In This Issue
The struggles continue over a number of environmental controversies, including oil and gas drilling in the Rockies, forest fires, the diversion of funds meant to be invested in land acquisition, and logging in road-free portions of our national forests. One bright spot: As The New York Times said in a September 4 editorial, Congress is likely to pass some wilderness bills this fall. These and a dozen other issues are highlighted below. Each is followed by the name of a Wilderness Society person to contact for more information.
MAKING A FOREST AND RIVER HEALTHIER: A fleet of earth-moving equipment is hard at work in Washington’s Olympic National Forest—and we’re happy about it. Their job is not to build roads so that logging trucks can reach remote forestland. Instead, they are getting rid of a logging road that has contributed to frequent flooding, water pollution, and damaged fisheries in the Skokomish River. Joining us to cheer on these machines are leaders from the Skokomish Tribe. More than anyone, they have suffered from the flooding, pollution, and fisheries damage at their reservation downstream along the Hood Canal and Puget Sound. Even the Forest Service is happy, and we hope that the partnership all of us have created on this project can become a model in other national forests. We see this as the wave of the future. (Mike Anderson, 206-624-6430, x 227)
DRILLING IN ALASKA: James Watt, the Interior Secretary who proposed drilling in wilderness areas, thought that drilling was not wise in the vicinity of Teshekpuk Lake, one of the most biologically productive lakes on the North Slope. There was just too much to lose. But the Bush administration does want to lease there and has scheduled a sale for September 27. Federal District Court Judge James Singleton, Jr. issued a preliminary ruling September 7 that the sale violates NEPA, and asked briefs from both sides before he makes his final decision, which is expected during the next several days. New Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne recently visited North Slope Borough Mayor Edward S. Itta, who represents Natives in the area, to try to soften his opposition to leasing. No luck. The mayor subsequently wrote Kempthorne, saying, “No one can dispute that the areas around Teshekpuk Lake are world-class wildlife habitat and critical to the nutritional and cultural well being of North Slope and other Native Alaskan residents.” There’s another front-page story up there: Barrow High School’s new football team, playing its third game, won for the first time, topping Sitka High. The season ended Friday, the 15th. (Eleanor Huffines, 907-272-9453)
ROADLESS FORESTS: In a sweeping decision yesterday, a federal judge in California reinstated the 2001 Roadless Rule, which has been under intense attack by the Bush administration from day one. In the process, she threw out the administration's roadless petition plan. There are 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest (not including the forest lands that are protected because they are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System). Now what? Will the administration appeal or take another tack? What about Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, which has the most roadless acreage but is not covered by this decision? Does the string of losses in federal courts suggest that the administration is cavalier about the nation’s environmental laws? Other recent conservation victories involved oil and gas leasing in Utah wildlands and at Alaska’s Teshekpuk Lake (preliminary ruling), as well as one dealing with water rights along the Gunnison River in Colorado. (Mike Anderson, 206-624-6430 x 227; Michael Francis, 202-429-2662)
COULD BE A BIG WILDERNESS YEAR: Will the National Wilderness Preservation System grow in 2006? Since the Wilderness Act created this system in 1964, Congress has passed bills adding public lands to it in 18 of the 20 even-numbered years. In large part, this reflects the way things work on Capitol Hill. In fact, 97 percent of the 106.6 million acres of protected wilderness were added in even-numbered years. Among the best bets for 2006 are lands at Oregon’s Mount Hood, in Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest (passed this week by the Senate), along the North Coast of California, and in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. (Bart Koehler, 720-530-9538)
OPEN SPACE GOING FAST: The nation is losing 6,000 acres of open space every day—250 an hour. Due to development that is outpacing population growth, especially in rural areas, 100,000 square miles of open space is projected to be developed by 2020. That’s an area the size of California. These eye-opening estimates are contained in a new U.S. Forest Service report, “Cooperating Across Boundaries: Partnerships to Conserve Open Space in Rural America.” Counties with national forests and grasslands are experiencing some of the highest growth rates as people move closer to public lands and the amenities they offer. This development threatens lands that provide clean drinking water, wood and agricultural products, wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities and resource-based-jobs to residents of both rural and urban areas. Yet Congress is slashing funding for front-line land conservation programs, Forest Legacy and the Land & Water Conservation Fund. They are needed to conserve the most important and threatened rural lands. Our staff can point you to lands that are in jeopardy. Get the report online [pdf]. (Tom Gilbert, 215-343-1110; Sarah Neimeyer, 202-429-2681)
