There is no such thing as "catastrophic wildfire" in our forests, ecologically speaking. That is the central conclusion of a report released this week by the John Muir Project (JMP), a non-profit forest research and conservation organization.
The report, "The Myth of Catastrophic Wildfire: A New Ecological Paradigm of Forest Health", is a comprehensive synthesis of the scientific evidence regarding wildland fire and its relationship to biodiversity and climate change in western U.S. forests. It stands many previously held assumptions on their heads, including the assumptions that forest fires burn mostly at high intensity (where most trees are killed), and that fires are getting more intense, as well as the assumption that high-intensity fire areas are ecologically damaged or harmed. The report finds that the scientific evidence contradicts these popular notions.
"We do not need to be afraid of the effects of wildland fire in our forests. Fire is doing important and beneficial ecological work," said the report's author, Dr. Chad Hanson, a forest and fire ecologist who is the Director of the John Muir Project, as well as a researcher at the University of California at Davis. "It may seem counterintuitive, but the scientific evidence is telling us that some of the very best and richest wildlife habitat in western U.S. forests occurs where fire kills most or all of the trees. These areas are relatively rare on the landscape, and the many wildlife species that depend upon the habitat created by high-intensity fire are threatened by fire suppression and post-fire logging."
The report notes that hundreds of millions of dollars are being needlessly spent each year suppressing fires in remote forests and implementing widespread "forest thinning" logging projects. This puts firefighters at unnecessary risk in remote wild areas, puts homes at greater risk by diverting scarce resources away from efforts to create defensible space around structures, and further threatens the many rare and imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat.
Specifically, the report finds:
• There is far less fire now in western U.S. forests than there was historically.
• Current fires are burning mostly at low intensities, and fires are not getting more intense, contrary to many assumptions about the effects of climate change. Forested areas in which fire has been excluded for decades by fire suppression are also not burning more intensely.
• Contrary to popular assumptions, high-intensity fire (commonly mislabeled as "catastrophic wildfire") is a natural and necessary part of western U.S. forest ecosystems, and there is less high-intensity fire now than there was historically, due to fire suppression.
• Patches of high-intensity fire (where most or all trees are killed) support among the highest levels of wildlife diversity of any forest type in the western U.S., and many wildlife species depend upon such habitat. Post-fire logging and ongoing fire suppression policies are threatening these species.
• Conifer forests naturally regenerate vigorously after high-intensity fire.
• Our forests are functioning as carbon sinks (net sequestration) where logging has been reduced or halted, and wildland fire helps maintain high productivity and carbon storage.
• Even large, intense fires consume less than 3% of the biomass in live trees, and carbon emissions from forest fires is only tiny fraction of the amount resulting from fossil fuel consumption (even these emissions are balanced by carbon uptake from forest growth and regeneration).
• "Thinning" operations for lumber or biofuels do not increase carbon storage but, rather, reduce it, and thinning designed to curb fires further threatens imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat.
• The only effective way to protect homes from wildland fire is to use non-combustible roofing and other materials, and reduce brush within 100-200 feet of structures.
Note: The following perspective is from Dr. Thomas Michael Power. Dr. Power is former Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Montana, where he currently serves as a Research Professor. Dr. Power is also the author of Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: the Search for a Value of Place and Post-Cowboy Economics: Pay and Prosperity in the New American West.
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In the trauma associated with the closing of the Missoula paper mill, business and political leaders have been frantically searching for a way to put that industrial mill site back into production, replacing at least some of the lost jobs. One possibility that many have suggested is to use the site for a large wood-fired electric generating facility. The idea is to use the same wood fiber that the mill had been converting into paper as biomass fuel to generate electricity. This would keep loggers busy in the woods and some of the same skilled blue collar workers busy at the mill site firing and tending high pressure boilers and associated machinery.
