Wildlands CPR News and Views

Bulltrout and roads - critical habitat on the way

Bethanie Walder — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:54:35 -0600

Looks like the US Fish and Wildlife Service is going back to the drawing board to determine critical habitat for bulltrout in Montana and four other western states. Congratulations to the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan for their legal victory compelling the agency to designate more habitat as critical for bulltrout survival.

According to an article in The Missoulian, lots of habitat will be affected by this process:

The 2002 draft plan would have put extra scrutiny on forest activity on 18,450 miles of streams and 532,700 acres of lakes in five states, including Montana.

The final result could have a significant impact on road management in the affected areas, as roads are one of the primary causes of both chronic and episodic stream sedimentation. Protecting roadless and lightly roaded areas from new road construction, and identifying problematic roads for reclamation are primary steps for securing and enhancing bulltrout habitat. Forest Service Legacy Roads funding can be used to implement these steps – both by upgrading culverts that are blocking fish passage, or by reclaiming some of those unneeded roads. Since Legacy Roads funds are partially targeted to threatened and endangered fish species, the designation of critical habitat for bulltrout will only make it easier for public land managers to address these habitat concerns.

Part of this lawsuit was apparently related to the fact that the amount of critical habitat recommended for designation dropped significantly between 2002 and 2004, with little scientific justification. The agency will apparently be reconsidering their 2002 plan:

Judge Jones said the 2002 Draft of Critical Habitat was “an excellent starting point.” He ordered FWS to have a final rule no later than Sept. 30, 2010.

We’ll keep you posted on the final results of this process.

Its the Wilderness, Stupid

cathy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:22:30 -0600

Check out this article by Bill Schneider as he discusses "why we can't understand that wilderness should be a big part of our economic future?"

Quiet recreation pays for itself

Bethanie Walder — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:55:21 -0600

Central Oregon Research Services recently released a study on the economic benefits of quiet recreation in the Wallowa Whitman National Forest in eastern Oregon. The study was commissioned by Hells Canyon Preservation Council and The Wilderness Society and found that quiet recreation on the WWNF contributes significant economic benefits to adjacent communities. According to a recent newspaper article from the Wallowa County Chieftan:

Quiet recreation generates $2.9 to $5.4 million per year in labor-related income and supports 137 to 252 local jobs.

The study and article point out that quiet recreation is bringing economic benefits to many sectors of the economy, not just standard tourism jobs. In addition, the article makes the following comparison of quiet versus motorized recreation on the Wallowa-Whitman:

According to Forest Service data, the number of Wallowa-Whitman National Forest visitors whose main activity is riding off-road vehicles represents less than one percent of all forest recreation. Moreover, people whose main activity includes hiking, backpacking, fishing, horseback riding and bicycling outnumber off-roaders on the forest by a factor of over 32-1.

As the Wallowa-Whitman and other national forests work through their travel planning processes, they must consider both the ecological and the economic impacts of motorized route designations. Too often motorized use is dispersed throughout a forest, making it difficult for quiet users to find anywhere to go. We often talk about wildlife being displaced by humans, but it turns out humans are also displaced by other humans. In addition to the ecological and recreational impacts we regularly talk about when this happens, it's helpful to also understand the signfiicant economic impacts of transoprtation planning decisions as well. This new report provides an excellent case study of those impacts.

ORV Damage in the Pioneers

Adam Rissien — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:51:12 -0600

As the December 2009 deadline approaches for the Forest Service to complete travel management plannnig, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest has yet to even begin their process. However, that is not keeping Montanans for Quiet Recreation from gathering important information through their monitoring program, and this past week they shared some findings.

Keep in mind that the new Beaverhead-Deerlodge Forest Plan leaves the West Pioneer Wilderness Study Area (WSA) unprotected. Also, motorized use is prohibted in the Torry Mt. Recomended Wilderness Area.

