Large parts of the country, primarily in the West, have long harbored anti-federalist attitudes and called for the sale or transfer of U.S. lands to states or private hands. But the antagonism toward collective American ownership has flared dramatically in the last five years, and a new report from the Center for American Progress points to 20 members of Congress as leading the efforts to dump federal lands.
The movement is counter to public opinion. Americans overwhelmingly support federal ownership of public lands and hold the National Park Service, Forest Service, and other agencies in high esteem. For example, 83 percent of Americans support their Congressional representatives taking a strong stand to “protect and strengthen national parks.” Additionally, 77 percent say that national parks benefit Americans a “great deal/fair amount.”
Until recently, public lands had bipartisan support, even under Republican administrations, but that, says CAP, is a “distant memory. Since 2010, Congress has been incapable of passing individual parks and wilderness bills, legislators are pressing to sell off tens of millions of acres of publicly owned lands, and laws which help protect at-risk public lands—including the Antiquities Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund—are under relentless attack.”
The center studied Congress and found that the 20 anti-public lands leaders share three main features. They are strongly affiliated with the Tea Party movement, they represent a district that is strongly partisan, and they have faced strong challenge within their party from the right.
Three hundred miles above the Arctic Circle is America’s northern most snow observatory, typically the last place in the nation to see its snow melt. As of today, its snow has melted, setting a new (and terrible) record.
NOAA’s Barrow Observatory just confirmed that they’d recorded a snowmelt date of May 13, 2016. It’s the earliest recorded snowmelt ever seen in the Arctic Circle observatory—and researchers stationed there are, unsurprisingly, pretty spooked.
“It’s like a train wreck you can’t look away from,” biologist George Divoky said in a statement. Divoky has been observing arctic birds in the area—and he has already began noting changes in their available food supply.
It’s not just snow either. The quick snowmelt is combined with some equally quick sea-ice melt. The combination of the two has USGS research biologist David Douglas saying that it already looks like summer has arrived.
“It looks like late June or early July right now,” he said, before noting that he had already begun to see polar bears treading carefully to avoid the thinly-iced areas.
Executives of the top coal-producing companies in the country got compensation increases while their companies spiraled into bankruptcy, laid off workers, or tried to slash employee benefits, a new report finds.
Most top executives for Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Alpha Natural Resources got compensation increases worth in total millions of dollars as the companies went into massive debt often due to fruitless expansions.
As profits shrank, executives paid themselves more, laid off staff, and cut worker benefits. Public outcry over executives receiving multi-million compensation packages as business collapse has been a common recurrence in the past decade, particularly after the financial crisis of 2008. Then the spotlight fell on banks, which were awarding billions in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits despite the implosion or near-implosion of the companies. As happened then, it’s unlikely that executives will be asked to forgo any of the compensation.
Not only that, but with many of the largest coal companies in bankruptcy, they are not cleaning up after their messes. Montaintop removal mines are abandoned with tailings damaging water supplies, with large unrepaired scars cut into what were once beautiful mountains. American taxpayers are likely to have to pick up the bill for remediation work.
The Cradle of Forestry invites the public to a program, “Bogs, Bugs and Beavers,” on Saturday, May 28, 2016.
The program begins inside the Cradle’s interpretive center at 10:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. with an introduction about beavers’ adaptations to living in a watery world. Then naturalists will lead walks to boardwalks along the Pink Beds Trail, interpreting the beavers’ wetland creating activities, the changing habitats they create, and the woods and water along the way.
Each program lasts about 1.5 hours with a walking distance of about 2 miles. Participants can use nets provided to dip for aquatic insects and salamanders from the boardwalk. Binoculars are welcome to observe birds, butterflies and dragonflies that thrive in the scenic Pink Beds valley.
The Pink Beds is part of the 6,500 acre Cradle of Forestry in America area of the Pisgah National Forest. Beavers have been active in the valley for over 20 years, creating early succession habitats and changing flow patterns of the South Mills River. The boardwalks, constructed largely by Forest Service volunteers, allow recreationists elevated access while protecting this fascinating wet area.
