Forest Service HQ Move

[TheTone]

Good. Like wildfires haven't been researched to death long ago while becoming
more of a problem every year.

Logging and strategic clearcutting would end these "fire seasons" that we are now
subject to every year. But doing that would expose just how much of a scam the
"management of our forests" has been. And lots of people would need to get
real productive jobs outside government (< but that's redundant).

Weird that every fire near me the past few years has been in logged or heavily managed forests. A fire absolutely rips through even age regen and pre commercial thinning jobs

 

[mt terry d]

Weird that every fire near me the past few years has been in logged or heavily managed forests. A fire absolutely rips through even age regen and pre commercial thinning jobs

Please define "heavily managed and "pre commercial thinning jobs"

Were the FS roads clear for fire equipment and the public allowed to collect firewood at will?
Were the fires "monitored" before attempts to stop them?
Were clearcuts implemented to create natural fire stops and added habitat for wildlife?

 

[TheTone]

Please define "heavily managed and "pre commercial thinning jobs"

Were the FS roads clear for fire equipment and the public allowed to collect firewood at will?
Were the fires "monitored" before attempts to stop them?
Were clearcuts implemented to create natural fire stops and added habitat for wildlife?

Firewood permits have been free for a few years here; heavily managed I’d consider super high road open density, a mix of FS, state, and timber company lands all of them cutting heavily and replanting, plus spraying anything that grows back on its own. Pre commercial thinning, meaning go into the regen 10-15 years after planting and cut down 1/2 or more of the trees and just leave them lay where they fell. It’s a super nightmare to try and walk through and always comical when they post signs saying it’s a high fire danger right after

 

[mt terry d]

Sounds like they need to do some slash pile burns in winter/wet season.
They admit they're creating a fire risk.

What state? What approximate diameter do trees there reach in 10-15 years?
Free firewood permits? Wow, must be nice !!

 

[Newk]

Don’t like how it’s getting moved into Mike Lee’s sphere of influence. Don’t trust anything this admin is doing with regard to our lands.

 

[wowzers]

The question is can it be reformed to prevent what’s it’s being used for and what the intent of it is?

Personally I don't see anyone in Congress actually fixing it. As far as your question, I think it could. It wasn't designed for 501(C)3's to file an endless stream of suits year after year. Ending the award for interrelated claims ( where they sue on ten different NEPA items but get found in favor on one) would go along in reducing the money that the lawyers are able to get and thus disincentivizing them.

Chris French lays out how detrimental these frivolous suits are.

 

[Jason Snyder]

In my little corner of the world I'm surrounded by National Forest and have recreated in it for over 60 years. I can say with certainty that the model they are working with doesn't work. Our regional and local administrative are rabid enviros that want nothing but hands off management. The complete roads system has seen no maintenance for over 35 years and 90% of roads are not passable and just brushed over. Even main arteries are washed out / slides etc. and no one will fix them. No logging, just watch over ripe timber burn to ashes every year while a whole stack of Forest service employees that have gotten their liberal arts degree drive around in new trucks and tape flag noxious weeds and run flagging though the woods for years on end and NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. Just how many botanist does an office need to flag a star thistle? It's time to have a reckoning.

Did you ever stop to think it maybe because there is no funding for road maintenance?

 

[wowzers]

Did you ever stop to think it maybe because there is no funding for road maintenance?

That’s really not true. I can think of one road system that has had probably 60 million board feet pass through it in the last ten years, and with that the associated deferred maintenance deposits collected for those sales. I’m not sure the USFS has done anything as far as maintenance on that road with those dollars.

 

[Jason Snyder]

That’s really not true. I can think of one road system that has had probably 60 million board feet pass through it in the last ten years, and with that the associated deferred maintenance deposits collected for those sales. I’m not sure the USFS has done anything as far as maintenance on that road with those dollars.

I can’t speak to this specific road and how maintenance funding works for it. Typically timber sale money goes into a revenue account. Road maintenance money has to be allocated by Congress and signed by the POTUS. The FS is under an enormous backlog of road maintenance with a fraction of the funding it needs to tread water.

 

[Jason Snyder]

A retired FS Chief told me they viewed this as an 8 on a scale of 1-10 (1 is nothing burger and 10 is doomsday) with respect to future public land management.

Those of you who thing logging is the silver bullet to cure all, look around. How many mills are still open and running? How profitable is the potential timber sale? How does clear cutting or selective logging more remote forest service lands affect the fire risk in the suburban/foothill interface?

