The BHNF currently does not have viable or well-distributed populations of goshawks, martens, mountain lions, sawwhet owls, pygmy nuthatches, land snails of special concern, etc. The Chief's ruling on the Revised Forest Plan confirmed this. The USFS has yet to correct these serious problems. Any logging, snag removal, or road construction will only exacerbate this unlawful and ecologically irresponsible condition.

You cannot support the Proposed Action (Alt. B) or Alternative C because both are inconsistent with the Forest Plan, would exacerbate wildlife habitat shortages on the forest, and would further reduce wildlife populations and distributions below already unlawful levels.

The USFS should pick either alternative A (no action) or one of the alternatives improperly dismissed in the DEIS, including a Native American land transfer alternative, a "bison preserve" alternative, or another alternative that preserves wildlife habitat, helps remedy the serious snag shortage on the forest, protects soils, and does not involve extensive timber harvesting or road construction activities.

The USFS should not allow logging of partially burned trees that "might die" simply to provide more public timber to the insatiable timber industry in the Black Hills. The fire area is dominated by ponderosa pine which are fire resistant and can survive after being partially burned. P.pine with canopies that are 25% or more burned can live and recover. Partially burned trees should also be left for snag recruitment and future snag habitat.

The DEIS suggests salvage logging is needed to reduce fire risk of standing trees killed by fire. There is no evidence there is or will be an increased fire risk if salvage logging is not done. A revised or supplemental draft EIS must fully evaluate this issue. The fire has already reduced the fire risk significantly (e.g., by depleting ground fuels, ladder fuels, and weak trees), to the point where leaving standing (or fallen) dead trees in the area will not pose any significant risk or problem. In addition, because the fire thinned out the area, any future fire in the area will be easily controlled.

If burned trees are not logged this year, they will continue to provide wildlife habitat in future years. However, if the trees are logged this year, this will adversely impact the forest and wildlife right a way. This means the "Value Recovery" project would actually be a Value Reduction project. The USFS needs to stop viewing the public forests as nothing more than a cash crop for big corporations.

If the USFS can show there is a clear and demonstrable need to remove trees from the fire area, the USFS should do so through prescribed fire or non-commercial felling, limit treatment to those trees which are already dead or have experienced more than 60% total crown burn, and remove trees which are smaller than 14 inches DBH (to maintain large snag habitat).

Through the Jasper Fire response decision, the USFS should designate the montane grasslands in the fire area as RNAs to provide immediate and continuing protection for these special places; waiting until the Phase II amendment to consider the RNA option will allow significant damage to occur to these grasslands, and this may reduce their eligibility for RNA designation.

Through the Jasper Fire response decision, the USFS must protect additional old growth, structural stage 4C habitat (mature, closed canopy stands), and interior forest in other parts of the Black Hills to compensate for the significant loss of these habitats from the arsonist's fire; if the USFS does not designate and protect replacement habitat now, on-going logging throughout the Forest could eliminate the possible replacement habitat, thereby leaving the Forest without enough habitat compensate for the fire and to ensure viable, well distributed populations.

Mountain pine beetles, Ips beetle species, red turpentine beetles, and other wood boring beetles are all naturally occurring insects on the Black Hills, yet the USFS perceives these insects as a threat to the Forest ecosystem. These insects are natives species that deserve the same impact analysis as any other species. These native species do less damage to the forest than the commercial logging program (which completely removes trees and nutrients from the ecosystem). In addition, these insect species are invaluable to the BHNF forest ecosystem. By feeding upon dead or dying trees, wood borers and bark beetles provide food to insect gleaning species of birds, create snags that may be utilized by cavity nesting birds in the future and overall are invaluable catalysts in forest evolution - often aiding immensely in the regrowth of forest after fires, blowdowns or other naturally occurring stand removing processes. The potentially significant direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts upon insects and upon the niche of insects in the BHNF forest ecosystem should be thoroughly analyzed in the FEIS.

A forest plan amendment must be prepared on the Jasper Fire proposal to reduce the forest-wide Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ) and acreage of land suitable for timber harvest to account for the significant and unanticipated reduction in timber supply and forested land following the fire.

There is no need for the vast network of roads in the area. Only major throughways should be left open; other roads should be closed and obliterated, and no new roads (including temporary roads) should be constructed. With 8,000 miles of roads on this Forest, the agency should be prioritizing road closure, obliteration and reclamation, not new "temporary" road construction.

A revised or supplemental draft EIS must be prepared to fully evaluate the cumulative impacts to wildlife, including viability concerns exacerbated by the fire and proposed logging activities.

