NEWS

Federal Lands Suffer From Maintenance Backlog & Limited Tax Bases "My district is 72,000 square miles - half of which are publicly owned - and it contains nine national forests and four Bureau of Land Management Districts. As a result, I know that aside from recreational and environmental benefits, publicly owned land provides obstacles for local governments and communities surrounded by these federally owned areas. I regularly hear from community leaders about issues they face in maintaining basic services such as schools, hospitals, libraries, police and fire departments, and other essential programs needed to maintain a viable community". The subcommittee will examine the impacts continued growth in the federal estate will have at the local levels. From FY 2000 through FY 2004, the BLM disposed of 660,186 acres in the continental United States while acquiring 952,703 acres that contributed to a net gain of nearly 300,000 acres. In that same time period the Forest Service had a net gain of nearly half a million acres....
In The Heat Of The Moment The summer of '94 baked central Colorado in a heat rarely seen on the mountains; drought dried out the earth, leaving it gasping for moisture—and prone to ignition. On the morning of July 2, Storm King Mountain began to burn. By July 4 the resulting fire had spread to perhaps three acres, a relatively small and slow-moving blaze—and one, local officials decided, that could wait while they put out dozens of more serious ones. It was not until the morning of July 5 that the first firefighters ventured up to contain it. Less than 36 hours later, 14 of them were dead. Elite members of a caste of itinerant warriors who battle in hardhats and chainsaws against one of humanity's oldest enemies, these ten men and four women were consumed by a wall of fire that moved almost 20 miles an hour. The crisis on Storm King Mountain was not only a natural disaster, it was also the product of human actions. A firefighter named Don Mackey made several of the big decisions—some good, too many of them bad, at least one of them heroic. Mackey was a product—you might even say a victim—of a system that had failed to teach how to make good decisions....
Feds propose killing barred owls invading spotted owl territory Scientists meeting here Wednesday are planning an experiment that involves shooting a small population of barred owls, a species that migrated across the Great Plains and now threatens to displace smaller northern spotted owls. If the experiment shows removing barred owls allows spotted owls to reclaim lost territory, it could lead to shotgunning thousands of barred owls in Washington, Oregon and California. The northern spotted owls, a threatened species that became a symbol of environmentalist efforts to preserve the old-growth forests where they live, are being pushed out by the larger and more common barred owls, which nest in the same places, prey on the some food and even kill spotted owls....
Rainbow Family Gathering Concerns Officials The Rainbow Family group has chosen the Monongahela National Forest as the location for its peace circle, but forest service officials aren't happy about that decision. They tell 12 news the area the group is occupying, is also home to five different federal endangered species, and with more than 10-thousand people planning to attend the gathering the forest service is concerned about the animals' safety. Officials have gone so far as to suggest other sites for the group to hold their annual festival. The forest service requires any organization with more than 75 members, to apply for a permit 72 hours before they gather. The group did so Tuesday, and that permit is still under consideration....
Spotted owl may get increase in protection The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it would re-evaluate its 2003 decision to leave California spotted owls off the list of threatened or endangered species, in part because of rule changes that allow more logging in the Sierra's national forests. The agency said it would make a determination by March. Both the subspecies cousins -- the northern spotted owl and the Mexican spotted owl -- are listed as threatened species, designations that engendered heated controversies over logging and management of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest....
Forest Service on verge of complicated land swap The U.S. Forest Service is set to trade 18,200 acres of publicly owned national forest land for 32,000 acres of private property in a deal that involves six counties and three national forests. Forest Service officials also hope to transfer to public ownership about 60 miles of rivers and streams in Eastern Oregon that harbor threatened or endangered salmon, steelhead and bull trout. Most of the property in the proposed Blue Mountain Land Exchange is in Grant, Umatilla and Wallowa counties. Smaller acreages are spread among Baker, Morrow and Union counties. The proposed land exchange involves public land on three national forests: the Wallowa-Whitman, Malheur and Umatilla....
Learning from Mount St. Helens It’s been a quarter century since the big eruption at Mount St. Helens that killed 57 people and devastated 230 square miles of formerly verdant forest. While much of the devastation remains, what has astounded scientists who gathered to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the May 1980 event is the natural recovery of the lands surrounding the volcano. Indeed, findings from the re-growth in the “blast zone” have influenced management practices in other places, including those ravaged by man-made incursions. Fred Swanson, a Forest Service geologist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Corvallis, Oregon, says scientists surveying the devastated landscape following the 1980 eruption were struck by how dead tree snags and fallen logs—so-called “legacy structures”—provided invaluable refuge for the surviving plants and animals while simultaneously serving as base stations for colonizing species. “This dead biological legacy seemed to be performing a wide variety of ecological functions in terms of helping survivors make it through,” says Swanson....
Govenor Huntsman Won't Petition Federal Rule Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman won't petition the federal government to protect Utah's 4 million acres roadless wilderness areas. Huntsman will let the U.S. Forest Service take the lead on roadless issues through a forest management plan revision process already under way in four of the state's six national forests, state public lands policy coordinator Lynn Stevens said. "If their management plans meet the requirements of the state, we may not need to have a petition," said Stevens. "We think most of the state's needs can be met through this process."....

===