| December
10, 2007
Greenwashing
Logging on Montana's Biggest National Forest
Cheap
Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness
By STEVE
KELLY
The
Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest (B-D NF), the largest national
forest in Montana, encompasses 3.3 million acres. An estimated 1.8
million (55%) acres remain undeveloped and unroaded (roadless).
Only 220,000 acres (15%) have been designated wilderness by Congress.
The Forest Service can recommend roadless areas for wilderness protection,
but only Congress can designate wilderness.
Straddling
the Continental Divide, most of the B-DNF is a fragmented mix of
high-elevation, semi-arid sagebrush, grasslands and low-productivity
forest. Lodgepole pine, dry-site Douglas fir and whitebark pine
are common, with scattered pockets of spruce, fir, aspen and juniper.
Annual
average growth capability is low, estimated at 45 cubic feet per
acre per year. A merchantable tree takes over 100 years to grow.
Logging
is ecologically unsustainable, and heavily subsidized to generate
short-term “profit” for out-of-state industry CEOs,
shareholders and marginal blue-collar jobs.
The
B-D NF has always been a classic “timber mining” operation.
The
B-D NF is predominantly a (cow/calf) national forest sanctuary for
livestock. Ecologically damaging livestock (sheep and cattle) grazing
is the dominant use on adjacent private property. Grazing is maximized
on most public grassland-sagebrush acres, causing incremental harm
to fish and wildlife habitat, and undermining important multiple-use/sustained-yield
principles Congress established in 1960.
Despite
decades of red-line management to benefit timber and grazing interests,
a majority of B-D NF lands still include outstanding public values
of national significance.
Most
importantly, the B-D NF is a hub of biological connecting corridors
that link core habitat areas of the Glacier-Bob Marshall, Greater
Yellowstone and Greater Salmon-Selway-Frank Church Ecosystems. This
landscape literally holds the Wild Rockies bioregion together.
Failure
by the FS and Congress (and “neo-liberal greens”) to
defend, regulate and control “pop” western culture and
corporate special-interests has created a multiple-abuse nightmare
on one of the most spectacular and ecologically sensitive forests
in America.
The
B-D NF feeds the headwaters of the famed trout fisheries of the
Madison, Beaverhead, Big Hole, Ruby and Rock Creek. Water quality
and quantity determine habitat effectiveness for these aquatic ecosystems,
upon which the survival of bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout
and fluvial arctic grayling depend.
Although
wildlife abounds, the quality of wildlife habitat is threatened
by excessive road trail densities, logging, mining and grazing practices,
and unregulated ORV and snow machine use.
B-D
NF Forest Plan Revision
In
the past, management direction and project decisions have been somewhat
grounded within a legal framework established by the Forest Plan
and Congress. When laws are broken, environmentalists ask reluctant
federal court judges to intervene.
Soon
after the Bush Administration took office in 2001, it initiated
a dramatic shift away from the regulated, value-based planning processes
familiar to most Montanans. Bush, Inc. directed the Forest Service
(FS) to privatize and outsource much of the work agency professionals
had done for over 100 years. In 2002, use-based decision-making
began replacing the old values-based system, just in time to redirect
the B-DNF Forest Plan Revision process.
In August 2003, the B-DNF issued its Draft Proposed (Plan) Action
for public review, which proposed a net decrease in suitable timber
base acres, while dedicating only 9 of 87 management areas to non-motorized
recreation. As expected, this upset industry and conservationists.
21st
Century Manifest Destiny
What
followed is a truly bizarre collaborative response by the timber
industry, the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA), National Wildlife
Federation (NWF), and Trout Unlimited (TU). They formed a new (stakeholder/consensus)
group called the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership. The Partnership,
already ideologically aligned with Bush, Inc., wrote a whole new
forest plan that reads like a dusted off “Sagebrush Rebellion”
handbook from the Reagan/Watt years. It’s all about serving
up public land like apple pie to selective user groups – damned
the science and legal framework.
One
would think at some point rural communities would resent being treated
like lab rats in yet another doomed-to-fail experiment in social
engineering.
