BHFRA Press Releases

(DENVER, CO) In a hearing this morning before the Federal District Court for the District of Colorado, Judge Edward Nottingham upheld the “Black Hills Fire Prevention Agreement” of 2002, denying the challenge of environmentalist plaintiffs. Plaintiffs had asked the Judge for a temporary restraining order on the wildfire fuels reduction work currently underway in the Beaver Park area of the Black Hills, also claiming that the fire legislation was unconstitutional. Their request was denied, and their claim was ruled baseless.

The “Fire Prevention Agreement”, attached by South Dakota’s Congressional Delegation to last summer’s Supplemental Defense Appropriations bill, was designed to reduce the risk of wildfire and bug-kill in and around Beaver Park, where an infestation of mountain pine beetle has ravaged the forest, killing a swath of several thousand acres. The Forest Service identified and tried to fix the bug problem in 1997, but has been stymied by process and legal delays since then.

The fuel treatment, thinning, and wildfire risk reduction work enabled by the legislation, which had been voluntarily halted pending today’s hearing, will resume as soon as the US Forest Service and their contractors work out the logistics of moving back in. With the bulk of the legislation’s projects still left to complete, the Forest Service will also immediately recommence their surveying, planning, and layout efforts.

The Black Hills Forest Resource Association (BHFRA), interveners on behalf of the Forest Service Defendants and participants in the legislation’s drafting, reacted favorably to the decision. “With this decision, the best interests of the people and the environment finally got out from under the thumb of special interest monkey-wrenching,” said Aaron Everett, forest programs manager for BHFRA, “For those having followed this saga since it started in 1997, it has been an opportunity to look inside the procedural straightjacket currently binding the Forest Service. This situation speaks loudly to the need for change in their system.”

“The charges never had merit, and I’d contend that the Plaintiffs knew that all along,” Everett continued, “It amounts to harassment with the hope of finding a loophole somewhere along the way to get things shut down.” Responding to the Plaintiff’s allegations of damage to a pristine area, Everett said, “I’ve never heard of anyone advocating the salvation of bark beetle habitat, but to each his own, I guess. Beaver Park is not wilderness, it’s not even roadless; there’s an old sawmill site smack in the middle of it, so I don’t think anyone bought the ‘pristine’ bit.”

(RAPID CITY, SD) Over what amounts to a clerical error, the Laramie-based environmental interest group, Biodiversity Associates, has succeeded in its attempt to delay another Forest Service effort to reduce fire and insect risk on the Black Hills. The project, called the “Canyon/Nest” Environmental Assessment, was remanded to the Black Hills National Forest from the Forest Service Regional Office in Denver subsequent to administrative appeal. This news comes as the Senate resumes its debate over the Interior Appropriations bill, which currently contains an amendment from Sens. Craig (R-ID) and Domenici (R-NM) that would give relief to the Forest Service in carrying out projects like “Canyon/Nest”.

The single issue upon which “Canyon/Nest” was remanded, one of countless others contained in the interest group’s 101-page appeal, related to potential impacts on erosion and water quality in the project area that might result from thinning and other activities. The scientist who prepared that section of the Environmental Assessment mistakenly cited the wrong set of water quality protection procedures that were to offset these potential impacts. The Forest Service Regional Office, though reason and scientific judgment clearly avow otherwise, was compelled by law and regulation to send the project back to the BHNF. This will represent a delay of, at minimum, 120 days in the implementation of the project.

Disgusted, but unsurprised, Aaron Everett of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association commented that, “This was the now-typical shotgun approach to appeals on Forest Service projects. With the IRS as a lone exception, I don’t think there’s a government agency in the Nation whose record-keeping could endure 101-pages of irrelevant carping. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have some forestry equivalent of the

IRS looking after our Black Hills.” Everett went on to point out, “If the concern is really about erosion risk,

why aren’t we weighing the trifling amount that may come out of this project against the truly massive amounts of erosion and flooding that have occurred after fires like Grizzly Gulch?”

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the Senate continued their heated debate over an Interior Appropriations amendment that would allow 10 million acres of expedited thinning in at-risk areas of our National Forests. After a failed attempt earlier this week to drop the amendment through a vote of cloture, Senators on both sides of the aisle must now arrive upon a bipartisan compromise or risk not being able to follow through on promises of drought aid to farmers, another provision attached to the Interior bill.

Referring to this summer’s unprecedented western fire season and forest health crises, Everett said, “Our hope is that South Dakota’s Congressional Delegation will again serve an integral role in bringing legislative pragmatism to bear upon this very dire situation.”

BHFRA, party to the negotiations which provided the bill’s framework, supports beetle bill as “long-overdue progress”

(Rapid City, SD) Congress today agreed upon legislation that provides for treatment of fire risk and beetle epidemics in the Beaver Park and Norbeck Wildlife Preserve areas of the Black Hills National Forest. Following the Department of Justice’s June 7 determination that a legal means of implementing a renegotiated settlement was impossible, the South Dakota Congressional Delegation took up the basic framework and intent of the renegotiated agreement in legislative form. The beetle amendment is attached to a Supplemental Appropriation bill which passed through conference committee this afternoon. The House and Senate will pass the measure today or tomorrow.

