Recent Flap over Categorical Exclusions Dave

Having been on the road and out of touch the last two weeks, I wondered just how to work up a post on the "Earth Island Institute v. Ruthenbeck" flap over categorical exclusions (see this FS Litigation Page). This morning I found this letter from Bob Wolf to Mark Rey in my inbox and thought I’d just jump-start the discussion there:

U/S of Agriculture Mark Rey Oct.22,2005.
Judge Singleton’s Decision

Dear Mark:

When you proposed to expand the timber sale acres that would be exempt from CE’s, my comment to those assembling views on your plan was that this would lead to inadequate analysis of likely problems on some sales.. This happened on the California salvage sale Judge Singleton
decided.

Instead of fixing that sale you professed that the Judge Singleton’s decision was not clear. It took contorted inventivenes to contend that clear Court language was full of ambiguity. This led to a memo from the Chief that virtually any Forest action needed a full EIS process.

Lo and behold, cutting the National Christmas Tree, mushroom picking and other tasks that never had EA’s were said now required them.

For years commodity groups have contended that all it took was a postage stamp to file an appeal or a suit designed to stop timber sales the filer falsely contended were unsound.

Now comes your claim that Judge Singleton's decision was obtuse. You alleged that you feared that it required every little project to have a full exam and opportunity for public comment. Failure to do so would produce more "enviro suits."

The result was your appeal to the Judge to clarify the obvious.

This was a clear Administration abuse of the court system. There were far more sensible and far less draconian ways to determine that the Judge’s decision did not require creating a paper mountain to cut a National Christmas Tree, mushroom picking, fire wood gathering, etc. A common sense reading of the decision would have sufficed. The risk of appeals ranged from unlikely to never.

Your ploy backfired. Congress didn’t leap to overturn the Judge Singleton’s decision. Instead, senior Members wrote that you were playing a game.

On Oct 19 responding to your appeal, Judge Singleton made it clear that only major projects, such as large salvage sales, were the target of his decision.

Winning back public confidence in the Forest Service is more important than tilting at windmills. Your ploy is one more example of needlessly widening the chasm between the Service and an important segment of the public.

There was nothing gained by your seeking to distract people from the real implementation challenges timber sales often pose.

The National Forests have the most competent, well-trained resource professionals in the world. They are backed up by a world class Research network. Universities are further back-up.

What’s needed is clear policies that sets forth issues that need to be explained about planned timber sales.

Timber sales need sharp, tight analyses of likely positive and negative impacts. The effort and thought should be on fixing the analysis process so that it accurately and succinctly shows issues and how they are going to be resolved. Try this. It will lead you out of the woods.

The 2005 timber sales program was about the size of 1940 sales. The rigor mortis that has set in is not due to appeals, Owl decisions and other external road blocks - it is self-induced. There aren't viable appeals on every Forest.

There is no system of loss management or cost control. The "Gate" system for tracking sale progress doesn’t require any accountability for it’s a lack of results.

I don't seek to return to the era when we made sales but never looked at the environmental or the governments financial outcome.

Making sound sales isn’t rocket science. Each Forest has made enough sales on enough different sites in the past 100 years that it should be able to put together a map and atlas that identifies the range of flexibility one has in selecting a sale area. What is remarkable is that the Service has been so slow in charting soil, site, aspect, stand and cost indicators to be used as guides.

Don't curse the darkness - light a candle.

Sincerely,

Bob Wolf, retired, Fellow, Society of American Foresters.
CC: Chief and various RF’s

See also10/24/05 Washington Post article, Forest Service Sulk