Admission to the Cradle of Forestry is $5 for adults and free for youth under 16 years of age. America the Beautiful, Every Kid in a Park and federal Golden passes are honored. Admission includes the new film First in Forestry: Carl Alwin Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School, hands-on exhibits, a scavenger hunt, a firefighting helicopter simulator, historic cabins and antique equipment on two paved trails. It also includes the Adventure Zone, an activity designed to reach children with autism and engage young families. Lunch is available for purchase from Hobnob at the Cradle.
The Cradle of Forestry is located on Hwy. 276 in the Pisgah National Forest along the Forest Heritage National Scenic Byway, six miles north of Looking Glass Falls and four miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 412. For more information call (828) 877-3130 or visit www.cradleofforestry.com.
For 30 years, a handful of special interests has been trying to steal the public’s forests and rangelands. The faces of the Sagebrush Rebellion are shirttail bandits like Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has spent a lifetime raping public rangeland in southern Nevada and has flouted federal law and court orders for the better part of 20 years, but Bundy and his confederates couldn’t get news coverage next to the comic strips in the Pahrump, Nevada, Valley Times if it weren’t for the potent financial, political, and legal backing they get from a much different band of activists — the billionaire supporters of organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). With the big money behind it, the Sagebrush Rebellion simply won’t die.
In the spring of 2012, the Utah Legislature passed a bill calling on the federal government to “transfer title of public lands to the state on or before December 31, 2014.” In 2013, the Idaho legislature authorized a two-year interim committee to “study the process for the State of Idaho to acquire title to and control of public lands controlled by the federal government in the state.” Nevada, Montana, and Wyoming have since passed similar bills, and the Colorado and New Mexico legislatures are considering their own versions.
Of course, the states can’t force the federal government to give up its holdings; a move like that would require approval from Congress in Washington. And it’s clear that the same forces that are working to shove proposals through state legislatures are at work in Congress as well. In late March, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment to an appropriations bill that would help fund initiatives “to sell or transfer to a State or local government any Federal land that is not within the boundaries of a National Park, National Preserve, or National Monument,” which is to say, any national forest land, BLM holding, or national wildlife refuge said state or local governments might want.
This isn’t the work of a renegade bunch of disgruntled brush poppers. It’s a well-funded, carefully coordinated effort to disinherit 318 million Americans inflicted on us by a tiny group of billionaire outlanders. The injury would be felt across the country, but it would be most painful for the people who have chosen to live, often at great personal cost, in the 12 western states that contain most of the nation’s public land.
A new study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Conservation Science Partners (CSP) found that every 2.5 minutes, the American West loses a football field worth of natural area to human development. This project, called the Disappearing West, is the first comprehensive analysis of how much land in the West is disappearing to development, how quickly this transformation is taking place, and the driving factors behind this loss.
Many people’s view of the American West is of large, untouched landscapes and protected areas set aside by conservation leaders such as John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. This common misconception is a routine talking point for anti-park politicians, like Rob Bishop, who are working to undercut protections on, sell off, and give away national forests, parks, monuments, and other public lands. But the truth is, until now, nobody knew the status of lands lost to development in the West.
The data further disproves statements made by the Bundys, Ken Ivory, and other land seizure proponents that land in the West is already “locked up”. According to the analysis, as of 2011, development in the West covered around 165,000 square miles of land — an area about the size of six million superstore parking lots.
Advocates for seizing and selling off public lands often argue that private landowners will be better stewards of the land. Yet the data from the analysis shows that development on private lands accounted for nearly three-fourths of all natural areas in the West that disappeared between 2001 and 2011, while public lands like national parks and wilderness areas had some of the lowest rates of development.
Portland, Oregon’s Willamette is no wilderness river. But on a spring day, downstream of downtown, wildness peeks through. Thick forest rises beyond a tank farm on the west bank. A sea lion thrashes to the surface, wrestling a salmon.
