Because the Clearcut Logging Rider prevents legal citizen appeals, BLM can flagrantly break the law even on new option 9 clearcuts like the Four Gates timber sale. The decision was made on February 27, 1996 to reduce the legal stream buffers by 50% on most of the intermittent streams within the Four Gates clearcuts. This is in the heavily degraded McGee watershed, near Elkton Oregon.
The decision, signed by John (Lowell) Hayes "addressed our concerns". We complained that the Northwest Forest Plan requires a "site specific analysis" before any changes can be made to intermittent buffer widths. Hayes claims that BLM "views 'site specific' as the watershed analysis unit."
Not likely. Site Specific Analysis means you go analyze the Site. Site means Site, not Watershed. Besides, the watershed analysis said that restoration was needed. It never mentioned cutting riparian buffers. No analysis whatsoever. Additionally, NWFP requires a watershed analysis AND a site specific analysis AND a rationale for final boundaries. (B-13) Three separate documents are required, and we only got one, the watershed analysis.
We had complained that the BLM Natural Resource Specialists did not agree with the recommendation to cut reserve. Hayes says that even though they had one dissenting member on the ID team, they can still call it a "consensus" because consensus is defined to be "the general opinion".
Talk about stretching the dictionary. First site is defined to be watershed, and then consensus is defined to be a general opinion. Is this language doublespeak?
Let's try our next complaint: there was no fisheries biologists involved in the decision to reduce buffer widths. To this Hayes says "In response to public comment, a project-specific survey of the riparian reserves was conducted by the Tyee Hydrologist, Fisheries Biologist..." Little late, don't you think? How about if we get a person's name. Would an official report of this survey be too much to ask for? Was there any analysis of rain on snow events or blow downs into the reduced buffer due to edge effects? The best Hayes can say about this mysterious visit by a mysterious fisheries biologists is: "There was no evidence of fish in intermittent streams on this sale."
BLM is in flagrant violation of option 9 regulations in cutting these riparian buffers - and by 50%! The most aggravating paragraph in the decision says:
"On 27 July 1995, Public Law 104-19 was enacted. This law states that salvage timber sales on timber sales covered by Option 9 "shall not be subject to administrative review". This law supersedes 43 CFR Subpart 5003- Administrative Remedies."
BLM is flaunting the clearcut rider in our face at every aspect of this sale. For instance, the public comment period lasted only 12 days, 7 of which the BLM office was closed due to the budget crisis in December. When their office opened again in January, BLM refused to extend the comment period, siting the rider. (Full story below.)
BLM's Botanist and Natural Resource Specialists, Evan Olson, says "Ecological assessment of the Four Gates Timber Sale was not complete enough to recommend reducing the buffer widths. Negative impacts of reduced buffers could effect site specific elements such as lichens, salamanders, bryophytes, fungi, and other unsurveyed components of the sale area."
Four Gates deforests 6 mmbf on 140 acres next to coho bearing streams. The decision will reduce the 180' riparian buffers on most intermittent streams down to 90'.
This sale is a "may effect" situation for owls. The pileated woodpecker is found in the sale units. Eagles are located in the area. A red tailed hawk nest in one of the riparian buffers. There is a fish bearing stream bordering unit 5A.
This sale is a precedent setting sale. If they can get away with this here, you know they are going to be slashing the Riparian Reserves and the public comment period on every future new sale that comes out.
The FONSI was signed on Dec. 5. It was published in the newspaper on December 10 and 12. We picked up the EA on December 15. They would NOT give us the watershed analysis at that time ("It's not ready"). The BLM office closed an hour later and stayed closed Until January 8, 1996. The comment period ended on December 22 without us receiving the Watershed Analysis, and without us being to view the sale.
When the BLM finally opened their doors again, Mike Haske, (Multi-resource specialist) informed me that they had no intention of extending the comment period. Tyee Resource Area Manager, John L. Hayes, later told me that NEPA allows them to set a public comment period for any length of time they want. Cary Osterhaus, District Manger, said to me that NEPA doesn't require any public comment period at all, and even if it did, he thinks that the recessions bill allows them to bypass it. He feels like the public WAS included by a 12 day comment period, 5 of which the BLM office was opened.
When John L. Hayes talked to me on 01/10/96 he said the NEPA documents (Watershed Analysis) WAS available to me, because he is in the phone book, and we could have called him at home and he would have gone into the BLM office and "worked without pay" and have gotten us what we needed. He said "In fact, I was in there most afternoons during the closure working without pay." I said, "How were we supposed to know that?" He said we could have known because, "Some people actually think for them selves." End of conversation.
Later Osterhaus told me it's not BLM's fault that they were shut down for most of the comment time, and anyway, the public had 5 full days to get the documents. Since the Watershed Analysis was referred to in the EA, they weren't required to give it out. He insisted they were legal under NEPA, and again implied that the Recessions Bill also covered their actions. "The Recessions Bill IS the law." I called the BLM Regional Office in Portland and asked for Elaine Zielisky. I should be so lucky. As far as I got was talking with the Secretary of the Deputy State Director, Bill Somebody. I did have the satisfaction of hearing the Secretary gasp when I told her the story. Something worked, because eventually BLM did grant an extension. Their reasoning was that it was a precedent. (I knew it.)
This is the treatment the public gets as soon as BLM doesn't have to follow any laws due to the Clearcutting Rider. Why am I shocked?
Option 9 ROD, pg. b-13, says that it is illegal to change riparian buffer widths on intermittent streams unless a watershed analysis, a site-specific analysis, and a scientific rational is presented. Only a watershed analysis was presented.
The "rationale" for cutting the buffers in half is given by the "Riparian Reserve Assessment Team" in an untitled document with the subject line: "Riparian Reserve Recommendations for the Four Gates TS", dated Oct. 12, 1995. The district fisheries biologist, Don Rivard, was not on this team. It is a weak document that takes two pages to list the Aquatic Conservation Strategies with a statement they are meeting this goal, and more filler by listing the BMPs (Best Management Practices). They also quoted J.W. Thomas. There was nothing site specific.
Fisheries biologist, Don Rivard, says in the fisheries report "The preferred alternative was selected before I came on board with the BLM in early July 1995, and I defer to the Team's judgment for this sale." If alternative 3 was selected before July of 1995, as Rivard says, and the Riparian Reserve Assessment Team didn't submit their report until October of '95, then the decision to cut the buffers in half was made before the assessment!
Riparian buffers are the only dispersal habitat designated for terrestrial wildlife in the matrix. Late Successional Reserves (LSR) are supposed to provide the remaining 'adequate' habitat. However, because of the new Rider law, almost 22 million board feet of the best forests in the LSRs in the Four Gates area (Tyee RA) are being deforested right now.
The clearcut rider law will be the death of our fish yet. At this historic event, how can the public be barred from participating?
francis 1/10, 1/31, 3/1/96
You can unofficially protest this decision to Roseburg BLM.