A revised or supplemental draft EIS must also be prepared and circulated to rigorously explore and objectively evaluate all reasonable alternatives, including: (1) designating the montane grasslands in the fire area as RNAs, (2) protecting additional old growth and goshawk habitat (from logging) in other parts of the forest to compensate for the loss of these habitats in the burn area, (3) alternative mitigation measures, including stronger wildlife protections (the DEIS is only considering wildlife mitigation measures that would be consistent with the "anticipated Phase I forest Plan amendment direction" which is too weak, has not gone through the NEPA process, and isn't even described in the DEIS), (4) road closure and reclamation alternatives, (5) alternatives to "treat" the forest without commercial logging (e.g., prescribed fire, cut & fell), and (6) action alternatives involving less than 27 mmbf of logging. Two large-scale commercial logging alternatives does not satisfy NEPA's requirement to consider all reasonable alternatives.

A revised or supplemental draft EIS is also needed to present key impacts "analysis" that was left out of the existing DEIS (e.g., assessment of cumulative impacts to wildlife populations, viability and distribution, etc.).

According to the Jasper Fire Rapid Assessment, "Noxious weeds are already present within the fire area, and are likely to rapidly spread as a result of the fire." The impacts of noxious weeds on native forests has been obvious. From an ecosystem standpoint, the introduction of noxious weeds is a disaster and all measures should be taken to ensure noxious weeds do not populate or repopulate the Jasper Fire burn area. By increasing the access to the Jasper Fire area through salvage logging operations, the threat of noxious weed invasion is increased. The FEIS must assess the extent to which the proposed logging activities would exacerbate or cause the spread of noxious weeds.

The Jasper Fire "Value Recovery" proposal is not an "emergency," and should not be treated as one. The "emergency" conditions listed in 36 CFR 215.10(d) all relate to existing unsafe or hazardous conditions. There is no existing unsafe or hazardous condition in the Jasper fire area that needs to be treated as an "emergency." If trees may die and pose a risk, they can be felled and/or burned the next year, and the USFS can impose a temporary closure on areas that are believed to be unsafe.

The USFS should be ashamed for already rushing through a massive commercial timber sale in the Jasper Fire area under a categorical exclusion ("Hazard Tree Reduction" project) and for preparing shoddy Supplemental Information Reports (SIRs) for decisions to significantly expand existing timber sales to log more trees in the fire area. These actions were unlawful and a breach of the public trust.

The USFS's desire to rush through a "value recovery" project for the benefit of the timber industry does not relieve the agency of its obligation to fully comply with NEPA and other applicable laws. The USFS's woefully inadequate and hastily prepared draft EIS, the agency's failure to explore reasonable alternatives, the agency's failure to take a hard look at significant impacts, and the agency's false claims of an "emergency" all indicate the Forest Service is putting the desires of a bloated timber industry above the public good and federal law.

Alice Allen
Hell Canyon Ranger District, Black Hills National Forest
330 Rushmore Road
Custer, SD 57730
605-673-4853 (phone)
605-673-5461 (fax)
aaallen@fs.fed.us

Here is a little detail and additional language about some of the problems with the DEIS:

Alternatives B and C will not comply with requirements (e.g., old growth, goshawk habitat, big game cover, visual quality, etc.) set forth in the Revised Forest Plan. (The DEIS actually suggests the project is needed to implement the Revised Forest Plan, but then turns around and fails to mention that the fire has changed the area so significantly it more logging will only take the area further from required conditions.)

Alternatives B and C fail to address the significant loss of forest in the burn area which eliminated a large amount of forested habitat never anticipated in the Revised Forest Plan and which will make it impossible for the USFS to achieve the minimum habitat requirements and other Forest Plan objectives in the fire area.

Alternatives B and C fail to set aside additional old growth, interior habitat, and goshawk nesting habitat (e.g., large structural stage 4C stands) to make up for the significant and unanticipated loss of old growth, interior, and goshawk habitat in the burn area. (The USFS's Revised Forest Plan viability assessments for sensitive species were predicated on the assumption that the burn area would provide such habitat throughout the planning period, and the Chief concluded even those assumptions would not ensure viable, well distributed populations of goshawks and other species.)

Alternatives B and C fail to amend the Forest Plan to reduce the forest-wide logging level (ASQ) and suitable timber base to account for (1) the fact that much of the burn area will no longer be suitable for timber harvest throughout the foreseeable future, and (2) the loss of vast numbers of trees which the Revised Forest Plan assumed would exist to provide material for future timber sales. (The USFS claims these issues are beyond the scope of the proposal, but this issue is solely raised by the fire.)

The DEIS fails to consider alternatives designating the imperilled G1S1 montane grasslands (i.e., floral valleys) in the burn area as Research Natural Areas, and the "action" alternatives will not provide any meaningful protections for these special areas that have been made more vulnerable by the fire and logging activities.

The DEIS fails to consider "action" alternatives that would not construct any new roads (including "temporary" roads) and that would close many of the existing logging roads to restore the area and account for the fact that the fire has eliminated the need for these roads.

The DEIS fails to consider "action" alternatives based on prescribed fire to burn trees (as an option to rushing through with a massive commercial timber sale to give another gift to the timber industry).