Research is about more than just fires. It’s also about elk and deer movements with respect to non consumptive use impacts. For example, mountain biking during elk calving.

I know there are a lot of stories about environmental whackos in the FS. I’ve met a couple. But, by and large the majority of FS folks I know are great folks who love the landscape. Our public land trust is an incredible treasure that won’t come back if it’s lost.

 

[TheTone]

Sounds like they need to do some slash pile burns in winter/wet season.
They admit they're creating a fire risk.

What state? What approximate diameter do trees there reach in 10-15 years?
Free firewood permits? Wow, must be nice !!

Idaho

Interesting you mention slash burning; the FS around me is the only one doing any real burning anymore. They will burn an entire clear cut prior to replanting, state will burn some piles but leaves lots of slash on the hills, private companies aren’t doing much of anything except spraying lots of herbicide killing anything that tries to grow back on its own.

Maybe I was a little off on tree age for the thinning work but trees are typically 10-20 feet tall and ridiculously thick when thinned. They tend to plant at a significantly higher rate than what density was at prior harvest

 

[riversidejeep]

Did you ever stop to think it maybe because there is no funding for road maintenance?

No, It's because the money is spent on endless paper shuffling and studies with NO actual boots on the ground work that's meaningful. Example, Supervisor of the district decides they should have the minions do a fire break on top of a ridge. They stick probably 30 people out there with Pulaski and Macleods for 2 months stacking limbs and whacking grass/ brush, By the time the were a 1/2 mile down the ridge the stuff was already growing up behind them. The brush piles did get burned as a fire roared through there the next year or so. After the fire they hire fallers to fall the burnt timber next to the roads then precede to chip it all at an unreal cost , truck the chips 15 miles down the hill to a flat where the fire camp was, spread the chips over a 10 acer area to make it look like a park then put up a gate to exclude access. F/S (OUR) property. I have thousands of story's on how they piss all funding away with nothing to show for it other than someone gets a feather in the cap for the next promotion.

 

[Jason Snyder]

No, It's because the money is spent on endless paper shuffling and studies with NO actual boots on the ground work that's meaningful. Example, Supervisor of the district decides they should have the minions do a fire break on top of a ridge. They stick probably 30 people out there with Pulaski and Macleods for 2 months stacking limbs and whacking grass/ brush, By the time the were a 1/2 mile down the ridge the stuff was already growing up behind them. The brush piles did get burned as a fire roared through there the next year or so. After the fire they hire fallers to fall the burnt timber next to the roads then precede to chip it all at an unreal cost , truck the chips 15 miles down the hill to a flat where the fire camp was, spread the chips over a 10 acer area to make it look like a park then put up a gate to exclude access. F/S (OUR) property. I have thousands of story's on how they piss all funding away with nothing to show for it other than someone gets a feather in the cap for the next promotion.

Different funding appropriations.

Road construction and maintenance is capitol improvement.

You clearly don’t like the local FS folks, and how they do business. That has nothing to do with the underfunding of road maintenance over the last decade. It’s not hard to look up.

 

[BuckSmasher]

A retired FS Chief told me they viewed this as an 8 on a scale of 1-10 (1 is nothing burger and 10 is doomsday) with respect to future public land management.

Those of you who thing logging is the silver bullet to cure all, look around. How many mills are still open and running? How profitable is the potential timber sale? How does clear cutting or selective logging more remote forest service lands affect the fire risk in the suburban/foothill interface?

Research is about more than just fires. It’s also about elk and deer movements with respect to non consumptive use impacts. For example, mountain biking during elk calving.

I know there are a lot of stories about environmental whackos in the FS. I’ve met a couple. But, by and large the majority of FS folks I know are great folks who love the landscape. Our public land trust is an incredible treasure that won’t come back if it’s lost.

There was an interview in the Lewiston Tribune with a couple retired FS guys and a couple were for it and a couple against.

The 'pro' guys think it will make the agency more flexible by decentralizing. Other guy thought that it was a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Everyone agrees that the FS is basically turning into a fire fighting agency and neglecting other duties. Most fires are hit way to hard up here in Idaho. I think we should go much more towards a 'let it burn' philosophy.

As far as Timber sales go, early seral habitat, and lack of access to it, is a huge factor in elk and deer populations in North Idaho. You get early seral habitat in two main ways; fires and logging. With logging you get roads, increased sedimentation from such, decreased wilderness solititude/refuge for animals and people. I understand it isn't a panacea. Logging economics is not my forte, some of the cost/benefit may change with govt investment in mills and commitments to log.

