Tag: environment

National Forests, Endangered Species Under Attack as House Republicans Pass Reckless Logging Bill

rjzimmerman:

Excerpt:

In a partisan vote, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation Wednesday that would devastate national forests by gutting endangered species protections and rubber-stamping huge logging projects. The final vote was 232 to 188.

HR 2936, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), also limits public comment and environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Under the guise of reducing forest fires, the bill would increase unfettered logging across national forests and public lands, increase fire risk and harm forest health, while doing nothing to protect communities.

“This bill is a dangerous bait-and-switch that rewards the timber industry. It puts the health of our forests and wildlife in grave danger and ignores real solutions,” said Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It would green-light the worst forest management practices from decades ago, when reckless logging devastated wildlife, degraded rivers and ruined recreation opportunities for countless Americans.”

Westerman’s bill is a timber-industry wish list. Among other harmful provisions, it would allow rushed logging projects up to 30,000 acres—46 square miles—without public notice or scientific assessment of potential harm to the environment as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The bill would render forest plans meaningless, roll back measures designed to protect old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, waive protections for waterways and water quality across the national forest system, promote harmful logging in otherwise protected roadless areas and force the Forest Service to ignore potential harm to thousands of imperiled species. It would also give private landowners with easements on public land full ownership of that land and allow herbicides to be sprayed without reviewing the harm to water, fish and wildlife.

National Forests, Endangered Species Under Attack as House Republicans Pass Reckless Logging Bill

The unprecedented drought that’s crippling Montana and North Dakota

rjzimmerman:

Excerpt:

While much of the country’s attention in recent weeks has been on the hurricanes striking southern Texas and the Caribbean, a so-called “flash drought”, an unpredictable, sudden event brought on by sustained high temperatures and little rain, has seized a swathe of the country and left farmers with little remedy. Across Montana’s northern border and east into North Dakota, farms are turning out less wheat than last year, much of it poorer quality than normal.

Most farmers in and around the Fort Peck Reservation agree that climate change is to blame for the sudden drought and ruined crops, but that doesn’t change the fact that farmers and others who make their living off of agriculture are now subject to shifting political winds and strained debate around the issue.

“This is unprecedented,” says Tanja Fransen of the National Weather Service in Glasgow, a larger city just up the road from Fort Peck. “This is as dry as it’s been in recorded history and some of our recording stations have 100 years of data. A lot of people try to compare this to previous years, but really, you just can’t.”

Adnan Akyuz, the state climatologist for North Dakota, describes the unusual drought in terms that are reminiscent of descriptions of deluge brought on by Hurricane Harvey. “It is safe to say, we got into it very fast, which caught us off guard and we didn’t know it was going to continue,” he says.

Akyuz said that March through July was the third-driest five months on record in North Dakota since 1895, a dire situation impossible to predict given traditional methods of weighing snowpack with average seasonal temperatures to monitor for potential drought. But in the future, unpredictable may be the best prediction.

The unprecedented drought that’s crippling Montana and North Dakota

U.S. regulators assessing new gas pipelines must try to analyze their potential to increase greenhouse gas emissions before giving them the go-ahead, an appeals court ruled on Tuesday, in a decision that industry representatives and environmentalists said could have far-reaching effects on infrastructure projects. The ruling stemmed from a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve the Southeast Pipelines Project, three gas pipelines proposed by a consortium of companies including Duke Energy Corp, Spectra Energy Partners and NextEra Energy Inc. Judges on the District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals said in their ruling that before FERC approved the project it should have considered the environmental impact of the greenhouse gases likely to be emitted when gas transported by the pipelines was burned. While some experts said the decision meant little more than an increase in paperwork for regulators, others said it could change the way the federal government decides what issues to examine in environmental impact studies required under the National Environmental Policy Act. In the past regulators have considered only the effects of a project they have the authority to control, which are considered direct effects. But the appeals court’s decision could force them to consider indirect effects as well. “FERC would obviously prefer to say, ‘We’re approving a pipeline and here are the impacts from digging a trench and laying a pipe,’” said Elly Benson, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, one of the environmental groups that challenged the permit FERC gave for the pipelines in a petition before the appeals court. “What they’re ignoring is the fact that this project includes the transmission of gas that everyone knows is going to be combusted,” added Benson, who called the court’s decision a “very important victory.”

Court ruling could broaden U.S. government environmental impact studies
(via dendroica)
Source: dendroica

tilthat:

TIL that an indian who saw his homeland go barren due to deforestation, took to planting trees himself and 37 years later , he is responsible for the formation of a tropical paradise which not only has trees but different wildlife species such as rhinos,tigers,elephants etc too.

via http://ift.tt/2fH0Mne

An interesting short documentary about Jadav Payeng’s work: Forest Man

27 National Monuments Are Under Review. Here Are Five to Watch.

rjzimmerman:

Excerpt:

No president has ever abolished a national monument designated by a predecessor. President Trump may try to change that.

Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the interior, is reviewing 27 national monuments to determine if previous administrations exceeded their authority in setting aside craggy vistas, ancient cliff dwellings and other large tracts of land for protection. He is expected to recommend that some be scaled back, or perhaps eliminated entirely and returned to state ownership.

Democrats and environmental activists see the review as part of a broad effort within the Trump administration to unravel the conservation legacy of President Barack Obama, who under the 1906 Antiquities Act put more land and water under federal protection than any other president. Yet Mr. Zinke’s study, due by Aug. 24, stretches back 21 years to include other national monuments that remain a source of acrimony, particularly in the West.

Not all of the monuments are truly in the administration’s cross hairs, and Mr. Zinke has already declared some of them safe from changes. While any of the others could be altered, critics and supporters of the review say only a handful face significant scrutiny. Here are some of the big ones to watch.

My take on any and all of these. trump is determined to reverse anything done by President Obama, and the monuments established after 2008 fall into that category. While he was at it, he expanded the year bracket to pick up monuments declared by President Clinton, which his tiny little brain told him added some deflection from his anti-Obama crusade.

The ones noted in the article. 

Toadstools Trail in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Education Images/UIG via Getty Images

Grand Staircase-Escalante. Why? Because President Clinton pissed off the republican politicians in Utah when he declared this monument in 1996. They remain pissed. Plus there’s a lot of coal underground. Why do you think trump’s executive order picked the year 1996 forward, and not just the past eight years under President Obama? To appease the Utah republicans, that’s why.

Left: The Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. Right: Ancient granaries, part of the House on Fire ruins in Bears Ears. Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune, via Associated Press; George Frey/Getty Images

Bears Ears. Why? Read any of my other posts about Bears Ears. This one is the poster child for the environmental movement. See above regarding Utah politicians. zinke has already suggested massive shrinkage of the monument size. Loud, expensive litigation will follow, and it will be personal.

Workers install a sign at the Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks National Monument in Las Cruces, N.M., in March 2015. Jett Loe/Las Cruces Sun-News via Associated Press.

Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks. Why? Ranchers are pissed off, and zinke likes to help pissed off ranchers.

A rain storm passing over Mt. Katahdin in the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in northern Maine. Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press

Katahdin. This monument tells us how stupid republicans, including trump and zinke are. This land was donated to the government by the family that founded Burt’s Bees, along with an endowment. No-brainer, right? Maine’s right wing, crazy governor hates this monument, that’s why. zinke has already said: no changes to this one, so I don’t know why the New York Times has it in on its watch list. Maybe because the trump wild card (trump can and will do anything he feels like doing).

Left: Sea turtles on Turtle at Midway Atoll in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Right: Landing at Henderson Field, Midway Atoll. Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images; Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Papahānaumokuākea. Why this one? The commercial fishing industry doesn’t like it.

27 National Monuments Are Under Review. Here Are Five to Watch.

Trump Administration Preparing Texas Wildlife Refuge for First Border Wall Segment

rjzimmerman:

In addition to the destruction of a national refuge, the construction of the wall through the refuge will be destroying the habitat for the endangered ocelot, 400 species of birds, 450 types of plants, and half of the butterfly species found in North America. According to Think Progress, “A U.S. Fish and Wildlife report from 2016 found that more than 100 animals that are listed as endangered, threatened, or candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act could be affected by the border wall.”

The planning and preparation for the construction has been done in secret by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service and its private contractors.

I am not saying the following…..I have no control over my fingers as they float across my keyboard……..doing this is fucked up, doing it in secret is triple fucked up, trump’s minions doing this is beyond fucked up.

Excerpt:

For at least six months, private contractors and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have been quietly preparing to build the first piece of President Trump’s border wall through the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge in South Texas. The federally owned 2,088-acre refuge, often called the “crown jewel of the national wildlife refuge system,” could see construction begin as early as January 2018, according to a federal official who has been involved in the planning but asked to remain anonymous.

“This should be public information,” the official told the Observer. “There shouldn’t be government officials meeting in secret just so they don’t have to deal with the backlash. The public has the right to know about these plans.”

On Friday afternoon, several workers were drilling into the existing earthen levee on the wildlife refuge and extracting soil samples to prepare for the construction. A security guard watching over the site asked me to leave when I started asking questions.

Established in 1943, the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge is one of the top birding destinations in North America. Home to at least 400 bird species and 450 species of plants, it also hosts both the rare Sabal palm and the endangered ocelot. The refuge is located on the Texas-Mexico border about 10 miles southeast of McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley.If the levee wall is constructed, it will essentially destroy the refuge, the official said. The proposed plans call for building a road south of the wall and clearing refuge land on either side of the wall for surveillance, cameras and light towers.

Some of the species who will be adversely affected by this:

Trump Administration Preparing Texas Wildlife Refuge for First Border Wall Segment