Sheep Creek Trail #2216 leads into the East Pioneers outside the Torrey Recommended Wilderness:

Here the Pioneer Loop National Recreation Trail #2750 (Lacy Creek area) leads into the West Pioneer WSA:

Lambrecht Creek Trail #2226 begins inside the West Pionner WSA:

Starting at the Mono Cr. trailhead Jacobsen Creek #1002 leads into the Torrey Mt Recommended Wilderess:

The David Creek Trail #2086 starts inside the Torrey Mt. Recommended Wilderness when it splits from Jacobsen Creek #1002; it ends at Torrey Lake. Here you can actually see water running along the trail:

All photos were taken by MQR Recreation Coordinator, Phil Knight. Volunteers are still needed! For more information on available trips contact Phil at pknight@montana.net or call 406-209-4727.

New Report: National Assessment on Travel Planning Released

Adam Rissien — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:58:39 -0600

Last year the Forest Service worked with the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (USIECR) who in turn tapped the University of Virginia’s Institute for Environmental Negotiation (IEN) to conduct an assessment of the agency's Travel Management Planning process in order to provide recommendations that will improve ongoing efforts and convey lessons learned from those already completed. Findings and recommendations were released July 1st in a report titled, National Assessment of Travel Management Planning: Challenges, Recommendations, and Best Practices for Public Involvement.

The impetus for this report came partially from Wildlands CPR’s work with the Region One office and a westwide series of workshops we organized in 2006 with IEN titled, Effective Collaboration for Travel Management. Also, in October 2007, Region One Social Scientist Cynthia Manning and I organized a meeting with conservationists and agency officials to talk about perspectives on the travel planning process. From these efforts it became clear that there was a need for a larger discussion that would address concerns all parties had with travel planning, and Cynthia began exploring ways to address this need within the agency. Eventually this led to the Forest Service turing to the USIECR who selected IEN to conduct a national assessment.

The report itself is based on interviews with 51 leaders in travel management planning as well as input provided through an online survey from 40 of those leaders and 27 others, for a total of 78 participants. Those involved primarily include agency officials, quiet recreationists, motorized users, and conservationists. While there are some statements in the report that we do not necessarily agree with, we do recognize their importance because they represent viewpoints that help shape travel planning.

Most of the report (part 3) is organized into challenges with recommendations on how to overcome them; some of which have minor inaccuracies, but overall they are beneficial. One prominent admission that we were delighted to see is the recognition that ““Travel management planning is about designing an ecologically sustainable transportation system that can be monitored and enforced; it’s not about just designating routes for motorized vehicles,” (p. 7). Also, the report recognizes conflict during the process is not something to be avoided, that some people will not be satisfied, and collaboration is not always the solution. This is especially true as it pertains to addressing problems with the Travel Management Rule (TMR) itself.

The first reported challenge is interpreting the TMR and the wide latitude afforded land managers in applying it. This section has some great discussion and good recommendations overall. For example, in regards to the minimum road system, the report states, “Clarification is needed on whether and when Forests need to identify a minimum necessary road system to serve as a baseline for travel management planning,” (pp. 11-12). In January 2009, the Forest Service released final directives on how to implement the TMR that provided exemptions for identifying the minimum road system that could potentially result in the task never being accomplished. Clarification is needed for land managers so they know this is not optional, but rather an integral part of travel planning. Another recommendation reads, “Clarification is needed on whether the default presumption should be for the Forest Service to err on the side of the resource needs rather than on the side of meeting recreational needs,” (p. 12). Again, we agree and feel that Executive Order 11644 as amended already provides this clarification by unambiguously placing watersheds, soils, wildlife and other recreation above motorized use by requiring minimization of potential conflicts.

Perhaps the weakest section is in regards to enforcement since the focus was just on collaboration and signing. While these are definitely useful and needed, they hardly represent all the tools such as increased penalties, using new technology, designating routes that can be enforced, and increasing law enforcement capacity. On the plus side, the report did reference Wildlands CPR’s report titled Six Strategies for Success: Effective enforcement of off-road vehicle use on public lands.

Overall, the report is definitely worth reading and Wildlands CPR supports many of its recommendations. To download a copy simply follow the link here to our resources page and click related links in the shaded box.

ATV Sales Continue Decline

Adam Rissien — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:42:57 -0600

For years proponents of motorized recreation have claimed that the “explosive growth” in the sale of All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) and other off-road vehicles (ORVs) supports their demand that public land managers designate extensive motorized trail networks. They point to ATV sales statistics from the 1990s while claiming that these trends are expected to continue.* Yet they omit statistics by ATV manufacturers that clearly demonstrate the sale of ATVs nationwide peaked in 2003 and has taken a substantial downturn the past two years.

