Posted on 06/30/2002 8:21:04 PM PDT by brityank
RODEO FIRE
Green group lawsuit blocked forest thinning
BY MARK FLATTEN AND DAN NOWICKI
TRIBUNE
Plans to cut fire danger by thinning trees in an Arizona forest now being destroyed by the nation's largest active wildfire were blocked for three years by a Tucson environmental group, a Tribune investigation has found.
The U.S. Forest Service approved a plan to thin trees and remove volatile debris in parts of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest on the Mogollon Rim in September 1999, according to court records. The plan was halted after the Center for Biological Diversity appealed the decision, then sued in May 2000, claiming the Forest Service had not followed regulations.
The matter is still pending in federal court.
Environmentalists say they can't be held responsible for the fires raging out of control in Arizona. But the lawsuit all but halted any kind of fire prevention work in the Apache-Sitgreaves forest, said Pat Jackson, regional appeals and litigation officer for the forest service in New Mexico. About 90 percent of the management area where forest thinning was blocked by the lawsuit has burned, he said.
We're litigating while the forest burns, Jackson said Friday.
Federal officials say lawsuits and protests have virtually halted their efforts to thin overgrown forests throughout Arizona to reduce the risk of cataclysmic fires like the ones that have consumed more than 400,000 acres along the Mogollon Rim, and are still burning out of control.
Wildfires in Arizona and Colorado have ignited calls for reform of often conflicting laws governing forest management. Challenges from environmentalists, logging companies, ranchers and homeowners have paralyzed the decision-making process and delayed desperately needed work for years, according to forest officials.
Jackson said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix by the Center for Biological Diversity is a stark example.
It has prevented work to reduce fire hazards on all but 306 acres of the Apache-Sitgreaves, Jackson said. An agreement reached with the center in August 2000 allowed small-scale thinning of trees up to 6 inches in diameter near Forest Lakes, about halfway between Heber-Overgaard and Payson, Jackson said.
Brian Segee, of the Tucson center, said the lawsuit was filed because the Forest Service wanted to cut large trees some more than 16 inches in diameter in what amounted to a logging contract rather than thinning to prevent forest fires.
Segee said it is wrong to blame his group or other environmental organizations for the inferno.
It's sheer scapegoating, to blame environmental groups for the Rodeo-Chediski fire, Segee said. These guys want to use this to further whatever their political agenda is.
Wally Covington, a forestry professor at Northern Arizona University and a longtime advocate of culling forests to reduce fire dangers, said most mainstream environmental groups support the concept. Disputes typically arise over the issue of how many trees should be removed, and how big they can be, he said. Things such as diameter caps or arbitrary limits on the percentage of trees cut are not effective means of thinning, he said.
Any thinning proposal that includes commercial logging is likely to be challenged, he said.
There has been opposition from some of the zero-cut environmental groups, Covington said. They have concerns that this is just the camel's nose under the tent, that this will be the re-establishment of timber-based logging in the western forest lands. The anti-cut groups are bitterly opposed to that.
It took almost two years for the recommendation to do large-scale thinning in Apache-Sitgreaves to reach John Bedell, the forest supervisor named as the defendant in the lawsuit. In that time, extensive environmental studies were conducted to comply with the requirements of a half-dozen different laws aimed at protecting everything from endangered species to antiquities in the region, known as the Baca Ecosystem Management Area, court records show.
Bedell adopted the management plan for about 28,000 acres in the area that is now part of the Chediski fire. In his findings supporting the plan, Bedell warned of the fire risks.
Stand overstocking is causing an increased risk of catastrophic wildfire, Bedell said in his 1999 decision.
The plan called for a combination of tree, brush and debris removal, as well as controlled burns, to treat different areas of the Baca. It would have permitted the commercial cutting of up to 31 million board feet of timber from the area. A board foot is one inch by one inch by one foot.
The Center for Biological Diversity appealed Bedell's decision to the regional forester in New Mexico, who in December 1999 sided with Bedell. In May 2000, the center filed a lawsuit and sought an injunction to block any implementation of the proposal.
That virtually halted any fire prevention thinning in the Apache-Sitgreaves, Jackson said. The only exception is the 306 acres near Forest Lakes. There, the Forest Service was allowed to do limited thinning of trees up to 6 inches in diameter, court records show.
Segee said the center also agreed to fire treatments on an additional 1,000 acres south of Forest Lakes, but that agreement could not be found in the court file.
The center's lawsuit contends the forest service did not follow administrative procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act, one of several laws that govern Forest Service actions.
Among the specifics alleged were that the Forest Service did not adequately analyze impacts on the endangered birds such as the pygmy nuthatch, the yellow-bellied sapsucker and the northern goshawk.
Jackson characterized the suit as a process claim which does not charge environmental damage would be caused, but rather that the paperwork and procedures were not completely complied with.
Much of the dispute between the Forest Service and the center involves which trees should be cut, Segee said.
The fire hazard is caused by an abundance of trees less than 6 inches in diameter that have grown throughout the forest, Segee said. Under the Baca plan, about 26 percent of the wood that would have been thinned would be from trees larger than 16 inches in diameter, he said.
