Forests, Fires, Trout

Wildfire management and its implications for cold water conservation

The Issue:

Over the last several years, wildfires have ravaged communities — and trout and salmon habitat — across the country, from the Great Smoky mountains in the Southeast to Methow River valley in the Northwest.

Fire is a natural part of many ecosystems and can have beneficial effects for fish, wildlife and forest health, but wildfires in North America are becoming ever larger and more severe. Contributing factors include changing climate conditions ‐ hotter, drier summers, variations and unpredictability in precipitation, longer and more severe droughts, increasing development in fire‐prone areas, and a legacy of past timber management and fire suppression policies that, despite good intentions, have left some of our forested acres vulnerable to uncharacteristic wildfires.

The increasing frequency and cost of catastrophic fires has forced serious consideration in Congress, state legislatures and resource agencies of new ways to address this challenge that will better prepare communities, reduce fire risk, improve forest health and ensure access to resources for fighting blazes.

The Solutions:

There are two fundamental components to policy discussions related to wildfires:

1. Forest management: How can we better manage our forested lands and open space to restore more natural fire regimes, address insect and disease outbreaks, and reduce risk for urban development in and near forested areas, often referred to as the “Wilderness-Urban-Interface” (WUI))?
2. Fix Funding: Over the past several years, the cost of fighting wildfires has outpaced the budgeted amount for wildfire suppression and response — a circumstance which forces the USFS to “borrow” funds from other agency accounts to cover the gap. This “fire borrowing” wreaks havoc on other USFS services, putting contracted services on hold and causing uncertainty for budgeted restoration and non-fire management activities. This results in a vicious cycle: when funding is cut from restoration and management activities, the USFS is constrained in its ability to manage lands to reduce wildfire risk, whether through active burning, brush clearing, or other activities that would improve forest resiliency and reduce the risk and severity of wildfires. With these management and prevention activities reduced, the risk and severity of wildfires increases. This leads to more extreme and costly fires, which in turn leads to additional raiding of non-fire budgets to cover suppression and response costs. Ending this fire-borrowing cycle is an essential first step in any legislative approach to dealing with wildfires and forest management.

What was there before in case you wanted to save it: Response: How can we better manage our planning and response tools to respond to wildfires once they are underway (including better management of funding for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to fight fires without depleting non-fire budgets).

Currently, several legislative proposals are circulating in the US House and Senate that aim to improve both components. While these proposals share a similar goal, they take very different approaches, with very different risks and opportunities for our federally managed public lands.

Why does this matter for Trout Unlimited?

Our national forests and BLM lands serve as an essential source of clean water for communities across the country; these lands also provide habitat for fish and wildlife, recreational opportunities for hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts and, when properly managed, a sustainable source of jobs and revenue for local communities. Thus, the guiding principle here should be stewardship that ensures the long‐term ecological health of the lands and waters upon which we all depend. Active vegetation management can play an important role in stewardship, but it should not be an end unto itself.

To fulfill this stewardship imperative, it is essential that federal resource agencies, in particular the USFS, are adequately staffed and funded to support both long term management objectives and immediate fire suppression and response requirements. Equally important is ensuring that the USFS has direction to focus restoration efforts on activities that will support forest resilience and help minimize risk for future fires while supporting other forest health objectives.

Smart Forest Management and Fire Risk Reduction

Forest management practices should be focused on outcome driven approaches that prioritize watershed health. Timber harvest, where suitable, should be viewed as an appropriate tool for managing for healthy, diverse, and productive watersheds, not as a management goal that supersedes all others.

Current Legislative Proposals

Following a record-setting fire season, Congress is eager to pass legislation dealing with wildfire and forest management. In recent months we have seen a flurry of legislation, some of which would help to restore forest health and some that might have the opposite effect.

Proposals such as H.R. 2936, the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017, which recently passed the House of Representatives, include problematic measures. This bill, for example, would expedite logging for large swaths of national forests in the name of restoration, but in fact would allow timber harvest in backcountry roadless lands where this activity is more logistically challenging and likely to cause significant degradation of water quality and habitat, as well as for forests that may not be in need of restoration. In addition, this bill would reduce opportunities for public involvement in the decision-making process required for considering timber projects.

In the Senate, S. 2068, the Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation Act, includes provisions that would reduce redundant project analysis and help to expedite the restoration of sage grouse and mule deer habitat — all good things. However, the bill shares some of the problematic elements embedded in H.R. 2936 — efforts to streamline environmental review lack sideboards to ensure transparency and minimize impacts that impair forest and watershed health.

In contrast, the Wildland Fires Act of 2017, a bipartisan proposal also under consideration in the Senate, takes a more holistic, science-based approach by focusing resources on the wildland urban interface, promoting collaborative stewardship, and expediting projects in lower elevation ponderosa pine forest types where forest treatments will help to restore a natural fire regime and forest conditions.

Similarly, S. 1842, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, is the right approach to solving the immense problem of fire borrowing. This bill has 10 bipartisan co-sponsors and its provisions should be keystone components of any wildfire management legislation.

How is TU engaging and what comes next?

Perhaps it was not so envisioned by TU’s founders, but it turns out that improving our resource agencies’ ability to reduce the risks and damage associated with catastrophic wildlife — including massive degradation of cold water habitat — is important to fulfillment of our mission. Therefore, TU is engaging at all levels of the organization in identifying the impacts to trout and angling opportunities of current wildfire policies and funding issues, and in urging decision makers to support sensible, cost-effective, bi-partisan measures that will reduce or eliminate these impacts.

Talking Points for TU Trustees

Agency Funding:

• Provide adequate funding to resource management agencies to support science-based fire management and response. High levels of wildfire spending, including wholesale borrowing from other National Forest and BLM budget items, are substantially undermining the ability of agencies to properly manage our public lands. First and foremost, Senate committees should work to provide adequate funds to federal land agencies and their key partners, such as counties, to allow for holistic management of watersheds, fisheries, wildlife, and timber production

Fire Borrowing:

• Support the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (WDFA). S. 1842 is the right solution to the problem of fire borrowing. The bill has 10 bipartisan co‐sponsors and should be the cornerstone of any wildfire management legislation

Forest Management:

• Please focus on improving use of existing tools before creating new ones. Federal land managers currently have a number of tools available to reduce the risk and severity of wildfires. Please focus policy efforts on supporting appropriate use of the many tools they already possess.
• Forest Management policies should focus on outcome-driven approaches that prioritize watershed health — rather than acreage cleared or timber harvested — and ensure that transparency, public involvement and scientific analysis continue to inform management decisions.

Additional Reading?

• See additional policy recommendations in TU’s letter to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, commenting on multiple legislative proposals in the current Congress.
• Updates following FY18 Omnibus Deal (March 2018): CWood applauds Fire Funding fix in FY18 Omnibus; Press Release (3/23)

Additional Factsheets and Background Memos for 2018 Trustee Advocacy Day: