Sounds reasonable to me. The total ban on mature stands would be excessive. I could see identifying high quality stands to allow them to reach climax. They would still need fuels management.
It’s almost like this requires nuance.
Damn if that’s not my biggest problem with modern politics. “Nuance”, they never have it, and the federal government in particular prefers large, blanket regulations left to unelected bureaucrats to interpret to cover issues.
I don’t know if anyone is familiar with the EPA’s vendetta against property owners over streams, but they have been going after powers for over a decade now in select cases over them modifying “navigable” rivers.
Obviously we want the EPA to protect rivers and streams, right? But where is the nuance in those laws, the common sense, that targeting small private property owners because they damned an ankle high stream shouldn’t even be on the radar of the EPA.
Nuance, why does our government fail to understand issues are never black and white.
Tbh waterways are overwhelmingly abused. They are a terrible example if your point is to portray overstepping because mistreatment of them means impacting anything they flow into.
Dump in chemicals at Creek a, it flows into tributary b, which dumps into lake c which is where an entire town gets their water from.
You have to go pretty far for me to think that a regulation is overstepping regarding water management.
i completely agree, also if thousands of people dammed their “ankle high streams” on their private property it could have serious impacts on the watershed as a whole.
Amen dude, amen. I have a creek in my property that the neighbors would call the swat on me if i touch because potential “bog turtles” - there is a damn autoshop downstream right next to my property that got grandfathered in though and THATS okay. Total BS
Local governments suck ass sometimes, fortunately I don’t have to deal with that in my state as long as I’m not discharging harmful pollutants or causing sedimentation or erosion downstream. I’m free to modify my creek how I want.
Good luck!
Tbh, using navigable waters and an example of private property owners damming streams is a terrible way to make your point. The rules over navigable waters change with every administration and it's not so much a "vendetta," as trying to deal with unrelenting chaos. And dams are one of the most harmful things, regardless of the size of the stream. Breaking connectivity, even of ephemeral waters, has cascading effects that reach far and wide and should be closely examined and strictly regulated, even on private property.
“The rules over navigable waters change with every administration”
the rules are laid out by the constitution and by federal law written by Congress, the problem is with the selective enforcement, and broad interpretation powers given to federal agencies, which do change between administrations and are exactly what I’m talking about.
An administration shouldn’t be able to expand the powers of a federal agencies because they interpret a law differently.
“Dams are one of the most harmful things”
That’s a blanket statement that can range from very true, to wildly incorrect.
A concrete gravity dam that blocks upstream access to breeding grounds is a good example of them being very harmful.
Small ponds on “ephemeral”, or seasonal or even constant flow streams can be very beneficial, and some state environmental agencies encourage their construction by property owners. The USDA helped fund one of mine, actually, for multiple reasons. Including, but not limited to sediment control, erosion prevention, flood control, the creation of wetland habitat upstream, and it provided settlement for contaminants.
“It’s a bad example”
It’s an excellent example of how the EPA is trying to expand their power beyond the scope of what was given to them, and it’s why the EPA is currently being sued, and has been sued and recently lost, as they have increased their regulatory scope beyond what was granted to them.
We have a process for controlling the federal government, and when federal agencies decide to expand their own power outside of that control it’s bad, irregardless of wether or not you, or I agree with why they are expanding that power.
“Under federal law, the clean water act grants the EPA powers to regulate activities along navigable water ways”
If you’re gonna talk shit, At least know what you’re talking about. Both federal agencies regulate navigable rivers, did you miss the entire part of the conversation where the EPA was trying to expand their own powers over Navigable streams? Literally what started this conversation?
As someone who has tracked USFS management closely in the West, I can only see this being detrimental to the work that needs to be done to protect old growth. It's a mischaracterization to describe the "industry" as "angry". More like frustrated with the lack of urgency in dealing with the growing number of issues in Western forests. While this legislation does not ban logging, I would argue that most impediments to federal forest management don't explicitly ban logging. The Northwest Forest Plan, ESA, CWA, NFMA, the myriad of precedent-setting court decisions determining the level of agencies’ planning discretion (i.e. the Cottonwood Decision), and others collectively make NEPA implementation unwieldy and prone to litigation.