This is not at all far fetched. The paper mill has been generating electricity for a long time, providing for its own electric needs, providing heat needed in the paper-making process, as well as selling a lot of electricity into the grid. The total electric production has been relatively modest, 17.5 megawatts, only about one percent of NorthWestern Energy's peak demand. Those enthusiastic about this possibility envision a much larger electric generating operation that would burn a lot more wood.
NorthWestern Energy has indicated an interest in exploring that possibility but has pointed out that the U.S. Forest Service would have to allow a lot more logging in federal forests to fuel such expanded electric generation. That does not worry advocates since they see the beetle-killed trees in many of Montana's forests as an obvious source of supply. In fact, before the closure of the Missoula paper mill, there was already a buzz within the forest products industry about using forest biomass, that is, trees, to fuel electric generation. That idea is actually built into Senator Tester's proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and has also been promoted by Governor Schweitzer.
Before getting too enthusiastic about putting a large wood-fired electric generator in the Missoula Valley, there are a lot of problems to puzzle through.
First, wood-fired generation tends to produce considerable air pollution because the wood has less heat value than coal and the conversion of the intrinsic heat value of the wood to electricity is less efficient than when using coal. The complex mix of organic compounds in the wood produces a complex mix of pollutants. Missoula has been struggling to clean up its air for a long time. Assumedly we want be careful not to slide backwards in that.
Second, wood-fired generation is expensive because of the large volume of low-energy wood that has to be hauled considerable distances to the electric generation site. The further it is hauled, the more costly that fuel becomes and the more it embodies diesel fuel rather than biomass. Such electric generation is often economic at lumber and paper mills because waste wood that had already been hauled to the mill or waste materials such as the black liquor produced by paper mills can be used as the fuel. In addition, the waste heat from the electric generation can be used to dry the lumber and paper. Large stand-alone wood-fired electric generators often are very high cost sources of electricity that are used only when no cheaper source is available. Avista Utilities' Kettle Falls wood-fired generator in eastern Washington is a good example. Wood-fired generation often is not economic. That is especially true if there are no government subsidies available.
Third, for a half-century or more to come, the impact of burning trees to generate electricity means increasing the release of carbon into the atmosphere. While it is true that if new forests grow up to replace the burned trees, carbon will slowly be removed from the atmosphere, in Montana's slow growing forests, that will take many, many decades. Meanwhile we will be making the greenhouse gas problem worse, not better.
Fourth, as NorthWestern Energy has pointed out, this could require a substantial increase in logging on public lands. Logging and the roads required to support it have significant impacts on water quality, soil erosion, and wildlife. This fundamental fact has been recently obscured by the increasingly shrill claims that our forests are in desperate need a lot more logging to make them "healthy," to fight bark beetle infestations, and to reduce wildfire danger that threatens our homes and our towns.
These scary stories of what will happen if we do not log our forests are largely based on "rural myth," supported by timber interests, and built around the fantasy of natural forests as a open, park-like areas, full of very large, towering trees. In comparison, our contemporary forests are degenerative dense thickets of relatively thin trees that, we are told, are the result of some combination of the failure to log and thin the forests or misguided fire suppression. For most of our forests, this simply is not true.
It is far cheaper to protect our homes and communities by managing the vegetation within a few dozen feet of our homes and by maintaining our homes so as to reduce the likelihood of fire ignition. That is much less costly and much more likely to work that trying to fire-proof millions of acres of forestland.
As important, all of those trees out there, whether healthy, dying, or dead, are not, in and of themselves, dangerous fuels. Recall all the pictures you have seen of forests that have burned. Those lands are characterized by the standing trunks of the trees. In addition, all of the trees do not burn. Wildfires create a mosaic of heavily burned, lightly burned, and unburned lands that lay the basis for natural regeneration of our forests. Fires and insects may kill a lot of trees, but they do not kill forests. If they did, we would not have the forests that surround us now.
