Urgent Attention is Needed to Preserve & Protect Public Lands

From an Article by Carole King, Opinion Editorial, New York Times, August 25, 2022

Ms. King is a singer, songwriter, author and environmental advocate.

My career as a songwriter began in Manhattan, not far from where I was born. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1968, I became part of the singer-songwriter community that coalesced around Laurel Canyon. I thought California would be wild in the sense of nature. It turned out to be wild in the sense of drugs and parties. I wanted to live close to the kind of wild nature that must exist somewhere on a large scale. Somewhere turned out to be Idaho.

In 1977 I moved to a mobile home on Robie Creek, a 40-minute drive from Boise. For the next three years, I lived in the backcountry northeast of McCall in a cabin with no running water or electricity. After that I lived adjacent to the Salmon River for 38 years, with a national forest as my nearest neighbor.

The future of America’s national forests is being shaped now. The Biden administration is developing a system to inventory old-growth and mature forests on federal land that the president wants to be completed by next April. But given the immediate threats facing many of these forests and their importance to slowing climate change, bold action is required immediately to preserve not just old-growth and mature trees but entire national forest ecosystems comprising thousands of interdependent species.

President Biden should issue an executive order immediately directing his secretaries of the interior and agriculture to take all steps available to them to stop commercial logging on public land. We can’t wait a year.

One of the best technologies to store carbon is an unlogged forest with minimal human intrusion. Forests sequester vast amounts of carbon in the trunks, leaves and roots of trees of all ages and sizes and the soil beneath them. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and water from the air and ground and through the process of photosynthesis release oxygen into the air. It costs nothing to leave them as they are. Allowing commercial logging to continue in our national forests would also be a catastrophe for the biodiversity they contain.

The order I propose would bring about a significant reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide. And it will help the United States meet the requirements of the Paris agreement, which Mr. Biden rejoined on the first day of his presidency. Even with the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, he will fall short of his promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Cutting more forests isn’t going to help hit that mark.

Last fall, over 200 climate scientists from around the country sent Mr. Biden a letter underscoring the consequences if timber harvesting continues in the national forests. They wrote that “greenhouse gas emissions from logging in U.S. forests are now comparable to the annual” carbon dioxide “emissions from U.S. coal burning.” Protecting federal forestlands from logging, on the other hand, would remove 84 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, they wrote.

My experience in Idaho led me to become involved as a volunteer in the ongoing effort to protect a bioregion of 23 million acres of nationally owned public land in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming by means of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.

That legislation would designate corridors for the safe passage of wildlife between existing wilderness and roadless areas on federal forestland. It was proposed by scientists in the late 1980s who understood that protecting and connecting large-scale forest ecosystems is necessary for species to thrive. Despite the legislation receiving some bipartisan support in past years, it has not been enacted in the nearly 30 years since it was introduced.

Forest preservation is a climate solution. That’s why we need action to safeguard the forests on the public lands we all share. Federal law requires that most public lands be managed for multiple uses, such as recreation, gas and oil development, mining and logging. But this longstanding policy is running headlong into efforts to slow the warming of our planet.

Forests on federally owned land are being destroyed at breakneck speed by heavy equipment that can saw through a tree, strip its branches and set that tree on a pile of logs in the time it took me to type this sentence.

The effects of the climate crisis are undeniable. People are suffering, and the scale of the problem sometimes makes us feel helpless. But the public can do something right now by asking Mr. Biden — in numbers too big to ignore — to use all of his powers to stop the logging of the nation’s mature and old-growth forests.

In 1970, my collaborator Toni Stern wrote the lyrics to my most popular song, “It’s Too Late.” That title should not refer to the climate. That’s why, at age 80, I’m using my voice to call on Mr. Biden to stop commercial logging in our national forests. Please add your voice to mine.

>>> A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 26, 2022, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Leave Forests Alone, Before It’s Too Late.

John Harte has written and spoken extensively to get the message details out to all of us (select video below)

From an Article by Douglas Fischer, Environmental Health News, June 22, 2022

How do you cut through the fog around climate change and get to a solution? Noted ecologist John Harte offers a fresh take on the dire topic of the climate crisis.

