Contacts:
Nick Cady, Cascadia Wildlands, (541) 434-1463
Oliver Stiefel, Crag Law Center, Lead Counsel
Doug Heiken, Oregon Wild
Travis Williams, Willamette Riverkeeper

Judge Halts Willamette National Forest Roadside Logging Project

Finds Agency Overreached in Using Rule for Routine Maintenance for Massive Logging Project

EUGENE, OR – Today for the second time this year, a federal court halted U.S. Forest Service (Forest Service) plans to carry out extensive post-fire roadside logging. In granting a preliminary injunction, the court stopped planned commercial logging along 400 miles of roads within the Willamette National Forest. Federal District Judge Michael McShane’s order states: “Given the immense scale of this Project, which allows the felling of trees along 404 miles of forest roads, Plaintiffs [Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild, and Willamette Riverkeeper] have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the claim that the Forest Service may not use the road repair and maintenance [Categorical Exclusion] to avoid [National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)] review,” page 11. The Forest Service will be largely precluded from commencing logging until the court has heard and decided on the case, likely in early 2022.

After the 2020 Labor Day wildfires, the Willamette National Forest planned a massive logging project along 400 miles of forest roads and several thousand acres under a loophole called a categorical exclusion, which would have excused the agency from the required NEPA review. If allowed to proceed under the categorical exclusion, the agency would have moved forward with large-scale logging operations without considering environmental impacts and without considering public feedback and involvement.

Lead counsel Oliver Stiefel of Crag Law Center said: “Many of the trees proposed for logging pose no imminent danger. As the judge recognized, a large majority pose a low risk, which completely undercuts the Forest Service’s attempt to rush the project forward without carefully weighing competing values and meaningfully involving the public.” 

In the wake of other fires, other National Forests in the region have applied a much lighter approach to post-fire roadside logging. The conservation groups did not object to removal of imminent danger trees along major roadways or repair and maintenance of bridges, including the Henline Bridge which provides access to Jawbone Flats and the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center. Post-fire logging has widespread, detrimental effects on water quality, wildlife habitat, forest soils, and natural recovery. 

“The court recognized that this massive post-fire logging project was not routine maintenance,” said Nick Cady, legal director for Cascadia Wildlands. “The Forest Service attempted to use the fires as cover to commercially log in scenic areas and on remote roads, which risked further harm to these sensitive burned landscapes and undermined confidence in their ability to manage public lands.”

Today’s ruling follows a decision this summer from the federal court for the Eastern District of California, enjoining the Forest Service from proceeding with roadside logging until the court hears the merits of the lawsuit.

Doug Heiken, Conservation and Restoration Coordinator with Oregon Wild said, “Our response after fire must be thoughtful, not rushed or we risk doing more harm to the sensitive recovery ecosystem. Experts tell us to retain as many trees to stabilize soils, provide shade and nurture the new forest.”

The planned roadside logging would impact water quality in the Willamette River and tributaries and would negatively affect adjacent streams and rivers.  Rivers in the project area are home to Upper Willamette Spring Chinook, Bull Trout, and Upper Willamette Winter Steelhead.

“Logging along 400 miles of roads will increase erosion and push more dirty water into the Willamette River impacting fish, freshwater mussels and adding more stress to the system,” said Travis Williams, Riverkeeper & Executive Director at Willamette Riverkeeper.

Judge McShane indicated Wednesday that the conservation organizations have a high likelihood of success on their claims and that logging activities will be largely paused until the court holds a full hearing on the merits of the case, likely early next year.
 
The conservation groups in this case are represented by attorneys from the Crag Law Center and Cascadia Wildlands.

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The post VICTORY! Court Halts Roadside Post-fire Logging Project first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Contacts:
Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director, Cascadia Wildlands, (541) 434-1463
Tim Ingalsbee, Executive Director, Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology (FUSEE)

Conservationists Call on Biden Admin to Rein in Destructive Post-Fire Roadside Logging

Widespread Post-Fire Clearcutting Threatens Drinking Water, Climate Resilience, Wildlife

Eugene, Oregon — Today, over twenty conservation and climate justice organizations sent a letter to Cabinet Secretaries Deb Haaland of the Department of the Interior and Tom Vilsack of the Department of Agriculture opposing the sweeping post-fire roadside logging proposed or actively being carried out by their respective agencies. The organizations are calling for an end to the blanket prescription linear clearcuts within the perimeters of the 2020 Labor Day wildfires, and a halt to the use of Categorical Exclusions (CE) by federal land management agencies to bypass environmental review and public participation. These clearcuts are up to 200 feet wide on both sides of roadways, adding up to tens of thousands of acres of clearcuts in addition to the hundreds of thousands of acres of private land clearcuts and proposed public lands post-fire logging.

