A summary of key points is provided below. Since we are dropping this issue on you at the eleventh hour, we have tried to give you enough detailed information in this alert to allow you to draft meaningful comments without having to do much research. Feel free to pick & chose, or cut & paste as you see fit.

If you have questions about any of this, contact Don Duerr at 307-742-7978 or send us an e-mail. Any attention you can give on this issue will be greatly appreciated and will help improve protection for one of the most imperilled ecosystems in the country.

In your comments, tell the USFS:

• You oppose any attempt to weaken the Chief's interim direction. To ensure viable, well-distributed populations, the Phase I amendment should offer the maximum possible interim protections for the species of concern on the Black Hills (including goshawks, marten, rare land snails, snag-dependent species, and rare plants). Responsible stewardship also demands that the USFS provide strong protection for these species in the short 2-5 year interim period because once scarce habitat is degraded or lost, it may not be possible to recover it for the foreseeable future. Likewise, once a species' population becomes non-viable or poorly distributed due to lack of suitable habitat, it is very difficult to correct.
  
  
• Proposed Alternatives 2 and 3 are not adequate to ensure the species of concern in the BHNF will remain viable and well-distributed through the interim period or into the future. In particular, both alternatives are inadequate because they fail to account for the current lack of old growth and goshawk nesting habitat, and they fail to account for the significant losses of these key habitats caused by the Jasper Fire. For the Phase I amendment, the USFS must therefore develop and implement an alternative that has much stronger interim protection than either Alternative 2 or 3. This alternative must, at the very least, provide all of the protections identified in these comments, including direction to allow no further degradation or loss of habitat for the species of concern.
  
  
• The interim direction should not allow any logging of old growth (i.e., Structural Stage 5) or dense mature forest habitat (Structural Stage 4C) in the Black Hills; there is too little of this habitat left to allow any of the remaining SS-4C and SS-5 habitat to be logged or fragmented by roads.
  
  
• To compensate for the loss of goshawk habitat caused by the Jasper Fire, the Phase I amendment must protect additional goshawk habitat elsewhere on the BHNF. This is crucial because only 10-15 pairs of goshawks have been found on the BHNF in recent years -- not a viable or well-distributed population, and much of the remaining high quality goshawk nesting/PFA habitat is not currently protected and could be logged during the interim period.
  
  
• To maintain viable, well-distributed populations of snag-dependent species such as the pygmy nuthatch, the interim direction must provide for recruitment of large snags by preserving large GREEN trees; this should be done by establishing a diameter limit that prohibits the logging of any live trees larger than 18 inches DBH.
  
  
• To protect the few remaining high-quality and highly imperilled montane grasslands on the Black Hills, these areas -- together with 1/2 mile no-activity buffers -- must be designated as Research Natural Areas through the Phase I amendment.
  
  
• You support the USFS's proposal to designate the five fish species (lake chub, finescale dace, brown trout, brook trout, and mountain sucker) as aquatic Management Indicator Species (MIS). Through the Phase I amendment, however, the USFS must also designate non-fish aquatic MIS including aquatic macro-invertebrate (e.g., stoneflies and mayflies), the Northern leopard frog, tiger salamander, beaver, dipper, willow communities, and aquatic plants that may indicate other effects of management activities (including livestock grazing, water development/depletion, mining, water quality and fishing).
  
  
• The Allowable Sale Quantity on the BHNF must be reduced to fully account for the reduction in timber volume caused by the interim direction and the Jasper Fire.
  
  
• A new scoping notice should be circulated to list the entirety of the Chief's interim direction so citizens can provide meaningful comments on whether or to what extent the Chief's interim direction should be modified through a different Phase I alternative.
  
  
• The expert interview process -- purportedly used by the USFS to develop the weaker interim direction in Alternative 3 -- was flawed and must be done over with public oversight and input and with full documentation of expert testimony.
  