The 10-mile reach, known as Portland Harbor, became a Superfund Site in 2000. Over the last century, ships were built and decommissioned here, chemicals and pesticides manufactured, petroleum spilled, and sewage and slaughterhouse waste allowed to flow. Pollution has decreased, but toxic chemicals linger in sediments.
Among the worst are polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. Used in electrical transformers, coolants, caulk, paints and other products, these probable carcinogens were banned in 1979 for their toxicity, persistence and the ease with which they escaped into the environment. Even so, they continued entering waterways through storm drains here and elsewhere.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s remediation plan for Portland Harbor’s PCBs and other pollutants, expected in May 2016, will cost between $790 million and $2.5 billion. The city of Portland, one of 150 “potentially responsible parties” on the hook for a percentage, has already spent $62 million on studies and reports.
The Portland city council decided to join six other West Coast cities in suing agribusiness giant Monsanto to recoup some past and future cleanup costs. San Diego filed in 2015, and San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley, Spokane and Seattle followed.
BioBlitz is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. At a BioBlitz, scientists, families, students, teachers, and other community members work together to get an overall count of the plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms that live in a place.
In the decade leading up to the National Park Service centennial, National Geographic, The Audobon Society and the National Park Service have collaborated on a BioBlitz in a different national park each year. In 2016, to celebrate the centennial, over 250 BioBlitzes are happening across the country and throughout the year.
The cornerstone BioBlitz in the Washington, D.C. region will take place May 20-21. The two-day Biodiversity Festival will be held on the National Mall at Constitution Gardens and will feature hands-on science exhibits, food and art, as well as family-friendly entertainment and activities.
Scientists will lead you on a special informative tour, pointing out the special natural attractions near you. If you sign up to officially participate, you’ll join a biological species counting expedition, and your team could be the first to find a new species. Thousands of people will be participating in the D.C. BioBlitz, and even more participants will be counting species across the country.
They aren’t wearing white lab coats, but there are already young scientists collecting data at Front Lake at Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina.
The Kids in Parks program recently opened its first Citizen Science TRACK Trail designed to engage kids in learning and caring for the park’s ecosystem while helping staff researchers and natural resource managers.
Citizen Science is a new approach to data collection that enlists the public’s help in making observations and taking readings for studies and research. With the new trail, children and families can get in on the action. Kids follow a brochure to locate marked stations around the lake, where they perform observations and experiments such as taking air and water temperature readings and using tools to measure the pH of the lake.
In addition to helping researchers, the children learn new skills related to environmental science, connecting the dots between outdoor adventures and protecting natural resources.
“We’re extremely excited to have the Kids in Parks program’s first Citizen Science-based TRACK Trail here at Carl Sandburg,” said Sarah Perschall, chief of Visitor Services at Carl Sandburg. Park staff and the Kids in Parks team collaborated to create the site-specific brochure and experiment stations.
“Over the past six years, we have created a network of TRACK Trails designed to get kids and families unplugged, outdoors and reconnected to our parks,” said Jason Urroz, director of Kids in Parks. “I think our Citizen Science TRACK Trails can only add to that connection. And, who knows? Maybe some of them will become scientists, or rangers, or ranger scientists.”
A dumping site for fracking fluids long suspected to be leaching into Wolf Creek, a West Virginia waterway with ties to a county’s water supply, has indeed contaminated the creek with multiple chemicals, a new U.S. Geological Survey study has found.
The “study demonstrates definitively that the stream is being impacted by [unconventional oil and gas extraction] wastewaters,” Denise Akob, USGS scientist and lead author of the study said. Unconventional oil and gas extraction refers to the many processes that involve hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.
For this study, scientists in 2014 collected water and sediment samples upstream and downstream from Danny E. Webb Construction Inc.’s disposal site, which is still operational. Samples were then analyzed for a series of chemical markers that are known to be associated with fracking. “We were able to see some elements that are known to be associated with [unconventional oil and gas] wastewaters, including barium, bromide, calcium, chloride, sodium, lithium, and strontium,” Akob said.
