Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Why Local Land Management Matters

I had to call one of my coal operators and tell them that even though they'd paid several hundred thousand dollars to pay a contractor to write the Environmental Assessment and conduct wildlife/archeological/paleontological surveys and analyze the potential impacts from their proposed Federal coal lease modification, it wasn't going to be approved...at least any time soon. This was due to the Obama administration issuing the Federal coal lease moratorium back in January. The greenies sue us for EVERYTHING that doesn't go their way and this current administration is at war with natural resource extraction. These same lawsuits and issues wouldn't go away with state management...and I think you're correct in that they'd get worse.

That was one of the worst phone calls I have had to make. Straight up embarrassing.

Jeeze.

I was there when the Glacier Rim fire flared up, I rent my office from a company that contracted a "Swat Team" package to go fight it. We saw the smoke, ran to the shop just in time for the radio call, then phone call from dispatch. I helped load up the machines, and the crew were on it right away.
It burned in UNSALVAGED wood left from I think 2003 and the Robert fire, big wood that was just left to rot thanks to the fear of litigation. The darn thing wouldn't stop smoking.
If we had SALVAGED it back then it would have been fresh, green new trees coming up instead of bone dry jackstraw tinderbox jungle.

Bear and Trail Creek burned out of wilderness onto multiple use, in the wilderness they got up and ran like crazy toward Spotted Bear and Packers Roost, burnt right over the Roost, but wasn't a complete charcoal job BECAUSE the ranger had worked hard for some fuel reduction projects (again, worked on by my logger buddies two years prior) that had a good effect on fire behavior.

In every case, including Essex, Spotted Bear, Marston, the effects of logging on fire behavior and danger are indisputable. The "public" who own these forests, don't get to see the action when it is happening, they just read the New York Times and believe the garbage from the Green morons these even more moronic reporters have in their Rolodexes.

Let it burn?
No effing way.
Forests evolved with DELIBERATE seasonal burns by Indians conducted regularly over 10,000 years. HUMANS set fires for HUMAN benefit, like more game and better berry crops. Forests, even the "wild" ones, are mostly anthropological artifacts.

Fire has a role to play, but with fuel loads so "wrong" in so much of the forest, made worse by 20 years of do-nothing fire fetishism, the only rational thing to do is log, THEN set fires. But yes, set the darn fires. AFTER logging gets the fuels down to control the heat impacts.

Buzz, you are a liar. Period.
THe RARE (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) process was the intended means of finding OUTSTANDING wildernesses for protection, but the Greens didn't like the amount of land the Forest Service decided was worthy, about 12 million acres. They sued, using NEPA (remember that, when Environmental Impact Statements were promised to be 25 pages, thank you Scooooooop Jackson) as a lever. Then Jimmah Caddah started a second go around in 1977 (RARE II) that had about 25 million acres of wilderness and WSA's.
Then we have the Clinton roadless thing, 58 million acres made "de facto" wilderness administratively, to make sure nothing ever happens on these lands that would disqualify them from possible Congressional maneuvers.
Now the designation of wilderness is so toxic, the Rocky Front, which was multiple use, is now a "national conservation area" that prohibits every non-wilderness use except weed spraying, which is about a buck a year per acre when the problem is way worse than that.
Yep, this was the same Front where my Dad got an epic muley, and I had some of the most ridiculous cross country trail-bike rides on what USED to be a wonderful, and wonderfully challenging primitive trail system.

Do you honestly think that if the state of Wyoming was 100% in charge of that area they wouldn't have allowed the Jonah to happen? Ever heard of Jonah stadium? There's some serious money involved and the state knows it.

Besides, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had a HUGE part of allowing that well field development. The BLM takes the brunt of the blame though, since it is BLM administered land, but they generally follow all rules set forth by state agencies such as the WY O&G Conservation Commission, WY Department of Environmental Quality, etc.

By the Way Dave, just 5 years ago some of my EAs were less than 10 pages to allow a gas well to be drilled. These days they can be anywhere from 60-200 pages, depending on site specific circumstances. All from greenie lawsuits and the current administration. Like I said earlier, both the states and the Feds are crooked, but the states generally are crooked(er) and care about nothing but money.