  

U.S. Forest Service
c/o Black Hills National Forest
P.O. Box 221090
Salt Lake City, UT 84122
Fax: 801-517-1021

PROCESS FLAWS

• The USFS's October 27th scoping notice and its three attachments are not adequate for the public to understand and comment on the proposed action and its possible alternatives. The USFS must send out a new scoping notice to all potentially interested parties to clearly delineate the Chief's interim direction and to explain precisely what changes are being proposed in Alternatives 2 and 3. The new scoping notice must also fully explain any other changes the USFS is proposing to make to the Revised Forest Plan. For instance, what is Guideline 3201 and why is the USFS proposing to eliminate it? What specific errors warrant the proposed changing the elk and deer habitat effectiveness guidelines? What specific change is the USFS contemplating or proposing to fix these errors? What is Appendix L, why does it need changing, and what particular changes is the USFS intending to make to this part of the Revised Forest Plan? The USFS must provide a new public comment period on the clarified scoping notice.
  
  
• The USFS did interview some experts about the BHNF wildlife, and some of the expert interview information will be useful for the Phase I amendment. However, before a draft EA or EIS is issued, the USFS must conduct a new and open expert interview process after the scoping process is completed. This is needed because
  1. some key experts were excluded from the process (contact Biodiversity Associates for a list),
  2. it appears the individuals who were interviewed by the USFS were not given up-to-date and accurate information about the current conditions on the Forest,
  3. the interviews appear to have been prejudiced or handicapped by unreasonably narrow lines of questioning,
  4. citizens were not given the opportunity to oversee the process and ensure its integrity,
  5. the interviews were not recorded or fully documented so it is possible key statements, opinions, conclusions, or recommendations offered by the experts are not reflected in the "Expert Interview Summary", and
  6. the interview process arguably violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) since the USFS used this process to seek recommendations from the people outside the agency.
  The USFS should conduct new interviews and seek management recommendations from all experts who have published peer-reviewed scientific studies or a graduate thesis or dissertation on species of concern on the Black Hills. The USFS should provide the experts with reliable, current data on habitat conditions in the Black Hills, and the agency should provide the experts with alternatives identified through the scoping process. All interviews must be recorded, and the public should be given the opportunity to review and comment on questions to be asked of the experts.

NEED FOR GREATER PROTECTIONS

• Given the serious concerns over the viability and distribution of goshawk, marten, land snails of special concern, and snag-dependent species in the Black Hills, the Phase I amendment must prohibit any degradation in habitat and any decrease in habitat capability for these species. (The Revised Plan currently allows projects to be implemented even if they reduce habitat capability down to the 40% level - an arbitrary figure that does not ensure well-distributed, viable populations). None of the preliminary alternatives listed in the scoping notice would do this.
  
  
• The interim direction should disallow any further road building and even aged silvicultural prescriptions during the Phase I. These activities are largely responsible for the plight of many of the species in question. With over 8,000 miles of roads on the BHNF, there is no need for more road building. And there are alternatives to shelterwood and patch clearcutting. None of the preliminary alternatives listed in the scoping notice would do this.
  
  
• To ensure viability of goshawks, interior forest song birds, martens, and other forest-dwelling species on the Black Hills, the Phase I amendment must include direction to prevent any further logging (regardless of method) or burning of old growth (Structural Stage 5) or "mature dense" forest (SS-4C) habitat. None of the preliminary alternatives listed in the scoping notice would do this.
  
  
• The Phase I amendment must require protection of the "best available" goshawk nesting habitat, in 30 acre or larger patches, as the Chief instructed. Deleting the "best available" or "30 acres or larger" language is unacceptable and scientifically indefensible.
  
  
• For the Black Hills, it is inappropriate to use the goshawk management guidelines developed for the Southwest United States (Region 3) for two reasons. First, the Black Hills is subject to much harsher weather than the southwest region, so nest stands and post fledging areas (PFAs) should contain greater percentages and larger patches of mature dense forest habitat to help provide thermal protection for young birds. Second, the SW guidelines were largely based on the assumption that goshawk prey species were limiting so that managing the SW Forests for high prey abundance would benefit goshawks. However, in the BHNF, there is no evidence prey is limiting, and, in fact, the USFS's "habitat capability" modeling indicate prey species are currently abundant and will remain abundant throughout the foreseeable future (i.e., well beyond the entire interim period). The kind of habitat that is limiting in the Black Hills is suitable nesting and post fledging areas (PFAs) which consists largely of dense stands of older trees. It would be wrong and scientifically indefensible to reduce stand density and age class when there is such a dire shortage of old growth habitat in the Black Hills. This is one reason why Alternative 3 is unacceptable.
  
  
• Interim direction should NOT focus on commercially thinning stands in a purported to make a new stand of large trees 100 years from now. Interim direction should, instead, focus on protecting all remaining habitat in the interim.
  
  
• The Phase I amendment must provide direction to protect additional goshawk nesting and PFA habitat on the Forest to compensate for the significant loss of such habitat that resulted from the recent Jasper Fire (83,500 acres burned, eliminating 9 of 10 known goshawk nest territories in the burn area). The Chief's interim direction was issued before the fire and therefore does not address this important issue. Through the Phase I amendment, the USFS has the authority and responsibility to suspend logging plans on other parts of the Forest -- and to give protective designation to dense patches of mature and older forest habitat as a way of compensating for the significant loss of goshawk habitat. None of the proposed alternatives would do this.
  
  
• To provide for a viable, well distributed population of pine marten in the Black Hills, the Chief's interim direction should not be changed (i.e., prevent further decrease in patch size of late-successional forests within areas currently occupied by martens or with high potential for occupancy"). The scoping notice suggests the alternatives the USFS is proposing for the Phase I amendment (Alt. 2 and Alt. 3) would only "prevent decrease in patch size" of late-successional white spruce or ponderosa pine stands with a significant white spruce component. Such stands occur on only a small fraction of the forest, and marten in the BHNF do inhabit forested areas dominated by ponderosa pine with little or no spruce. The Phase I amendment should adopt the Chief's direction, word-for word, for the marten and clarify that even p.pine stands with little or no spruce should not be fragmented or suffer reduced patch size. This will also protect interior forest songbird populations (Crompton only observed the full complement of such birds in the Black Hills in unlogged patches larger than 1000 hectares). In addition, the Phase I amendment must include direction based on the expert interviews, including
  1. a prohibition on building roads in potential marten habitat, and
  2. in "areas identified as important connectivity corridors for marten, maintain canopy closure and density (i.e., do not thin)."
  
  
  
• The Phase I amendment must provide strong interim direction to protect all known or suspected colonies of land snails of special concern (there are 7 varieties of land snail that have been identified by Frest and Johannes (who, by the way, were not interviewed by the USFS and who have stated that these snails should be listed as threatened or endangered species). Some of these rare snails (e.g., Pahasapa Mountainsnail) are believed to occur nowhere else in the world. The Phase I amendment must therefore adopt direction prohibiting livestock grazing, logging, road construction, prescribed fire, use of chemicals (e.g., dust palliative, pesticides, insecticides, etc.), and other ground-disturbing activities within 100-200 meters of known or suspected colonies of snails of special concern on the Black Hills. Road building and other activities must not be allowed if they dry up springs or seeps, or otherwise result in a hotter, drier microclimate in a snail colony of concern. Phase I must also require thorough inventories for land snails in project areas before ground-disturbing activities are allowed. None of the proposed alternatives would do this.
  
  
• The Phase I amendment must include direction to halt impacts to sensitive species of plants and rare plant communities in the Black Hills from livestock grazing and other activities. The proposed alternatives do not provide any such direction. Many areas where rare plants and unusual communities occur are already known to the USFS. The Phase I amendment must provide buffers around rare plant areas to prohibit harmful activities such as grazing and ORV use. The highly imperilled montane grasslands (G1S1 plant communities) in the Black Hills must also receive full protection under the Phase I amendment to ensure they are not further degraded in the interim. The USFS has the authority and the responsibility to designate the highest quality montane grasslands as Research Natural Areas as part of the Phase I amendment. They must protect these areas with a 1/2 mile buffer. None of the proposed alternatives would do this.
  