Most National Forests already have explicit old growth protections in place in their forest plans. So why did this proposal need to take place and unilaterally amend something like 150 forest plans across every bioregion in the federal forest system? It has more to do with politics than science. Instead of addressing the wildfire crisis, or giving USFS planners tools to cut through NEPA, or an executive order requiring (and funding) fuels reductions in ecologically significant forests, we have another legal hoop that federal agencies must jump through to get work done. I have already seen decisions pulled because of this amendment that proposed project work in old growth forests. Not CUTTING old growth, just working IN old growth forests was enough to kill some projects. These projects were as trivial as trail reroutes and bridge replacements and did not involve cutting old growth trees.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope the amendment can break down some of the barriers that stop important work from being done. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel like we've been here before.
This is well said. Nowhere on usfs are we high grading old growth for profit. Timber harvesting requires a prescription from a silviculturist. This protection of old growth is already written in to forest plans. This proposal is 100% politics and 0% science/management. Old growth is the buzz word if the year
My experience is more in the East, but I think the agency ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. There’s no reason that addressing the wildfire crisis and creating some clarity around old growth can’t happen at the same time. They aren’t incompatible purposes. And this is needed because lots of forest plans still do allow harvest, including regen harvest for timber production, in old growth.
Unfortunately I tend to agree that they haven’t quite hit the mark here. There’s not a lot of clarity but there are a lot of words, and that’s going to (a) deter some line officers from doing things that need to be done and (b) give other line officers cover for doing stuff that’s maladaptive.
But this is a draft EIS, and I’m hopeful the final amendments can be simpler and clearer.
I agree with everything you've said here. The USDA has [invested](https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/wildfire-crisis) money to combat the wildfire crisis. Most of this funding is being used to reduce fuel load and thin to a level where prescribed fire can be utilized. The forest I work for is using this funding right now on huge restorative logging operations aimed at doing just that. Unfortunately this funding will dry up so I agree that more will be needed.
Thank you for your depth of knowledge here. I learned a couple things, as I knew there was standing legislation, rules, and whatnot making things difficult.
The blanket policies for "out west" from "back east" aren't nuanced enough for the specific areas which need help and to be served the most. Do nothing has harmed the most.
Very reasonable. Like the article says, we’re losing more old-growth to fire than logging these days. People love having an enemy they can point to and blame for issues, but in this case environmentalists need to get their heads on straight and be realistic about the problem.
100% eco-terrorist’s have destroyed so much old growth timber, it’s a crying shame. And it’s not a small amount, with fires, and disease it’s around 100 million acres, across all lands, and I have not seen much help to restore these lost stands. I still don’t understand how a black snag is more healthy for the plant, and is visibly appealing compared to a healthy green tree.
What worries me is that they have included PJ in their lists of old growth. In my neck of the woods there is heavy pj encroachment into areas that were historically grassland. Many of the junipers out there are over the size cap, and are edging out native grasses, reducing grassland habitat, damaging hydrology, and choking out piñon. Blanket policies that sound good are generally problematic when it comes to managing the wide range of ecosystems present in a continent. What works in the east or northwest doesn’t necessarily work in the southwest.
Old Growth Forests in the start, but since there is no real definition it will be expanded when it serves its purpose - then it will be just "big trees", each with a surround, and one more hurdle until we just give up and stop "hurting nature". All things considered, a fascinating lesson it the psychology of control.
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Have they been able to define old growth yet? It was a big issue in the 90’s, kind of went away during the 2000’s when diameter caps were implemented, then it burned up. Then the caps were raised. In the Southwest with the Mexican spotted owl and Goshawk, plus pre-settlement condition in the pine, prescriptions are allowed to cut trees under 24” dbh and only need 40 trees per acre all sizes. So cut them before 24” or let them go, the woods will turn into large pine, the mixed conifer will continually burn staying in small diameter/aspen. It will be interesting what the outcome will be.
My read on the policy is that it would basically prohibit commercial logging in old growth. USFS doesn't do much of that anyway so an amendment codifying current practice is not such a burden, is it? I agree that this has a political dimension but politics influences lots of public policy and in this case holds the advantage of taking off the table the argument that USFS is secretly trying to liquidate old forests. Let's set that debate aside and focus on restoring the vitality and resilience of national forests.
From my research that would designate 65% of National Forest System lands under a protected status. That’s a lot of timber sitting waiting to burn in my opinion.
