, to sign as a show of support to remove a particular salmonkilling dam for reasons that sound like science, read like science, are presented by people who cloak themselves in the accoutrements of science, but who are actually offering nothing but policy advocacy masquerading as science.
Scientists, acting in their role as policy neutral providers of information, should not decide whether it is more important to use water to sustain wild salmon, or use the same water to generate electricity to run air conditioners, or the same water to irrigate alfalfa fields, or the very same water to make artificial snow at your favorite ski resort.
Politically, from what I observe today, the use of normative science cuts across the
ideological spectrum. It seems no less common coming from the political Left or Right, from the Greens or the Libertarians, or from Government agencies or Private sector organizations.
Regardless of the political ideology, normative science is a corruption of science No
matter how strongly a scientist feels about his or her personal policy preferences, practicing normative science is not OK. No exceptions.

Ecologists question research on burns in bug-killed forests after Montana fires

Photo by Matt Stensland

Thanks to Derek for submitting. From the Missoulian here.

Last summer, a wall of flame roared through a three-mile stretch of tinder-dry, bug-killed lodgepole pine forest and forced a large group of firefighters to retreat to a safety zone.

An official said later the flames moved through the trees like fire does through grass.

In the upper West Fork of the Bitterroot, another fire blew through 17,000 acres in a day. Much of that area also was covered by lodgepole pine killed by mountain pine beetle.

That unusual fire behavior now has some fire ecologists questioning conventional research that suggests that wildfires won’t burn as fiercely through forests filled with bug-killed trees.

“We definitely saw some unusual and pretty amazing runs under fire conditions that we would normally consider to be moderate,” said Matt Jolly, a research ecologist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula.

Earlier research based on modeling suggested that stands of dead and dying trees were not as prone to flare into fast-moving crown fires. And if the fire did manage to make it into the crowns, the research said it was unlikely to stay there long.

Firefighters and researchers saw something quite different happen this summer.

“These fires were quite a bit more active than what the conventional research suggests,” Jolly said. “The problem is most of the conventional research used simulation models. If you don’t have good observations, then you have to assume the models are correct.”

Before this year, the past three summers were marked by very wet Augusts, which is typically the peak of the wildfire season in western Montana.

“We’ve been dodging the bullet, if you will, over the last three seasons,” Jolly said.

Canadians have been reporting similar fires in their own forests filled with beetle-killed trees for a number of years.

The fires this summer burned in conditions that weren’t considered extreme over an understory that was often still green. At times, the solid walls of flame reached from the ground to far above the canopy.

In some cases, the fire was burning through a forest of mostly dead trees that had already shed most of their needles.

***

Jolly said trees attacked by mountain pine beetles start a downward spiral that makes them more susceptible to fire early on. Once the trees die, their needles turn red before falling off. The red needles are extremely flammable.

Once the needles fall off, the forest has a gray appearance. This summer, Jolly said the fires blew through those standing gray stands.

“A lot of people have proposed that once the needles fall off, there’s little opportunity for a crown fire,” he said. “In these gray stands, you essentially have a vertical dead fuel with extremely low fuel moistures that once ignited, can create a flaming front.”

Fire researchers also noted the fires were quick to form a column that created its own weather, which further enhanced burning conditions.

For these fires to occur, Jolly said fuel conditions, weather and topography have to be aligned just right.

In many cases, the fire conditions were not considered extreme.

“These fires burned under less than extreme conditions in the same way that a healthy stand would burn under extreme conditions,” Jolly said.

The dead stands are made up of vertical fuels that respond quickly to changes in the weather and humidity levels.

“That’s why it happens very quickly,” he said.

***

With hundreds of thousands of acres of bug-killed stands scattered across the West, Jolly said there is a “very real possibility” of seeing more fires like this past summer’s.

“It’s totally dependent on weather,” he said. “As soon as we have a dry year like we saw in 2000 or 2003, which came with a very prolonged period of drying, it will be very interesting to see what happens.”

Bitterroot West Fork District Ranger Dave Campbell said research like Jolly’s will be important to those who fight and attempt to manage the blazes.

“This was a good opportunity for us to partner with the fire lab, which has some of the best fire scientists around,” he said. “Hopefully, we will be able to make the models for the future.”

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_33e5c862-f930-11e0-9771-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1bEYungr1