Just when it seems federal forest policies hit rock bottom, they get worse.
First, we have local eco-warrior Keith Hammer threatening to sue the U.S. Forest Service to stop an organized mountain-bike race (on trails that are mostly open to motorized users, no less) after his efforts to block the Swan Crest 100 foot race.
Where might Mr. Hammer draw the line? Well, I’ve got some early-90’s Wild Rockies Earth First! clippings in which Mr. Hammer called for turning the Sun Highway into a hiking trail, with U.S. 2 open to shuttle buses only. Private vehicles would have to use a railroad flatcar shuttle. But that wasn’t all – Hammer also called for the demolition of Hungry Horse Dam, selling chunks of blasted concrete to pay for the dynamite.
Then there’s the Colt Summit “collaborative” project down in the Swan, 2,000 acres 10 miles north of Seeley Lake. The collaboration, going on three years, included government agencies, scads of “mainstream” environmental groups, the few timber operators left after 25 years of litigious kookiness, and one or two regular folks.
Overall, the forestry work is needed and timely, although I personally hate the 25 miles of road closures in the “bargain.” But with business survival an issue, I understand.
Lo and behold, Montana’s pet pack of extremist “conservation groups” sued to block the project. Before federal judge Donald W. Molloy (he’s not retired, just “senior”), Greens lost on 11 of 12 claims, except “cumulative impacts” on lynx. After 30 months, everything is now on hold while Judge Molloy writes a fuller ruling.
Finally, there was an Associated Press national story last weekend about a “debate over fire retardant toxicity,” an issue which has caught fire as the West ignites. The “debate” really took off in 2002 when a Forest Service fire bomber dropped a load of retardant off target. As a result, 21,000 “mostly juvenile” fish in six miles of Oregon’s Fall River were killed. The AP story noted another errant retardant drop in 2009 killed 50 Endangered Species Act “threatened” steelhead in California.
The grossly-misnamed Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, run by Andy “Spotted Owl” Stahl, sued to ban retardant drops, winning before Judge Molloy in 2006.
Today, the Forest Service has changed to a less-toxic retardant formula and now must keep retardant 300 feet away from streams and lakes. Yet Stahl insists no retardant be used at all.
Why not? Airplanes make linear passes, simply because that’s how airplanes fly. They are best suited for dropping defensive lines in front of a fire. Trouble is, plain water steams off too quickly. Retardant, basically glorified fertilizer, lasts a little longer. Even if it dries off and the vegetation is killed by fire heat, it doesn’t burn as well if it burns at all – a good thing, right?
If your home is within 300 feet of water, would you mind much if you had to wash off some goo from an intact structure?
What if you’re a fish? Perversely, after other recent big fires, government personnel have gone into torched watersheds, evacuating fish from streams to keep them from being choked out by ash and mudslides, most recently with rare Gila trout in New Mexico two weeks ago.
Will the trout have habitat to return to? Not for decades – it burnt.
In contrast, the Fall River fish started coming back a couple years later, in part because the retardant helped protect the riparian vegetative “structure.” The habitat was, and is, still there.
So – is the “debate” about “toxicity?” No. It seems the real goal of Mr. Stahl’s effort is to render aerial firefighting completely ineffective. America’s forests thereby will burn hotter and bigger, with the cumulative impact being the loss of the most habitat for the longest time. Tell me, where is the “environmental ethics” in that?
Certainly, cumulative effects on lynx matter. But I sure wish we could get a judge, or Congress, to deal with what matters most: The cumulative impact of stupid federal laws that give our worst extremists the power to dictate deliberately disastrous outcomes.