The letter comes as tens of thousands of acres of “hazard” tree removal road and riverside logging are proposed and taking place along federal public forest roads across the State of Oregon. In the past six months, hundreds of thousands of acres of private timberland were already clearcut.

“The roadside clearcutting of burned forests is an insult to the safety risks, health hazards, and hard work that wildland firefighters subjected themselves to save those trees,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE). “Worse, the logging will greatly amplify the fire risks and fuel hazards affecting future firefighters if and when they are sent to the weedy brushfields that grow up in the wake of clearcutting.”

Community members and environmental organizations are raising concerns about the serious ecological impact that heavy logging has on post-fire forests and watersheds. Research shows that post-fire logging damages the local environment and delays forest recovery, while releasing large amounts of carbon — further exacerbating the global climate crisis. Agencies permit the logging under the scientifically unsound theory of “salvage,” implying burned forests must be clearcut to save value. In truth, burned forests provide habitat for myriad fire-dependent wildlife and plant species, sequester carbon, and naturally recover if only left to do so.

“Far from improving public safety, the unprecedented scale of road and riverside logging is further endangering imperiled species, undermining climate resilience, and jeopardizing drinking water sources for hundreds of thousands of Oregonians,” said Bethany Cotton, conservation director for Cascadia Wildlands. “Federal agencies are attempting to circumvent scientific analysis and public process, by claiming these impacts are minimal when nothing could be further from the truth.”

The organizations are also calling on the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to promulgate clear, science-based post-fire hazard tree removal and remediation regulations applicable across federal agencies via notice and comment public rulemaking to ensure transparency, clarity and consistency.

The signatory organizations are: Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Western Environmental Law Center, Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology, Breach Collective, Kalmiopsis Audubon Society, Forest Web, Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, 350PDX, Redwood Region Audubon Society, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, John Muir Project, Sunrise PDX, Sunrise Eugene, Bark, Western Watersheds Project, Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project, South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership, Oregon Wild, Environmental Protection Information Center, WildEarth Guardians.

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Background and Resources:
Read more about the impacts of post-fire roadside logging here and here. Find photos of ongoing post-fire roadside logging here.

Post-fire logging typically removes most of the remaining trees and involves intense road building and maintenance, the planting of non-native species and the application of toxic herbicides. The combined impacts of these actions disrupt forest health, degrade habitat, harm forested watersheds, and impact aquatic ecosystems by driving erosion and removing potential habitat in the form of woody debris (Karr et al. 2004, Donato et al. 2006, Reeves et al. 2006).

Logging emits far more carbon than even severe wildfire (Law et al. 2018). While fire-killed trees may take several decades or even centuries to decompose, during the logging and milling process, most of the carbon is rapidly released into the atmosphere (Smith et al. 2006, Gower et al. 2006). Post-fire logging undercuts the natural sequestration and storage capacity of post-fire forests and contributes to carbon emissions that worsen climate change.

In congressional testimony to the House Subcommittee on Resources (November 10, 2005, hearing on HR4200), University of Washington Professor Jerry Franklin said “Timber salvage is most appropriately viewed as a ‘tax’ on ecological recovery.”

Cascadia Wildlands is a Eugene-based nonprofit working to defend and restore Cascadia’s wild ecosystems in the forests, in the courts, and in the streets.

Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) conducts public education and policy advocacy promoting safe, ethical, ecological fire management

The post A Call on Secretaries Haaland and Vilsack to Rein in Reckless Post-Fire Roadside Logging in Oregon first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

As we move into the post-wildfire season here in western Oregon, I am thinking of having some bumper stickers printed up. Maybe, “Gaia Knows Best.” Or perhaps, “What Would Gaia Do?”

In the aftermath of this year’s big fires, I want to share the idea that when the land has suffered what may appear to be a major wound, sometimes the picture is brighter than it first seems—especially when we are willing to trust natural processes and give the land some room to heal.

It’s nevertheless true that major wounds lie all around us this winter. Large wildfires, many that were likely sparked by power lines then driven to conflagration by unusually hot and dry east winds, have caused tragic loss: some in our communities have lost their homes and businesses; some lost their lives. We mourn those lives, and extend our compassion and support to those who lost homes and livelihoods. Tough times lie ahead as people make plans for a different future than they might have hoped and planned for.