 

[S.Clancy]

Did you ever stop to think it maybe because there is no funding for road maintenance?

No, It's because the money is spent on endless paper shuffling and studies with NO actual boots on the ground work that's meaningful. Example, Supervisor of the district decides they should have the minions do a fire break on top of a ridge. They stick probably 30 people out there with Pulaski and Macleods for 2 months stacking limbs and whacking grass/ brush, By the time the were a 1/2 mile down the ridge the stuff was already growing up behind them. The brush piles did get burned as a fire roared through there the next year or so. After the fire they hire fallers to fall the burnt timber next to the roads then precede to chip it all at an unreal cost , truck the chips 15 miles down the hill to a flat where the fire camp was, spread the chips over a 10 acer area to make it look like a park then put up a gate to exclude access. F/S (OUR) property. I have thousands of story's on how they piss all funding away with nothing to show for it other than someone gets a feather in the cap for the next promotion.

As @Jason Snyder said, funds to do deferred or annual maintenance on roads is appropriated funds from Congress. Any money we make from timber harvest, grazing, etc. goes back to the treasury.

 

[wowzers]

As @Jason Snyder said, funds to do deferred or annual maintenance on roads is appropriated funds from Congress. Any money we make from timber harvest, grazing, etc. goes back to the treasury.

What about the dollars from Road Maintenance deposits? Those are retained by the Forest. They aren't insignificant figures either, often in the hundreds of thousands dollar range. KV funds and Brush Disposal money are also retained.

 

[Jason Snyder]

There was an interview in the Lewiston Tribune with a couple retired FS guys and a couple were for it and a couple against.

The 'pro' guys think it will make the agency more flexible by decentralizing. Other guy thought that it was a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Everyone agrees that the FS is basically turning into a fire fighting agency and neglecting other duties. Most fires are hit way to hard up here in Idaho. I think we should go much more towards a 'let it burn' philosophy.

As far as Timber sales go, early seral habitat, and lack of access to it, is a huge factor in elk and deer populations in North Idaho. You get early seral habitat in two main ways; fires and logging. With logging you get roads, increased sedimentation from such, decreased wilderness solititude/refuge for animals and people. I understand it isn't a panacea. Logging economics is not my forte, some of the cost/benefit may change with govt investment in mills and commitments to log.

I agree with everything you said.

 

[S.Clancy]

What about the dollars from Road Maintenance deposits? Those are retained by the Forest. They aren't insignificant figures either, often in the hundreds of thousands dollar range. KV funds and Brush Disposal money are also retained.

Road maintenance comes down as either annual or deferred maintenance. Annual maintenance has to be spent every year and generally goes towards in-house grading of roads by gov't personnel. Deferred maintenance is project based and now needs to be submitted. The state leads then decide which projects to fund. Deferred maintenance funds can be active for a couple years, 2-3, before the project is either complete or the remaining funds are swept into another project. As I said before, both Annual and Deferred maintenance are appropriated by Congress.

I don't know what the other funds are.

 

[KnightExtreme]

! can Only wish the US Forest Service Was doing something, the last 20 years they have given up all what they once did. The Roads in the Fed Forest here are no longer maintained by the US Forect Service like It was. Now they given that over to the Local County Govt and they don't check the roads unless contacted and if you reach out to the US Forest Service now when you Find Trash and Debris left there they no longer will come out and remove it they ask others to do the removal. Limbs and blown down trees cover some road so you could not drive any kind of RV down these roads with tearing up the RV with scratches etc. When you alert the US Forest Service they no longer respond like it is not their Job!!! Sad what are we paying for as Taxepayers these Days??? And Get Zero in Return. They like to block off Camping Areas with no rythme or reason but to limit access. They also have old growth trees that are often coming down and no more thinning or clear cutting like they did 20 - 30 years ago. And It is all Old Growth??? The only time you might hear about the US Forest Service is if there is a Fire otherwise they are Non Existent!
Oh Well that is what we Get these days less service but keep paying with our dollars... What A Shame!
KE

 

[WalterH]

Last I read the USFS was down in the neighborhood of 20% as compared to staffing levels of early 2025. The budget proposed by the current admin calls for a 44% decrease in the USFS operations budget and reducing staff from 30K to 11K.

So, there is that.

The reality facing fed land management agencies is pretty bleak. The work that needs doing hasn't really changed, and now these agencies have fewer people and less money to do it.

Some will say that some fat needed to be cut and I don't disagree, but that isn't what happened here.