John Harte, a physicist-turned-ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, looks first to the mountains, then to the oceans and the ice, and then finally to the optimism that underpins so much political thought and action in the United States.

Speaking before the Humanist Science Committee in tiny Salida, Colorado, earlier this month, Harte used one slide to “demolish” deniers, one slide to show the real stakes—collapse of civilization—and the remainder of his chat to describe impacts he’s seen from a lifetime of research in the Rocky Mountains and where he sees hope.

“There is no question that the course we have been on for the last 60 years will lead to a crash,” he said. “But the alternative future is the careful transition to what we call a soft landing … where we need less than one Earth to support what we do on Earth.”

Global warming: Bad news ~ But first, bad news: Global warming is going to be worse than we thought, Harte said. Various feedbacks related to a warming planet—from increasing wildfires to hotter oceans to thawing permafrost—are not understood well enough to factor into predictive models.

“This is scary. These models are likely significantly underestimating the rise in atmospheric temperature that will likely occur from our current levels of climate-changing pollution.”

Harte, a senior researcher at UC Berkeley’s famed Energy and Resources Group, has spent a lifetime connecting dots — studying flowers in high mountain meadows for evidence of increasing fossil fuel emissions, looking at the “smoke and mirrors” behind geo-engineering and carbon sequestration.

Climate change solutions ~ Solutions, he says, are more politically achievable than most would consider given today’s polarized political environment:

1). Improve efficiency, including upping car mileage standards to 60 miles per gallon of gasoline, up from 35 mpg today, 2.) Expand clean, safe renewable energy, particularly home rooftop solar, 3.) Change personal consumption practices, 4.) Stop destroying forests, and 5.) Support reproductive freedom.

“Who are going to be the economic winners 50 years from now? They’re going to be the countries that made the greatest advances in solar energy and battery storage, in the technology needed to achieve a future without climate change,” Harte said.

“Selfishly, for the sake of our grandchildren and the economy they live under, we should be doing these things.”

The talk clocks in at just over an hour. But it’s a refreshing overview of a problem increasingly staring us all in the face. See the Vimeo video here.

https://vimeo.com/719687216

Grass fires, forest fires and smoke are all risks to the public health

From the West Virginia Division of Forestry, Charleston, WV

CHARLESTON, W.V. — Autumn traditionally signals cooler temperatures, leaves changing colors and the start of the fall fire season.

Fall fire season begins today, Thursday, Oct. 1, and continues through Dec. 31. Burning vegetative materials is limited to the hours of 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. Any fires set during that time must be extinguished before 7 a.m.

“The restrictions are there to protect West Virginia’s people, property and forests,” said Division of Forestry Director Tom Cover. “Humidity levels are typically lower in fall than in summer. Dry leaves and forest floor debris become more flammable. After 5 p.m., relative humidity increases, the leaf litter absorbs moisture, and the material become less flammable.”

The Division of Forestry reports that debris burning ranks as the state’s leading cause of fires. A summary of forest fire laws can be found on the Division of Forestry’s website at wvforestry.com/laws-regulations/fire.

The fire safe law includes:
>>> No burning from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
>>> Fires must be attended at all times.
>>> Before leaving any fire for any length of time, the fire must be completely extinguished.
>>> Clear at least a 10-foot area (safety strip) around the fire and make sure all burnable material has been removed.
>>> If your fire escapes, you are liable for the costs of fighting the fire and any damage the fire may cause.
>>> Violation of the burning law is punishable by a fine up to $1,000.

Commercial burning permits to burn from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. can be obtained from local Division of Forestry offices. Commercial burning permits are issued only to companies, contractors and industries for large amounts of debris that cannot be burned overnight.

The Division of Forestry protects nearly 12 million acres of forestland across West Virginia. More information on fire safety and programs such as forest legacy, logging and landowner assistance, visit the website wvforestry.com.

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See also: Smoke from deadly wildfires in the West can be seen on other side of country, Phil Helsel, NBC News, Sept. 14, 2020

Deadly and historic wildfires in the West are sending smoke as far away as the East Coast, officials said. The smoke was creating a hazy appearance in skies over part of Virginia, the National Weather Service said. It was also affecting New York City’s skies.