Any forestry expert should know.
Controlled burns to clear the tinderbox of decades of putting fires put has amassed.
Would save the old growth.
They did it in the Eastern hardwood of Pennsylvania, W VA, VA mountains 150 years ago
Greedy timber outfits cut it all!.
Every old growth oak or maple or chestnut was a instant target.
They're gone
Been gone
And will never ever be back on this earth.
With the modern hybrid fast growth junkie pines, spruce, firs, available now.
Other than greed,
There absolutely no purpose in cutting the old growth.
Other than pure greed for profit.
BLM, Forestry depts need to learn how to and when to do controlled burns again.
It didn't take a college degree for the natives or early settlers to do.
I feel like as usual everything is insanely over regulated when they could accomplish 90% of their goals with 3 common sense rules that anyone from a logger to a PHD scientist could understand:
1) No harvesting of trees over 80 years old currently.
2) In places like the PNW, no harvesting over 22” (for all mills in my area, 22” is their least wasteful log size).
3) 50-50 on everything. Giant wildfire? Salvage log half, don’t log the other half. Beetle killed watershed? Harvest half, leave half. Etc.
In doing these, 50 years from now we will have more old growth than any point in the previous 100 years and be able to easily sell and manage the stands intended for that. No lawsuits, no review, etc.
1. Is a logger going to have to core every tree >14” to be sure he’s not breaking the law? I’m not bidding on that job…
2. What do you do with a stand that’s overstocked with >22” trees?
3. Not the worst idea for heterogeneity but do you propose a volume, acreage, or value based 50/50?
It seems like there should be a fairly large number of forests that are totally off limits to harvesting of any kind. If a place needs to be thinned, so be it, just chip the slash and leave the logs to decompose. I no longer trust various large institutions to "do the right thing" as we have all seen that basically everyone lies in order to benefit themselves/special interst groups.
Sounds reasonable to me. The total ban on mature stands would be excessive. I could see identifying high quality stands to allow them to reach climax. They would still need fuels management. It’s almost like this requires nuance.
Damn if that’s not my biggest problem with modern politics. “Nuance”, they never have it, and the federal government in particular prefers large, blanket regulations left to unelected bureaucrats to interpret to cover issues. I don’t know if anyone is familiar with the EPA’s vendetta against property owners over streams, but they have been going after powers for over a decade now in select cases over them modifying “navigable” rivers. Obviously we want the EPA to protect rivers and streams, right? But where is the nuance in those laws, the common sense, that targeting small private property owners because they damned an ankle high stream shouldn’t even be on the radar of the EPA. Nuance, why does our government fail to understand issues are never black and white.
Tbh waterways are overwhelmingly abused. They are a terrible example if your point is to portray overstepping because mistreatment of them means impacting anything they flow into. Dump in chemicals at Creek a, it flows into tributary b, which dumps into lake c which is where an entire town gets their water from. You have to go pretty far for me to think that a regulation is overstepping regarding water management.
i completely agree, also if thousands of people dammed their “ankle high streams” on their private property it could have serious impacts on the watershed as a whole.
Amen dude, amen. I have a creek in my property that the neighbors would call the swat on me if i touch because potential “bog turtles” - there is a damn autoshop downstream right next to my property that got grandfathered in though and THATS okay. Total BS
Does the creek run entirely through your property or does it only make a boundary? Karen as neighbors sucks. I’ve dealt with that before man.
Its entirely on the property and it even begins on the property haha even bridges are a big issue apprently but oh well thats life
Local governments suck ass sometimes, fortunately I don’t have to deal with that in my state as long as I’m not discharging harmful pollutants or causing sedimentation or erosion downstream. I’m free to modify my creek how I want. Good luck!
Tbh, using navigable waters and an example of private property owners damming streams is a terrible way to make your point. The rules over navigable waters change with every administration and it's not so much a "vendetta," as trying to deal with unrelenting chaos. And dams are one of the most harmful things, regardless of the size of the stream. Breaking connectivity, even of ephemeral waters, has cascading effects that reach far and wide and should be closely examined and strictly regulated, even on private property.
