APRIL 6, 2007

DON’T BE A FUNNY BUNNY….

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

Judge Rules against 2005 Planning Rule On March 30, Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California enjoined the Forest Service from implementing the 2005 Planning Rule. The Court held that the Forest Service violated the APA for not adequately involving the public; ESA, for not properly consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service; and NEPA, by improperly applying a categorical exclusion and not fully evaluating the environmental impacts in promulgating the 2005 Planning Rule. The court remanded the decision back to the USDA for compliance with the APA, ESA, and NEPA.

Travel Management Public Meetings Scheduled The week of April 9, the Douglas Ranger District on the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland (WY and CO) will host two public meetings to offer input on an environmental assessment concerning travel management in the Laramie Peak (WY) area. The formal comment period for Laramie Peak Travel Management was completed last year, and the District is offering another opportunity, with comments due by April 20. The alternatives include converting some roads to all-terrain vehicle trails, and closing others that are user-created and cause damage to the land. The proposed action includes pursuing a right-of-way for motorized use on 390 miles of existing roads on public lands where there is no legal access.

Northeastern Area Projects Surpassed 1 million acre milestone On March 21, the combined accomplishments of all Northeastern Area (NA) Forest Legacy Program (FLP) projects in the Northeastern Area surpassed the 1 million acre milestone. With the accomplishment of the 37,000 acre Katahdin Ironworks Project in Maine, the total acreage protected by the FLP in states served by NA reached over 1 million acres. The combined financial investments of partners in NA states is also well above the minimum 25 percent cost-share requirement. Current investments show almost exactly a 50 percent cost share between partners and the Forest Service in NA.

The Northern Rockies Lynx Management Direction Signed FEIS and ROD In March, Regional Foresters Rick Cables, Jack Troyer and Acting Regional Forester Kathleen McAllister signed the Record of Decision (ROD) to incorporate the Northern Rockies Lynx Management Direction into the plans of 18 national forests in the Northern Rockies lynx planning area. The decision applies the management direction to occupied lynx habitat to the following national forests: Clearwater, Idaho Panhandle, Targhee, Flathead, Kootenai, Lolo, Bridger-Teton, and Shoshone. Portions of the Custer, Gallatin, Helena, and Lewis & Clark national forests are also occupied by lynx. The Final Environmental Impact Statement and ROD will be mailed to the public the week of April 9, 2007.

National Grasslands Offered in Oil and Gas Lease Sale On May 10, approximately 17,000 acres of land in 30 parcels on the Pawnee and Comanche National Grasslands (CO) will be offered in a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas lease auction in Denver. The BLM holds oil and gas lease sales quarterly. If a lease is protested, the BLM does not issue a lease until the protest is resolved.

Hoosier National Forest’s Hands on the Land Site The Hoosier National Forest's (IN) historic Rickenbaugh House is featured in the Hands on the Land, April 2007 Newsletter. Hands on the Land is a national network of field classrooms connecting teachers and parents to their public lands and waterways. In late 2006, the Hoosier successfully applied for and received a Washington Office conservation education grant to become a Hands on the Land site. With the $8,000 grant, the forest has been able to partner with the local Perry Central Community School Corporation to provide educational programs for elementary and middle school students at the Rickenbaugh House.

Forest Stewardship Program Spatial Analysis Project Summit On April 17-19, the Forest Service Cooperative Forestry Staff and the Colorado State Forest Service will host the first national Forest Stewardship Program Spatial Analysis Project Summit in Broomfield Colorado. The Spatial Analysis Project is providing the Forest Service and its state partners with GIS-based assessment capability for landscape-based, strategic program delivery and spatial accomplishment tracking. Approximately 120 state and federal employees are registered to participate. Colorado State Forester Jeff Jahnke will open the summit. Jim Hubbard, Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry and Larry Payne, Cooperative Forestry Staff Director, will also speak at this national event.

AND IN THE MEDIA…..