That's rich. Born and raised in the "East" and live there now. Doesn't mean I always did. I have more than a smidge of a clue...

What cracks me up is guys who want to talk about "special interests" and act as thought they're unbiased, neutral third party observers.

Everyone on this thread has their own biases, and their own "wants"--the things that they want to get out of our public lands. The fact is, nobody gets everything they want.

Some just whine louder about it.

Exactly, we all have our own special interest.

Absolutely. This is a very important factor. On Regular BLM Multi-use lands (A fair Compromise) Thinning and Deadfall removal are allowed with a permit and this is common sense PREVENTATIVE Maintenance. Range Cattle helped control the ground growth and when a Fire started it moved slower and was much easier and less costly to contain.

The Fire problem starts when these BLM Lands are re-designated as Park, Wilderness and Preserves. In all this it is very important to remember who pushes for these new designations, and they are NOT Hunting or Firearm friendly Organizations. Their end goal is NOT what you guys will like when they finish their agenda.

I have never personally had any qualms about common sense BLM Multi use management when it is practiced fairly and honestly without abuse of authority. My whole argument here is about these extreme differences in Management policy between these departments. They cater to the extremists who indeed happen to be Communists with a much larger end goal.

So it's "ground growth" that causes the problem, who knew?

Interesting to read the comments on logging. For logging to solve the problems we face, one has to ask, "Am I willing to have my tax dollars pay loggers (such as my brother) to do the logging when it is economically unfeasible to do it under current market and legal conditions?"

Reason I ask is that it is currently unprofitable to log most of these areas where land management has been litigated into oblivion or where dead timber is standing. The softwood lumber market is flooded by Canada, a country that heavily subsidizes their logging industry. Not only does Canada give heavily discounted, very often free, stumpage to loggers, they also make it profitable for their loggers to build roads. Our spineless Congress will do little to level the playing field for American loggers and mills, so right now, under current market and legal climates, the notion that my family and friends who are loggers will somehow solve the land management and fire reduction issues is not going to happen.

Additionally, much of the timber that would need to be salvaged due to beetle kill, past burns, etc. is in places that you cannot get to with traditional logging equipment. Add in the costs of road construction and road demolition, and how far you have to haul the wood to get to any of the remaining mills, and the actual timber that can be cut in a profitable manner at current prices is very, very small.

That leaves one option to utilize logging as a land management tool - pay loggers to do the thinning and management as prescribed by the agencies. And then, pay for the ridiculous attorney fees is it going to require to get any of these timber sales or land management plans through the courts.

The system is so Effed up, it is not practical to think we can log our way out of the mess decades of litigation has created on these landscapes.

My dad was a logger, as were all my uncles. I worked for them during summers and on weekends. Thankfully my Dad was honest enough to tell me I was the worst logger he had ever seen and that I should find a way to pay for college. I followed that advice. My younger brother has it in his blood and will spend his life in the woods, as will many of my friends who grew up with it.

Point being, it is good to talk about logging as a solution, but under the current litigation climate, the economics created by Canadian subsidies, and the loss of timber/lumber infrastructure such as mills and contractors, the idea that logging is going to solve a problem as geographically large/diverse as what we face in the west is not being realistic.

Expect bigger and bigger fires as fire suppression continues by those who want their property protected or by the vocal new arrival who claims, "I did not move to Montana to breathe smoke, so I oppose those prescribed burns." It doesn't matter if the timber is on Federal land or if those lands were transferred to states, ever increasing fires are going to be a part of our lives in the west.

When we get serious about litigation reform and looking at land management as being important enough that we will pay people to do it, then things might change. But, with Congress being the current teat suckers they are, I'm not holding out much hope for change and I'm preparing for a lot more fires and much bigger fires.

Where I grew up was timber country up until the 80's when it started to die off, you could make a living at it up until the 90's, but local jobs were pretty scarce. In the late 70's or early 80's the last local mill shut down and trucks were having to haul a load of logs clear down to the coast adding 2-4 hours to a haul.