At least 36 deaths have been linked to the fires in California, Oregon and Washington state. In Oregon, 10 people have died and thousands have been displaced. Twenty-two people were being called missing persons, according to the emergency management department. Washington state has seen one death, and 25 are dead in California.

Nearly three dozen fires were active Monday night, according to state data. Around 1 million acres had burned, and more than 1,100 residences have been confirmed destroyed, according to the state emergency management department.

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United Nations reports on risks to living species

By The Editorial Board, New York Times, May 11, 2019
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Our planet has suffered five mass extinctions, the last of which occurred about 66 million years ago, when a giant asteroid believed to have landed near the Yucatán Peninsula set off a chain reaction that wiped out the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the other species on earth. A few years ago, in a book called “The Sixth Extinction,” the writer Elizabeth Kolbert warned of a devastating sequel, with plant and animal species on land and sea already disappearing at a ferocious clip, their habitats destroyed or diminished by human activities.

This time, she made clear, the asteroid is us — and we will pay heavily for our folly.

Humanity’s culpability in what many scientists believe to be a planetary emergency has now been reaffirmed by a detailed and depressing report compiled by hundreds of international experts and based on thousands of scientific studies. A summary was released last Monday in Paris, and the full 1,500-page report will be available later in the year. Its findings are grim. “Biodiversity” — a word encompassing all living flora and fauna — “is declining faster than at any time in human history,” it says, estimating that “around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades,” unless the world takes transformative action to save natural systems. The at-risk population includes a half-million land-based species and one-third of marine mammals and corals.

Most of the causes of this carnage seem familiar: logging, poaching, overfishing by large industrial fleets, pollution, invasive species, the spread of roads and cities to accommodate an exploding global population, now seven billion and rising. If there is one alpha culprit, it is the clearing of forests and wetlands for farms to feed all those people (and, perversely, to help them get to work: The destruction of Indonesia’s valuable rain forests, and their replacement with palm oil plantations, has been driven in part by Europe’s boundless appetite for biodiesel fuels.)

Add to all this a relatively new threat: Global warming, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, is expected to compound the damage. “While climate change has not been the dominant driver of biodiversity loss to date in most parts of the world, it is projected to become as or more important,” said Sir Robert Watson, chairman of the biodiversity panel and former chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose most recent alarming report on global warming has given that issue new currency in American politics. Rising seas and increased extreme weather events propelled in part by climate change — fire, floods, droughts — have already harmed many species. The most obvious victim is the world’s coral reefs, which have suffered grievously from ocean waters that have grown warmer and more acidic as a result of all the carbon dioxide they’ve been asked to absorb.

As The Times’s Brad Plumer recently noted, many ecologists insist that species are worth saving on their own, that it’s simply morally wrong to drive any living creature to extinction. The new report deliberately adds a powerful practical motive to the spiritual one: Biodiversity loss, it says, is an urgent issue for human well-being, providing billions and billions of dollars in what experts call “ecosystem services.” Wetlands clean and purify water. Coral reefs nourish vast fish populations that feed the world. Organic matter in the soil nourishes crops. Bees and other threatened insects pollinate fruits and vegetables. Mangroves protect us from floods made worse by rising seas.

“Most of nature’s contributions are not fully replaceable,” the report says. But humans can stop or at least limit the damage. One critical task is to protect (and if possible to enlarge) the world’s natural forests, which, according to a recent paper by eminent ecologists in Science Advance, are home to fully two-thirds of the world’s species. Intact forests also absorb and store enormous amounts of carbon, so preserving them assists not only the species that live there but also the struggle against climate change. Conversely, cutting trees to make way for farming and other purposes — as Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is determined to do in the Amazon — is a disaster for both the species and the climate; recent estimates suggest that deforestation accounts for slightly over 10 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, much smaller than the emissions from vehicles and power plants, but significant (and avoidable) nonetheless.