Salt Lake Tribune: On Friday, April 6, the Salt Lake Tribune published an article titled Barren fields turn into new wildlife habitat, written by Arrin Newton Brunson. After 3 1/2 days of plowing, pounding and planting, 603 acres in the southwest corner of Cache County are ready for company, namely, deer, grouse and sparrows. Those and other species will welcome the 17,490 new plants sprouting on National Forest system land at the old Murray Farm, west of northern Utah's Wellsville. "This will improve habitat for big game, primarily for mule deer, as well as for the sharp-tailed grouse, the Brewer's sparrow, the Vesper sparrow" and other shrub land creatures, said Stephen Blatt, wildlife biologist for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. With one sagebrush or bitterbrush sown every 10 feet on a 103-acre span of the old Murray Farm, the formerly barren fields on the mountainside have been transformed into valuable summer and winter wildlife habitat, Blatt said this week. Traditional rangelands and native wildlife, including the Cache deer herd, will enjoy greater protection from encroachment by nearby urban development and the watershed also will be improved through decreased erosion, according to Forest Service spokesman Lorraine Januzelli.

Associated Press: On Thursday, April 5, the AP in Anchorage ran a story by Jeannette J. Lee titled Pending settlement temporarily halts Tongass timber sales. More than two million acres of roadless tracts in the Tongass National Forest have been temporarily closed to timber sales under a pending settlement between environmental groups and the U.S. Forest Service. Both parties said Wednesday that they are pleased with the agreement, which has yet to be approved in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. The agreement will expire as soon as the Forest Service issues its new timber sale plan in the next year or so, but environmental groups say it gives them more leverage in their fight to keep the federal agency from selling road-free forest to logging companies, and more time to rally public opposition. Meanwhile, the Forest Service can still sell 108 million board feet of timber, almost all of which is located in areas accessible by road, said Dennis Neill, a spokesman in the agency's Ketchikan office. The sales will keep about 650 employees in timber and related industries in their jobs until at least the end of the year, Neill said.

Associated Press: On Wednesday, April 4^th, the AP published a story titled Study: Reforestation rich after fires, written by Jeff Barnard. Scientists looking at the aftermath of wildfires in the forests of southwestern Oregon and Northern California found that after five to ten years even the most severely burned areas had sprouted plentiful seedlings without any help from man. Though natural regeneration generally took longer to produce pines and firs, it created a more varied forest, even after brush had become established, which is likely to benefit wildlife, concluded to the study by scientists from Oregon State University appearing in Wednesday’s issue of the Journal of Forestry. “When time is not a factor in achieving the goals, then natural regeneration appears to be a very good approach to reforestation,” said David Hibbs, a professor of ecology and silviculture at Oregon State University, who took part in the study.

E&ENews PM: On Tuesday, April 3, E&ENews PM ran a story titled Enviros want Comanche and Cimmarron grassland plan withdrawn, written by Dan Berman. Now that a federal judge has forbidden the Forest Service from using controversial rules governing how management plans are developed for 193 million acres of national forests, two environmental groups want the agency to withdraw the only plan to actually be completed. Colorado Wild and Forest Guardians today called on the Forest Service to rescind the plan for the Comanche and Cimmarron National Grassland in Colorado and Kansas. Completed early last month, that plan was the first under a 2005 rule that critics say limit environmental protection, public input and enforceable standards. Last week, Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco enjoined the 2005 planning rule, agreeing with environmental groups that the Bush administration removed environmental protections without providing for proper public comment or considering the effect on endangered species. The Comanche and Cimmarron plan does not guarantee protection for species, sensitive habitats and historic and cultural values from the effects of oil and gas drilling, grazing or off-road vehicle use, the environmental groups say.

PERSONNEL NEWS

THERE IS NO PERSONNAL NEWS TO REPORT THIS WEEK.

IN THE NEAR FUTURE

THE CHIEF will travel to Grey Towers mid-week to participate in a meeting with a number of District Rangers doing Ranger Training there…DEPUTY CHIEF FOR S&PF JIM HUBBARD will travel to Colorado Springs, Colorado to participate in the State of the Rockies Conference…then on to Madison, Wisconsin for the National Conservation Education Meeting…

People, Places and Things is compiled from input by field units and Washington Office staffs as well as from news articles, newsletters and other sources.