We need to look carefully and critically at any proposal to turn our forests into wood mines for electric generation and our river valleys into sewers into which to dump large quantities of air pollution. Maybe the problems can be worked out; maybe not. Whatever we do, we should not simply assume that wood-fired generation is "green." That would be the worst sort of "green-washing."
Today, Market Watch has an article concerning Home Depot's 31% drop and Lowe's 24% drop in third-quarter profits.
Interesting enough, neither Home Depot nor Lowe's - two of the biggest lumber retailers in America - blame their 3rd quarter profit drops on environmentalists or a lack of public lands logging, which is what Montana's logging industry lobbyists and many mill owners continue to do.
Rather, these giant retailers admit "The housing and home improvement markets remain challenging" and they are "seeing demand for their products being hurt by the macroeconomic backdrop of rising job losses, tightening credit and declining value of retirement funds that have all but frozen consumers' desires to spend."
We are, after all, in the midsts of the worst economic crisis in generations and America is experiencing the worst housing slump since the Great Depression and the steepest decline in lumber consumption ever. One has to wonder when these stark economic realities will sink into the heads of our local logging lobbyists.
George Ochenski has an interesting column in this week's Indy on the state's hiring of a former timber industry lobbyist for the position of "Forest Policy Specialist." Check out his column here: http://www.missoulanews.com/in...
What in the heck is going on here? I mean, seriously? All this talk from the Schweitzer Administration about "a new day", "Clean and green" and the "restoration economy" and they go and hire a former logging industry lobbyist and former Burns staffer (who claims to have written the Bush Administration's Orwellian Healthy Forest Restoration Act) to be the State's Forest Policy Specialist?
What type of "forest policy" do we think this "specialist" will be providing? You can bet that Altemus will be pushing a plan (already circulating behind the public's back) to give the State of Montana management responsibility for 10% of the National Forest lands in Montana. You can also bet that Altemus will be looking to limit meaningful public participation and environmental analysis to support her buddies in the timber industry.
We've even heard that the Montana Logging Association has no plans to fill Altemus' now-vacant position, since they will be getting the same services from the inside and on the taxpayers dime.
You'll notice that a few years ago when I read a commentary on Montana Public Radio explaining our organization's "restoration vision" for public lands and promoting the next 100 years of national forest management as the "Restoration Century," Altemus wrote to logging officials and the supervisors of the Bitterroot and Lolo National Forests, "This is not a commentary....it's an add [sic] and solicitation for money!! The U of M has stooped to a new low to allow them this media to fundraise! .....We must not allow fringe anti-management groups to dictate management of public lands! This is very dangerous stuff we are playing with here."
Sounds like just the person the Schweitzer Administration should hire as the DNRC's "forest policy specialist," right?
Or how about back in 2006 when Altemus tried to sabotage a bona-fide watershed restoration project in the Lolo Creek watershed because the project didn't happen to include industrial logging.
Altemus wrote in the Montana Logging Association's newsletter, "the Forest Service had the audacity to propose a 45,700 acre watershed restoration project completely void of any commercial, pre-commercial or even non-commercial treatments! Nada! Nothing! ....This project proposes anything but sustainable forest stewardship."
Apparently, every single project the Forest Service puts together needs to include industrial logging...didn't you know that? Furthermore, watershed restoration projects that put local people to work improving fish habitat and water quality don't qualify as "sustainable forest stewardship" in Altemus' world.
And let's not forget the examples Mr. Ochenski gives of Altemus' lack of support for protecting our remaining roadless wildlands, her lack of support for critical habitat for lynx and her support for circumventing environmental analysis and opportunities for public review and comment.
Again, how these types of actions fit into the Schweitzer Administration's "Clean and green," "new day" "restoration economy" is a mystery. The citizens of Montana should demand an answer and, as Ochenski points out, "The best we can do now is keep a close eye on [Altemus'] plans for our forest resources."
Earlier in the week, a timber industry-friendly economist from the University of Montana's Bureau of Business and Economic Research, claimed that Montana's timber industry will face tough times unless we cut down more of our national forests. While this argument is often trotted out by industry supporters, let's look at the current economic reality.