The Specialty Vehicle Institute of America (SVIA) used to issue quarterly press releases via its website (www.svia.org) that trumpeted expanding ATV and motorcycle sales. Not since 2002, however, has the SVIA website included announcements of increasing ATV sales. The Powersports Business website (www.powersportsbusiness.com/) produces an annual Market Data Book that describes the trend in the sale of ATVs and other ORVs. Its report for 2006 included the headline “Traditional U.S. ATV Market Slows” and cited data compiled by the Motorcycle Industry Council that claimed the “sales of new ATVs in the United States dipped in 2005 for the first time in years” while “the rate of growth in sales of new ATVs had dipped for six consecutive years.”

Powersports Business press releases reveal a current trend of rapidly declining ORV sales. This prompted Yamaha Motor Corp., USA, in May 2009 to declare that “the industry as a whole saw ATV sales decline 33 percent in the first quarter (of 2009) and motorcycle sales fall 30.5 percent.” Other relevant statistics from the Powersports Business website include:

Honda’s North American sales of its motorcycles, ATVs and PWCs [Personal Watercraft] in its most recent quarter fell 52 percent compared to the year-ago period, the company reported (May 12, 2009).

Yamaha said U.S. retail sales of its motorcycles totaled 21,000, a 30 percent dip from the year-ago period. U.S. retail sales of its ATVs fell to 17,000, a 26 percent decline, and its side-by-side [i.e., UTVs] retail sales dropped to 4,000 from 9,000 a year ago (May 12, 2009).

Suzuki’s North America sales for motorcycles and ATVs fell to 88,000 units for its recent quarter that ended April 1. That is a nearly 34 percent decrease from the prior-year period (May 13, 2009).

Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ consumer products and machinery division, which includes powersports vehicles, reported a 22 percent decrease in sales for its recent fiscal year (May 1, 2009).

*Undated SVIA news release claiming “The booming popularity of ATVs is further demonstrated in a five-fold sales increase since 1993 and there is no slowdown in sight.” Data more recent than 2002 is not cited. See also current SVIA InfoSheet posted on website regarding the ATV Industry at a Glance that cites these same outdated statistics.

This information was provided by American Hiking Society's Randy Rasumssen.

Congress proposes increasing Legacy Roads fund to $100 million

Bethanie Walder — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:33:12 -0600

On June 10, the House Interior Appropriations Committee moved their public lands funding bill forward- the bill includes $100 million for the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative - double the funding from fiscal year 2009.

In his statement promoting the proposed budget, Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA) said the following about Legacy Roads:

I want to point out that this Bill provides $100 million for the Legacy Road and Trail Remediation program at the Forest Service to protect streams and water systems from damaged forest roads. This effort is a key part of our effort to protect the national forests and grasslands.

The House expanded its "report" language on Legacy roads and travel planning this year. In the report language, they specifically recommend increasing the Legacy Roads funds to $100 million by merging the existing $50 million in Legacy Roads money with a proposed new $50 million presidential initiative for the Forest Service to protect the national forests. Here's an exerpt from page 133:

The new protecting national forests initiative has not been clearly explained by the Forest Service, but it shares the same goals and purpose as the proven legacy road and trail remediation program, which is to reduce deferred maintenance and protect watersheds and habitats by repairing infrastructure. The Committee recommendation provides $100,000,000 for the legacy road and trail remediation program.

...

The Forest Service should use this funding in a strategic effort to decommission and fix roads and trails in environmentally sensitive areas. It should focus on those areas where Forest Service roads may be contributing to water quality problems in streams and water bodies which support threatened, endangered or sensitive species.

In addition to the language above about Legacy Roads, we were very pleased to see the following report language on page 131 regarding travel planning:

The Committee remains interested in the travel management planning process. It is vital for the Service to look at the entire road system on a National Forest and determine those roads that are unneeded or which may be harming the environment. The Committee also feels that the implementation of the travel management plans needs to be userfriendly. The designation of open and closed roads and trails needs to be easily understood by the public.