We have also heard people’s fears and concerns about the wild lives lost. Will our forests recover? Is destructive wildfire going to become our “new normal” under climate change? Will big fires in spotted owl habitat drive them to extinction?

I am happy to tell you that, at least as far as the forests go, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Our Western Oregon forests and native wildlife are used to wildfire. They’ve evolved with it, and a fully functioning ecosystem needs it.

As to whether large wildfires will become the “new normal” under climate change, the truth is that large wildfires are just … normal. In recent decades, we’ve emerged from an unusually wet time period that coincided with federal policy encouraging fire suppression, so our expectations of a normal fire year are based on an abnormal baseline. Large wildfires – even so called “mega-fires” – are the historic norm west of the Cascades. We may start to see increased drought and extreme weather due to climate change, though, and that will certainly influence fire behavior in years to come.

If you’ve been wondering whether our forests can recover from the fires, you can set your mind at ease about this, too. Very large, and often severe wildfires have burned in our forests for thousands of years. Our forests and the wildlife within them evolved in concert with fire and not only recover in its aftermath, but thrive. Even this season’s biggest fires burned in a mosaic, leaving a patchwork of green forest, untouched or lightly burned, intermingled with more severely burned patches.

If left to recover naturally, these blackened patches of charcoal forest will start to sprout new growth next spring, birds and their nestlings will feast on insects that have colonized the burned trees, and tree seeds will sprout, nourished by the living mycorrhizal network beneath the burned soil surface. Fire, our forests can handle.

Now, whether our forests, and the wildlife that depend on them, will recover from decades of destructive logging is another question – and that’s why we fight tooth and claw against any old-growth and mature forest logging, as well as the particularly destructive post-fire clearcutting.

There is also some good news on the spotted owl front with regard to wildfire. An ongoing scientific debate about the fate of spotted owls after wildfire has flared back up recently. The upshot of the controversy is that an independent scientist has shown that spotted owls thrive through wildfires, while a group of industry and agency-sponsored scientists have been trying to cast doubt on that. There’s going to be some back-and-forth for a while, but it looks like the debate will come down in favor of the rigorous, independent scientists, as it usually does. I’m ready to breathe a sigh of relief here: I don’t think wildfires, alone, are going to drive spotted owls extinct.

Yet the owl population has been declining steadily since they were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, so much so that the US Fish & Wildlife Service has determined they should be uplisted from “threatened” to “endangered,” meaning they are now in danger of extinction (note, the listing is not finalized; the government has determined they are too busy to handle it just now, but will revisit the idea in a year). So, what is sending spotted owls down the extinction spiral?

In a word, logging. Despite the frantic efforts of the industry and, unfortunately, most of our federal land managers, to blame a myriad of other causes, the main culprit is logging.

When an industry strips away a habitat needed for a species’ survival – and for spotted owls, that’s old-growth forest – then that species will die off. Estimates vary on the amount of old-growth the industry has deigned to leave behind in spotted owl range, but it could be as low as 10% of what existed prior to colonial settlement in the 1800s. It’s not too surprising that spotted owl populations are way down, too. Species and their habitats go hand in hand; when their homes go, they go.

If they aren’t logged, we can expect to hear plentiful birdsong and enjoy native wildflower blooms in our burned forests this spring. Forests that develop on their own post-fire are more complex than clearcut-and-replanted stands; they can develop into old-growth twice as fast as managed forests. On top of that, many are surprised to hear that burned forests are great at storing carbon. But not if they’re logged.

Owls – and any other living thing that prefers to live in a forest (even a burned one) versus a strip-mined hellscape – are among the reasons we are particularly concerned by new post-fire clearcutting proposals coming hot in the wake of this season’s wildfires. We are geared up on all fronts with our conservation partners to fight this, the worst and most environmentally destructive form of logging.

Because industrial timberlands will flood the market with burned logs from private lands, we are asking our state and federal agencies to take a more responsible role with our shared forests and leave them to recover naturally, providing diverse habitat for a myriad of wild species.

Although we’d hoped the agencies might have the decency to wait until the pandemic eased, the holidays had passed, and 2020 was finally in the rear view mirror before acting, they’ve unfortunately decided to start pitching post-fire clearcutting in some of our most cherished watersheds this month. We are keeping an eye on three massive, harmful projects now (outlined below). We know more will be headed our way in the months to come, and we will keep you all apprised of opportunities to weigh in.