“ETHICS” AT THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT: The department’s inspector general, Earl Devaney, has been a very busy man. And he is not mincing words about what his investigations have turned up. “Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior,” Devaney testified last week at a hearing of the House Government Reform subcommittee on energy. Read more of what he said. Devaney has found troubling information about offshore oil and gas royalties and the conduct of Stephen Griles, a lobbyist who was the department’s deputy secretary during the Bush administration’s first term. Coming up, the inspector general says, is an investigation into BLM e-mail involving drilling in the Rockies. (Dave Alberswerth, 202-429-2695)
THE BIRDS ARE IN FLIGHT: It is fall migration season, but many of our 545 national wildlife refuges are facing serious problems. These sanctuaries are used by more than 700 bird species, often serving as way stations on migratory routes. Along the Atlantic Flyway, for example, the Navy wants to build a fighter jet strip close to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in coastal North Carolina and schedule 31,000 landings a year, while at Prime Hook NWR in Delaware genetically engineered crops have been planted. Development threatens refuges along all four north-south flyways, including Stone Lakes (CA) and Cape May (NJ). Due to Katrina, 50 to 70 percent of the land mass at Breton NWR (LA) is gone. Before the hurricane, Breton had been an important stopover for migratory songbirds and had the nation’s largest tern colony. Compounding these problems is a decrease in appropriations, resulting in understaffed refuges and cuts in visitor services. The Fish & Wildlife Service expects to close certain refuges to save money. (Maribeth Oakes, 202-429-2674; Leslie Catherwood, 202-454-2524)
MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT IN MAINE: You may be running out of time to see the celebrated Moosehead Lake area in its relatively natural condition. If you hunt, you may want to get up there this fall. With a number of timber and paper corporations seeking to turn their forestland into real estate gold, Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber Company has rolled out a truly massive proposal: nearly 1,000 houses (575 on the shorefront), two resorts (including “eco-friendly” golf courses), an industrial area, and more. On March 30 Plum Creek and three conservation groups announced a tentative agreement to conserve 400,000 acres in the vicinity, but significant questions remain as Maine’s Land Use Regulatory Commission continues to review the company’s scheme. The scale and location of this development would irrevocably alter the scenic and rural character of the region and threaten the ecological health of sensitive areas such as the Lily Bay peninsula. Once subdivided, will this special region be off-limits to birders, campers, hunters, and boaters? (Jeremy Sheaffer, 207-626-5553)
ROCKIES DRILLING: The president may have said that the nation is “addicted to oil,” but upcoming lease sales that include more proposed wilderness areas confirm that his administration remains committed to promoting drilling on sensitive public lands in the West. In FY2004 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued a record number of drilling permits (6,052) and then ran the count beyond 7,000 in 2005. In fact, the BLM has issued so many drilling permits that the oil and gas industry has found it impossible to drill on thousands of them. The BLM data released last year indicated that only 2,700 new wells were drilled on BLM lands, despite the fact that over 6,000 permits were issued that year. And, of the approximately 36 million acres under lease, fewer than 12 million acres were in production. Since April 2003, the BLM has sold leases on nearly 200,000 acres of lands that either the agency itself has identified as harboring wilderness characteristics, or that have been proposed for wilderness designation in pending legislation. The government should be moving at a more measured pace. (Dave Alberswerth, 202-429-2695; Peter Aengst, 406-586-1600)
LAND PROTECTION WITH A BIG PAYOFF: There was loud criticism from some quarters when President Clinton used the Antiquities Act to create Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah on September 18, 1996. But this monument, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, has gained support in the local community, welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to explore its stunning red rock canyons, and become a world-class living laboratory for biological, cultural, and paleontological research. More than 30 research projects were underway in 2004 alone, and fossils have yielded more information about land-based ecosystem change at the end of the dinosaur era than almost any other place in the world. Several of the dinosaurs were completely new species, including an 80-million-year-old small Ceratops-like dinosaur that researchers reportedly might name Monumentasaurus, after the monument. NASA has even been there seeking insights into the surface of Mars. The monument’s reputation as a hot spot of plant and animal diversity, and rare and endemic species, has attracted researchers from around the country. Other units in the National Landscape Conservation System also are proving to be scientific gold mines. (Jill Ozarski, 303-650-5818 x 111; Wendy Van Asselt, 202-429-7431)
LISTENING—FOR WHAT?--SESSIONS: Dirk Kempthorne, who now has been Secretary of the Interior for three months, has been headlining some of the “cooperative conservation listening sessions” that his department has organized along with EPA, USDA, CEQ, and the Commerce Department. There have been 18 already, and at least five more are coming (Brewer, ME; Brunswick, GA; Waco, TX; Coltin, CA; and Orlando). It’s hard to imagine that the commitment of so many resources is not a prelude to something significant. So far we have seen a loophole-ridden mining bill and a logging proposal curtailing citizen input. What’s next? (Linda Lance, 202-429-2654)