They also found that microbial diversity near sampling sites decreased. Though small, microbes play an important role in ecosystems’ food webs, and Akob said changes in microbial community composition is an indication of ecological impact.
Questions remain. “The two big open questions right now are how are these wastewaters getting to the environment,” and “how far downstream do they go,” Akob said.
For a brief, shining moment, renewable power output in Germany reached 90 percent of the country’s total electricity demand.
That’s a big deal. On May 8th, 2016 at 11 a.m. local time, the total output of German solar, wind, hydropower, and biomass reached 55 gigawatts (GW), just short of the 58 GW consumed by every light bulb, washing machine, water heater and personal computer humming away on Sunday morning.
Germany’s $3.7 trillion GDP beats the economic output of any other country in Europe or, for that matter, any U.S. state. Sunday’s spike in renewable output shows that wind and solar can keep pace with the demands of an economic powerhouse. What’s more, the growth of clean energy has tracked the growth of Germany’s economy.
Individuals are driving Germany’s energy revolution. Sunday’s performance highlights the success of the Energiewende, or “energy transition,” Germany’s push to expand clean energy, increase energy efficiency, and democratize power generation. Smart policies have opened the renewable energy market to utilities, businesses and homeowners.
Sea level rise isn’t a distant threat: It’s already swallowing islands, according to a recent study.
The study found that sea level rise and coastal erosion has caused five low-lying coral atolls in the Solomon Islands to disappear into the ocean. These islands were vegetated — once densely-so with palms, oaks, mangroves, and other trees — but weren’t populated.
The researchers looked at 33 islands along the barrier reefs in the Solomon Islands, which comprises more than 900 islands northeast of Australia. They gathered historic photos of the islands dating back to 1947, and compared them to current satellite images.
They found that five islands had “been totally eroded away in recent decades,” leaving “dead tree trunks resting on hard reef platform.” In addition, six more islands had lost more than 20 percent of their area since 1947.
In two locations, the researchers note, shoreline recession “destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations.”
One town on the Solomon Islands’ Taro Island began planning to relocate its population in 2014, due to sea level rise that threatens to swallow the island, which sits 6.6 feet above sea level. The president of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati purchased land in 2014 on on of Fiji’s islands, which it says it will use to relocate its residents if seas get too high.
Come celebrate the 23rd anniversary of National Trails Day in the Smokies on the Appalachian Trail. This fun workday only comes around once a year, and you don’t want to miss it. Please get your registration in as soon as possible.
Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Southern Regional Office of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park are pleased to coordinate another Annual Appalachian Trail Work Day in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on National Trails Day. They invite you to participate in helping them take care of the AT in the GSMNP. This year also marks the 100-year anniversary of the National Park Service, and the contributions to stewardship of our national parks have never been more important.
The AT Maintainers Committee of the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy are responsible for maintaining the A.T. and its facilities in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a continuing basis. With your help on National Trails Day, important trail maintenance projects are completed that otherwise would not be accomplished; these improvements make the Appalachian Trail in the Smokies safer and more enjoyable for the thousands of hikers who use the trail each year.
As the sole law enforcement officer for 192,000 acres of the Grandfather Ranger District of the Pisgah National Forest, U.S. Forest Service Officer Wade Keener of McDowell County, NC covers a lot of territory. Now he’s doing it carrying the title U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer of the Year for the entire nation.
“I never thought I would win,” Keener told The McDowell News. “I thought someone in this agency of around 550 officers nationwide would have done something more deserving.”
Keener has been in law enforcement for 28 years, 15 of those with the U.S. Forest Service. He started his career in the U.S. Army Military Police, then on to two civilian agencies before beginning his career with the forest service. “The best thing about working for the U.S. Forest Service is the people I work with and met. I can hike any trail and get paid for it, that’s always a plus,” said Keener.
Keener’s area of operation covers five counties, including two developed campgrounds, 10 day-use areas and over 300 miles of trails including the Linville Gorge Wilderness areas. His normal duties include patrolling the vast number of more than 200 dispersed campsites, and on any given weekend he will visit and talk to each and every camper in well over 50 campsites.
