Near Seattle, WA, one of the North Sound’s most popular and scenic hiking trails is in danger of being logged. Unless the state can allocate $7.5 million, the 100-year-old trees that cover Oyster Dome — between Mount Vernon and Bellingham – will be cut down by the Department of Natural Resources.
Craig Romano tackles the popular hike off Highway 11 on a pretty regular basis. The guide book author has hiked 18,000 miles of Washington trails and says Oyster Dome’s six-plus miles are some of the very best.
“It is the only place where the Cascades meet the Salish Sea. So 2,000 feet up, it rises right out of the Salish Sea, and you’re overlooking the San Juan Islands, the Olympic Mountains,” explained Craig.
That’s why a decade ago, even though Oyster Dome is in a state forest where the DNR is required to log, a promise was made to protect it. The state agreed to buy 1,600 acres of private land, add it to the Blanchard Forest, and log it instead of Oyster Dome.
But 10 years later, the Legislature has funded less than half of the $13 million needed for the purchase, and local hikers are starting to panic.
Over 50 years ago, a visionary Congress established an innovative program to bring communities together to invest in open spaces and recreational opportunities that are an essential part of our nation’s heritage and economy. Since then, the highly successful Land and Water Conservation Fund has helped to protect working forests and ranches, preserve our public lands – parks, refuges, forests, rivers, lakes and wildlife habitats – and provide access to outdoor recreation across the nation for use and enjoyment by all Americans.
President Obama is committed to passing on America’s public lands and waters to future generations in better shape than we found them. That’s why he is proposing full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund in the Fiscal Year 2017 budget, and pursuing permanent authorization in annual mandatory funding for the Fund’s programs beginning in 2018.
In 2017, the budget will invest $900 million in conservation and recreation projects – a portion of the revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling that are deposited in the fund each year – through a combination of discretionary ($475 million) and mandatory ($425 million) funding. This culminates a multi-year strategy leading to full permanent funding for the Fund in 2018.
These investments – using voluntary conservation tools like easements and purchases from willing sellers – respond to local communities’ priorities. They will conserve public lands in or near national parks, refuges, and forests, including landscapes identified for collaborative, strategic conservation; increase access for hunting and fishing; protect historic battlefields; and provide grants to states for close-to-home recreation and conservation projects on non-federal lands.
This is great news for all Americans – from hunters and anglers, to outdoor enthusiasts and history buffs, to communities large and small across the nation who benefit from the Land and Water Conservation Fund investments. In fact, the program has supported more than 42,000 national, state and local parks and outdoor recreation projects in all 50 states.
The news out of Flint, Michigan brought the issue of contaminated drinking water into sharp focus, as it was revealed that officials at every level—local, state and federal—knew about lead-poisoned water for months but did nothing to address the problem.
Under state-run systems like utilities and roads, poorer communities are the last to receive attention from government plagued by inefficiencies and corrupt politicians. Perhaps no group knows this better than Native Americans, who have been victimized by government for centuries.
In the western U.S., water contamination has been a way of life for many tribes. The advocacy group Clean Up The Mines! describes the situation in Navajo country, which is far worse than in Flint, Michigan.
Since the 1950s, their water has been poisoned by uranium mining to fuel the nuclear industry and the making of atomic bombs for the U.S. military. Coal mining and coal-fired power plants have added to the mix. The latest assault on Navajo water was carried out by the massive toxic spills into the Animas and San Juan rivers when the EPA recklessly attempted to address the abandoned Gold King mine.
There is no comprehensive law requiring cleanup of abandoned uranium mines, meaning corporations and government can walk away from them after exploiting their resources. 75 percent of abandoned uranium mines are on federal and Tribal lands.
The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy recently acquired 48 acres in the Roan Highlands near the Carter County border in North Carolina that was slated for development.
The Broad Branch Tract is less than 2 miles from the Appalachian Trail and the Cloudland Rhododendron Gardens. The tract adjoins Pisgah National Forest and contains a broad mix of habitat. The Conservancy plans to own and manage the property for long-term forest health and water quality.
“This tract shares a nearly one-half mile boundary with Pisgah National Forest,” said Land Protection Director Michelle Pugliese. “It certainly earns the description of ‘highlands,’ with elevations exceeding 4,500 feet where it joins the National Forest.”
Located within the North Carolina-designated Roan Mountain Massif Natural Area, the tract is forested with mature trees and potential habitat for rare plant and animal species. Approximately 75% of the property falls within the Roan Mountain Important Bird Area (IBA), as designated by the National Audubon Society.
In 2008, on a dig on the First Nation’s Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, archaeologists made a small but stunning discovery: a tiny clay pot. Though it might not have seemed very impressive at first glimpse, this little piece of pottery was determined to be about 800 years old.