In case anyone's failed to notice, the overall U.S. economy is in serious trouble. Specific to the timber industry, the collapse of the housing market has resulted in a staggering drop in demand for lumber.
Earlier this year, Stimson Timber Company's vice president told mill workers at their now defunct Bonner mill, "We are in the midst of one of the worst housing markets of our working lifetimes - most producers simply cannot sell the lumber they have made." Meanwhile, the Western Wood Products Association reported, "we're now in the steepest two-year decline in lumber consumption ever. It's left us with way too much lumber on the market for current demand."
Throw in nearly $5 a gallon for diesel - resulting in a doubling of transportation costs - and couple that with lumber prices that are nearly half what they were two years ago, and it's easy to see why this sector of the economy is struggling.
Perhaps these economic realities are the reason that many national forest and state land timber sales are going without any bids. Yet, we should still believe that logging more public land is the answer?
We need look no further than Canada, where the wood products industry in British Columbia has laid off more than 11,000 forestry workers in the past year, despite the fact that Canadian timber companies have nearly unlimited access to cheap, heavily taxpayer-subsidized timber on public lands.
The fact of the matter is that most of Montana's mills were built during a time of (unnaturally) cheap timber, gas and wholly unsustainable logging practices on public and private lands. It's simply unrealistic to think that such large, centralized mills would weather the 21st century's profound economic realities unscathed.
This is especially true given that most of the Montana timber mills ship their finished products all around the country, thereby incurring huge transportation costs, as well as having to deal with the brunt of the housing market collapse that has - so far - largely missed Montana.
Make no mistake, the WildWest Institute supports jobs in the woods and in the mills through a comprehensive, scientifically-based restoration program that would repair degraded watersheds, protect existing wildlands and old-growth and also protect communities from wildfire. However, to think that the existing mills in Montana were somehow built in the 1960s and 70s to restore our national forests is either the height of ignorance or a good example of revisionist history -- perhaps both.
I figured this exchange regarding the recent Missoulian article, which contained a number of factual errors, about timber sale litigation would be of interest to some LITW readers.
By Ellen Engstedt-Simpson, 12-05-07
George... between 2003 and now the Ecology Center aka Wild West Institute has filed 15 lawsuits or notices of intent to sue in Region 1. Basin Creek Hazardous Fuels -Beaverhead Deer Lodge; Middle East Fork - Bitterroot (2); Trout - Clearwater; West Troy - Koot (9 separate projects in two different actions); Big Steep - Koot (twice litigated); Lower Big - Koot (twice litigated); Whiskibas and Left Over Elk - Koot; McSutton (twice litigated) - Koot; Dry Fork Veg Restoration - Lewis and Clark; Blazing Saddles - Lolo; West Fork Petty - Lolo; Fish Trap - Lolo; Cat Exclusions (6 projects on the Lolo). These are the ones on the current, active list. There are many more than have been files but in some manner resolved. I agree "truth shall set you free" and we in the timber community can provide the truth and do. Take care friend!
By Matthew Koehler, 12-05-07
"we in the timber community can provide the truth and do"
Ellen, I like that one, perhaps you've found a new slogan. You are comparing apples to oranges and honestly throwing in some peaches and bananas too.
We never sued on West Fork Petty.
We never sued on Fish Trap.
We only sued on one CE project on the Lolo NF (Camp Salvage), not the 6 CE projects that Ellen states.
Our organization has not filed a new lawsuit over a timber sale in Montana since May 2006, 19 months ago.
With the exception of Fish Trap, every single timber sale that Ellen has listed above in her first comment has either been logged, is currently being logged or could be logged because there simply is not a court order injunction on any one of these sales.
If anything I have stated here above is incorrect and Ellen has proof that what I have said is not true please share it and if I have accidently stated anything here that is factually incorrect I'd be happy to correct that.