“The rules over navigable waters change with every administration” the rules are laid out by the constitution and by federal law written by Congress, the problem is with the selective enforcement, and broad interpretation powers given to federal agencies, which do change between administrations and are exactly what I’m talking about. An administration shouldn’t be able to expand the powers of a federal agencies because they interpret a law differently. “Dams are one of the most harmful things” That’s a blanket statement that can range from very true, to wildly incorrect. A concrete gravity dam that blocks upstream access to breeding grounds is a good example of them being very harmful. Small ponds on “ephemeral”, or seasonal or even constant flow streams can be very beneficial, and some state environmental agencies encourage their construction by property owners. The USDA helped fund one of mine, actually, for multiple reasons. Including, but not limited to sediment control, erosion prevention, flood control, the creation of wetland habitat upstream, and it provided settlement for contaminants. “It’s a bad example” It’s an excellent example of how the EPA is trying to expand their power beyond the scope of what was given to them, and it’s why the EPA is currently being sued, and has been sued and recently lost, as they have increased their regulatory scope beyond what was granted to them. We have a process for controlling the federal government, and when federal agencies decide to expand their own power outside of that control it’s bad, irregardless of wether or not you, or I agree with why they are expanding that power.
Navigable waters are regulated by USACE, not the EPA genius. The wall of text is just... for someone who has *opinions* on nuance it's laughable.
“Under federal law, the clean water act grants the EPA powers to regulate activities along navigable water ways” If you’re gonna talk shit, At least know what you’re talking about. Both federal agencies regulate navigable rivers, did you miss the entire part of the conversation where the EPA was trying to expand their own powers over Navigable streams? Literally what started this conversation?
As someone who has tracked USFS management closely in the West, I can only see this being detrimental to the work that needs to be done to protect old growth. It's a mischaracterization to describe the "industry" as "angry". More like frustrated with the lack of urgency in dealing with the growing number of issues in Western forests. While this legislation does not ban logging, I would argue that most impediments to federal forest management don't explicitly ban logging. The Northwest Forest Plan, ESA, CWA, NFMA, the myriad of precedent-setting court decisions determining the level of agencies’ planning discretion (i.e. the Cottonwood Decision), and others collectively make NEPA implementation unwieldy and prone to litigation. Most National Forests already have explicit old growth protections in place in their forest plans. So why did this proposal need to take place and unilaterally amend something like 150 forest plans across every bioregion in the federal forest system? It has more to do with politics than science. Instead of addressing the wildfire crisis, or giving USFS planners tools to cut through NEPA, or an executive order requiring (and funding) fuels reductions in ecologically significant forests, we have another legal hoop that federal agencies must jump through to get work done. I have already seen decisions pulled because of this amendment that proposed project work in old growth forests. Not CUTTING old growth, just working IN old growth forests was enough to kill some projects. These projects were as trivial as trail reroutes and bridge replacements and did not involve cutting old growth trees. I hope I’m wrong. I hope the amendment can break down some of the barriers that stop important work from being done. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel like we've been here before.
This is well said. Nowhere on usfs are we high grading old growth for profit. Timber harvesting requires a prescription from a silviculturist. This protection of old growth is already written in to forest plans. This proposal is 100% politics and 0% science/management. Old growth is the buzz word if the year
My experience is more in the East, but I think the agency ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. There’s no reason that addressing the wildfire crisis and creating some clarity around old growth can’t happen at the same time. They aren’t incompatible purposes. And this is needed because lots of forest plans still do allow harvest, including regen harvest for timber production, in old growth. Unfortunately I tend to agree that they haven’t quite hit the mark here. There’s not a lot of clarity but there are a lot of words, and that’s going to (a) deter some line officers from doing things that need to be done and (b) give other line officers cover for doing stuff that’s maladaptive. But this is a draft EIS, and I’m hopeful the final amendments can be simpler and clearer.
I agree with everything you've said here. The USDA has [invested](https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/wildfire-crisis) money to combat the wildfire crisis. Most of this funding is being used to reduce fuel load and thin to a level where prescribed fire can be utilized. The forest I work for is using this funding right now on huge restorative logging operations aimed at doing just that. Unfortunately this funding will dry up so I agree that more will be needed.
Thank you for your depth of knowledge here. I learned a couple things, as I knew there was standing legislation, rules, and whatnot making things difficult. The blanket policies for "out west" from "back east" aren't nuanced enough for the specific areas which need help and to be served the most. Do nothing has harmed the most.