And inside that pot? Something that changes how we’re looking at extinction, preservation, and food storage, as well as how humans have influenced the planet in their time on it.
It’s amazing to think that a little clay pot buried in the ground 800 years ago would still be relevant today, but it’s true It’s actually brought an extinct species of squash that was presumed to be lost forever. Thank our indigenous ancestors Even they knew what preservation meant. They knew the importance of the future.
Inside, archaeologists found a stash of seeds. The seeds were probably buried in the pot as a method of storing food supplies. They were determined to be an old, now-extinct species of squash. Now, seven years after making this stunning discovery, students in Winnipeg decided to plant the 800-year-old seeds.
The standoff with militant extremists at an Oregon wildlife refuge, which erupted into violence and arrests this week, stands in stark contrast to the new sense of collaboration between local residents and public land managers in the West. The militants claimed that the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge symbolized federal tyranny over public lands. But for many locals the refuge exemplified just the opposite: a successful community-based, collaborative partnership with the government. Not one local rancher had heeded the armed militants’ call to join their protest and rip up their federal grazing leases.
Malheur’s collaborative approach to land-use management began in 2008, when the refuge’s manager, Tim Bodeen, agreed to work with a cooperative group called the High Desert Partnership. It brought together ranchers, the Paiute tribe, conservationists, and federal staff to develop and implement long-term restoration projects on the refuge and across the region. After years of dialogue, a landmark plan was created in 2013 to guide the management of the 187,757-acre refuge for 15 years — sustaining it as a stopover habitat for millions of migratory birds as well as promoting it as a rangeland resource for local ranchers.
The plan, following an approach increasingly being implemented on Western public lands, uses innovative techniques suggested by local community members. Cattle grazing, for example, is encouraged as a method for controlling invasive plants that threaten the refuge — an experiment that will be rigorously monitored by participants. Since ecological conditions change, the plan treats grazing and all other management on the refuge as a series of experiments, testing to see what strategies work and what strategies don’t.
For decades, the oil and gas industry has squatted on large tracts of public lands without paying royalties or allowing Americans access, but now is the time for reforms, according to a new report.
The report from The Wilderness Society explains how the oil and gas industry routinely exploits leasing loopholes known as “suspensions,” to stockpile leases that would otherwise expire due to lack of use.
These loopholes allow the industry to take lands off the books for decades at a time, preventing Americans from using them for recreation and conservation, and other companies from developing them.
In total, the oil and gas industry holds 3.25 million acres of lands in limbo—that’s nearly the size of the state of Connecticut.
Even more alarming is that under suspended leases, oil and gas companies oftentimes pay neither royalties nor rent, while our shared public lands are closed off to the public for any other use.
This week, the National Park Service (NPS) announced nearly $48 million of Centennial Challenge projects to help parks across the country improve visitor services and support outreach to new audiences. The projects, many of which tackle deferred maintenance, come as the NPS kicks off its second century of service. Congress provided $15 million for the projects which will be matched by almost $33 million from more than 90 park partners.
“As the National Park Service enters its centennial year in 2016, Congress and generous partners across the country are making exceptional investments to improve park facilities, enhance their accessibility, and help more visitors – especially young people – discover our nation’s inspiring places and stories,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis.
There are 69 projects located at 63 parks in 38 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The list includes significant deferred maintenance projects.
As an example, Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico, one of the newest units in the National Park System, will build on its successful program to engage young people in monitoring forest restoration, expanding it to neighboring Bandelier National Monument. The program strengthens the ancestral connections of local Pueblo Indian youth to the parks’ landscapes by engaging them in the resource preservation and restoration efforts occurring on the land they consider sacred, and giving them the field and academic experience needed to excel as next generation stewards.
A complete list of centennial challenge projects and partners can be found here.
Laurel wilt is a devastating non-native disease of redbay trees and other plants in the laurel family in the southeastern U.S. Native to Southeast Asia, it was first detected near Savannah, Ga., in the early 2000s and has since spread to eight additional Southern states. It has already killed an estimated half a billion trees since its introduction to the U.S.
Laurel wilt was first found in North Carolina in 2011 in Bladen County. Each winter, the N.C. Forest Service conducts surveys to detect the range expansion of the disease within the state, if any. Last year (2015) was the first year since the initial detection of laurel wilt in the state that it was not found in a new county. Good things come to an end, though, and in this case, it came to an end in January. Earlier this month, laurel wilt was detected in Onslow County for the first time. Onslow is the eighth county in North Carolina in which this disease can be found.
The redbay ambrosia beetle is the primary vector responsible for spreading the disease pathogen from tree to tree. In addition, it is now suspected that other ambrosia beetles, some native, also play a role in infecting new trees. Another danger lies in the potential for long-range dispersal of the disease: The disease and its insect vectors can move maybe hundred of miles to new areas, hiding within infested wood. This is just one reason why the N.C. Forest Service encourages the use of local firewood!