Ellen is fond of telling the public that 312 million board feet of timber is "tied up" in appeals and litigation in Montana and northern Idaho. Yet as I have pointed out above, how can the volume from a timber sale still be considered "tied up" in appeals and litigation if, in fact, the logging is already done, or the logging is on-going or if the logging contractor could be logging the sale, but is simply waiting until the weak market conditions improve? Most people assume a "tied up" timber sale isn't one that was logged last year. Like I said, apples, oranges....
The last time I checked there was only one court-order injunction of a timber sale in all of Montana. It's on the 600,000 board foot (not 312 million) Keystone-Quartz timber sale on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF.
If anyone takes the time to look at the Forest Service "study" that was used as the basis for the Missoulian article, you'll notice that it's hardly a "study" but just a spreadsheet that contains some blank spaces and questions marks. You will noticed right at the bottom of the spreadsheet that it states: "The project listings include appeals and litigation that may be due to internal problems (not following forest plans as an example)" So the Forest Service acknowledges that appeals and litigation may have something to do with the Forest Service "not following forest plans."
Yes, it's true that - just like the timber industry, oil and gas industry, mining industry and grazing industry - the WildWest Institute participates in the public lands decision making process. And yes it's true that - just like these resource extraction industries - the WildWest Institute follows the public appeal process that was set up by Congress in reaction to a history of abuse on National Forests.
And, yes it is true that - just like these resource extraction industries - we may file a lawsuit when we believe the Forest Service has not followed it's own forest plan or the law, just like the logging industry sued to stop implementation of the roadless rule or sued to increase logging under the Northwest Forest Plan.
If anyone doubts that resource extraction industries are filling lawsuits on timber sales and other public land management decisions, check out this email that I got in response to the Missoulian article from Rich Fairbanks, who worked for the Forest Service for 32 years as a silverculturist, a planner and in fire. It's shared with his permission: "Maybe it's different in region 1 [northern Rockies], but in region 6 [Pacific Northwest] one of the main sources of appeals/litigation against the FS is the timber industry itself. They appeal and litigate conditions of timber sales, clauses in the TS contract, amount of BD collection, pretty much anything that can help their bottom line. Quick example: My last job before I left the agency was ID Team leader on the Biscuit Fire "Recovery Project". When the appeal period opened the very first appeal that came across my desk was from the timber industry. They wanted more timber offered. Naturally, when I read about "frivolous litigation tying the Forest Service in knots", I always think of the timber industry."
The purpose of our lawsuits is to get the Forest Service to follow the law and their own forest plans and to get the agency to protect fish and wildlife species, soils, old-growth and improve their overall management, not to stop all logging.
Take our recent Kootenai lawsuit for example. True, our lawsuit names 9 separate timber sales, however WildWest chose not to seek injunctive relief stopping any of these sales while the litigation proceeds. And like I stated earlier all 9 of these timber sales are either logged or being logged or could be logged. Yet Ellen, the Missoulian and Forest Service tell the public that all 80.3 million board feet of timber from these 9 timber sales is "tied-up" in litigation. Apples, oranges....
Hopefully we get to a point soon where appeals and lawsuits greatly diminish because the Forest Service follows the law and implements projects that protect and restore fish and wildlife species, refrain from cutting down old-growth and unlogged, native forests and begin to restore the vast ecological damage caused by the Forest Service and logging industry's wholly unsustainable practices of the recent past.
That's why the WildWest Institute is deeply involved in numerous efforts around the region to try and reach some common ground and move forward with diverse interests to craft positive, sustainable solutions that create jobs in the woods restoring watersheds and forests while also protecting our communities from wildfire through careful and strategic fuel reduction projects.
Why's the Missoulian Misleading the Public?
And why does it matter to you?