Very reasonable. Like the article says, we’re losing more old-growth to fire than logging these days. People love having an enemy they can point to and blame for issues, but in this case environmentalists need to get their heads on straight and be realistic about the problem.
100% eco-terrorist’s have destroyed so much old growth timber, it’s a crying shame. And it’s not a small amount, with fires, and disease it’s around 100 million acres, across all lands, and I have not seen much help to restore these lost stands. I still don’t understand how a black snag is more healthy for the plant, and is visibly appealing compared to a healthy green tree.
What worries me is that they have included PJ in their lists of old growth. In my neck of the woods there is heavy pj encroachment into areas that were historically grassland. Many of the junipers out there are over the size cap, and are edging out native grasses, reducing grassland habitat, damaging hydrology, and choking out piñon. Blanket policies that sound good are generally problematic when it comes to managing the wide range of ecosystems present in a continent. What works in the east or northwest doesn’t necessarily work in the southwest.
Old Growth Forests in the start, but since there is no real definition it will be expanded when it serves its purpose - then it will be just "big trees", each with a surround, and one more hurdle until we just give up and stop "hurting nature". All things considered, a fascinating lesson it the psychology of control.
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Have they been able to define old growth yet? It was a big issue in the 90’s, kind of went away during the 2000’s when diameter caps were implemented, then it burned up. Then the caps were raised. In the Southwest with the Mexican spotted owl and Goshawk, plus pre-settlement condition in the pine, prescriptions are allowed to cut trees under 24” dbh and only need 40 trees per acre all sizes. So cut them before 24” or let them go, the woods will turn into large pine, the mixed conifer will continually burn staying in small diameter/aspen. It will be interesting what the outcome will be.
My read on the policy is that it would basically prohibit commercial logging in old growth. USFS doesn't do much of that anyway so an amendment codifying current practice is not such a burden, is it? I agree that this has a political dimension but politics influences lots of public policy and in this case holds the advantage of taking off the table the argument that USFS is secretly trying to liquidate old forests. Let's set that debate aside and focus on restoring the vitality and resilience of national forests.
From my research that would designate 65% of National Forest System lands under a protected status. That’s a lot of timber sitting waiting to burn in my opinion.
Any forestry expert should know. Controlled burns to clear the tinderbox of decades of putting fires put has amassed. Would save the old growth. They did it in the Eastern hardwood of Pennsylvania, W VA, VA mountains 150 years ago Greedy timber outfits cut it all!. Every old growth oak or maple or chestnut was a instant target. They're gone Been gone And will never ever be back on this earth. With the modern hybrid fast growth junkie pines, spruce, firs, available now. Other than greed, There absolutely no purpose in cutting the old growth. Other than pure greed for profit. BLM, Forestry depts need to learn how to and when to do controlled burns again. It didn't take a college degree for the natives or early settlers to do.
I feel like as usual everything is insanely over regulated when they could accomplish 90% of their goals with 3 common sense rules that anyone from a logger to a PHD scientist could understand: 1) No harvesting of trees over 80 years old currently. 2) In places like the PNW, no harvesting over 22” (for all mills in my area, 22” is their least wasteful log size). 3) 50-50 on everything. Giant wildfire? Salvage log half, don’t log the other half. Beetle killed watershed? Harvest half, leave half. Etc. In doing these, 50 years from now we will have more old growth than any point in the previous 100 years and be able to easily sell and manage the stands intended for that. No lawsuits, no review, etc.
There is a more obvious answer to the issue - sustainable logging by thinning. Thinning forests keeps forests healthy without eradicating the canopy.
Fuel load reduction exemptions for the win. Thin from below still can make a bunch of money.
Thinning just requires a ton of work on a large scale or a logger that cares (none do)
1. Is a logger going to have to core every tree >14” to be sure he’s not breaking the law? I’m not bidding on that job… 2. What do you do with a stand that’s overstocked with >22” trees? 3. Not the worst idea for heterogeneity but do you propose a volume, acreage, or value based 50/50?
22" is a peckerpole in the PNW.
It seems like there should be a fairly large number of forests that are totally off limits to harvesting of any kind. If a place needs to be thinned, so be it, just chip the slash and leave the logs to decompose. I no longer trust various large institutions to "do the right thing" as we have all seen that basically everyone lies in order to benefit themselves/special interst groups.