Thirty-some years ago, before mining companies turned Wyoming’s Powder River Basin into the nation’s most productive coal region, they made a promise: When they finished extracting coal, they would restore the land.
Under federal law, companies must reclaim the land they’ve mined. To ensure that cleanup is completed, they must provide financial guarantees — bonds, cash or collateral to cover the entire cost of reclamation. That way, even if the company goes out of business, the public is protected from expensive cleanup bills or abandoned mines that scar the land, pollute waterways and eliminate rangeland and wildlife habitat. These days, for a big mine, reclamation costs can reach several hundred million dollars.
Instead of setting aside cash or getting a financial institution to guarantee that land will be reclaimed, though, several of the biggest coal companies took advantage of a provision of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 that allows them to self-bond. That means companies with adequate finances can make legally binding promises they’ll cover reclamation costs. The companies benefit because they avoid tying up their money or spending it on surety bonds.
But recently, after decades as industry stalwarts, some of those companies have seen their finances nosedive, and fears about whether they will be able to meet their growing financial obligations to restore the land have reached a crescendo.
When household budgets are tight, people tend to put off expensive maintenance projects. So a leaky roof gets patched instead of replaced, or paint is left to peel for a season or two or three longer than a homeowner (not to mention the neighbors) would like.
Government agencies do the same thing. And now, after years of putting off less-crucial repairs because of insufficient funding, the National Park Service has an $11.5 billion backlog of deferred maintenance projects — about four times the department’s annual operating budget (and part of a $159 billion overall federal backlog). About half of the parks backlog involves roads and bridges, and the rest covers wastewater treatment plants, buildings, water systems, campgrounds and other facilities.
That’s an astounding amount of work, and while it’s not as popular with park users as habitat restoration, it’s crucial for ensuring public safety and the quality of the parks themselves. Fortunately, Congress’s recent budget nearly doubles the money —to $116.3 million — for projects deemed by the Park Service to be critical for the well-being of visitors and workers, or for environmental restoration. The new five-year highway transportation bill also includes $1.4 billion for roads and bridges in national parks. While the increased spending is good news for the parks and those who visit them, it’s far less than what’s required to address the need.
To leave these maintenance issues unresolved just sets the stage for more expensive fixes down the road.
From pole to pole the ice is melting. Winter is retreating. And much of life and even the seasons themselves appear to have been thrown off-kilter. In the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic Peninsula, krill populations have dropped by more than 50 percent due to a shortening of the season in which sea ice forms. The North Pole now experiences near or above freezing temperature events during Winter with increasing frequency. Greenland appears to be undergoing melt episodes during Winter. And now, the iceberg season for Newfoundland is starting four months early.
During any normal year in the 20th Century, Newfoundland was a prime spot for viewing icebergs. Locked away in the sea ice for much of the Winter, these behemoths became liberated with the spring thaw. By April or May, they could at first be seen off the coast of Newfoundland as they made their trek out into the Atlantic Ocean along the currents running away from Baffin Bay and the West Coast of Greenland.
During a normal year, the sea ice begins its thaw in Baffin Bay along Greenland’s western coastal boundary by early to late April. A milder air flow along the northward progressing warm water current is enough to unlock some of the icebergs stranded within the sea ice and to send them cycling southward toward Newfoundland.
But this year, something odd and rather strange happened. During mid January, following a December in which Arctic sea ice extents were their fourth lowest on record, a period of unseasonable warmth settled in over Western Greenland.
Sequoia groves are found throughout the Sequoia, Sierra, Stanislaus, Eldorado and Tahoe National Forests in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Multiple agencies, businesses and non-profits are collaborating to improve management and share scientific results regarding Giant Sequoia. Led by the National Forest Foundation, the Sequoia Work Group members believe better exchange of best management practices and access to research data is critical to the long-term survival.
Sequoias aren’t the only giants in California. Redwood trees are also in the Sequoia family. The NFF support redwood conservation throughout California and proudly supports the new movie Moving the Giants, recently featured at the Banff Mountain Film Festival and other venues. Moving the Giants follows David Milarch as he clones some of the world’s and largest living things, California’s coastal redwoods, and replants them in Oregon. This effort serves two purposes.
First, as the planet warms and conditions change in their southernmost range, it is likely that many of these trees will die. By cloning and replanting them further north in places where they were logged, Milarch will help preserve these majestic giants. Second, redwood trees are among the most effective carbon sequestration tools in the world. By planting these seedlings, Milarch takes part in a global effort to use one of nature’s most impressive achievements, treequestration, to re-chart a positive course for humanity.
In what environmentalists hailed as a victory for efforts to curb climate change, an appeals panel in Washington on Jan. 21, 2016 rebuffed efforts to delay enforcement of President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions until legal challenges are resolved.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an order denying requests for a stay that would have barred the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing the Clean Power Plan.