Then they started making huge chunks of National Forest off limits to cutting firewood because of the marbled murrelet or spotted owl (IIRC) and Forest Service roads that had been open in my youth were gated off or blocked.
There was an awful lot of fuel on the ground in those areas by the late 90's when I re-enlisted. Sooner or later there will be a huge fire rip through there. Last big one I can think of was probably 40 years ago.

No, the longest journey starts with a single step. Forestry works. THere are millions upon millions of acres that could be immediately treated for fuels and not cost the taxpayers anything because the sales could be arranged to pay for themselves.
Not all the acres could happen over night, but in one year, one logging crew could cut off potential wild fire runs in the highest-priority area. Then, if there's no big fire, the next year, the next project. Basically, a half mile knocked down to defensible fuel loads becomes a "whoa zone" that the fire can run up against and be stopped.
At some point, you'd have the fuels (not the forest, there's a big difference here) in a condition where a fire could burn just like "nature" within a reasonable area, then that winter the logging could salvage and replant what was burned, or where the fire was too hot and intense, and the next forest is kickstarted using good forestry science.
The problem here is, the Greens have a real problem with commercial, capitalistic America, and don't understand that Communism (or total government/outside political control) is a worse option.
Greens also have political power now, and they use it to block sanity on public lands.
Just imagine if a fuels program DID get started on federal lands, the megafires stopped, and the public (even some of the Fuddheads here) decided, hey, I LIKE not breathing smoke every summer. I LIKE controlled spring and fall burns like the Indians used to do. I LIKE salvaging wildfires and watching the next forest grow! Gee, you greens lied to me!

Dave---Around one area I'm very familiar with they're doing a fire buffer zone and selling the timber. It's (not surprisingly) been an effective and welcome relief to the local area. It's been well, if not cautiously, received and looks like it will be expanded. Selective thinning and fire buffers are an excellent start in turning our forests around. State lands aren't in as good a shape because of the greenies. It's really strange but I always see and kill more animals in a healthier forest. I generally hate clearcuts but the new growth does have a greater carrying capacity than our overgrown jungles

Dave is absolutely correct.

For all practical purposes, logging has been shut down in federal land. If it was opened back up thousands of people in poor communities would have work, and the money generated from timber sales would easily pay for fire fighting that needed to be done, which would be much less than we currently have.

no, he's not. go back and read BigFin's post. he's done his homework. logging can be good, and I've been a logger for a good chunk of my life, but BigFin is correct.

Toad, everyone with a clue SAW the massive beetle kills in SW and central Montana coming. Lodgepole has a terminal life span, we knew what the age classes were, we knew the harvest window was coming, but that was about the time Judge Molloy went from working a case for Ralph Nader's legal activist group to "working for us."
Those forests will be a long time coming back, and they are doomed to burn. They weren't 20 years ago, and it just kills me that we are "here" now, thanks to an asinine ideology masquerading as "conservation."
The wood tends to check way too early, there's no market for pulp (and Stone is gone), just a total disaster. FORESTRY could have changed that trajectory, the markets MIGHT have taken it well, the forests COULD have been kicked away from being single-age lodgepole into something a little more habitat-driven, more diverse, but you can thank the same eco freaks that want monumentization and de-economization of public lands for what is happening.

Probably a congressman who has been to a couple of ALEC conferences and believes that oil and gas production is the highest and best use of public lands.

Thanks to Citizens United, he probably has 20 or 30 thousand reasons to agree.

You sure they didn't hire any contractors to do road mtc? Or have agreements with tribes or BIA to do road maintenance?

I never heard of a NF that didn't contract road mtc or have a road crew.

Sycamore

That's what we're seeing in the Flagstaff area.

I remember a backpacking trip in the woods around 1990. Logger was cutting a sale, only no sawyers, no choker setters, no knot-bumpers, no skidders!

One piece of equipment, built on an excavator chassis, was doing it all!

Not sure what it is called, but it is standard around here now. "Processor" maybe?

Grabs the tree, cuts it with a hydraulic chain saw, lays it down, limbs it, cuts it to length, and puts it in a stack. truck comes by and loads itself, or another loader does that.

Not big trees though.

If the mills become as mechanized as the woods, the jobs that were lost will NEVER come back.

Sycamore