McKenzie River / HLB-MITA Salvage Project

This proposal out of the Bureau of Land Management proposes to clearcut over 1,300 acres of burned forest in the McKenzie River watershed (salvage and green tree harvest within Harvest Land Base-Moderate Intensity Timber Area (HLB-MITA). We’d like to see the agency operate with some concern for the trauma already suffered by the human and wild residents of the McKenzie valley. Clearcutting these hillsides would instead add increased landslide risk and risk to fish streams, degraded soil webs, flash floods, and homeless wildlife to the list of insults following the Holiday Farm Fire.

The agency is taking comments on its scoping proposal now through January 11. They are asking whether they should do a full Environmental Analysis (EA) or if they can get away with filing this under a “Categorical Exclusion” – a new pass on environmental impact review granted for post-fire logging in the waning days of the Trump administration. We want them to slow down and take the time to do a full EA review as required by law, giving our citizens plenty of time to look over their plans and comment prior to them committing to undertake actions that would ravage our forest and watershed.

You can contact the field manager in charge, Rebecca Brooke, with your concerns: rbrooke@blm.gov

North Umpqua River / Archie Creek Salvage Project

Here again, the Bureau of Land Management is moving lightning-fast on a proposal to clearcut a massive area along the North Umpqua River that burned in September’s Archie Creek Fire. We can’t even tell you exactly how many acres are involved, because their scoping proposal is so vague it doesn’t even list that basic information. So much for fair and open public oversight procedures. We do know this one is too big to go forward under a Categorical Exclusion, but we fully expect the agency to rush its Environmental Analysis.

We’ve asked for more information, but in the meantime, you can comment until January 8. If you support a careful environmental review that fully considers all the logging impacts to fish, streams, water quality, soil quality, and wildlife that we would expect, let the agency know!

You can reach out to Mike Korn, the field manager in charge: mkorn@blm.gov

North Santiam River / Santiam State Forest

This proposal is moving fast to sell off swaths of our burned state forest to clearcutting. About half of the roughly 47,000-acre Santiam State Forest east of Salem burned last fall. As with fires generally, this one burned in a healthy mosaic pattern, leaving fertile ground for a new, natural forest to arise there. Instead, the state is sticking to its outdated 2010 planning document and wants to clearcut up to 3,500 acres. We know some of what they will cut will be green, and as you know, even the blackened areas provide important habitat for years to come.

The Oregon Department of Forestry has provided very little information about what they intend here. We don’t know how old these trees are, how severely they burned, or where exactly the agency intends to allow loggers free rein. They’ve shortened the usual public comment period to 30 days – comments due December 23 – and have revealed they intend to auction off the first trees for logging that same day! We think our public trust deserves better.

You can ask for more information and share your opinion of this plan here:
odf.sfcomments@oregon.gov

The post BLOG: After the Fires, the Birds and the Blooms first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

by Gene McCarthy
Cascadia Wildlands Legal Intern, Summer 2020

It can be exhausting keeping up with the constant barrage of unfortunate news covering the current administration’s breakneck efforts to remove environmental safeguards. Unfortunately, the past six months during the COVID-19 pandemic have been no exception. Despite the global emergency, the Trump administration have not slowed their agenda of environmental deregulation, in some cases, using the pandemic as an excuse to justify it in some vague attempt to jumpstart the economy. These rollbacks have come in several forms, including executive orders and rulemakings, all aimed at removing environmental safeguards in favor of industry interests.

If fully implemented, the rollbacks would have profound effects on Cascadia’s forests. While Cascadia Wildlands efforts focus on the Cascadia Bioregion, we have also taken the time to briefly highlight some of the broader rollbacks that will have a dramatic impact on the human/natural environment.

Executive Orders Weaken or Remove Environmental Protections

In early June, President Trump signed an executive order that calls on agencies to waive the required environmental reviews of infrastructure projects, like highways and pipelines, during the pandemic-driven economic crisis. The executive order uses “emergency authorities” to allow “action with significant environmental impact” without observing the standard requirements of federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA). NEPA and the ESA typically require agencies to solicit public input on proposed projects and analyze in detail how federal decisions could harm the environment.

These laws have been the cornerstones of environmental protection for the past fifty years, providing procedural (both NEPA and ESA) and substantive (ESA) requirements when reviewing proposals for major federal actions. They have served as essential tools for environmentalists to challenge arbitrary agency action and will be significantly blunted by this executive order. Activists and lawyers have questioned the legality of the order and accused the administration of using the pandemic to speed up actions that have been moving slowly through the regulatory process.