By Matthew Koehler
The other day I was walking in downtown Missoula, Montana - enjoying the spring weather in the valley and fresh snow in the mountains - when a new ad campaign on the newspaper boxes of our daily paper, the Missoulian, caught my eye. The ad features a businessman silhouetted against a sunrise with the words: "Start your day informed: Missoulian." I got a good chuckle out of that. However, a better reflection of our experience with the local daily would be "Start your day misinformed: Misleadian."
You might be asking, "I don't live in western Montana, why should I care about the Missoulian misleadian the public?" Well, if you care about public lands - and more specifically, our nation's 192 million acres of national forests - pay attention.
It can easily be argued that Missoula, and the immediately surrounding area, has been the birthplace of important Forest Service polices since the agency was founded nearly 100 years ago. Immediately following the summer of 1910, when wildfires raged throughout Idaho and western Montana, the Forest Service adopted a policy to suppress every fire, a misguided policy that we're still living with today in most of our fire-dependent forests.
The National Forest Management Act, the keystone law dictating management of our federal forests, was passed by Congress as a direct result of the Bitterroot Clearcutting Controversy in the 1960s and 1970s. And more recently, national forest policies such as the Roadlesss Rule, National Fire Plan and Healthy Forest Initiative originated from our region. Throw in the fact that the current and past chief of the Forest Service, Gail Kimball and Dale Bosworth, respectively, came right out of Missoula and it's not hard to see the influence our town has had on public forests around the country.
Well, I've been working on forest and public land issues here in the Northern Rockies for the past 10 years and over that time I've had my share of opportunities to work with media outlets - large and small - all around the country, and even internationally. Without a doubt, the Missoulian has done a remarkable job - particularly over the past few years - of setting itself apart from the rest of the media world when it comes to consistently misleading and biased news coverage and editorializing on forest and public lands issues.
This is seen in not only what the Missoulian chooses to cover in the paper, but also by what the Missoulian chooses not to put in the paper.
I can guarantee you that if our organization was to file a lawsuit against the Forest Service today for failure to follow the law or apply the best science when managing our public lands that the next day's paper would have a superficial news article about the lawsuit on the front page, above the fold. This would likely be followed by an official editorial from the paper blasting us for being "obstructionists" and for filing "frivolous lawsuits." How do I know this would happen? Because it's happened time and again over the years.
Yet, just last week it was reported by the Associated Press (http://seattletimes....) that the Bush Administration and timber industry appealed a federal court ruling that struck down the Bush Administration's gutting of the "Roadless Rule" in their attempt to allow logging and oil and gas drilling in some of the remaining roadless wildlands on our public lands. The article reported that the three-page notice of appeal signed by the U.S. Justice Department "gave no grounds or reasoning behind the appeal."
Did this AP article make it in the Missoulian? Nope. Did the Missoulian write an editorial blasting the Bush Administration and timber industry for being "obstructionists" by filing a "frivolous lawsuit" that threatens 58 million acres of pristine, public wildlands, including over 6 million acres here in Montana? Nope.
I guess the Missoulian never noticed the news flash (http://www.csmonitor...) that the Bush Administration is having a hard time following the law when it comes to logging, roadbuilding and oil and gas development on public lands, or anything to do with the environment for that matter. Does this really come as a surprise to anyone?
While the term "frivolous lawsuit" is nonchalantly tossed around by the newspaper, elected officials, industry lobbyists and in a consistent flow of letters to the editor the public should know that the term "frivolous lawsuit" is a legal term and any attorney filing a "frivolous lawsuit" could be disbarred and seriously reprimanded. It's the equivalent of malpractice in the context of doctors and hospitals. Yet, when was the last time you saw the Missoulian write an editorial accusing a local doctor's office of malpractice, much less making such an accusation without even contacting the doctor's office directly? Of course that would never happen, yet our organization receives such treatment on a regular basis.