1.) Treatments to improve the fire situation within a small portion of Beaver Park itself,

2.) Thinning in beetle-infested stands outside the roadless area to reduce the spread of the epidemic,

3.) The release of two long-planned wildlife habitat treatments in Norbeck previously obstructed by 15 years of litigation

5.) None of the above is subject to administrative appeals or judicial review in any court in the nation.

“This legislation is very important to Black Hills residents, County and Community officials, and the South Dakota State government,” said Jim Rarick, President of the BHFRA, “Lives and property have already been impacted by this year’s fires, but more are still at risk. Everyone involved in these issues feels an obligation to do their best to provide for public safety and the preservation of the forest.”

Rarick continued, “As with any negotiated package or piece of legislation, I think it’s fair to say that nobody got everything they wanted, and there are certainly things in this legislation that I’m not crazy about. But, overall, given the situation that we have, I think this package is a step in the right direction. I think everyone’s hopeful that, with the ‘no challenge’ provisions in this agreement, we’ll be able to take that step without the obstructionist delays we’ve seen in the past.”

Rarick said the public’s expectations of the bill should be somewhat tempered, calling the legislation “an important step, not the end of the road” for beetle issues, fire risk management, and solving the over-arching problems of Forest Service ‘analysis paralysis’.

Aaron Everett, BHFRA Forest Programs Manager elaborated, “The bill is a good band-aid for two very concerning pieces of the forest, and it took a lot of hard work, teeth-gnashing, and tongue biting on everyone’s part to get that band-aid out of the box and put it on.”

More practically, Everett described the bill as a good step forward on issues that have long stymied the Forest Service, but noted that “perpetually chasing individual beetle and fuel problems around the Black Hills is no way to manage. Ideally, the Forest Service wouldn’t be kept from managing forest health concerns in a preventive manner, and emergency measures like this one would be unnecessary.”

The clock continues to tick against the Forest Service on this summer’s fire season. With the Grizzly Gulch and Little Elk Creek fires having already consumed more than 11,000 acres of the Black Hills, Rarick highlighted his hope to maintain some focus on the big-picture as well. “We ought not ignore the need to follow a parallel track in the longer-term and find a way to let the Forest Service address these sorts of problems before they reach ‘critical mass’,” Rarick stated.

An evaluation of logging practices in South Dakota has concluded that timber harvests meet or exceed water quality protection guidelines an average of 82 percent of the time.

A team of forest and environmental scientists conducted the evaluation in June, 2001 during an audit of timber harvest practices used by Black Hills contractors. On each audited site, the audit team examined more than 80 timber harvest items relating to water quality.

“We are quite happy with 82 percent,” said State Forester Ray Sowers. “The audit showed that logging contractors are taking steps to protect water supplies during timber harvests. The audit also showed that there are a few guidelines that need to be fine-tuned to produce even better performance during harvest operations.”

The areas not meeting the guidelines were minor oversights that did not result in water pollution.

The South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and South Dakota Department of Agriculture’s Division of Resource Conservation and Forestry developed the forestry best management practices (BMPs) in 1994 as part of the state’s nonpoint source water pollution management plan. The BMPs are voluntary water protection guidelines for the logging industry to practice while harvesting timber on private, state, and federal property.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Forest Service have also endorsed and adopted the BMPs for all timber harvests on federal lands in South Dakota.

The BMPs are designed to reduce water pollution during timber harvests. This is accomplished by such things as properly constructed temporary logging roads and stream crossings, and preventing motor oil or fuel spills. These steps are necessary to keep dirt, sediment, and chemicals out of waterways so they do not damage aquatic ecosystems or contaminate drinking water supplies.

South Dakota’s audit results are comparable to similar audits conducted in Montana and Wyoming.

“The people who harvest timber in the Black Hills have risen to the occasion and conformed with BMP guidelines without any sort of regulatory penalty attached to meeting them,” said Tom Troxel, director of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association. “They are professionals and simply want to do a good job.”

Local forest products manufacturers and members of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association invite the public to participate in a weeklong series of events honoring National Forest Products Week.

“Each year, National Forest Products Week offers we in the milling, manufacturing, forestry, and logging professions the chance to raise awareness surrounding how we go about fulfilling America’s need for essential wood products,” says Aaron Everett, Forest Programs Coordinator for the Black Hills Forest Resource Association. “This year, we’ve scheduled both mill tours and timber sale field tours so that folks have an opportunity to learn about the industry from both ends. Through and through, it’s a dedicated and diverse group of professionals who work to implement an uncompromising protection of America’s forest resources for future generations while ensuring a sustainable and continuous supply of wood products; they really deserve a lot of credit and support.”

Mill Tours:
Monday, Oct. 15; 8:00am and 1:00pm	Rushmore Forest Products in Hill City
	605-574-2512
Tuesday, Oct. 16; 8:00am and 1:00pm	Pope and Talbot in Spearfish
	605-642-7741
Tuesday, Oct 16; 9:00am and 1:00pm	Hills Products in Whitewood
	605-269-2233
Tuesday, Oct 16; 10:30am and 3:00pm	Wheeler Lumber in Whitewood
	605-269-2215
Tuesday, Oct 16; 1000am	Forest Products Distributors in Rapid City
	605-341-6500

Timber Sale Field Tours:
Thursday, Oct 18; 1:00pm	Odakota timber sale (meet in the Heritage Village parking lot on Hwy 16 just east of Custer
Friday, Oct 19; 2:00pm	Dumbuk timber sale (meet in Hill City at Chute Rooster's parking lot)