To Professor Watson and many other scientists, there are two important parallel approaches to the interconnected climate and species crises. One is to transform agricultural practices, the other is to enlarge the world’s supply of legally protected landscapes that cannot be touched for any commercial purpose. As to the first, farmers could figure out how to produce more food on fewer acres, and in ways that help the soil retain carbon; consumers could help by making smarter food choices, like eating more locally sourced food, and cutting back on meat and dairy products that require immense amounts of land for livestock.

Second, governments should mandate a significant increase in protected areas, both on land and at sea. Partly as a result of the Convention on Biological Diversity, a treaty agreed upon in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro along with a landmark agreement on climate change, nations have set aside about 15 percent of the world’s land and 7 percent of its oceans by setting up wilderness areas and nature preserves. Because this is only a fraction of the areas needed to protect biodiversity, the authors of the paper in Science Advance recommend a twofold increase in the protected land area and a fourfold increase in marine reserves over the next decade. If rigorously policed (which many parks are not today), that would effectively quarantine about 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans.

This proposal, which its authors call a Global Deal for Nature (echoing the Democrats’ Green New Deal on climate), will be further refined before the next meeting of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2020 in China. Though it always sends a delegation to these meetings, the United States has never ratified the treaty; President Bill Clinton signed it in 1993, but the Republican Senate failed to ratify it for various reasons, including unfounded fears that the treaty threatened American patent and intellectual property rights.

It is hard to believe that the Trump administration and the current Senate will be any more enthusiastic about preserving biodiversity than the Senate was then. This is an administration, after all, that has proposed to shrink national monuments and reduce protections for the imperiled sage grouse in order to accommodate the oil, gas and coal industries; that is moving to open up the species-rich coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling; that plans to make available now-protected waters along America’s Pacific and Atlantic coasts for the same purpose; that proposes to sacrifice parts of

Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging; that, most tellingly, aims to weaken the Endangered Species Act, approved in 1973 with Richard Nixon’s signature in what seems a distant era when there was fairly deep bipartisan support for environmental values.

Few of the Democratic presidential hopefuls who have spoken about climate change and jumped with varying degrees of enthusiasm on the Green New Deal bandwagon have commented on the biodiversity report, despite biodiversity’s obvious connections to climate. They should read it, and make it part of their post-2020 agenda.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/11/opinion/sunday/extinction-endangered-species-biodiversity.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Press Conference: Governor’s Conference Room, State Capitol, Charleston, WV

Time and Date: 3 PM, January 13, 2015

West Virginia Highlands “On the Chopping Block”

Contact: Tom Rodd, Project Director, Friends of Blackwater, Allegheny Highlands Climate Change Impacts Initiative

One day before the West Virginia State Board of Education takes up a controversy over proposed changes to West Virginia climate change science teaching standards, the conservation group Friends of Blackwater is releasing a new report titled “On the Chopping Block,” that evaluates the impacts of climate change on the State’s most mountainous region.

The report, which can be accessed online by clicking here, says that the historic climate, ecology, and economy of the Allegheny Highlands region, which includes Canaan Valley, Dolly Sods, and the Blackwater Canyon, is already being damaged by the impacts of climate change — and that the threat of much greater damage is rapidly growing, as global warming accelerates.

The “On the Chopping Block” report will be officially released at a press conference on Tuesday, January 13 at 3:00 PM in the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, West Virginia, in the Governor’s Cabinet and Conference Room. The report will be presented to the West Virginia State Board of Education on the next day, at the Board’s Wednesday, January 14 10:00 AM meeting in Charleston at Building 7 of the Capitol Complex.

The Board recently revised proposed science teaching standards to suggest that global warming and climate change are not necessarily caused by human activity, causing a substantial controversy that has attracted national attention. “Human-caused climate change is real and the impacts are already being felt in the Highlands — and they are getting worse,” said Tom Rodd, Director of Friends of Blackwater’s Allegheny Highlands Climate Change Impacts Initiative. “We could lose our spruce and hardwood forests, our ski industry, and many important wildlife and plant species, including ‘Ginny,’ the West Virginia Flying Squirrel. We have to start reining in global warming before it’s too late.”