And if our lawsuits are "frivolous" in nature, then why does our organization win close to 80% of our lawsuits? Must be all those "Liberal Judges," right? Hardly! We've had success in front of judges appointed by Bush, Reagan, Carter and Clinton and judges of all different shapes and sizes and interpretations of the law. Clearly, to have such a successful track record, our lawsuits have merit. It sure would be nice for the Missoulian to do an in-depth feature on why the Forest Service, especially under the Bush Administration, is having such a difficult time following the law.
But I won't be holding my breath. I've resigned myself to the fact that the Missoulian might never take an in-depth, un-biased look at the issue. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, more than any other city in America, Missoula is a Forest Service company town. And apparently the Missoulian is comfortable regurgitating the government and timber industry's propaganda in much the same way that most of the state's papers did 100 years ago when Montana was ruled by the Copper Kings and Anaconda Copper Company. For a clever look at this issue, check out this letter, Newspaper blames the messengers, which recently ran in the paper (http://www.missoulia...).
The Missoulian's misleading coverage and biased editorializing on forest and public lands issues has come to a head recently specifically in regards to an article and editorial which contained false information that our organization is getting rich filing lawsuits to make sure the government follows the law.
About a month ago I was called by Perry Backus, the Missoulian's environmental reporter, who said he was doing a story about how the Forest Service has problems finding money to complete restoration work. I spoke with the reporter about the fact that Congress never provides the Forest Service with the money needed to do even a small portion of the needed restoration work and how our organization for years has urged Congress to increase funding for restoration on public lands. I explained how the new funding mechanism of "stewardship contracting" also has problems because it only funds restoration work through timber sales and given that there is literally tens of billions of dollars of needed restoration work there's no way we can fund all that restoration work through more logging.
During the interview I also told the reporter about the problems the Bitterroot National Forest has had funding promised restoration work following the wildfires of 2000. The problem resulted because the agency decided to take nearly $26 million in restoration funds set aside to complete this work and instead used those funds to cover costs associated with the 2002 wildfire season. To date, $7.1 million in restoration funds is still missing and the restoration work has still not been completed. Right after the interview, I emailed the reporter with documented figures obtained from the Forest Service via the Freedom of Information Act to verify my statements (http://www.wildwesti...).
You can imagine my surprise when, on March 11, I opened up my front door and picked up the Missoulian and right on the front page was an article titled, Forest Service struggles to finish restoration (http://www.missoulia...).
Nothing in the article talked about how the Forest Service on the Bitterroot is still missing $7.1 million in restoration funding that the agency itself took from the forest. Apparently the paper felt that this fact has nothing to do with the Forest Service struggling to finish restoration work.
Instead, the basic premise of the article was that the Forest Service struggles to complete restoration work solely because when the government is found guilty of violating the law they sometimes pay attorney's fees through the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). In the case of the Lolo Post Burn logging project, which the article zeroed in on, the government paid approximately $175,000 in legal fees to private law firms. It should be pointed out that nearly $40,000 in attorney fees were incurred directly because the timber industry appealed this case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Fortunately, the Supreme Court - that bastion of "liberal judges" - refused to hear the case.
Nothing within EAJA mandates the Forest Service to take these attorney fees directly out of money set aside for restoration. If the agency did that in the Lolo Post Burn case (something which still isn't clear) it was 100% the agency's decision and nothing they were forced to do through EAJA.
It should also be pointed out that the reporter never once asked me any question about EAJA or attorney fees related to the Lolo Post Burn case. Doesn't that seem strange? I mean, you have the executive director of the organization on the phone and you don't even ask him a question related to legal fees? Yet that's basically the whole premise of the article. For the same article the reporter interviewed a logging industry lobbyist who made completely false allegations that our organization gets to keep these fees to "keep their lights on" and "pay their mortgages."
Two days after the article ran, I wrote the Missoulian reporter an email and said, "I wish you would have asked me a specific question about fees related to our Post-Burn lawsuit, especially because the article includes Julia Altemus' mistaken notion that WildWest gets money from lawsuit winnings and because Supervisor Austin's implications that attorney's EAJA fees must come out of the Forest Service's restoration budget." The email went on to state, "I also think it would be a good idea for you and others at the Missoulian to sit down with us to talk specifically about the legal and scientific issues that affect Forest Service projects as well."
