Save Upper Echo Lake

The NEPA Lab , a blog published by Pennsylvania State University  Professor  Jamison E. Colburn, features a story entitled Mission Impossible: When the Pressure to do Something Exceeds the Knowledge of How to do it Right . Professor Colburn states: "the Service and others have tended toward “fuels treatments” of various kinds by a wide acreage margin.  But the science behind this approach—whether it is mechanical thinning, understory collection and incineration, or plain old logging to create “fire breaks”—is much less certain than fire planners would have you believe." The story features the Upper Echo Lake Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project as a failed fuel reduction project that increased environmental risk.

In an  article  written by Scott Sonner, the AP described the decision of the U.S. Forest Service to withdraw the memo authorizing its Upper Echo Lake Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project.  The article was picked up in hundreds of news outlets nationally, such as the San Francisco Chronicle .

In an article written by Jack Barnwell, the Tahoe Daily Tribune described the decision of the U.S. Forest Service to withdraw the memo authorizing its Upper Echo Lake Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project.  The decision to halt the project comes at a time that politicians and agency officials prepare for the annual Lake Tahoe Summit .

In a one sentence memo dated July 20, 2015, the Forest Service withdrew its November 2012 decision to implement the Upper Echo Lake Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project. This marks an important milestone in the effort to address both the impacts of the Project and the agency mismanagement that led to its development in the first instance, including the effort to skirt required federal environmental review.

On July 13, 2015, Dennis Murphy submitted a request for correction under the Information Quality Act to the U.S. Forest Service. The request seeks correction of information in two documents generated in support of the Upper Echo Lake Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project: 1.   USDA Forest Service, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of El Dorado County, CA, Decision Memo – Upper Echo Lakes Hazardous Fuels Reduction (November 15, 2012). 2.   United States Department of Agriculture-Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, Biological Assessment/Biological Evaluation Terrestrial Species (April 23, 2012). The documents overstate the fire risk in the project area and understate the environmental impacts associated with implementation of the project on native species, wetlands, and water quality. The Information Quality Act (IQA) requires agencies to develop guidelines to assure a basic quality of information is disseminated.  The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)...

Here is a link to a story about the status of mountain yellow-legged frogs by Katie Vane, reinforcing the precarious status of the species and the need for conservation-minded management of those areas of the national forests that provide habitat for the frog.

As reported in Environment and Energy Daily (June 1, 2015 by Phil Taylor), Congress is considering a bill to streamline NEPA review of Forest Service projects and impede legal challenges to such projects.  The bill includes a legislative categorical exclusion from NEPA for certain Forest Service activities.  In addition, it would require groups that sue to block certain projects to post a bond to cover the government's anticipated legal costs, which the groups would forfeit if they are not successful. The difficulty with such streamlining is that it facilitates both legitimate wildfire risk reduction projects and illegitimate agency boondoggles.  Thus, the Forest Service is relying on an existing categorical exclusion to justify its Upper Echo Lake Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project.  That project is unnecessary to reduce the threat of wildfire and therefore fiscally imprudent, and it is also environmentally destructive. In any challenge to a Forest Service proje...