The report summarizes the presentations of more than a dozen scientists at a June 2014 conference at Blackwater Falls State Park in Davis, West Virginia, on the topic: “Climate Change and the Highlands: What’s at Stake, What’s at Risk?” and cites to a number of studies and reports by federal and state agencies, including the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.

The “On the Chopping Block” report, and a list of speakers, photos, and other resources from the Blackwater Falls 2014 conference, are available at the group’s website, www.alleghenyclimate.org.

“This ground-breaking report is based on dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies. It is the first comprehensive look at the impacts of climate change on the Highlands,” Rodd said. “We hope this report will be useful to the State Board of Education as they discuss how our children should learn about the best science on global warming and climate change.”

Angela Anderson, Director of the Climate and Energy Programs of the Union of Concerned Scientists, praised the group’s work and the Blackwater Falls conference as a “strong, science-focused program.” Her comments can be read by clicking here.

Friends of Blackwater’s Allegheny Highlands Initiative is one of 450 organizations and institutions affiliated with the UCS that are sharing information and best practices on ways to communicate about the effects of climate change in ways that motivate people to collaborate, instead of polarizing the debate.

The report cites a recently released National Climate Assessment reporting that extreme precipitation events in the Highlands region have already increased by 40 percent, due to climate change caused by increased greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The report also cites U.S. Geologic Survey and University of Virginia studies that say that rising temperatures are damaging habitat for the Eastern Brook Trout, the state fish of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia; and Penn State studies saying that the region’s ski industry is at risk.

Contact: Tom Rodd, Project Director, Friends of Blackwater, Allegheny Highlands Climate Change Impacts Initiative.  Web-site:   www.wvalleghenyclimate.org

Doddridge County, WV (2014)

Marcellus energy development could pave over an area bigger than Delaware

From an Article by Kate Sheppard,  The Huffington Post, February 26, 2014

Development of natural gas and wind resources in the Marcellus shale region could cover up nearly 1.3 million acres of land, an area bigger than the state of Delaware, with cement, asphalt, and other impervious surfaces, according to a paper published this month in the scientific journal PLOS One.

The study, conducted by two scientists from the conservation organization The Nature Conservancy, predicts that 106,004 new gas wells will be drilled in the Marcellus region, based on current trends in natural gas development. The region includes parts of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Virginia.

Gas development entails the well sites themselves, as well as new roads leading to drill sites, pipelines to transport the gas and other related infrastructure. Each well pad, the researchers found, has a total direct or indirect impact on approximately 50 acres of land.

The study also projects that 10,798 new wind turbines will be built in the region, which will have a footprint as well, albeit much smaller. Each turbine has a direct or indirect impact on approximately 15 acres of land, the study found.

The development will also affect 1.1 million acres of forest. “[M]itigating the impacts of energy development,” the paper concludes, “will be one of the major challenges in the coming decades.”

Covering up surfaces and clearing forests changes how landscapes absorb and transport water, which in turn affects the local watersheds. The presence of pavement and infrastructure also breaks up landscapes into fragmented sections, which can affect local biodiversity and water systems.

The study predicts that Marcellus energy development will affect the quality and availability of drinking water for up to 22 million people.

“The way development is happening is that it’s being developed on a lease-by-lease basis,” said Joseph Kiesecker, a lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy’s conservation lands team and the paper’s coauthor. He noted that those leases are often developed by different companies without any coordination on siting or infrastructure. And environmental analysis for those wells is conducted separately — usually without anyone looking at the broader environmental effects of having multiple wells in an area.

The Marcellus shale region has been booming with development in the past decade, following the discovery of larger reserves of gas than previously estimated. That development, and the use of a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, has raised concerns from people who live in the region, many of whom are worried that fracking and other development methods could cause air pollution and potential contamination of groundwater. This latest paper instead considers an aspect of Marcellus development that is guaranteed to have environmental repercussions.

The fact that development has ramped up so quickly in the region is what prompted the study, Kiesecker said. He thinks that development could be done in a way that takes environmental factors into account.