  
• To ensure viability of snag-dependent species in the Black Hills, the Phase I amendment must provide for continuing recruitment of snags from currently green trees (not just protection of existing dead snags). Recruitment is important in the Black Hills because many snags left in logged areas are either blown down or cut down by fire wood gatherers. The Chief's interim direction does not provide for snag recruitment of snags from live trees.
  
  
• To maintain viable, well-distributed populations of woodpeckers on the BHNF, the woodpecker experts interviewed for the Phase I amendment emphasized the importance of allowing large-scale, stand replacing fires and beetle infestations to occur in the Black Hills. (Expert Interview Summary, page 90). The Phase I amendment must provide interim direction to allow for these processes. In particular, the Phase I amendment must establish direction to maintain snags in the Jasper Fire area (i.e., the same area the USFS is now trying to hammer with a massive salvage logging project).
  
  
• Given the shortage of large snags (important for the pygmy nuthatch & saw whet owl), the Phase I amendment must prohibit the logging of all live trees larger than 18 inches DBH so these trees can eventually become large snags. None of the proposed alternatives would do this. At the very least, this protection is reasonable and should be provided through the Phase I amendment for the "interim" period until the USFS takes a hard look at this problem and figures out more carefully how many large live trees must be retained for recruiting large snags needed by nuthatches, etc.
  
  
• Guideline 3201 should not be removed from the Revised Plan as the USFS is proposing. The Guideline reads: Habitat capability for species currently at or below 50 percent ... should not be decreased by more than 10 percent due to the project. The Chief recognized this language was problematic because there is no floor (lower limit) so the USFS could, project after project, continually reduce habitat until capability approaches 0%. Rather than being deleted, Guideline 3201 should, instead, be made a standard with a hard floor of 40% (consistent with other provisions of the Plan).
  
  
• The Phase I amendment must provide direction for maintaining the viability and improving the distribution of imperilled native fish on the Forest. Of particular concern is the lake chub which was formerly common in streams of the Black Hills but is now limited to Deerfield reservoir and perhaps only one nearby stream (in the vicinity of McIntosh Fen). This population is nether viable nor well-distributed. The finescale dace and mountain sucker are also in need of better management direction. Designating these species as MIS is not enough; strong new management direction (with restrictions on land uses and water development, etc.) is needed in the Phase I amendment.
  
  
• The USFS is proposing to delete the black bear from the MIS list based on an assertion this species has been extirpated from the Forest. There have been recent sightings of black bear (with cubs) in the Black Hills. Regardless of these sightings, the Phase I amendment should provide direction to restore this species to the Forest and designate it as a Black Hills Sensitive Species. Since the health of large predator populations provides information about activities on the Forest, the Phase I amendment should also designate the mountain lion (which does currently exist in the Forest) as an MIS and Sensitive Species on the Black Hills.
  
  
• The Chief's Forest Plan appeal ruling requires the Black Hills to "Treat all environmentally protective guidelines in the Revised Plan as standards unless doing so would conflict with other interim direction...." The USFS's description of its proposed Phase I direction, however, adds a couple of qualifiers to this important direction: "Guidelines identified as environmentally protective related to species viability will be treated as Standards until the Phase II effort is completed." The Chief's Interim Direction was not limited just to those guidelines that are "related to species viability". Moreover, there is no discussion in the scoping materials as to which guidelines will be "identified as environmentally protective" by the USFS and how such guidelines will be identified. The Phase I amendment must treat all guidelines that affect wildlife habitat as "standards."
  
  
• The USFS must develop and adopt a stronger interim direction alternative (e.g., an Alternative 4) for the Phase I amendment to incorporate ALL of the above protections as well as the rest of the Chief's Interim Direction.
  
  
• The cumulative impacts of the 83,500 acre Jasper Fire and any related salvage logging activities must be considered in developing the interim direction.
  
  
• If the USFS considers an alternative that would weaken the Chief's Interim Direction in any way (as Alternative 3 would), an EIS must be prepared to evaluate how that would impact species viability and distribution. An EIS is also needed to disclose the irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources that would result from further loss or degradation of habitat allowed under the relaxed interim direction.