NO REVIEW OF SALVAGE LOGGING EFFECTS: More impactfully, the administration is pushing rulemaking to gut NEPA, granting a significant new exemption for salvage logging, and eliminating public protest periods. The US Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed to create a Categorical Exclusion (CX) that exempts most environmental review and public comment for post-disturbance (i.e., post-fire) “salvage” logging and road building. The scientific community has widely acknowledged that the impacts of post-fire salvage logging and road construction are “pervasive and cumulatively negative.” Similar conclusions were reached regarding salvage logging in other types of recently disturbed forest, such as through insects, disease, windthrow, or drought.

Cascadia Wildlands has signed on to comments, backed by 192 scientists nationwide, opposing the BLM proposal. Those comments express deep concern with the proposal to rely on a categorical exclusion to “fast-track logging as this undermines the agency’s stated policy of utilizing the ‘best available science’ to inform the decision-making process in federal land management.” The BLM already has a CX that allows for expedited salvage logging of up to 250-acres. The proposed rulemaking would expand that acreage by 20-fold, resulting in “needless harm to forests and watersheds and has little basis in the scientific literature.”

“Post-fire conditions serve as a refuge for rare and imperiled wildlife that depend upon the unique biological legacy features created by intense fire. Complex early seral forest produced by natural disturbances is not mimicked by plantation forestry, clearcut logging, or salvage logging that typically removes most if not all biological legacies. Post-disturbance logging and road building, especially with minimal environmental standards under a CX, would degrade these natural values. BLM lands, and public lands in general, provide the last strongholds for terrestrial and aquatic species, important carbon stores, and clean water supplies that will only be even more valued in a rapidly changing climate.”

ENDING PUBLIC COMMENTS: In addition to the salvage logging exemption, the BLM has proposed eliminating the 15-day public protest period for projects fully reviewed under NEPA. This will eliminate the administrative protest process for timber sales in Oregon, and fits with the administration’s broader effort to stifle public input regarding public land management. The administrative review process provides an opportunity to resolve disputes prior to the issuance of a final agency decision, and is an important democratic tool. Cascadia has signed on to comments by a coalition of groups objecting to the BLM protest rule change. Instead of scrapping the protest period, we believe that the BLM’s alleged intent to promote “collaboration and information-sharing during the NEPA process” could be furthered by the adoption of a predecisional timber sale objection process. The comments we have joined urge the BLM to adopt these procedures rather than the Proposed Rule.

These changes to our federal environmental laws are not yet certain and Cascadia Wildlands will continue to advocate on behalf of the Cascadia Bioregion, as always, envisioning vast old-growth forests, rivers full of wild salmon, wolves howling in the backcountry, and vibrant communities sustained by the unique landscapes of the region.

Changes to Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act

Though they are out of Cascadia Wildlands focus, there are a few other general environmental rollbacks to the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act that are especially salient given the nation’s current public health crisis and focus on racial inequality and are worth mentioning. These changes both affect public health and disproportionally affect people of color, and could potentially exacerbate the pandemic by worsening air quality during a pandemic which targets the respiratory system. As an article in Mother Jones pointed out, “the connections between the environment, race, and the COVID-19 crisis are many: Air pollution in poor communities has long caused soaring rates of respiratory and heart disease—underlying conditions that are now worsening outcomes in people who contract COVID-19.”

PROFIT OVER PEOPLE: The EPA is changing Clean Air Act air pollution standards by introducing a cost-benefit analysis, allowing the agency to view pollution economically, without considering other factors, like public health. Like the changes to NEPA, this rule would weaken the very regulations that can protect already vulnerable communities from air pollution. This is especially concerning given the coronavirus pandemic: Recent research has linked air pollution to an increase in death rate of COVID-19. The administration also used cost-benefit analysis in April to justify weakening a rule that forced coal plants to cut mercury emissions. The changes would keep the current Mercury and Air Toxic Standards in place but make them more vulnerable to industry lawsuits and could prevent future regulations from being passed. The National Mining Association, which represents coal-company interests, praised the April decision.

WATER IS NOT LIFE: The very same week as President Trump’s executive order waiving portions of NEPA and the ESA, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule revising section 401 of the Clean Water Act, making it harder for states, tribes and the public to block pipelines and other projects that could pollute their waterways. The rule revises the certification process listed under section 401, which, traditionally, has given local governments the power to review new projects to ensure they’re safe for the environment.

The changes to the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act clearly prioritize industry over public health and should not go unnoticed.

These changes are especially egregious during the pandemic, further endangering Americans’ health during an unprecedented public health crisis.

The post BLOG: Environmental Rollbacks Gut Core Conservation Laws first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

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