It's a timber sale, Segee said. It's not a fuel remediation treatment.
Jackson said effective fire management cannot be achieved with an arbitrary cap on tree diameter, particularly one as small as 6 inches. That would not allow the removal of dead or diseased trees that will pose a fire hazard, or thinning of trees that create a canopy that fuels the type of crown fire amid the treetops as was seen in the Rodeo-Chediski blaze, he said.
Lawsuits and the bureaucratic malaise like the one involving the Baca proposal are fueling renewed efforts in Congress to reform laws governing the Forest Service.
What happened in the Apache-Sitgreaves shows the urgency for reform, said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., whose district includes the areas where the fires are burning.
Hayworth blamed groups like the Center for Biological Diversity for bringing forest management to a standstill throughout the western United States.
Where is your biological diversity if everything is incinerated? Hayworth said.
Hayworth said he has had preliminary discussions with Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., about drafting bipartisan legislation to put some sanity into forest management again. Hayworth revealed no specifics Friday.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., blamed "radical environmental groups," including the Center for Biological Diversity, for creating a paralysis in the Forest Services decision-making. Other environmental organizations such as the Grand Canyon Trust and the Nature Conservancy have been cooperative with fire remediation efforts, he said.
But all it takes is one lawsuit from one group to block sound management, he said.
"They just run the Forest Service through fits," Kyl said. "They end up doing so much paperwork that is redundant and unnecessary that they don't want to even put these things out because it just takes too much of their time and effort and all they do is get sued. Frankly, the Forest Service is partly to blame here because they've given up in a lot of these cases. But I can understand why."
The Center for Biological Diversity is involved in a dozen lawsuits involving federal agencies in Arizona alone. Segee said only two the Baca and a separate action on the north rim of the Grand Canyon seek to block timber sales.
The Forest Service has said there are 5,000 actions pending against the agency, but some environmental activists said they doubt that number, if accurate, represents challenges and lawsuits filed only by environmentalists. Timber companies, housing developers and off-road vehicle groups also frequently go to court with the government, said Sharon Galbreath, executive director of the Southwest Forest Alliance.
"It's unfair and cheap politics to single out environmentalists, said Sandy Bahr, a lobbyist with the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter in Arizona.
If they would focus on thinning the small trees and, especially, on areas around communities where they can make the most impact, I think they will find that their projects move forward, she said.
Tribune writer Mark Flatten can be reached by e-mail at mflatten@aztrib.com.
Dan Nowicki can be reached by e-mail at dnowicki@aztrib.com.
Another watermelon agency that should be sued out of existence.
Ping.
snip
"It's unfair and cheap politics to single out environmentalists, said Sandy Bahr, a lobbyist with the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter in Arizona. If they would focus on thinning the small trees and, especially, on areas around communities where they can make the most impact, I think they will find that their projects move forward, she said.
Hmmm, the two paragraphs have a rather nice contrast. Kind of puts the lie the Sandy's whining, doesn't it?
Hopefully, something should be done about lawsuits being filed that stop things like maintenance of the forests. It's unconscionable that these people are running around whining about "Don't blame meeeeeeeee"
They should all be tarred and feathered. Of course well have to be sure that the tar is all natural, and the feathers are from organically fed chickens ;o)
The endangered species act gives these people way too much power. We need to repeal it. I understand that it sunseted, but the agencies just keep acting as if it is still in effect. Or, does the congress just keep puting off confronting this issue by saying it will follow the status quo for another year at a time?
I think you'd be surprised. Florida just passed a law that blocks environmental groups from bringing lawsuits if they have less than 25 members or have been in existence less than a year. Kind of gives you a hint about the types of groups that have been brining suit -- ones that spring up instantaneously, with no known membership, for the sole reason of filing suit, is my guess in a lot of cases.
Another thing that should be done -- all federal employees in any of the BoR, US FS, DoI, etc., should be investigated for membership and activities with any of the watermelon orgs. Norton, Whitman, and Bush need to get a handle on the clintonistas and gorons that are infecting the bureaucracy, as they should have done last year.
I'll bet Ron Arnold has that info. (Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.)
This "iron triangle" of:
wealthy foundations,
grant-driven environmental groups,
and zealous bureaucrats
- cuts off natural resource extraction from America's federal lands, ending the supply of timber, minerals, food, and fiber you use every day.
- calls the gradual removal of resource workers from rural lands "transition," envisioning gentrification with upscale retirees, modem gypsies and rat-race refugees in a boutique economy.
- destroys the lives and jobs of rural resource workers, whose cries of anguish and anger are called "incivility" by the rich and powerful who are destroying them.
- tightens their regulatory grip on private property so you can't use what you ownand you can't get compensation for what you lose.
- increases the size of big government by taking more land for "nature preserves" even though government already owns nearly half the nation.
- widens the rural-urban prosperity gap. While cities enjoy a booming economy, rural communities suffer severe economic pain caused by the "iron triangle" through bans on logging, mining, ranching, farming, and all forms of natural resource extraction.
- perverts the media you rely on, rearranging your mind, making sure you believe what they want you to believe and crushing all opposing views.
- dismantles industrial civilization piece by piece.
I don't see that they missed anything.
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