The Senate also took action on Interior Appropriations yesterday, but there is no accompanying report language yet, so it's not clear how well the Senate and House bills match. The Senate did not specifically highlight the Legacy Roads program in their press release, but did call for increasing Forest Service capital improvement and maintenance funding in FY '10.

Wildlands CPR has been working hard to make sure Congress understands the links between travel planning and watershed restoration on National Forests, and it looks like that's paying off. We'll continue to post updates to our blog about the progress of this bill and associated Legacy Roads funding.

Transportation bill moving forward (kind of ) with FS funding

Bethanie Walder — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:51:20 -0600

The House released a draft of the Surface Transporation Authorization Act of 2009 (STAA) early this week. The bill will provide the next 6 years of funding for federal transportation projects. And while the House is moving quickly, the Senate and the Administration are not ready to reauthorize the highways trust fund, even though the current bill (SAFETEA-LU) runs out in October. The Senate held a contentious hearing yesterday, and they are still pushing to extend the current bill through 2010 rather than authorizing a new bill now.

But the House isn't backing down yet, and they have offered some alternatives (other than increasing the gas tax) for increasing funding availability for the bill. Regardless of how they end up paying for it, we were very pleased to see that the new bill includes much needed funding for Forest Service road maintenance.

While no dollar amounts have been allocated yet, the new program would provide funding for maintenance and culvert upgrades. No, it would not provide funding for road decommissioning, but we didn't really expect it to. This funding will be focused on the most important passenger vehicle access roads, which are the roads least likely to be decommissioned anyway. Here's what would be allowed under the proposed bill:

(A) restoration, reconstruction, and rehabilitation of national forest system roads;
(B) maintenance of national forest system roads; and
(C) constructing, maintaining, replacing, or removing culverts and other barriers to facilitate the passage of aquatic species beneath national forest system roads.

The bill goes on to state that no funds can be used for new road construction. This proposed new funding, combined with Legacy Roads money, can go a long way toward helping the Forest Service get it's road system under control - if they do the proper planning to identify which roads they need and which they don't.

It will be interesting to see whether SAFETEA-LU gets extended, or whether the House is able to convince the Senate and Administration to act on the STAA this fall.

Working in the Field

Greg Peters — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:58:07 -0600

The green is overwhelming. Nearly every possible shade of the verdant color spreads out before me as I hike into the first site on this week’s trip. In Missoula, the forests are drier and browner, dominated by Ponderosa Pines, Larch, and Doug Fir. Here in the Clearwater, just 60 odd miles from my arid home, Western Cedars out compete Ponderosas and Doug Firs, and the understory is a jumble of thimble berry, snow bush berry, ferns, wild ginger, bear grass, mosses and lichens. It’s an amazing ecological transition that underscores the need to manage landscapes based on their naturally occurring boundaries – their varying ecosystems – and not on the expedience and political desires of politicians, bureaucrats, or map-makers. Here, the sound of water is constant; always a trickle somewhere beneath the wind and the birds, often a small roar that grows louder and fades as I hike over the culverts and along the various roads.

Arriving at the camera station, I turn it off, slide out the memory card and try to download the images onto the portable hard-drive I have in the backpack. Fingers crossed that the card isn’t corrupted or the hard drive hasn’t been jostled too much to download correctly, I note the time and the number of images on the card. If all goes well, the small screen on the hard-drive will display images of deer and elk; if all goes really well, I’ll catch a glimpse of a bear, a wolf, or even a cougar – we’ve seen them all out here using recontoured and abandoned roads. Images downloaded, the card goes back into the camera; I check the date and time, the batteries, and turn the camera back on to record another week’s worth of images.