“My biggest concern or frustration is I think we have the ability to do this better,” he said. “We can get the energy people need, but in a way that provides balance and doesn’t come at the expense of natural systems.”

"Shale Perception" art works on display in Gettysburg, PA

Twenty “Shale Perception” Works on Display in Gettysburg, PA

From Article by Travis Kellar, Carlisle Sentinel, June 11, 2013

Robb Bomboy said fracking for natural gas in the state’s Marcellus Shale formations is “erasing” Pennsylvania woodlands. That led him to the creation of an art exhibit, “Shale Perception,” to draw attention to the impact of fracking on the environment. Bomboy said he started the project two years ago while on a camping trip in Sproul State Forest to document natural gas drilling sites. 

His exhibit opened June 4 in the main gallery of Harrisburg Area Community College’s Gettysburg campus, 731 Old Harrisburg Road, Gettysburg.Bomboy is an art and photography teacher at Cumberland Valley High School, Mechanicsburg, PA.

The exhibit, which includes of 20 large-scale nature photographs that are printed and mounted on canvases, will be on display from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday until Sept. 5. Admission is free.

“‘Shale Perception’ is all about how we perceive the gas industry,” Bomboy said. “In our area, I feel it is ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Yet all of the policy and regulations are made here in Harrisburg.”

The exhibit is not the only means Bomboy uses to draw attention to fracking. He installed nine carved figures at Wildwood Park in Harrisburg as part of the “Art in the Wild” exhibit. The exhibit is sponsored by the Dauphin County Parks and Recreation Department.

“They are generic effigies of the Moai statues on Easter Island,” Bomboy said. “I wanted to communicate the power of nature over man and the mutability of man’s works.” To learn more about Robb Bomboy and his art, including a look at “Shale Perception,” visit www.bomboyart.com.

The Allegheny Defense Project has provided this report, abbreviated below from its appearance in EcoWatch.org:

A federal judge has scheduled argument for July 2, 2012 (9 a.m., in the Erie Federal Courthouse) regarding recent motions in litigation over oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest. U.S. District Court Judge Sean McLaughlin ordered the arguments in the case, Minard Run Oil Co. v. U.S. Forest Service.

The litigation began three years ago after the Forest Service entered into a settlement agreement with three conservation groups—Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, Allegheny Defense Project and Sierra Club. Under the settlement, the Forest Service agreed to undertake “appropriate” environmental analysis of proposed oil and gas drilling projects prior to authorizing access across Allegheny National Forest lands.

The plaintiffs in the litigation, Minard Run Oil Co. and PA Independent Oil and Gas Association, sued the Forest Service and the three conservation groups, claiming the settlement exceeded the Forest Service’s authority to protect Pennsylvania’s only national forest from the impacts of oil and gas drilling.

In December 2009, Judge McLaughlin granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, which blocked the settlement from going into effect while the case was being litigated. Both the Forest Service and the conservation groups appealed that preliminary decision. In September 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld Judge McLaughlin’s preliminary decision. According to the courts, because the Forest Service does not own the mineral rights beneath 93 percent of the Allegheny National Forest, the agency cannot regulate access to the mineral estate, even though that access directly impacts national forest lands through extensive road, well site and pipeline construction.

How should the case should proceed?  The conservation groups want Judge McLaughlin to reconsider his preliminary decision because of new research into the history of the creation of national forests in the eastern U.S. The oil and gas plaintiffs want Judge McLaughlin to simply convert his previous preliminary decision into a permanent injunction against the Forest Service. That would effectively bar the Forest Service from attempting to implement any measures to mitigate the environmental impacts of most oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest—a result that is already contributing to cross-state pollution entering New York.

For example, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) recently filed an administrative complaint against U.S. Energy Development Corporation because of sediment pollution from its oil and gas operations in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest. The amount of sediment runoff from oil and gas roads in the Allegheny National Forest is staggering. A recent report by Penn State’s Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies concluded that oil and gas roads in the Allegheny National Forest produce 450 percent more sediment pollution than other public roads in Pennsylvania. The Forest Service should obviously be allowed to regulate to protect our forested watersheds from that kind of reckless pollution.