A huge Montana nature reserve added a 47,000-acre historic ranch to its patchwork of lands along the Missouri River on Friday, a significant step in a privately funded effort to stitch together a Connecticut-sized park where bison would replace livestock and cattle fences give way to open range.
The PN Ranch north of Winifred sprawls across rugged badlands, tall grass prairie and cottonwood-filled valleys. It’s almost wholly within the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.
It includes the remnants of the Montana Territory’s first military post, Camp Cooke, and was reportedly a rendezvous point for American Indian tribes on the Great Plains. It was purchased by the American Prairie Reserve.
“Over time the goal is an all-wildlife, public access situation,” said Sean Gerrity, president of the Bozeman-based reserve. “People will come and the first thing they will notice is ‘Welcome’ signs instead of ‘Keep Out’ signs. They will notice fences down and a distinct openness to the landscape, unfettered by fences, power lines, power poles.”
Officials unveiled the new National Park Service Collections Preservation Center in Townsend, Tennessee during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, May 6, 2016.
“We’re all excited to announce the completion of this new facility that will enable us to better protect and preserve the cultural treasures in our care,” Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash said.
The new 14,000-square-foot facility will house more than 418,000 artifacts and 1.3 million archival records from the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, Big South Fork National Recreation Area, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Obed Wild and Scenic River.
“This facility honors those families that once lived in the Park,” U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Maryville, said. “It will also help us, especially our children and grandchildren, to learn about our history. They can better know what it means to be an American.”
The collections will be moved into the facility later this year. They contain a wide range of items including tools, clothing, pottery, furniture, household items, photographs, documents and archaeological specimens dating back 8,000 years.
For the past 65 years, if someone — or some company — was illegally polluting in South Carolina, you could sue. The law was put on the books so that if South Carolina’s enforcement agencies didn’t have the time, money, or political backing to go after a polluter, the average citizen could step in.
Now, with only a month left in its 2015-2016 session, the South Carolina legislature has picked up a bill that would do away with this ability.
“No one in the public of South Carolina is calling for the repeal of their rights to protect their communities and clean water,” Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) says. “Instead, this is an example of the lobbyists for corporate polluters controlling politicians who will take away the rights of citizens in order to curry favor with major campaign contributors.”
Holleman understands what is at stake here perhaps more than most. In early 2012, SELC filed a suit on behalf of a local water protection group, the Catawba Riverkeeper, against South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) over coal ash pollution in the Wateree River, near Columbia.
“Of those that are for it, you will be hard pressed to find anyone who wants to talk about being for it. They don’t like it; they don’t want to be for it; they recognize the wisdom of our position,” State Rep. James Smith, who opposes the bill said. “Behind the scenes it appears that there are quite powerful forces behind it.”
2016 has the hottest four-month start (January to April) of any year on record, according to newly-released satellite data.
The Arctic continues its multi-month trend of off-the-charts warmth. So it’s no surprise that Arctic sea ice continues to melt at a record pace. New research, however, finds that warming-driven Arctic sea ice loss causes high-pressure systems to get stuck in places like Greenland, leading to accelerated melt of the land-locked ice that drives sea level rise worldwide.
April just about tied the record for hottest April in the satellite record (which was 0.73°C). It follows the hottest March, hottest February, and “warmest January in satellite record.”
So it’s easily been the hottest start to any year in the satellite record. Sorry Ted Cruz and other climate science deniers — we are observing human-caused global warming in every single dataset, including the satellites.
This year has also set records for loss of Arctic sea ice. Climate models have always predicted that human-caused warming would be at least twice as fast in the Arctic as in the planet as a whole thanks to Arctic Amplification — a process that includes higher temperatures melting highly reflective white ice and snow, which is replaced by the dark blue sea or dark land, both of which absorb more solar energy and lead to more melting. And that means some winters are going to see truly astonishing Arctic warmth, such as we’ve already observed this year.
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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