The plan has been challenged by more than two dozen mostly Republican-led states and allied business and industry groups tied to fossil fuels. The states deride the carbon-cutting plan as an “unlawful power grab” that will kill coal-mining jobs and drive up electricity costs.
This order allows federal regulation of carbon emissions pending the court’s review of the case, set for June 2, 2016.
Obama press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House was pleased with the decision. “We are confident that the plan will reduce carbon pollution and deliver better air quality, improved public health and jobs across the country,” Earnest said. “We look forward to continuing to work with states and other stakeholders taking steps to implement the Clean Power Plan.”
As part of the Interior Department’s reform agenda for a cleaner, more secure energy future, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has proposed to update 30 year-old regulations in order to reduce the wasteful release of natural gas into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations on public and American Indian lands. The proposed rule on venting, flaring and leaking will help curb waste of our nation’s natural gas supplies, reduce harmful methane emissions and provide a fair return on public resources for federal taxpayers, Tribes, and States.
“I think most people would agree that we should be using our nation’s natural gas to power our economy – not wasting it by venting and flaring it into the atmosphere,” said Secretary Jewell. “We need to modernize decades-old standards to reflect existing technologies so that we can cut down on harmful methane emissions and use this captured natural gas to generate power and provide a return to taxpayers, tribes and states for this public resource. We look forward to hearing from the public on this proposal.”
U.S. oil production is at its highest level in nearly 30 years and the nation is now the largest natural gas producer in the world, providing an abundant source of clean-burning fuel to power and heat American homes and businesses. At the same time, venting and leaks during oil and gas operations are major sources of harmful methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
U.S. methane emissions are projected to increase substantially without additional steps to lower them. The proposal announced by Secretary Jewell is consistent with the Obama Administration’s goal to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 – 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025.
After one of the many attempts to plug the methane-leaking well at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in the Los Angeles suburbs, the thing erupted like a geyser, spewing not only natural gas, but also the muddy slurry that company technicians had pumped into the well.
Aliso Canyon is a bit like a gigantic, catastrophic version of the geyser gas well of yore. Since the leak was first noticed, in late October, some 4.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas have leaked into the atmosphere. Most of that is methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, along with smaller amounts of other compounds such as benzene, a known carcinogen, and mercaptan, a sulfur compound added as an odorant to the gas.
Far more methane — and all those other nasties that accompany it in natural gas — are seeping out of the vast oil and gas infrastructure that is woven throughout the landscape of the San Juan Basin of Colorado and New Mexico, one of the most productive natural gas fields in the nation.
San Juan Basin oil and gas facilities emitted 291,162 metric tons of methane during 2014, according to the EPA inventory. But the inventory doesn’t account for smaller producers, geologic seeps that have been exacerbated by oil and gas development, abandoned wells or undetected leaks. So actual emissions from oil and gas facilities far exceed the EPA’s greenhouse gas inventory.
Human beings have replaced nature as the dominant force shaping Earth. We’ve cleared away forests, dammed up mighty rivers, paved vast roads, and transported thousands of species around the world. “To a large extent,” two scientists wrote in 2015, “the future of the only place where life is known to exist is being determined by the actions of humans.”
So what does this look like? In recent decades, NASA has been tracking the major transformations we’ve wrought via satellite. In its “Images of Change” series, the agency has posted a number of before-and-after images showing the exact same rainforest or glacier or city years or decades apart. The differences are often breathtaking.
A day long awaited, since that first opportunity for the public to witness bison at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie (Midewin) in Illinois, the herd is doing well and adjusting to their new home. Several of the bison appear to enjoy wallowing in select pasture areas. This shows how the bison can create areas where prairie grass seeds can become established and help with the restoration of the prairie. Some of the bison cows are beginning to expand in their rib cage indicating that there will be new calves arriving in the spring. Recreation visitors to the prairie have increased significantly since the release of the herd in late October, 2015.
The attitude of the public toward the bison has been very positive. “We were pleasantly surprised to see the presence of ‘Bison Fans’ – individuals who returned for multiple, often consecutive, visits this past fall” says Wendy Tresouthick, Environmental Education/Interpretation Specialist at Midewin. Visitors had smiles on their faces and positive words to share.
Hiking is not the only way to travel on the prairie. Bring your bicycle or even your horse. The U.S. Forest Service encourages you to take advantage of the multi-use trail system identified on the Trail Map for Midewin.
“A public event is being planned in May of 2016, after some of the bison calves have been born” said Wade Spang, Prairie Supervisor.
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. 
Copyright © 2011-2023 Internet Brothers. All Rights Reserved. ISSN 2324-6057
Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by Wordpress | Logo by Design Aspirations