According to the courts, however, the Forest Service is powerless to regulate this pollution in the Allegheny National Forest. The courts and the oil and gas industry assure the public that this does not mean that oil and gas drilling will go completely unregulated in the Allegheny National Forest because the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) still regulates oil and gas drilling at the state level. Of course, if the PA DEP were doing its job, the NYDEC would not have to file an administrative complaint against U.S. Energy for sediment pollution originating in Pennsylvania.

The fact is, the PA DEP sees itself as a facilitator of oil and gas drilling rather than a regulator. That is why the Forest Service must be allowed to regulate to protect the Allegheny National Forest—and it is precisely why eastern national forests, including the Allegheny National Forest, were created in the first place.

[ ..  ..  ..  ..  .. ]

There is nothing in the congressional record indicating that Congress did not intend for the Forest Service to regulate private oil and gas drilling activities in eastern national forests. In fact, just the opposite is true. The congressional record reveals that Congress intended the Forest Service to have the same power over eastern national forests as it had over national forests in the western U.S. That would include the authority to require private oil and gas companies to implement reasonable mitigation measures to reduce their environmental impact in the Allegheny National Forest.

Hopefully, we can get quick responses from the courts to resolve the issues in this case because the Allegheny National Forest, indeed public lands across the nation, need the full protection that federal law can provide. Previous background information is here.

Visit EcoWatch’s FRACKING page for more related news on this topic.

Friday, April 27th 2012 is Arbor Day in the U.S. The national and international celebration started many years ago. In fact, Arbor Day had already been celebrated for over 100 years by the time Earth Day came around, and it all began with a journalist, as described by the Huffington Post.

According to the Arbor Day Foundation, in 1854, pioneer J. Sterling Morton moved to Nebraska from Detroit, Michigan. Saddened by the lack of greenery around him, he advocated for the restoration and preservation of trees through his column in the Nebraska City News. Morton educated his readers on the importance of trees for soil, shade, and as fuel and energy. He suggested the need to actively plant and conserve. Through his strong following, he became secretary of Nebraska Territory, Governor of Nebraska, and eventually the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Morton became a crusader of forestry, and on April 10, 1872, the first Arbor Day took place in Nebraska. It was a major success, with a reported one million trees planted. Arbor Day became a legal holiday in 1885.

The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation’s 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres (780,000 km²). Major divisions of the agency include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, and the Research and Development branch. The mission of the Forest Service is “To sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.” Its motto is “Caring for the land and serving people.” As the lead Federal agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the Nation’s forest, rangeland, and aquatic ecosystems.

US federal agencies had a meeting in Tijeras NM on April 26th preparing for fire season.  The chief of the U.S. Forest Service says he expects this year’s fire season to be just as active as last year, when historic fires charred hundreds of square miles in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and elsewhere. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said the Southwest continues to be dry but the middle part of the country could be in for a more severe season this year. Federal scientists are monitoring weather patterns and trying to make accurate predictions so resources can be placed in the areas where they’ll be needed most.  In Thursday’s meeting were Tidwell, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other officials to address the nation’s preparedness.

Wastewater from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations poses a serious threat to national forests, according to a researcher from the U.S. Forest Service. Mary Beth Adams conducted a two year study of soil and vegetation health in West Virginia after more than 75,000 gallons of fracking wastewater were applied to a portion of forest set aside for research. The study, appearing in the July-August 2011 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental Quality, tracks the effects of fracking wastewater on a quarter-acre section of the Fernow Experimental Forest in the Monongahela National Forest. Adams monitored the effects of the land application over a two-year period.

Great concern exists within the US government over drilling permits in National Forests. This particularly applies to the Allegheny National Forest as the Forest Service grapples with environmental concerns caused by the approximately 12,000 wells already operating in Pennsylvania’s only national forest, located in Elk, Forest, McKean and Warren counties, 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Some legal questions over surface rights versus mineral rights are being addressed.

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Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) wrote the poem Trees in 1913.  A sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment (better known as ‘The Fighting 69th), Kilmer was killed at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31.

Trees (1913)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.