Next,
The Partnership drafted congressional legislation to side-step the
Plan Revision Process. Their clever proposal, called the Beaverhead-Deerlodge
Conservation, Restoration and Stewardship Act of 2007 (The Bill),
mandates tripling the “suitable” timber base to 730,000
acres, including 200,000 acres of inventoried roadless lands suitable
for wilderness designation. Timber industry has pushed this kind
of quid-pro-quo legislation for years. Without giving up a single
tree, industry says it will support adding 570,000 acres (32% of
eligible acres), mostly “rocks and ice,” to the National
Wilderness Preservation System.
To
be fair to MWA, NWF and TU it could be argued that this represents
a relatively stronger (albeit smaller) wilderness position than
they have taken in the past. In the early 1990s they supported 1.3
million-acre statewide omnibus bills, or 20% of the 6.5 million
acres eligible wilderness acres in Montana. They also supported
the (6.5 mm-acre) Clinton Roadless Rule that included all inventoried
roadless areas. Apparently, they’re more comfortable protecting
uncontested rocks and ice. Comfort, isn’t that what small
(neo-liberal) government is all about?
The
Bill purports to further the purposes claimed by the B-DNF in its
2003 Proposed Plan Revision. But there are a few notable (goal)
differences between the FS and The Bill. Here are a few: “reduce
gridlock,” “promote local cooperation and collaboration,”
“stewardship contracting” and “generate a more
predictable flow of wood products for local communities.”
These
ideals and objectives come right out of the timber industry/Heritage
Foundation play book. Mesmerize, localize, and privatize –
replace big (federal) government control with local good-ole’-boys
and county commissioners. Industry scores big when it can play local
bully by creating a political mismatch and co-dependent (federally-subsidized)
jobs.
It’s
hard enough for federal agencies and Congress to resist the power
of industry lobbyists. Poor counties in Montana will always go along
go get along, especially when given political power that extends
outside their legal jurisdiction. Colonial capitalism, corporate
feudalism, call it what you like. Bad public policy harms Montana
and the national public interest.
Neo-liberal
greens have given industry exactly what it has wanted for years:
an admission on the part of the “conservation community”
that road-building and logging is needed to restore the out-of-whack
environment. "Ecologically driven timber harvest" is a
false premise that has failed repeatedly in the past. Those touting
the Beaverhead-Deerlodge deal know first-hand of the repeated failures
of timber sales to restore watersheds and remove roads and culverts,
yet they continue to push it anyway.
Fair
and Open Public Process Subverted
Proponents
have shown nothing but contempt for fair and open public participation.
The Bill is anti-democratic. It subverts the principles and procedures
of transparency and full-disclosure mandated by NEPA (National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969) and NFMA (National Forest Management Act of
1976). “Stakeholder” partners meet in secret. What Gifford
Pinchot called “the (national) public interest” has
been supplanted by “pop” local political opinion and
“professional” elitism. “Stakeholders” (oligarchs)
with a vested (typically short-term monetary) interest aren’t
the most objective thinkers when it comes to long-term (…greatest
good for the greatest number for the longest time) allocation of
increasingly scarce natural resources, irreplaceable public values
and shrinking agency budgets.
Not
a shred of (peer reviewed or published) scientific evidence has
been presented to support such a radical departure from the legal
bedrock of NEPA and NFMA. There is no analysis of alternatives,
environmental effects on various resources, and no economic analysis.
There was no opportunity for individuals or groups to participate
before the decision was made – oligarchy trumps democracy
again.
And
here’s a déjà vu for media fans. With no investigative
reporting whatsoever, the Missoulian recently endorsed passage of
The Bill, calling it “an idea worth repeating.”
So,
what happened to good old journalistic skepticism? Wouldn’t
“a step in the right direction” or a “risky experiment
that deserves due consideration” gotten the job done? Our
out-of-state-owned media is cheerleading when it should be investigating.
Isn’t
this precisely how the press kept the public in the dark about WMD’s,
the Osama-Iraq connection and other unchallenged, and incorrect,
presumptions (pure “spin”) prior to America’s
unprovoked attack on Iraq? Opinion has become news, and news opinion.
Why investigate when you can, for a lot less thought and money,
regurgitate?
And
for the grand (don’t confuse me with facts) finale, witness
our own Montana congressional delegation’s reaction. Just
weeks ago the delegation grumbled about the Northern Rockies Ecosystem
Act of 2007 (H.R. 1975).
It’s
bad because it’s “top-down,” “outside-in,”
and sponsored by a bunch of “easterners” trying to tell
Montanans what to do, they said in perfect bipartisan harmony.