Camera done, I push through the trees and locate the track plate – a 2x3 foot sheet of metal covered by a rounded 4x4 foot piece of metal roofing. Imagine a small Quonset hut without walls at the end. The track plate has a small piece of contact paper taped to it and centered on the contact paper is a can of Fancy Feast cat food – the bait. Each week, I have to reset the bait and the contact paper and collect and analyze the past week’s tracks.
The process is accomplished as quickly as possible to avoid the constantly biting mosquitoes: Lift the metal roofing off. Pull up the old sheet of contact paper, fold it and put it in a plastic sleeve for my three-ring binder back at the truck. Cut a new sheet and five pieces of double sided tape – one for each corner of the contact paper and the last for the new can of cat food. Tape the fresh contact paper back on the track plate. Shake the can of Gun Sight – the carbon based product that’s used by most folks to reduce the glare on gun barrels but used by us to stain the feet of mice, squirrels, fishers, and even coyotes and bears, so that when they walk across the sticky contact paper to reach the Fancy Feast, we can see their foot prints – and spray the edges of the track plate so that this week’s critters will leave their mark. Put the metal roof back over the track plate, pick up all the trash, the scissors, the Gun Sight, the old can of cat food and head back to the road to drive to the next site.

6 paired sites, 12 cameras, 12 track plates, 2 lunches, 1 dinner, 1 breakfast , 1 night camping at campsite number 2. 160 miles of driving. Road numbers 2628, 569 A, 5341. 35 pictures this week, 15:27 pm, download number 4. The numbers drift through my mind as the clouds drift over my head. Back on the roads, bear hunters pull up and I explain what we’re doing and why, picking my words carefully and forcing myself to wish them luck in their “hunt”. Each week the forest is different, the ferns taller, the trillium gone, replaced by thimble berry bushes that grow 15 inches a week, alders have leafed out and wrestle with me as I walk along the abandoned roads.

As I climb back into the truck and ease off to the next site, I smile at my good fortune. To be paid to pay attention, to watch, to experience a forest for 4 months of the year, to use technology to harmlessly peak into the private lives of elk, deer, bears, and moose is perhaps one of the most perfect jobs I’ve ever had. Soon, I’ll break down these sites, hauling the track plates, metal roofs, and cameras back to town. While waiting until the next hunting season starts in September to set them up again, I’ve got hundreds of pictures to analyze, volunteers to organize, trips to plan, and equipment to repair. It’s hard to believe I’ve been out to these sites six or seven times already this year, but I have, and during those trips I have watched as the forest wakes up from its snowy winter bed. I can hardly wait until September to get back to these woods and check in on the elk, deer, bear, moose, and birds I’ve come to know.

New Transportation Bill proposal released June 18

Bethanie Walder — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:32:42 -0600

Congressman Oberstar held a video press conference today to release initial details of the "Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009." The current national highway bill expires in September and Congress is slowly working on reauthorization. Apparently Oberstar is committed to completing reauthorization of the bill on time, while the Senate has barely begun work, and Transportation Secretary LaHood has asked for an 18 month extension on reauthorization.

According to Oberstar's summary, the new bill will be dramatically streamlined from previous bills, but still holds a $450 billion price tag over six years. They propose having four core programs that all transportation activities would fit within:

critical asset investment (maintenance)
highway safety improvement
surface transportation (new highways and transit)
congestion mitigation and air quality improvement

While neither the proposed "blueprint" for the bill nor Oberstar's summary address wildlife concerns, the proposal does give some small amount of attention to environemental issues and climate change. The opening list of justificaitons for the bill includes the following bullet:

The transportation system also imposes significant costs on the environment. In the United States, approximately 28 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, which have been demonstrated to contribute significantly to global climate change, are attributed to the transportation sector. Private vehicles are now the largest contributor to household "carbon footprints", accounting for 55 percent of carbon emissions from U.S. households.

Unfortunately, Oberstar doesn't mention wildlife or clean water, and neither of those issues get any attention in his overview. That said, there is a significant focus on safety, especially on rural roads, which might create justifications for investing in wildlife crossing structures to reduce dangerous animal vehicle collisions. (Though alternately, it could spur investment in straightening, widening and otherwise "improving" rural roads that could be very detrimental to wildlife.

We're also hoping that Congress will seriously consider providing some funding to the Forest Service to deal with their multi-billion dollar road maintenance backlog. But the highways trust fund is broke, so Oberstar and company are going to have to do a lot of work to figure out how to pay for this bill, including the environmental provisions that we're hoping to see included.

While Oberstar didn't give much attention to the environment, he did give a lot of attention to streamlining the planning process, which could be very detrimental to including environmental mitigation in new road construction or old road upgrades. Apparently the proposed legislative language will be available next week. Click here for the NY Times take on the proposal.