I got no response, is pretty typical. But the Missoulian wasn't done misleading. Next up would be a biased and misleading Missoulian editorial. And sure enough, like clockwork, on March 19 the Missoulian erroneously wrote, "the Equal Access to Justice Act has become a self-funding mechanism for environmental groups fundamentally opposed to prevailing national forest management direction."
That's simply not true. 100% of the legal fees that we have rightfully requested to be reimbursed through the Equal Access to Justice Act go to private laws firms, not into our organization's coffers as a "self-funding mechanism" as the Missoulian claimed.
Did Steve Woodruff, the Missoulian's editorial page editor, bother to call to fact-check and get our side of the story? No. Did the Missoulian's environmental reporter who wrote the March 11th story bother to share my email on the subject with his colleague? Apparently not, or if it was shared it was ignored. Has the Missoulian published a retraction or correction? No.
You could simply chalk this up to sloppy journalism, but only if these same type of shenanigans didn't happen so often. Figuring that following an article and editorial, which contained false accusations about our organization, the Missoulian would at least afford our organization a column length piece on the opinion page I set to work writing.
On March 27 I submitted an 857-word piece ¬- well within the word limit that the Missoulian allows for such opinion pieces (http://www.wildwesti...). Twenty-one minutes later came the response from Steve Woodruff, "I can't accommodate you with a column-length piece?let me put you back to work condensing your thoughts to 300 words."
Say what? Apparently the Missoulian can "accommodate" itself to printing articles and editorials with completely false information accusing our organization of getting $110,000 in winnings from a lawsuit, but can't "accommodate" itself to printing a column-length piece in response.
But wait! It even gets more ridiculous because on April 8 the Missoulian did, in fact, run a column-length piece on EAJA, lawsuits and the Lolo Post Burn case. However, it wasn't explaining our side of the story. Rather, it was over 1,000 words of misrepresentations and mistruths from former Forest Service employee Mike Hillis of the Ecosystem Research Group (ERG). ERG is the company that, behind closed doors and after the public comment period was already over, worked with the timber industry and self-selected conservation groups to re-write the Beaverhead-Deerlodge forest plan (http://www.democracy...=). Word on the street is that since the Forest Service has refused to accept this behind-closed-doors (and tardy) re-write that the timber industry and others are looking for congress to legislate the forest plan into law.
The next day the attorney who represented our organization on the Lolo Post Burn case, wrote the Missoulian asking, "Is it the Missoulian's policy to spread misinformation and prevent others from correcting it, other than by the occasional marginalized letter to the editor? I have to confess, I've never encountered a newspaper before this one that was so intent on providing a forum for governmental lies and timber industry propaganda while at the same time refusing to provide equal space to those who would have the temerity to dispel the mistruths."
Our attorney then provided the Missoulian with a point by point response to the misrepresentations and mistruths in Hillis' piece and challenged the paper to print it as a column length piece (http://www.wildwesti...).
The paper ignored the request, except for this condescending comment from Woodruff: "Tom: Thanks for finding time to offer feedback. - Steve." All of this information was also provided to the Missoulian's publisher and editor, but we haven't heard back from anyone at the paper.
All we are asking for is a fair shake from the Missoulian and for the paper to present all the facts to the public in an unbiased way and certainly, when the paper prints information it knows to be false, that they correct the mistake rather than continuing to print false information. It is my belief that when it comes to reporting and editorializing on forest and public land issues that the Missoulian is failing in this responsibility to the public and our community. The account provided above is just one such example. If our daily paper cannot take this responsibility seriously, perhaps they should at least consider a name change to the Misleadian.
Matthew Koehler is executive director of the WildWest Institute. You can learn more at http://www.wildwesti...