Just
a few short weeks later, they’re whistling a different tune.
Now it’s okay for Smurfit-Stone, headquartered in St. Louis,
Missouri; R-Y Lumber and Roseberg Lumber, both Oregon-based; and
national NGOs with home offices in Washington, D.C (Trout Unlimited
and the National Wildlife Federation) to call the shots on federal
public lands.
Don’t
hold your breath expecting a public hearing in the Senate on the
merits. The B-D NF deal is an “earmark” or an appropriations
“rider” in the making. It is hard to imagine it surviving
a Senate Resources Committee hearing, and a Senate floor debate
and vote.
Scrutiny
in the House would be intense, where Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R-MT),
and a Natural Resources Committee hostile to unfunded (sans “pay-go”)
pork, lay in wait. And what are the odds President Bush would sign
into law a stand-alone bill opposed by Rehberg? Baucus, or maybe
Tester, will have to attach it to an appropriations bill, or this
turkey will never fly. Remember (Senator) Melcher’s “fall-out”
in 1988?
Myths
About Sustaining Economic Development
The
good stuff has already been logged. The Bill turns over most active
forest management (projects up to 50,000 acres in size) to “stewardship
contractors” (read timber industry), under (5-10 year) contracts,
on six designated “stewardship areas” totaling 2.27
million acres (69%) forestwide. It is unclear what role the FS might
play after losing jurisdiction (and discretion) over such vast areas
of once-public domain.
So,
who’s accountable when this deal goes belly-up? It’s
reminiscent of the 100-year “sustained-yield” Plan Congress
wrote for Shelton, WA in the 1960’s. From from old growth
forest to wall-to-wall clearcuts, the conversion took 30 years,
no apologies.
Clean
water, trout fisheries, big-game hunting, upland bird hunting, camping,
hiking, sightseeing and other values far outweigh the negative financial
and economic impact of extending, and expanding, corporate welfare
payments to the five lucky businesses driving this deal.
Wilderness
is the least-cost method of managing public forests. It also generates
net positive asset value in perpetuity. Why deplete the positive
values that give Montana its comparative economic advantage in exchange
for highly subsidized, uncompetitive chipping operations totally
dependent on public trees and public taxdollars? It makes no sense
to throw more money at businesses that cannot stand on their own
in the national or global marketplace.
Timber
supply plays a minor role in the success or failure of Montana’s
timber industry, which employs fewer people per unit of production
over time as machines continue to replace people to achieve greater
efficiency and productivity. Industry sees employees as a liability
(machines are a tax-deductable expense). Subsidies boost profits
for partners, shareholders, and CEO bonuses at the expense of the
environment and labor.
The
Bill forces the federal government to behave like Goldman Sachs
(isn’t this the bank that took down Montana Power?) in the
midst of its recent collateralized mortgage obligation (CMO) crisis.
Goldman Sachs underwrote and injected toxic financial products into
the world's commercial bloodstream for years. It sold worthless
investments to overly eager investors the same way Big Timber peddles
the myth of “restoration logging.” But while Goldman
Sachs was peddling junk CMO's, it was also shorting the junk through
index sales. In other words, it knew how bad the product was it
was selling, and profited anyway.
This is where “green-washers,” federal agencies and
Congress, whether they know they’re being duped or not, simply
cannot compete. There is no way to collateralize and simultaneously
short the junk (below-cost forests) being sold. When Congress makes
poor investment decisions with our taxdollars, it’s a total
loss. There’s simply no way to restore habitat or put the
trees back on the stump. For all the obvious financial, economic
and ecological reasons, this is a big-time loser.
Roads, Roads and More Roads.
Logging roads are the greatest threat to already depleted fish or
wildlife populations and their habitats. Logging roads contribute
90% of the sediment pollution that degrades water quality. What
about quantity concerns? Soil compaction (even on “temporary”
roads) creates channelized runoff, and heavier pulses with less
infiltration. Runnoff comes earlier and faster, creating water shortages
earlier in the short summer growing season, adversely affecting
forests and irrigators on private lands.
Logging roads spread weeds, always and everywhere.
Compaction from heavy logging equipment reduces growth and regeneration.
Roads disturb surface and subsurface water migration patterns. Roads
reduce habitat security by shrinking roadless areas and old growth
patch size.
Roads provide access to drive-by hunters, firewood gatherers and
ORVs, which decreases the number of snags, increases wildlife displacement,
poaching and competition on fewer secure acres.
Roads
sever connecting biological corridors.
New
logging roads will sacrifice secure areas in the most productive
lower elevation roadless areas. Undeveloped lower elevation lands
contain the highest value fish and wildlife habitats. Nothing could
be worse for wildlife and fish than more (temporary and/or permanent)
roads.
Temporary logging roads are not temporary, and are seldom, if ever,
completely “restored.” Berms and gates don’t work.
Temporary roads often become permanent ORV trails.
The
B-D NF’s practice of offering timber credits for road construction
should end now, not be expanded. Net negative logging operations
generate losses and broken promises. There is almost never cash
left over to pay for promised road restoration expenditures, culvert
removal and other essential watershed rehabilitation/mitigation.
Examples
abound.
Projecting
a sustainable economic future for rural communities with a history
of dependence on timber subsidies is a cruel joke. After 100 years,
show me the prosperity. As has been said many times, “we’re
killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
Drought, Warming and Massive Forest Dieback
With or without thinning/logging, the changing climate is expected
to produce large shifts in vegetation distributions, largely due
to mortality. Neither the potential for widespread and rapid forest
dieback, nor the cumulative impact of deforestation by logging can
be ignored.
Mild winters are likely to produce more sporadic freezing and thawing.
Winter downpours, as snow turns to rain, will likely increase erosion
and landslides on unmaintained forest roads, and reduce access for
winter harvesting.
When aquatic ecosystems unravel, trout and water quality suffer
most.
Drought-weakened host trees will become more susceptible to mass
attacks by bark beetle species. Success breeds success. As beetle
activity spreads, larger and low-vigor trees are targeted, which
could severely restrict the size and age distributions of host species.
Severe droughts reduce the productivity and cover of herbaceous
plants like grasses. Erosion rates increase once bare soil cover
exceeds critical threshold values. Once topsoil is gone, reproduction
success drops precipitously. Deforestation leads to desertification.
Fire/Logging Theories Lack Credible Evidence
There
is a gathering body of evidence that large wildfires are not determined
by “unnatural” fuel loading. Lodgepole pine, subalpine
fir, and aspen depend on infrequent, stand-replacing, high intensity
fires. Most of the B-D NF is well within the natural range of variability.
In fact, dense forest stands may not be caused by fire exclusion,
but by a series of consecutive wet years that boosted seedling survival
and expanded the local range.
Drought,
wind, and low humidity, not fuels loads, drive large wildifires.
Weather and climatic conditions are also the driving force behind
expanding insect populations.
Thinning
and logging will make forests drier and more vulnerable to rapid
fire spread and intensity. Thinning can increase wind speed and
strength. A thinner forest is a drier forest.
Designed
primarily as a “wedge” to deceive and divide concerned
citizens, “stewardship logging” is no less destructive
than regular logging. National Forest Foundation grants play a significant
role in the expansion of ”stewardship” projects nationwide.
These new subsidies target environmental groups already predisposed
to logging. Logging will not save us or our forests from the forces
of nature.
Wilderness
Ecosystems Are Valuable
From
a conservation biology perspective, there is no rational reason
to sacrifice nationally significant wildlife habitat, world-class
trout fisheries, and spectacular undeveloped backcountry for little
or no net public gain.
The
truly valuable assets on the B-DNF should be protected, not sold-off
for pennies on the dollar.
This
is a very special place where fragments of America’s once-great
wilderness ecosystems come together.
Apparently,
it is where the next great battle for the future of the Wild Rockies
bioregion will be fought. It is not a fight we wanted, but one we
surely must win for future generations of indigenous fish, wildlife,
and people who value wilderness and freedom.
Science-based
legislation like NREPA (H.R. 1975) protects our most precious public
assets from the thoughtless and uninformed among us who would rob
us blind.
Once robbed of our freedom and natural wealth, nothing can replace
our loss.
Free-flowing
rivers, forests, and fish and wildlife habitat nourish Montana’s
soul and spirit. And what could be sadder than a soul that can no
longer remember how to sing the songs of wilderness?
Steve Kelly is an artist, small business owner,
environmental activist and co-chair of the Montana Green Party living
in Bozeman, Montana. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net
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